Sunsets, Shopping and Cherry Chip Cake

Once upon a time I lived in Phoenix - the city of (relatively) inexpensive housing, endless shopping malls and breath taking sunsets... and now that I no longer live in the city which has a typical temperature of 100+ F on summery days with extreme dryness, I can see how people say it's hot. When I got off the plane I definitely felt as if I was hitting a brick wall of hot air and I immediately started sweating profusely. That was Saturday night, it is now Tuesday night and I think I've finally stopped sweating.

The last few days have been a whirl wind. Sunday we cleared out my storage unit and I was able to take a blast from the past and saw some of the old things my Mom kept for me. Old Halloween costumes, sports memorabilia, and general randomness. This made the process of getting ride of the majority of my things much easier as I was able to clearly see what was worth keeping and what was not. The things which I'm keeping will find their new home in either a closet or garage of my parent's new house in Dallas.

Monday I was able to get in a run, some pool time and 9 holes of golf. Today was spent shopping, which is always fun. I must admit that I am proud of myself because my reasonable gene came out when I realised it was a bit silly to be buying jeans when it's going into summer in Sydney. So I mainly hit up all the great summer sales. :)

Today was rounded off with my parents and I having my birthday cake - albeit a bit early, but I'll place money on not being able to find cherry chip cake in Australia. For those of you who are unfortunate to not know what cherry chip is I've taken some pictures to go along with my description. The best way to describe it is to picture a moist vanilla cake with bits of dried cherry freckled throughout. Now obviously the cherry bits aren't real cherries, but the taste more than makes up for this.

Tomorrow the plan is to get in some pool time and indulge in some margaritas and Mexican food. Then its back to Sydney and straight to work. Its been great to be back in the states but I'm looking forward to getting to work and having a bit more stability in my life (aka a paycheck). :)

The obligatory birthday shot, unfortunately (or fortunately) we didn't have any candles

If you look close you can see the specks of red - this is all the yummy goodness, and yes that is cherry frosting (duh!)

My special plate which has been used at virtually every birthday or special day in my family

This is the view from my parents house, it's a gorgeous view and even if they do say the sunsets haven't been as good w/ the weak monsoon season - I still think they're great!