Beatin' the Heat

     It has been a pretty hot summer, but what really makes the Arizona summer intolerable is that it NEVER cools down at night!!!  For example in Idaho you may have a 90 degree day, but you at least cool down to like 60 degrees or so at night.  Not AZ, you are in the 100-110's plus during the day and then you get this at 10 o'clock at night.....Not FUN, miserable to be quite honest.

Summer is hard for the both of us because we are used to being active/outdoors all day long.  SO what do we do with this hot weather you might ask?

We still go running in the hills and road biking, we just pack a gallon of water with us, WHEREVER we go and we catch some pretty sunsets over the Phoenix Valley.

     But what we really like to do to beat the heat is take ROAD TRIPS!  Our first fun road trip this summer was up to Jerome, AZ.  It is an old, haunted, copper mining town and is SO MUCH FUN!  I love little towns with so much history.  They have tons of fun shops all around the small town.  A factoid about Jerome is it is literally built into the mountain side at a 30 degree angle.  They have great food, entertaining people to watch, and I loved the old Victorian houses that are HUGE, like 4 stories tall!  Best part of all we were out of the heat.

This is the old Jerome Grand Hotel where people still stay and is supposedly haunted

We went to a kaleidoscope store that was SWEET!  First thing they told us is they do not have a "break it, you buy it rule" so I let Ryan go into the store haha jk but this place had some crazy, expensive, and sweet kaleidoscopes.

Best part about small towns is they always have the best "Hole in the Wall" restaurants that are amazing!  Did our chance of having a heart attack increase after we ate? Sure did but we loved every bit of it!

     Next road trip....SAN DIEGO!  With it only being 6 hours away, I am a little sad to say it has taken us 2 years to go, but I am sure we will make up for lost time in these next 2 years.  I am in love with their weather and how active Californians are.  We saw road bikers EVERYWHERE, speeding by us on their bike feeling the ocean breeze.  Lets just say we have a plan to take our bikes there in the the next 2 years and put some miles on them next to the ocean.  Tons of people run on the beach and I loved seeing that.  Plus the weather is AMAZING and the ocean is so fun too. We spent Saturday at the beach and did a bunch of relaxing, "pleasure" reading, well Ryan did a lot of that while I "People Watched" and enjoyed some beautiful sunsets....

Our Big Blue Friend

Sunday we were good children, went to church, and then took a little road trip to this beauty....

     After the temple we went to historic downtown San Diego and visited the Mormon Battalion building.  It is opened on sundays and they have a bunch of missionaries working there.  It is the cutest little place and they do a video tour of the Mormon Battalion's story.  I would totally recommend it, it is catered to all ages and is a fun family activity for a Sunday.

We over ate at some delicious restaurants and had some great seafood.  I think I could handle 4-5 years of residency by the ocean....why not?  We will be coming back to visit you San Diego!