Our City

It is my goal to go around town taking pictures and posting the stories about them here. I really enjoy living here and I want to remember all the reasons why. For some reason I have this issue stating the name of the city where we live. I guess that way no one can just google the city and up pops my blog. I don't have the same issue using my name or Stephen's whereas the rest of my family does and have given their family code names like Pollyanna. But I just can't say the city name. I'm sure I've said it somewhere on here and I am equally as sure that you could find out if you did some searching but trying not using it makes me feel better.

Here's the first picture. This is actually the building where Stephen works (from behind anyway). It used to be an auditorium and now it houses the city offices.
It is located in the downtown area and one thing that I love is how the freeways seem to fly right up next to some of these tall buildings. I'll have to take pictures of some of the tall downtown churches that have their steeples literally feet away from the freeway. The freeway was put in through the downtown more recently and instead of bull-dozing some of the older buildings, it is just elevated above the street level. I remember growing up hearing about other cities that had done this and I just couldn't fathom it, to me it seemed like there were two "levels" of the earth but now I realize that it isn't that crazy.

I need to take more pictures of the downtown and tell some of the interesting stories, but on this little excursion I was more focused on some of the various home architecture. I love how different all of the houses are here and I much prefer it to the cookie-cutter developments that are all over Phoenix, there is just such a different feel to the neighborhoods here. I love this country-style blue house and only wish the porch was bigger!

This one is just cute, Stephen and I like the windows up at the top and there's a name for them I just can't think of it now.

Here's another one with the fun windows and the big porch. I would love to have a house like one of these some day. It is interesting to note that these three houses are all on the same cul-de-sac. The other houses nearby aren't as interesting and these are definitely my favorite.

Then I went to a newer, richer neighborhood in town, and while I didn't take any pictures of the houses, I did take a picture of the lake that runs through the community. This person has there own island on the lake with a bridge that goes over to it. When Stephen saw this he knew we would have to have one someday!