Let the fun begin...

I'm writing this from my hotel room in Knoxville...that's right, Tennessee. I spent the majority of last week in Cleveland, and will be spending almost all of next week in Seattle. I'm on a special project that requires us to quickly visit various locations for one of our clients in Scottsdale. I got picked to go based on my amazing technical expertise...(or my availability...haha).

All this travel may sound glamorous, but other than racking up the hotel and airline points and causing my body serious sleep confusion, all I do is work. Today we started at 8 am (which is tough when my computer says it's only 5 AM) and we worked until 8 pm. That's right, Shane and I left work at the same time today...I just started 3 hours earlier than him.

On the way here, we stopped in Dallas for an hour. We ate some BBQ (Cousins isn't quite the Colter's I remember, but it was still good) and then hopped on the next plane. It was fun to be in Dallas just for a little bit. I tried to pretend that I was actually on a plane to go and stay with Emma like the old days. It wasn't the same, but it was fun to think about it. I can't believe it's been so long since I've been back!

The one upside to the travel is I got the opportunity to enjoy one of my birthday presents...The Host by Stephenie Meyer. It took a bit to get into the book, but I really really liked it. It's very different from the Twilight books, but it was definitely good. It was also fun being from Arizona since the majority of the book takes place there...I've even been to St. Mary's hospital for one of my audits (is it sad that that's exciting?)...

Anyway, enough rambling. While I was gone, Shane and his dad/brothers helped put in our new sinks, faucets, and countertops in the master bathroom, cleaning up the cords behind the TV (with our entertainment center you could see everything), and putting in a new bamboo plant in the front of our house. He's so productive when I'm gone!! I'll post pictures of our new bathroom when I get home...

Humans 1, Ants 0

So, last Saturday Shane emptied our cupboards and sprayed all of the cracks where we think the ants may be living. We also sprayed all along the cracks outside our house and any other place we thought they might be coming in through. Since then, we've only seen two ants and both came off of towels from one of the drawers. We've decided that they can't get onto the counters because of the spraying. We're going to spray again this weekend and see if we can starve them out...

It's sad that this is so exciting for us... Yes, we need to get out more.

A Big (Little?) Problem...

I know, two of our last three posts were about insects, but here we go...

So, basically we've noticed a few little ants crawling on our kitchen peninsula (yes, I said peninsula...the part that sticks out between the kitchen and dining area) since the day we moved in. It hasn't ever really been an issue, except for the day they infiltrated my bagel box and ruined them all. However, they have recently discovered the dishes we leave in the sink usually have tasty morsels attached and now they know they can make it all the way to the stove unobstructed.

Luckily all of our food is stored in other places, but we're sick of the little things crawling everywhere. To top it all off, our empty Brita pitcher was on the counter while we were out of town, this morning when I went to pour myself some water, there was a dead little ant floating in it!

We've poured the ant dust all around the outside of our house so they can't get in, but we haven't seen a difference. We've tried two different kinds of ant motels that have the stuff they're supposed to carry back to the colony with no difference. We've even tried leaving cream of wheat out (which is supposed to make them explode).

We're open to any other solutions...any suggestions?

It's Official!

So, Shane officially started as a real, permanent employee at Medicis today. It only took about 8 months (which was faster than what I expected). Today he got his laptop, wireless card, a new nametag on his cube, a real employee access badge (instead of his temp one with a big "T" on it so everyone knew he was an outsider), a Medicis lunchbag, and a raise! I think he got a corporate credit card too but I'm not sure. They apparently kept him busy in all sorts of training and orientation meetings today because he was incredibly hard to get a hold of.

Anyway, they're shipping him off somewhere tomorrow to conduct a research study and then he has two more cities to visit over the next few days for more research. I know, I know, a good wife would know where he's going, but I'm writing this from my hotel room in Tucson just shortly after recovering from my Cleveland adventure. At least we're both out of town at the same time...

That's the news for now. We're hoping to go to Salt Lake for Memorial Day to see Jared, Jessie, and Vera since they've been in Bosnia for so long. We'll try and catch up with some of you Utahns while we're around.

Ladybug, ladybug...

The other day Shane was tending to his Adenium trees and he noticed little yellow things all over the branches and leaves. He poked one of them and noticed that the little black pieces of fuzz that were attached to them started moving!! After a little research, he realized that we had plant lice!!

He learned that ladybugs love to eat plant lice and other pests, so today he came home from Home Depot with a nice little mesh bag full of ladybugs. They hung out in our kitchen all day because the instructions said not to release them until evening time. When we got home from the party tonight we sprayed down the backyard (according to the instructions) and released the ladybugs all over the Adeniums, our pomelo tree, and the other bamboo bushes in the back. We took a few out front to our flowers in case there were any pests out there too. That was our fun for the evening...spreading ladybugs around the yard. They kept crawling out of the bag and all over Shane's hands and feet. According to the package, they should lay eggs soon and then we'll have even more ladybugs around!

Not so momentous...

Thanks to the many reminders to update my blog...

Well, it's funny that my last post was up for so long. It's a good indicator of how things have gone lately.

The morning after I posted that, we got "talked to" for leaving so early... That's right, leaving work at 5 pm is way too early. We were told that if we're only going to work for 8 hours we need to come in at 9 and work until 6 so it looks like we're working later.

Anyway, I've been on a really busy client and have had my fair share of late nights and long weekends of work which is why I've neglected the blog.

There was plenty to write about though...here's a quick recap:

• My dear friend Natalie FINALLY married Julian. It was a beautiful day and I'm so glad I was able to be with her!

• I was able to catch up with a lot of friends I hadn't seen in a while and see the progress on my parents' remodel when I came up for Natalie's wedding.

• Shane officially interviewed for a permanent position at Medicis. He's getting a formal offer letter from them next week so hopefully he'll be official soon.

• Shane finally won in the new couch(es) versus new TV debate. We now have a new 42" Olevia LCD TV and we still have our mismatched (but quite comfortable) couches.

• Shane felt guilty for getting such a big present for himself, so he bought me a new piece of art. It was something I was admiring at a store we visit sometimes but I didn't think he liked it much, but it's now hanging in our front room near his new TV. I wasn't going to let him buy it, but it was on clearance and we had a coupon so it was actually very decent priced (and significantly less than a new TV!!).

• The insurance company finally settled on Shane's claim from his accident in October. It's nice to finally have some closure.

• We almost talked to the Sandoval family in Peru over the webcam. We ended up talking to them on MSN messenger and seeing random pieces of the video feed from their webcam. It was still a fun experience. We're hoping to get them set up with Skype so we can really talk soon.

• The two bamboo plants that have survived thus far now have new shoots! It's a good sign since they look so skinny and sad, but they seem to be doing alright now.

Well, I'm apparently getting a little desparate for things to list since I'm talking about plants. That's enough of an update for now. Hopefully we'll have something fun to write about soon.

A Momentous Occasion...

So today I made history... I left work at 5:00 PM!!!! I worked my 8 chargeable hours and went home and I don't have more work to do tonight! This may not be a big deal to some of you, but those of you who have to worry about chargeability (which, based on our blog-readers is pretty much a shout-out Eric and Sharn) can definitely understand why I'm so excited.

Our team decided to enjoy the fact that we have plenty of time to complete our project and are only scheduled to work 8-hour days so we're leaving on time every day this week. I'm so excited!!

Okay, now I'm done gushing...