Time to SSSLLLOOOWWW DDDOOOWWWNNN

Ah!  I can finally breathe a sigh of relief because finals are done around this house for both Mark and I!  Whew!  I really made it a lot harder for myself this semester by putting off an independent study class until the last week which meant I had oodles of paper to write and a few final exams to take, but it's over now, thank goodness.  Mark had a final presentation to make, and an independent study class to complete too.  After we were done with everything last night (around 8:30...) we decided to go out to dinner to celebrate!  We talked about how FAST this year has gone and how much  has happened.  We realized that after the completion of next semester with both of us graduating, and moving for a real job, it will be kind of like the end of the beginning for us.  We won't be students any more... no more living temporarily, no more late nights with homework, no more scheduling around classes... it will be a bit strange, and it's just around the corner!  I think we're both ready to move on though.  It's time for a change, and as long as we're doing it together, it makes it a lot less scary and a lot more exciting... 

I am SO excited for Christmas and to be able to spend time with family!  I think I pretty have all of my gifts ready to go, or I at least know what I need to get.  We have a Christmas tree this year!  We didn't get around to getting one last year and it was a little sad : (.  What's Christmas without a tree?  We did get this Nativity last year though, which I love.  I'd still like to do a little decorating, but it can wait until I get the house clean (now that I actually feel like I have some time).  

A Baby and a Book

This past weekend we were lucky enough to visit some of our best friends in Grand Junction and meet their son, Alexander 'Xander' Kenneth, born on Tuesday night.  He had a little trouble at the beginning and was in the NICU for a couple of days, but he and mom were both released on Friday and he's doing much better now.  He's so beautiful, I couldn't resist posting a few pictures! 

I also thought that the following pictures were "blog worthy."  I guess there should be no doubt in my mind that my husband is a geologist when he brings home a book from the library that looks like this!  I seriously had to put my legs out to even hold the book up because it was so big and so heavy!!!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  Travel safe, and I hope you all get to enjoy being with family!

Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind?

Does Fort Worth ever cross YOUR mind?  It sure has been crossing ours lately.  Why, you ask?  Well, I'll give a couple of hints.
First of all, we are going to be becoming very familiar with this sky line in the next several years:

Second, this company logo will likely be all around our home on various freebies, papers, and business cards: 

So, what does this all mean?  We've accepted a job in Fort Worth ladies and gentlemen!  The search is over!  It was a hard decision to make, but we think it's the right one for us.  Goodbye snow, hello humidity!  We'll be moving after Mark graduates in May, so we still have several months to get ready,  but I'm sure it will go by fast.  Right now, we're thinking of living west of Fort Worth in a small town called Aledo.  Does anyone know someone who lives in the Fort Worth area??  I've never been there before, but Mark was impressed with what he saw while he was there.  It's exciting and unknown at the same time.  We don't know how long we'll be there, just that it's where we'll be starting out.

In other news, there are only three weeks left in the semester plus finals week.  I am going to be extremely busy finishing/catching up on everything!  Mark has finished his field work and will be defending his proposal very soon before he starts officially writing his thesis! 

I have decided to send out a Christmas card this year.  I realized that we have actually had a not-so-boring year, and I think I can actually write up a letter that I'll be excited to share with everyone!  We're going to take a picture to add to it too, and I'm excited about that because we haven't had any real pictures taken of just the two of us since our engagement pictures.

I am so ready for Thanksgiving and seeing family!  We had our first snow here last week, and even though there's  not much left on the ground, it has put me in a  holiday mood!

Crazy Little Thing Called LIFE............

Lately our lives have been so busy it's actually hard to put into words..... (Ok, now I am actually at a loss for words... dang.)  Maybe if I make a numbered list of the things that have been going on, it will be easier.

1.  The Assistant Director at the after school program where I work got a teaching job.  Great for her, but for me it means opening earlier (for our morning program) and staying later at least 2-3 nights a week... it's not that much later, but half an hour really eats into your night sometimes.

2.  Mark is diligently trying to finish the work for his thesis so he can start writing and actually graduate in May as planned... I have a feeling next semester will be a long one for him...

3.  Beginning the middle of September, Mark had about two weeks solid of job interviews, both on campus at Mines and also at Wyoming.

4.  A few weeks ago he started getting calls back for second interviews... the total of which is now seven.  We are truly grateful that this has happened, don't get me wrong, but for the last couple of weeks now he has been back and forth between home and interviews, and I have been back and forth to the airport about a million times.

5.  We have received a job offer from one of the companies and have a November 12th deadline to respond.  That's a great thing, but it does add to the ever growing list of job pressure.


6.  I have been finalizing my schedule for next semester and next summer... and deciding where I will be completing my internship next summer while Mark is away in whatever city we end up moving to for his job.  Stressful, but exciting as well... I might be staying with my sister for about ten weeks in Laramie and finishing up there.  That would be nice.

7.  We are beginning to think about start dates for both my internship and his job, and have had to be arranging both around graduation times for both of us and moving.... for both of us too, to two different locations... (Wow, I don't think I've ever used too, to, and two together like that before.)

8.  As I write this, my dad is helping us find a new vehicle to fix up for next spring, and the water pump and the power steering pump have gone bad on Mark's car.  Bad news = more money down the drain for a car we want to get rid of anyway.  Good news = We'll save some money on the water pump by having Mark and my dad put in a new one during Thanksgiving.  Thanks dad!  Hope nothing goes majorly wrong before that.....

9.  Finally, during this hectic time while we're thinking and planning for the future in various areas, it seems that while I might think I'm doing things with the future in mind, I got this result on a survey I had to take for a class last night:  "Slow mover. You are doing well to keep up with the present. For you, thinking about the future means figuring out next week."  The sad thing is, it's probably right!

So this is what happens when.....

You forget to put water into your easy mac BEFORE you put it into the microwave.  Oops! (I didn't think to take the time to snap a picture of the smoke billowing out of the microwave.....)

As of Late

Well, we are now back in Golden and we're so happy to be back home!  We've been back now for a little over a month.  I'm back at work and starting my last year of school, and Mark has been gone a lot finishing up his thesis work before he has to start writing.

We had a lot of fun during Labor Day weekend.  My sister came to Mark's grandparent's cabin with us as well as some extended family.  It was good to get away for a few days!

You can use this link to look at all of the pictures from my facebook album of the weekend.

We also got some news in the mail last week.  Mark received a job offer.  We are happy about it, but need some more time to decide.  We'd be far away from family and friends, and just need to think about it more.  I feel so much calmer about it now though than I did.  I woke up a couple of mornings ago with this hymn in my head and it doesn't seem to want to leave : ).  I take it as a reassuring sign.  When we do decide or know more, I'll post more information about it here.

The rest of Amanda's stay & a little of my creative side...

Here are some of the other things that we did while Amanda was here...

We went to the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.  I wish we would have had more time for some of the tours like mission control, but it was raining so hard they had to cancel a lot of them and then as you can imagine, the wait time was crazy!  But, we got to learn more about the space program, NASA, and even got to see what it's like inside the space shuttles!

We ate at "Whataburger."  It's a popular hamburger joint in this part of the country.  I just had to get a picture of the "fancy" ketchup. : )

We made some patriotic rice krispy treats!

And we got to watch the fireworks in Houston along with what seemed to be at least half of the city!  It was SO hot.  We probably drank six or seven bottles of water between the three of us within about a three hour stretch! 

Amanda trying to keep the sun off!  That afternoon I really 

understood why I see people using umbrellas for the shade!

The last few days I've been busy decorating a bulletin board for Amanda's dorm room in the fall.  I have loved doing it!  Here's what it looks like.  It's hard to see some of the details (all I have to take pictures with right now is my phone!), especially the "POKES" letters to the right of the schedule section on the left side of the board.

The Latest Happenings...

We've been pretty busy here these last few weeks.  We've had the opportunity to "discover" Houston and what it has to offer. 

Mark and I went to a Houston Astros baseball game.  For me, it wasn't quite the same experience I have at the Rockies games... They close the dome on top of the stadium because it's so hot outside, but even with the AC inside it's still muggy and smells like sweat... I was not that impressed.  I'd much rather go see the Rockies play and catch a little sun at the same time : )

My sister, Amanda, came down to stay with us for a week!  We loved the time she was able to spend with us!  The first day she was here, she and I toured an ice cream factory!  Blue Bell Creameries has some of the best ice cream I have ever had and it's sold all over Texas (and some other states close by).  The tour was very interesting and informative.  We got to see how they mix up the ice cream and put it into the tubs, how they make ice cream bars and popsicles and how they add the different ingredients to the ice cream like fresh strawberries and nuts.  The tour even included a free dish of ice cream at the end!  It was one of the best places we went. 

We also got to go to the Health Museum and the Downtown Aquarium.  Both were fun but I left them wanting to see MORE!  Amanda and I had fun taking pictures inside the big mouth at the Health Museum and a favorite at the Downtown Aquarium were the spotted sting rays and the octopus (sorry the picture is not very good).

More adventures to come!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Home"

It was bound to happen sooner or later... I miss "Home."  Maybe I should clarify a bit.  I have had a lot of "homes" in the last few years.  There's the house where I grew up, where my parents live - and that will always be "home" for me.  Then there was the "home" I had the summer after high school graduation with my Grammy and then with my aunt and uncle.  I had a "home" in the dorms my freshman year of college.  The summer following that year I signed my very first lease and had a "home" for the next year with the best roommates I could have ever asked for.  Also that year I gained yet another "home."  I met my future in-laws and their house has become a "home" for me.  Then we got married and made a "home" out of our first place.  This summer, my "home" is in Houston.

Right now though, I guess I miss a place more than an actual house or apartment.  I miss Golden.  When we moved there after we got married it was so different for me.  I had never lived that close to a city before, never had to worry about traffic, never had to think about SO many people... I guess it was a little overwhelming.  However, as time passed, I got more used to those things and they don't bother me quite as much as they used to.  Granted, I'd rather not live "in town" forever, but it has grown on me. Golden isn't just a suburb of Denver though.  It has character.  It has charm.  It has nice people... and, nestled in the foot of the Rocky Mountains, it has the most spectacular views.  It is those views that I'm missing the most tonight.  I hate not being able to see what I have been able to see every day for the last year.  I miss "home."

Crape Myrtle

Ever sense we've been in Houston, I have been admiring these pretty trees with little flowers on them.  We don't have anything like this at home.  There are many different colors and shades of colors of the flowers.  I found out today that the tree is called a Crape Myrtle.   Here are some pictures I borrowed of the tree from google images.  Enjoy : )

Deplorable Driving

According to Forbes.com, Houston is the 5th worst city in the United States for traffic.  My evidence:

Before we came to Houston we heard about the way people here drive.  We were hoping it was just rumors.  It's not.  After living here for only a couple of weeks, I can already come up with a list of bad driving habits here that I have consistently witnessed.

1.  Speed Limit - more like "What speed limit?"  If I am obeying the speed limit almost EVERYONE with the exception of maybe one or two vehicles will pass me within seconds.  It is normal to go 5 or 10 miles an hour over the "limit."

2.  School Zones - luckily, school is out for the summer now but this is also an area in which the majority of Houston drivers pay no attention to.  Come on people!  It's a SCHOOL ZONE!!!  There's a 20 MPH speed limit for SAFETY reasons!  This is not only irritating, but dangerous!

3.  Turn Signals - don't exist.  People will cut in front of you without giving even a seconds worth of notice.  They will slow down in front of you for no apparent reason and then turn into a driveway, parking lot, etc.  I wish they would just use their turn signal... that's what it's there for isn't it?

4.  Brakes - the drivers here definitely know how to use their brakes.  They're on them all the time.  There's NO coasting if you see that people are stopping in front of you.  Nope, they're on the gas (already going faster than they should be) and then slamming on their brakes!  I don't think they can imagine going any slower until they absolutely have to stop!

5.  Turn Lanes - apparently don't exist either.  If you are in the inside turn lane I always thought that meant you were supposed to turn into the inside lane of the street you are getting onto.  They must have learned different driving rules here.  Hardly anyone ever follows their turn lane into the correct lane on the road.  This is especially worrisome when there is more than one turn lane and people seem to think that they will be just fine ending up in whatever lane they want.  I'm sure I will see an accident because of this before we leave here.

I heard a conversation on a radio station here this morning that went something like this:

Radio DJ 1:  "And the commute from the Sam Houston Tollway into downtown along the Katy Freeway is only 15 minutes this morning!  Do you people out there even know what a speed limit is?"

Radio DJ 2:  "I think they know what a speed limit is but they're just like the rest of us - they don't pay any attention to them!  That's what the radar gun is for, right?"

Well, there you have it.  The Houston driving mentality in a nutshell!

I refuse to speed just because everyone is passing me.  I will NOT speed in a school zone (how STUPID do you have to be?!).  I will coast instead of slamming on my breaks, and I will turn into the correct lane unless I am trying to avoid an accident because YOU are not turning into the correct lane and are going to cut me off.  I've decided that if the Houston drivers don't like my driving or get annoyed with me, they can just blame it on my out of state plates!

Graduation, Texas and Sea World

My sister, Amanda, graduated high school on Sunday, May 23.  Congratulations Amanda!  I am so proud of you!

Well, we made it to Texas!  We left my parent's house at about 6:30 on Monday morning and arrived in Houston about 25 hours later!  We did stop for a sit down dinner and for a couple of hours to nap, but we weren't too tired so we figured we might as well keep driving!  We had to stop north of Houston to avoid rush hour and we got the most amazing raspberry filled donuts I have ever had.  Mmmmm!  Our apartment is small - just 375 square feet.  The bed is a Murphy Bed which means it folds down out of the wall.  I was afraid that it would be really uncomfortable, but it's really not bad at all!  The apartment came with a small dresser, love seat, and dining room table and chairs.  Oh yes, and I must not forget the added bonus of a washer and dryer AND dishwasher (oh, and actual counter space in the kitchen which we did not have in our apartment last year!)!  YAY!  I have missed having those items SO much!  All of the appliances are about 2/3 the size of regular appliances which I wasn't expecting, but so far has been fine except for not really being able to have our large skillet and a sauce pan next to each other at the same time...  We fit everything we brought to Houston in the back of my car - we'll see if we can do that on the way home!  A couple of things we brought with us were Mark's guitar and my keyboard.  Music is something we weren't willing to give up for the summer.  I'll post some pics of the apartment later when we have everything a bit more organized.  There is a lot of cupboard space here but there are still items that don't really have a place yet.

Mark and I celebrated our 1st anniversary on Sunday, May 30 with a trip to Sea World in San Antonio.  We had a great time even with the heat and a lot of people!  Here are some pictures of our Sea World trip.  : )  To see more pics, you can follow this link:  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2064050&id=1439160064&l=bec0648bb3