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.