end of August

Not much news to report. Today I got home from work a bit early and we took a nice long nap together. Last night we had the Fulsons and the Johnsons over for a wonderful dinner and we played Clue and looked at wedding pictures. This weekend we're going to Colorado Springs with the Fulsons to visit the Barthas.

Work has been kind of crazy lately because we're moving buildings for a month. It's kind of fun to do something different than usual, but it's going to be very good to get away for a long weekend.

Before the crazy moving started at work though, I got to go drive around in a 5 ton dump truck near Carrizozo (about 60 miles north of here) about half a dozen times. The mountains are beautiful up there. I also saw several oryx.

Finger Fiasco

Today started out like any other day. Nothing out of the ordinary. I went to the gym with Mary Lou and then to lunch with some of the wives from Jordan's squadron and nothing went wrong until dinner time. Jordan and I went to a sporting goods store in order to buy me some goggles and a cap so that we could go swimming tomorrow.... little did we know, we will NOT be swimming tomorrow.

We came home and started getting dinner together. The plan was to have shrimp fettuccine alfredo so I put some water on to boil and got out the butter to start the sauce. I went to cut the butter and cut my finger instead. :-( It was a deep cut so we went to the emergency room and i had to get stitches... It didn't hurt except for the numbing medicine that the doctor had to put in my cut... yikes!!

Jordan took really good care of me. He was so nice and encouraging! I'm so lucky to have a superhero for a husband. After the hospital he took me to Applebee's and then we went to Marc and Mary Lou's for sherbet... so, thanks mainly to Jordan and also to the Fulsons, living through a finger fiasco wasn't so bad.

Visitors

Sarah's family came in for the weekend, and we had a really good time. We got to show them around our little corner of New Mexico. (Beforehand Sarah and I were sitting around trying to come up with activities for their visit, and after about two minutes we looked at each other and realized that there really is not much to do here. We're not ever bored, but we're not quite sure how we avoid it.)

We got to go to White Sands and to the pool a couple of times. We all had a really good time. I was hurting for several minutes at the pool, because I thought I could do a flip and a half off of the 3 meter board, but it didn't turn out so well. I can do a not-so-pretty flip and a quarter though. (Yes, that means a giant belly flop.)

In the process of getting ready for Sarah's family, we converted our third storage room back into a bedroom/TV room. The house looks great. Sarah managed to finish the painting in the family room and in the bathroom, and we made great headway on getting some of my pre-marital mess in order.

Camping

Sarah and I went camping this weekend to take in the Perseid meteor shower. It was a lot of fun. We camped in the middle of a big rock formation, and had the best campsite in the place. Our propane grill was a huge success because there was no wood to gather for a campfire. We should have figured that that would be a problem in a campground called City of Rocks. Sadly, we were unable to toast marshmallows. Some other highlights:

We saw a rattlesnake- Sarah's first. It gave a polite little rattle to let me know that it was there, and I very calmly pointed it out to Sarah.

We saw two super-cool meteors--the kind that you only see in movies. They took up nearly half the sky, and the trails glowed for about 30 seconds.

We drove for several hours through beautiful mountain scenery. On the way up to Gila Cliff Dwellings we saw 19 Porsches, 15 of which were the same classic model.

As you may have guessed, we went up to Gila Cliff Dwellings. They were pretty cool, literally and figuratively, but the neater part was the view on the way up. At one point we were driving along a mountain at the top of a valley, the grandeur of which I cannot begin to describe. It was so magnificent that I didn't even want to take a picture of it because the picture wouldn't do it justice. Sarah thought that that was silly.

On our way back we accidentally spent $50 on dinner. Sometimes I guess it just happens.

For more pictures see our album.

Camping Trip 1

So this weekend Jordan and I decided to go camping because there is going to be a meteor shower! We're really excited to see the shower and also to go on our first ever camping trip. Jordan already had most of what we need, but yesterday we went to Walmart and bought a blow-up mattress. I know it could be considered cheating, but we are going camping where we might be sleeping on a rock.... so I'm alright with cheating this time.

Last night the Fulsons came over and we played Monopoly. It was really fun and I learned that Jordan is very competitive! Don't get caught with him holding the last property of your monopoly!

August begins well

We have finished tiling our shower, and while we're not done with the walls, etc. in the rest of the bathroom, our house is much more usable now.

Caleb came to see us tonight and we had a roaring good time playing bocce and yahtzee.

New Mexico is still beautiful, and Sarah even more so.