...and we're back!!

I know, the title makes it sound like we went somewhere. I guess we technically did for Thanksgiving, but really I have no excuse for not updating my blog (except, in my defense, I did warn everyone that I would be slacking with the post I made here). I did have a lot of vacation time and work has slowed down (somewhat) so I really have no excuse now.

That being said, I don't really have access to my pictures (I'm on my work computer) and I don't have time to write anything just yet (I'm at work). But since Shane's in the Young Men's presidency now, I'll have plenty of time while he's gone on Wednesday night and all of this weekend! Stay tuned folks...I'll be back soon (hopefully).

Prisoner

So, I need to vent... I'm currently working on a client I worked on last year (no names will be named here folks). Last year, I was given an access badge and the ability to work in my own cube and walk to and from meetings at my leisure. Sure, I may have gotten lost once but I never deliberately wandered anywhere I shouldn't have gone. Everything worked nicely and the client even requested that I come back this year because it went so smoothly.

So, here I am. I was given the same badge on Monday and everything was fine. But for some reason, yesterday they decided to revoke my independence!! I now wear a pretend badge that doesn't give me access to anything and must be escorted everywhere. Also, I have to work in the same room as my client contacts, which is definitely an inconvenience to both of us. But really, the worst of the entire situation follows:

1. I can't be left alone in the room. So, today when the only other person in the room needed to go to the bathroom, I had to walk with him to the breezeway (between two locked doors which I can't open) and wait there while he used the restroom.
2. I can't go to the bathroom by myself! To get to the bathroom, kitchen, microwave, etc., I have to pass through a door that I have no access to open. Thus, if I need to use any of the above mentioned items, I have to ask for someone to come with me (and wait, where necessary). And if you know me, I hate asking for things like that...

I seriously feel like a prisoner... Needless to say, I'm ready for this week to be over!!! (Rant is over...sorry for those who don't care, I just needed to get this out.)

Your Vote Counts!!!

In the spirit of election day, I would like to ask everyone's input on a very important matter... You see, last January Shane and I bought a Christmas tree. I think it's a 7-foot tree or something. Anyway, we decided we needed ornaments to decorate our new tree since the mini decorations we used for the 3-foot tree we inherited (stole?) from my parents will seem funny on the big tree. So, we went to Ikea last weekend and bought some decorations. We were really excited about them until we showed them to Tom... He mentioned that our blue/silver color scheme (which makes me think of winter, snow, ice...) made him think we were celebrating Hannukah instead of Christmas.

So, I want some input... If you saw these decorations on someone's tree, what would you think?

First, these in silver and dark blue: Then, these in silver:
These in white and dark blue:
The white ones of these:
The blue ones of these:
Your comments are appreciated! Remember...every vote counts.

Como Los Peruanos...

We have some Halloween pictures to post, but as I am in a hotel in middle-of-nowhere Colorado, I can't access them right now so instead you get a random update!

On Sunday, Shane and I made Peruvian food for Tom, Ashley, Jenny, and the Guthries. To break them into the Peruvian way of life, we made Lomo Saltado (Translation: Tossed Beef; i.e., the dish I ate pretty much everywhere while we were there). I wish I took a picture of the final creation, but it disappeared pretty fast so I don't think there was time to take one. Instead, I found one on the internet. Mine wasn't served with lettuce, the french fries weren't mixed in with the sauce (we had a few complaints about soggy fries...), and we didn't have an Inca Kola to drink it with (you can see it in the background). Despite these differences, I think it turned out okay because I made WAY more than I thought we'd need and there was barely any left. Next time...Aji de Gallina (Translation: Pepper Chicken)! Before they know it, they'll be regular Peruvians.

In other news, I am currently in Black Hawk, CO. It's a little mountain town about 40 miles outside to Denver. I'd compare the town to Park City, but it's lacking a few of Park City's draws: the view, the shops, the food... Pretty much, it's a very narrow town in a really narrow canyon that's made up of 5 casinos/hotels. Sounds fun, huh? I'm up here until I can get my work done. Then I'm catching a bus back down to Denver, where I'll catch a cab to the airport. Until then, I'll just brave the threats of snow...

That's all for now... Halloween pictures to come!

Attack of the killer...

...Bamboo?? So, Shane planted a new bamboo plant in our front yard. It's in a little patch of dirt between our driveway and sidewalk. Anyway, it's definitely thriving.

Last weekend, we noticed two new shoots coming up out of the ground. Yesterday, Shane noticed that the shoots had grown quite a bit so he got out his tape measure (yes, we lead very boring lives when we have to measure our bamboo shoots...). We are now tracking the growth, just for fun. Here are the measurements so far:

Day 1 (10/09, 6:00 pm): 34 inches
Day 2 (10/10, 7:30 am): 38 inches

That's right, it grew 4 inches in just over 12 hours! I don't have any pictures to document this phenomenon, but I'll have to add some once I take them. Until then, we'll keep documenting the measurements and keep you all posted... I'm sure you're just dying to see how fast it grows!

Changes...

So, time flew by and it's been a month since we last posted. I know, I know, I'm a slacker. I have been taking pictures with real intent to update our blog. I'm currently on a client where we conveniently have to leave around 5 each day, so I'm loving the free time!

Anyway, a lot has changed around our house, so here are some before and afters.

First, you may remember how excited we were when Shane's bamboo sprouts were about an inch tall...
Well, now the two that survived have 4 shoots each and are a couple feet tall!!! Happy birthday Bamboo...I think you're about a year old.
Next, our mismatched, inherited couches (which we loved and appreciated greatly) were donated and sold (one each)...
...so we could make room for our new couch, Sinclair, and a rug.
Then, with the help of some granite scrap from Excel and some mis-ordered sinks from Linkasink (and a lot of work on Shane's part), we transformed the master bathroom from this:
To this:
Finally, I got a bonus for passing my certification exam, which we decide to invest in some new wood floors (bamboo, of course) for the master bedroom. Here's our old carpet, which looked really nice when we bought the house, but we have since made it quite dirty...
Here's our new bamboo floor (and the installation progress--I needed to give Shane, Tom, and Roy the credit they deserve for all their hard work)...
We haven't cleaned them up quite yet due to another project Tom suggested while we had our room emptied and messy... Can you figure out what it is? Look closely at the pictures above. Still nothing? Here's an old picture from the same place to help you out.
We took out the door and put in a window! One day, while we were waiting for the vapor barrier to dry, Tom, Shane, and I were standing in the doorway looking at the room. Tom asked if we've ever used the door. Honestly, the only time we used it was when we were putting in our other wood floors and could only get into the unaffected portions of the house (the kitchen and our bedroom) through the back doors. We realized it was a waste of a wall and decided that if we took out the door, we'd be able to put our bed in that nook and have tons more space in our room. So we took advantage of the mess we'd already created and did it all at once.

So, those are our changes in the last while. Really, the sink and counters in the master bath have been done for a while and we've had our couch since the middle of August, but I haven't gotten around to blogging about it.

Sorry that we bore you with our house updates. It's just exciting to see how far we've come. It's funny, I keep saying "we" but really the credit goes to Shane and his wonderful father and brothers for everything. I just supervise (i.e. make them crazy with all of my questions and concerns since I don't understand the process...).

Anyway, that's all for now. I promise our next post won't be all about the house... Hopefully we'll have something more interesting to post soon!

A weekend to remember...

First of all, some of you took my last post very literally. I'm still planning on updating when I have time...I just felt like being a little melodramatic!

Anyway, last weekend, Shane planned a fun little adventure for our 3-year anniversary. With our apparently crazy lives, we couldn't actually celebrate on August 12, but we took comfort in knowing we could look forward to our Southern Arizona adventure.

I'll try not to give too many details...I know many of you hate to listen to my stories due to the unnecessary tangents and extra information, but here's a quick (or my version of quick) overview of our adventure (DISCLAIMER: After finishing the post (which took me quite a while to compile due to the time it takes to upload pictures), I realize that this is in no way a quick recap of the story. I apparently don't do quick. Feel free to keep reading, but know that you've been warned):

We planned to leave on Saturday by 7 AM. This would put us in Tombstone (site of the O.K. Corral...you know, Wyatt Earp?) by 10 AM, giving us plenty of time to wander around and get our fill of the wild west before we had to check into our hotel in Bisbee. I set my alarm for 6 so I'd have time to shower and pack any last minute things we'd need.

Well, I woke up on Saturday morning at 7:30... Apparently I set my alarm for 6 PM. This should've been an indicator of how the rest of the trip would go, but we paid it no mind. We rushed around and were on the road by 8:30. Just outside of Phoenix (well, technically Chandler, but it's where the city ends and the reservation begins), Shane realized he forgot a sweatshirt. One of our excursions was into an old mine where it's only 45 degrees on a warm day...so we decided a sweatshirt was needed. Just before Tucson, we called Shane's mom to have her look up all available Walmarts on our route. We found one was in Benson, a town just before Tombstone, so we stopped there to find something (which ended up being a decent sweatshirt, minus the random skulls on it).

We made pretty good time and were in Tombstone by 11 AM. Apparently they had extra activities (including a costume contest) for Labor Day weekend so the town was pretty full, but it added to the excitement.
We wandered up and down the dirt roads, ate in an old saloon (where Wyatt Earp owned a few poker tables), and watched a few gun fights (one of which was recreation of the incident at the O.K. Corral, which didn't really happen at the O.K. Corral, but down the street...but I won't get in to historical correctness right now).

Overall, it was a fun trip, but around lunch time I started feeling achey and strange. I just figured I was hot (there's no AC in the old west...) and my body was angry at me for sitting in strange positions in the car for 3 hours. But around 3:30, I told Shane it was time to go, but not before I took a picture with some nice town folk.

We got to Bisbee pretty quick, which was BEAUTIFUL! We rounded a corner in the road and saw this view (the picture doesn't do it justice, it was awesome):

Once we got to our hotel, I got in to my pajamas, bundled up in socks and my sweatshirt and climbed into bed. Deciding that I had a bona fide fever, Shane went out wandering to find me some ibuprofen. Sadly, there was no store within walking distance that had medicine, but some shop owner was kind enough to share his last two Motrin with him. Once the medicine kicked in, I was able to wander around town and get some dinner with Shane. The town is old (settled in the 1880s or so) and sits in a little valley, so it's a lot of narrow, windy streets and stairs.

The next morning, I felt just fine so we got up early and wandered around before everyone else was up and about. The town was really quiet, like we were the only ones there. We ate at the Labor Day pancake breakfast in town and then went to our tour of the Queen Mine, which was opened in 1890. They decked us out in coats, hard hats, battery packs, and lights! It was quite an experience...

After our mine tour, we decided that we'd head down to Douglas, which is a border town, so we could walk in to Mexico for lunch. We got in our car to go, but it wouldn't start...so we found someone with jumper cables and the car started right up. We figured the 20+ mile drive to Douglas would be enough to recharge the battery and we'd buy some jumper cables in town so we'd have them just in case. Right as we got to Douglas (or the Chevron just outside of town), the car died again, but while we were driving! Luckily, Shane was able to coast into a parking spot. We connected the jumper cables again and waited for a while, but it wouldn't start. After a few consultations we decided that it must be the alternator...

So, we were stuck just outside of a very small town on a Sunday of a holiday weekend. Everyone in town told us we wouldn't be able to find a mechanic until Tuesday, so we decided to at least get a tow back to Bisbee so we'd have a place to stay. We got back to Bisbee, only to find that there was absolutely no parking in town anywhere. Luckily, the tow truck driver had family that lived just outside of town...where the people who "work for the cartels across the border" live (that's exactly what our driver told us...no joke). It was quite comforting to leave our car in that neighborhood... Anyway, we were saved by Roy and Chance, who drove into town at about 10 PM with our truck in tow. We loaded up the Honda and they turned around and headed back to Phoenix. (Apparently, they got home around 3 and had the car off-loaded by 3:30. Poor Roy had to be up by 5:30 so he didn't even go to sleep... We're blessed to have such loving family so close by!).

We left Bisbee the next morning and stopped at Kartchner Caverns state park on our way home. While waiting for our tour, we researched cave life and practiced our spelunking skills... They wouldn't let us take cameras on the tour so we took pictures of the fake stalagmites in the museum...

We finally got home Monday afternoon to find that our car was already fixed. Apparently the battery was dead and wouldn't hold a charge...so no alternator to fix. Now you may wonder why we didn't think of that on our own. The cause of all the problems was the cheap jumper cables we bought for $12 at Chevron! They did absolutely nothing (we tested them later).

Needless to say, the weekend was full of adventure, but I wouldn't have traded any minute of it! Despite the unexpected issues, we had a great time together and we'd really like to go back to Bisbee again sometime soon.

To sum it all up, here are the lessons we learned on this adventure:

• Never buy cheap jumper cables...if they feel cheap, they probably don't work.
• Some car batteries require water. If the water runs low, your battery dies.
• Motrin can be a life-saver.
• I could never be a miner. The darkness and the metal toilet cart would probably drive me insane.
• I could not have lived during the 1800s...long dresses, layers of clothing, no air conditioning--not a winning combination.
  
• Sometimes it's nice to get up early in the morning so you can have the world to yourself for a while.
• Dads are smart. Somehow they seem to know everything about everything...
• Being family means you go above and beyond...just because you're family.
  

Well, this turned out to be extremely long, but I guess part of this retelling was for my own benefit. I recently reread my posts from last summer (moving, Peru, Hawaii) and I loved being able to relive everything. So sorry for those of you who don't like being part of my public journal...