HAPPY TWO YEAR ANNIVERSARY NP PHOENIX!

I can’t believe that it has been TWO WHOLE YEARS since November Project Phoenix was born. Time seriously does fly when you are having fun! It feels like just yesterday that I basically forced Ashely, Kendra, Christine, Stefanie, Rick, and this chick Kailee (who totally “slept through her alarm” on Wednesday) to run the stairs with me for weeks on end as I started the pledge process in the months leading up to the birth of NP Phoenix. I think they were  ALL pretty pumped when Trevor just showed up a few weeks into it on one glorious day in May and started adding a little SPICE (technical term in the NP world) to our workouts and started leading with me. Granted I was running alongside them, but in the beginning (and before Trevor rightfully talked me down) I made them just run stairs from start to finish. NO bounce. NO tags. NO sweaty hugs. NO high fives. JUST STAIRS. And much to my surprise, they are all still around today.

Which is what JUST STAIRS JUNE is all about. A homage to the early days of NP Phoenix.

Anyway. It was pretty sweet to see how many people who have been with us since the early pledge days were there on Wednesday and equally as sweet to see so many new faces there for the first time. In the weeks leading up to our anniversary Trevor and I took time to reflect on how much the tribe has grown over the last two years, and we weren’t just talking numbers, and how excited we are for the future of NP Phoenix.

 

The blog was late, because I  had a million ideas about what I wanted to write about for the anniversary blog and I just couldn’t process and narrow it down because I was too excited on Wednesday. Now that I have had some time to process it all, I was able to narrow down those ideas after doing a bit of research about anniversaries.

BECAUSE GUESS WHAT I FOUND OUT???

The traditional second anniversary gift is………. COTTON!

COTTON!

You know what cotton is, right??

It’s one of Arizona’s Five Cs!

How freaking sweet and full circle is that??

No, not that sweet?

Just me?

Well, whether you like it or not, one of the main reasons we started NP Phoenix was to get you all to love and appreciate this great state that we all call home. So if you aren’t hyped about the Five Cs then you are just going to have to humor me for the remainder of this blog post as I drop some knowledge about Cotton and introduce this month’s NP Loves AZ Challenge.

COTTON

Cotton can be traced back as far as 3000B.C. and it is the most commonly used fiber and leading cash crop in the United States. The symbolism of cotton as the traditional second anniversary gift is the need for a marriage (or an NP tribe) to remain strong and be able to adapt to changes. It’s versatility and durability are qualities sought after in a tribe.

And how does this tie into Arizona? As one of Arizona’s Five Cs, cotton has helped shape our cities and our economic structure. At its peak of cultivation, about 800,000 acres grew on Arizona fields. That’s is SUPER IMPRESSIVE and SUPER COOL because cotton still remains an important part of Arizona agriculture. The 900 or so cotton farms, mostly family run, that are still around today produce an average of 600,000 bales a year which my research tells me is enough cotton for at least one pair of jeans for every person in the United States!

Also, super fun fact. In 1917, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. bought land to cultivate long staple cotton for airplane tires, which lead to the eventual founding of Goodyear, Arizona! Who knew?

So rep your Cotton NP Shirts with pride.

 

NP LOVES AZ 

This month’s NP Loves AZ challenge is taking us out of the heat and into some of our coolest museums. Your challenge is to visit as many of these museums in the month of July as you can. Each time you visit one, post a picture of you at the museum with the #NPlovesAZ and we will enter your name into a drawing to win a cool prize at the end of the month.

Congrats to Karen for winning some cool North Face gear for rocking last months challenge and eating at three of the four restaurants that we chose for our historic Arizona restaurants challenge. Unless, I missed it, Karen (and everyone else) needs to get to Mrs White’s Golden Rule Cafe and get her some Smoothered Fried Chicken. SOOOOOO GOOD.

 

Without any further ado this month’s museums are:

HEARD MUSEUM

This is one of the nation’s premier museums, established at this location in 1929, devoted to Native American cultures. In addition to it historical exhibits and huge Kachina doll collection, they have an amazing Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera exhibit right now. Phoenix is its ONLY North American stop on the world tour. You don’t want to miss this.

The Heard Museum also puts on some pretty sweet events, including TONIGHT’s event Fiesta de Frida in honor of Frida’s 110th Birthday in conjunction with July’s First Friday. There will be music, drinks, food AND the opportunity to create flown crowns in true Frida fashion.

General admission to the museum is free on the first Friday of the month, but the Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera exhibit is 7$. Native Americans are always admitted free.

MUSICAL INSTRUMENT MUSEUM

This is a new museum that houses thousands of musical instruments from all over the world displayed in galleries organized by countries and continents. It is supposed to be epic, and I for one am excited to finally visit. They have the piano that John Lennon composed “Imagine.” So yeah. Check it out.

PHOENIX ART MUSEUM

Phoenix Art Museum is the largest art museum in the southwestern United States and has been around 1959. It currently has a an awesome Samurai excited. It is only there until July 16th so head over there in the next couple weeks. Can’t make it in the next couple of week? Don’t worry, the permanent collection included more that 17.000 works of art.

Donation based on the first Friday of the month, on Wednesdays, and the second Saturday and Sunday of each month.

TALIESIN WEST

Taliesin West is a National Historic Landmark and home to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and School of Architecture. Frank Lloyd Wright is one of the most famous American architect creating some of the most innovating spaces in the United State. He had strong roots here in Arizona. Taliesin West is his beloved winter home which established in 1937 and is deeply connected to the desert from which it inspired. It was built and maintained primarily by Wright and is one of his most personal creations from his 1, 114 architectural works. There are several different tour packages so check our their website before heading over.

Enjoy!

 

We are glad you are here.

Peace, love and cacti,

Jackie

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