Our First Christmas as Mr. and Mrs.

We had a great Christmas together! I went home the 21st-24th. and celebrated with some friends and family (separate post coming as soon as Sara e-mails me the pics :) ).  

Eric and was on call Christmas Eve until noon on Christmas day and I had to work on Christmas day, so we celebrated our Christmas together after I got home from work Christmas night.  Since I was out of town and Eric was working, we didn't really have any groceries to make dinner with, so we had frozen dinners! We didn't mind though.  Then we read the story of the birth of Jesus and opened our stockings and presents! It was really special just spending the night together and remembering the Reason we celebrate this holiday! 

The wreath I made!

Decorations :)

Our tree!

Centerpiece

M&E stockings!

Poinsettias that my sweet father in law sent me all the way from Egypt for our first Christmas 

Eric being goofy

My stocking! 

<3

Love our tree!

Eric sporting his new Thunder gear from my parents!

I don't have a picture, but Eric got me a SNOWBOARD for Christmas!!! We are taking our first snowboarding trip in January to Breckenridge! We are so excited!

We were so blessed with so many sweet and wonderful gifts this year and are so thankful! 

Hope you all had a fabulous Christmas!

Love,

The Wises

My birthday/ Tiffany's visit!

Last week was my birthday! I love celebrating birthdays, so you can imagine how excited I was when I found out tiffany was flying in from her travel nursing job in Washington to see me for a few days! It was SO good to have a little piece of home with me here over my birthday, especially since Eric was working those crazy long hours.

We ate out at great places, shopped at great places, went to see a movie, rented a couple movies we knew our significant others would not watch with us, and just had a great time.

Self pics=not so pretty.

Story time: We were walking around Desert Ridge waiting for our movie to start. Then all of a sudden, about 20 moms with strollers with babies/toddlers in them start running around us, pushing their strollers. After they all make a few laps around the fireplace, they stop, pull out their yoga mats, and start doing yoga...in the middle of this shopping center. What in the world? Tiffany and I got a little scared of the intense-ness of these moms. So, I was trying to take a picture of the madness here, but then a mom looked at me and I was afraid she might beat me up if she found out we were making fun of them. 

Tiffany had more guts and took a better picture of the moms...

Sitting in the theater waiting for "Tangled" to start! Such a cute movie by the way.

Yummy sushi

Okura in OKC is still the best.

A Christmas tree in the middle of palm trees.

Tiffany gave me this cute necklace for my birthday! I love it.

After Tiffany left on Saturday, Eric and I had the Mayo Clinic Urology Christmas party.  

A few of the girls

Story time: There is this thing called "Movember." It is recognized around the world and the whole month of November, guys grow their facial hair out in hopes to raise money for mens' health.  Men's health, like prostate cancer etc. gets hardly any attention, and therefore barely gets any money for research. So every time someone asks about the guys' crazy shaped, or just creepy mustache or beard, they tell them about Movember and how they can donate to the cause. Here are the Mayo guys all lined up for everyone to get a last look at their Movember facial hair.

Omg.  Props to all of the wives/girlfriends who put up with this for a month! But hey, it's for a good cause.

Click here for info on Movember!

I love you even with gross facial hair.

After the party, Eric and I went to the Cheesecake Factory to get some birthday dessert. 

I got this: the banana cream cheesecake...my absolute favorite!

Eric got this: the white chocolate raspberry cheesecake!
It was SO good!

It was a great week!

Love,

Mrs. Wise

Mom and Sara Visit...day 3

On the last full day Mom and Sara were here I had a swim meet at the ASU pool. It was freeeeeezing for me since I was in and out of the water, but it was a pretty nice day for the spectators.

It was so fun to compete in a swim meet again! Can't wait for the next one.  Here are some pics from the meet!

After warm up!

Eric finished his test in time to meet us there and see me swim!

Not going to lie...I was a little nervous.

Take your mark...

GO!

Before another event!

Racing!

After the meet was over! Exhausted!

After the swim meet we all came back home, got ready and went out to dinner at Yard House. Eric and I love this place.  The first time we went there, we started talking to the manager who sat us at our table.  We started talking about how we had just moved to Arizona, and as a welcome gift, we got a free appetizer and a free drink each! So nice.  

After dinner we walked around the Desert Ridge District for a little bit.

Sara and me!

Mom and me!

Sara and Mom

The girls!

Love you!

And that was their trip in a nutshell!

Love,

Mrs. Wise

Mom and Sara Visit...day 2

Day 2 was a blast! We slept in a little, made ANOTHER stop at Sprinkles (the Holiday flavors were coming out that day so we had to try them...and we ended up getting 2 free cupcakes because we said their secret word from the Sprinkles Facebook page...so cool!), and then headed home to our house to get ready for the practice Thanksgiving dinner! So, we didn't make a FULL Thanksgiving meal...really I just wanted to take advantage of Mom being there so she could teach me how to make a turkey.  It wasn't that hard at all and it tasted really good! So we just made turkey, green bean casserole (because it isn't right to eat turkey without green bean casserole), and rolls. Enjoy the pics!

2 trips to Sprinkles in 2 days...why not?

Decisions, decisions.

I cannot even believe I touched a raw turkey...story time...One year Mom made me pull all of the guts out of the turkey she was cooking for Thanksgiving.  I was so grossed out I didn't eat turkey for 5 years. This was a big deal for me.

Ready to go into the oven!

Carving my first turkey!

Sara's GB casserole. She is the self-designated GB casserole maker of the family.  No one else is allowed to make it.

Our mini-Thanksgiving meal!

Eric got home just in time for dinner and a cupcake!

Click here for the recipe I used for the turkey!

Christmas Cards!

I'm working on sending out our Christmas cards! 

I looked around the internet forever to try to find some that I loved and were of great quality but I didn't have much luck.

So I have to give a thousand thanks to Kendall Porter who introduced me to mpresscards! Thank you so much Kendall! I am so happy with how fast the cards arrived and the amazing quality of them...and they are so pretty! New obsession. I'm positive I will be using mpress for Christmas cards and other fun stationary things forever! 

I love receiving Christmas cards in the mail and hanging them up everywhere.

Look for our Christmas card soon!

Love,

The Wises

Mom and Sara Visit...day 1

Sorry it's been a million years since I have blogged! It has been pretty crazy around here.

A couple weeks ago Mom and Sara came to visit us from Oklahoma. It was so fun getting to show them all around! Eric was studying for a big test he had so it was just the girls for the first 2 days and we stayed at a hotel in Old Town Scottsdale.

Here is a little rundown in pictures of the first day they were here!

At our hotel, ready for a FULL DAY of shopping at Scottsdale Fashion Square!

A little fuel at Starbucks to get us ready for shopping.

Lunch at Kona Grill in the mall with a yummy mojito!

Dessert at Sprinkles after we were finished shopping

Sara with her cupcake!

Mom with her Black and White cupcake!

Ended the day with the best pedicures we have EVER gotten...

...and a little shopping here.

Then we had dinner at this amazing steakhouse! The best steak I have ever had!

It was a fun day! Be looking forward to the rest of their trip out in the next few days!

Love,

Mrs. Wise