Special Guests

I had a lovely surprise visit this weekend. My parents called to let me know that their flight home from a much needed vacation had been cancelled. So I got to have them at least overnight before their plane left in the morning. It was great to see them, and I definitely made out well. I got some Blueberry Scone mix from Maine. I can't wait to try it. I have been really liking scones lately. They make some good ones at work.

I know I've been awful at keeping up with the blog posts lately. Work has been crazy busy and by the time I get home I don't want to look at a computer screen anymore. I'm headed to Alaksa soon though and i'm sure there will be many many pictures and good times. I can't wait!

Memorial Day Weekend 08

From Memorial Day ...

From Memorial Day ...

Over Memorial Day weekend Scott and I got to go see a lot of the fun things around my hometown that I like to take visitors to. Of course we ate tons of green chile and pretty much gained 5 pounds each, but that was to be expected when I'm able to get my hands on food that is nowhere to be found in NYC. I haven't found quality New Mexican food just yet.

From Memorial Day ...

Aside from eating, we visited the Aztec ruins, which are these amazing Pueblo Indian ruins sitting amongst a residential neighborhood. They were all deserted before 1300 AD, but they're still around today, even though there are some features that aren't architecturally sound, such as doorways set into corners. It's always fun to see things that are so ancient and to compare what their life must have been like to the way I live mine.

From Memorial Day ...

From Memorial Day ...

Supposedly they were having a hot air balloon fiesta at Farmington Lake. I think this was all a fantasy, because by the time Scott and I got there, there was nothing but us and the ducks.

From Memorial Day ...

From Memorial Day ...

The ducks did have mohawks, but there was no sign of hot air baloons. We even tried looking for them from up on the hill where my parents bought some property, to no avail. My sister brought her boyfriend's new puppy, Cara along. He is in Germany for the summer so she's a surrogate puppy mom.

From Erin's Gradua...

From Memorial Day ...

Sunday we went to the horse races where we ran into one of Hannah's Aunts and even my dad's friend who is the owner of one of the horses that was favored to win. It was a fun family outing. We all went down to the horse pens before each race to check out the horses and pick our favorites, then Scott spent a lot of time studying all the stats while I scientifically based my $2 bet on hunches. I think my hunches paid off maybe twice out of 8 races. It was entertaining to see the horses run though. The owner of horse number 8 who in the eight race offered to have us come down to the winners circle for a picture, but I think he jinxed himself because his horse balked at the start. He was certainly fast and almost made up the time, but as you can see by the picture when you're still in the starting gate and all the other horses are off it doesn't really allow for a win.

From Memorial Day ...

My parents dropped us off in Albuquerque with my Aunt Luella and Uncle Diego who fed us very well and took us around to see the place where they're going to be building a new house. My aunt decided to sit on her future porch to check out the view while Scott learned about how prickely tumble-weeds can bee and got a sticker in his foot. Good ole New Mexico.

From Memorial Day ...

From Memorial Day ...

From Memorial Day ...

From Memorial Day ...

Last post of 2007

The last weeks of 2007 have been busy ones. Scott and I flew to Des Moines Iowa the weekend before Christmas. We had good timing since they had a storm the day before we flew in. The runways were snow covered and the wind made the snow blow along the ground, either the snowflakes were very small or it was just pieces of snowflakes being blown along like dust along the ground. I tried to get a picture but it wasn't really possible.

From Christmas

Scott's mom picked us up and we decided that we'd need to stop at Walgreens since Scott's bag hadn't arrived with us despite the 3 hour layover and the fact that my bag made it there. We made the hour long drive to Toledo where Scott's Mom, Susan tried to drop off some stuff in a storage unit. Of course we realized once we pulled into the driveway that it was a solid sheet of ice and that we'd have to do some major manuvering to get back out. Scott and I got out and pushed and we managed to skate our way back out again. Later that night Scott's bag got delivered too, so everything worked out.

From Christmas

From Christmas

We opened presents at Scott's grandparent's house on Christmas eve since we'd have to head back to Des Moines on Christmas day to catch our flight to New Mexico. We had a nice time playing cards with his family and even managed to go for a walk out into the cornfields for a mini photo shoot.

From Christmas

From Christmas

We got to New Mexico with no problem and my Aunt Luella and Uncle Diego picked us up for the 3 hour drive to Farmington. We got to have another Christmas dinner and presents there.

From Christmas

From Christmas

It snowed enough to make the roads slick, but as ususal for NM snow it melted before noon.

From Christmas

My sister Erin will be graduating soon, so she wanted to try taking some senior pictures, but it was so freezing and windy that we didn't get much done. When the snow is outracing the car then you know it's windy. Hair blowing straight up in the air doesn't make for the most attractive pictures.

From Erin's Senior...

It was a short visit, but we also got to have some coffee with Chris and Tammie Billey of Largo Photography. We also got to meet their son Treston who is even more adorable in person than in pictures :) Scott got a mentos and coke rocket launcher in his stocking, but we didn't want to carry the soda so we launched it before we left.

From Christmas

From Christmas

From Christmas

Afterwards we headed back to Albuquerque so we could catch our flight the next day back to New York. I took some pictures of the NM scenery along the way.

From Christmas

From Christmas

From Christmas

Again we got lucky since we flew through Chicago and they'd just had a very large snowstorm the day before. We got home all in one piece and with lots of extra goodies. It was very nice to see everyone. It may have been a whirlwind trip, but it was definitely worth it!

From Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Happy Holidays to everyone. Scott and I are in Iowa enjoying a ton of card games and food with his mom and grandparents. It's pretty frigid here, but luckily we flew in Sunday, which was the day after their big snowstorm. I noticed that they'd had so much wind and snow that the parking garage had about an inch of snow all the way in the center of it and it's completely covered by a roof. Brrrr. We got some nice presents including yet more food and Scott got a toy transformer. I think that was his favorite :) The airline lost Scott's bag but got mine here ok, even though we had a 3 hour layover on the connection. But I was pretty impressed that they drove it out to us that same night by 11:30 even though we're over an hour away from the airport. Otherwise, Scott would have had to wear some of the "authentic western wear" we found at a local Ponida store. We're on to New Mexico early tomorrow. I hope you're all well and you'll have to comment about your favorite gift from this year!

Appreciating the Small Things

My sister Lauren got a job. It's at Hobby Lobby part time. If you've ever been to Hobby Lobby you know it's a crafter's dream. Similar to a Michael's store only twice as good. I hope she gets good discounts so I can craft more things.
Hmm I'm trying to think about things that I did today that would be interesting. Not too much happened. The only thing that came to mind when I was thinking about my day was the coordination of lunch plans. That's one thing I like about the group I work with, there are about 8 of us who will typically ask each other what we're doing for lunch, and depending on who's busy and who wants what we'll order something together or just grab food and go eat in one of the tables in our bay area overlooking the public atrium. So we sit and chat and people watch. It's a nice little lunchtime thing, that when I start thinking about it, I realize that probably most places you work things like that don't happen. Everyone just goes their own way.
Another happy thing, Scott got home early from work so he was here when I got home. It's nice not to come home to an empty house every once in awhile.
That's three things. I've tried to adopt the habit of naming three good things that happened to me every day before I go to bed. Sometimes Scott and I will share ours with eachother. It really is a good habit to get into. It helps you appreciate the small things and big things in life. It can also help when you think you've had a bad day, because there always seems to be at least three good things, no matter how miniscule.

Trivia about today: It is National X-Ray Day! Happy X-Rays everyone.