...a tale of two kuesters.

2011-12-09T08:57:00.001-08:00

By now, several of you have taken the challenge and stumbled upon our subtle announcement here. Now at 21 weeks, we have our life changing information that makes things all the more real.

Monday, Adam and I went to the doctor for a routine checkup, but hoped that it would end up being more (i.e. my 20 week ultrasound that I had argued with the lady on the phone about and ended up crying and hanging up with frustration). Adam took the morning off anyway, though, because both of us knew it could be stressful, so he came as moral support. The first thing that happened was me getting called up to the reception desk for them to try and tell me my appointment wasn't that day. Good thing I brought my appointment card with me that THEY wrote out to prove them wrong. They were like, "Well, I guess we have to fit her in." You'd better believe you do!!! So of course, if it wasn't already, my blood pressure started soaring!

Then they took by blood pressure and it was 140 something over 90 something. After she exclaimed, "WOAH!" I started to cry. She asked if I needed a minute before she took it again. I was pretty sure that wouldn't help, so we just did it again. It went down...but only to 135 something. At that point, I was grateful that I had taken my BP at home and brought a picture with me to prove that it was the office that stressed me out and not some condition. After waiting a while longer for a room to open up, they had a new nurse training come in and try to find the heartbeat. To be perfectly honest, I wanted them to not be able to because I knew that the baby was okay. I had felt it moving around not too long before that, and I wanted an ultrasound. One of the more experienced nurses, though, came in and found it pretty quickly.

Then Dr. Warren came in. She looked at my chart, measured me, etc. Then she said that everything looked good...except my blood pressure. That's when I went on my verge of tears rant about how frustrating her staff was, how rude the lady on the phone had been, and all the confrontations I'd had there that made me dread my appointments at their office. She was very empathetic, apologetic, and told me we'd get my ultrasound scheduled this week. It actually ended up being the next day. That afternoon, I kind of freaked out at the idea that I'd know what the baby was the next day and second guessed our decision we had made a long time ago to find out. Pretty sure my mom wasn't too thrilled with that :-p.

So we went in on Tuesday for the ultrasound. It was VERY anti-climatic. First, Adam and I had to sit in a waiting room with just one other lady who was watching an informational DVD about her upcoming hysterectomy. Awkward. Then we were called in for our very short and not too compassionate ultrasound. We were asked what we're having. I told the lady I didn't know...I was hoping she'd tell us. Then, moments later, she just said, "It's a boy." And then tried to get a good picture. No more than 10 minutes passed before she sent us on our way....without good pictures, and without the DVD we had been promised by the movie I once had to sit in that empty waiting room and watch. She told us we had a very UNcooperative son...which Adam says I make too much out of because she was just joking...but I was kind of annoyed by. Oh well...chalk it up to pregnancy hormones?

So then I decided it would be more fun to tell people one by one as it came up about the gender. Well, that got old faster than I thought it would. It was nice to tell certain people before the general population knew, though. The excited ones made it seem more fun and helped me get more excited myself. However, being that I thought it was a girl (and so did Adam), there was also a good sect of people prepared to rejoice over the "It's a girl" statement, and though they tried to have the same amount of excitement about a boy, telling people individually wasn't as fun, anymore. (If this applies to you, this is not meant as a guilt trip...just sharing my feelings. The boy thing will grow on you when you see how amazing the combination of Adam and my charm and good looks turns out :)).

So that's where we're at now...I'm super bummed that the ultrasound wasn't longer, more fun, or more compassionate like other people's experiences seem to have been. I wanted a DVD pretty badly, though our "uncooperative son" didn't make for much of a good session, so maybe it's for the best. I didn't really mind either way on the gender, though I'm a people pleaser by nature, so I wish everyone was through the roof excited, but they'll get there. I'm glad it's a little more real, though...and that we can call him a he. Adam and I do have a name, to answer that question, but we're not sharing it with anyone (Seriously...not even my mom. You can ask her, if you don't believe me...I'm sure it's driving her nuts :)). You'll just have to wait until April. Other than that, we can now start registering. We probably won't need (and thus won't register) for many clothes since we have at least a couple friends anxiously awaiting handing down their boy clothes. If you feel compelled to buy them, I won't stop you, but we're only going to register for things we know we will need.

So...other than that, I'm grateful for those of you that read this. I'm grateful for everyone, actually, but it's nice to know this journal isn't in vain. I'm hoping to keep it updated more often (especially with our son on the way) so that people keep up on it without me asking them to. Regardless, it has been nice to record and share my feelings and to have you along for the ride. Thanks for everything.

2011-12-02T17:35:00.001-08:00

20 weeks today! We've made it to the halfway point and are well on our way to April. This all still seems a little surreal to me. There have been days that I'm sure that I've felt the baby, but it just felt like someone gently flicking me from the inside. I appreciate those days. They give me a sense of comfort that this is all real and that the baby is okay. Then there's been days when I suspect that I may have felt something, but I'm not sure if it was the baby or indigestion. Those days happen more often than the others. In fact, I've been on a streak of those for a few days now. Those are the days that I have to remember to lean on my faith and trust that God is taking care of things. I'm looking forward, though, to more constantly feeling the baby move around, and knowing more definitely that that's what it is. I think this whole thing will really start setting in, then.

Those of you on Facebook know that I had a bit of a rant about my doctors' office and the staff that works there. My next appointment is scheduled for Monday morning. Adam is coming with me, mostly because I'm so frustrated and stressed out with them, but partially because we are both hoping that, by some stroke of luck, they might decide to do an ultrasound, after all. At the very least, I'd like to have the famed "20-week ultrasound" sometime before we see family for Christmas (at which point I'll already by 23 weeks.). It's hard enough with all these pregnancy hormones to keep my cool when people ask what I'm having or when I'll find out, but I know that the family will all want to know when they see us, too.

Other than that, I'm still met with mixed emotions. Some days, I'm very excited to meet our little offspring. If you know me, you know that I love kids and have always done something that was related to children in some respect. I don't doubt that I'll do fine. However, there are other days when I have the house to myself, no where to go, and the only noises to worry about are the crazy winds and wondering if our patio furniture (of which we only actually have a table and swing, both acquired from friends that just couldn't fit them in the truck when they moved) are going to make it. Those are the days that I get nervous that I'll never have this again. I like cuddling with my husband on the couch (partially because we're really cheap and our house is FREEZING at night :)). I like being able to go places on a moment's notice and not having to worry about getting home at a specific time. I know they say that you're pregnant for nine months to get used to the idea. I'm not sure that nine months is going to cut it :-p.

Don't get me wrong. Adam and I both wanted this baby. It wasn't a surprise, really. At the time, it seemed like it was taking forever for this pregnancy to happen, but now that there's no turning back, I just get a little anxious. Adam's doing great. He keeps telling me how fun it's going to be to have a little baby to play with and hold. I don't know if he's nervous and just being strong for me or if he's really as cool and calm as he's letting on. Regardless, it's nice to have his reassurance.

Anyway, size wise, I'm really starting to grow, now. I actually look pregnant, which is kind of fun since now anybody would know that and I don't have to question whether or not people think I'm just gaining weight, anymore :-p. The lady at Gap asked me if this was my first without confirming that I was, in fact, pregnant (though I was carrying my TheBump.com gift bag from The Price Is Right and buying baby clothes). The UPS guy probably put two and two together after delivering a crib to our house and seeing me yesterday, too. However, I do admit that it is a little more fun (and real) when I'm showing more. I'm bracing myself for unsolicited belly rubbing. I don't mind when people I know do it, but it'll probably creep me out if strangers go in for a feel.

So that's that, I guess. Those are my baby related thoughts and emotions in a nutshell. I haven't had any of the dreaded symptoms most people warn about (nausea, stretch marks, etc.). I went through the first trimester SUPER tired, but that's gone (for now) and I'm on to getting hungrier more often. That, however, is a symptom I don't at all mind :). Other than that, it's been pretty smooth sailing. Thanks again for all your prayers, support, excitement, and encouragement. It has really been a huge help and an even bigger blessing!

2011-11-06T17:22:00.000-08:00

So, we're 16 weeks and two days into this pregnancy thing. You'd think that, by now, I'd be used to the whole idea and excitement would be overtaking fear and anxiety. I guess that was the case for about a week after seeing the baby on the ultrasound, but then the paranoia kicked back in. A Facebook friend recently lost her baby, and though there was slight paranoia before that, I couldn't help but project that onto myself, as well. Even with the reassurance of my husband and friends that things are "probably fine," probably just doesn't seem like enough for me. However, I have an appointment on Tuesday, and while I've braced myself for whatever news I get...hearing the heartbeat would be the relief I need (at least for a while).

People keep asking me how I'm feeling. The truth is, just nervous. I have been far less tired than in the first trimester. I have never had any problem with appetite or nausea, though I am hungrier more often, now. (I don't mind this, though...I love eating :)). I haven't felt the baby kick...but can't wait to have that added reassurance that things are okay. I am showing, and I feel huge, but I've been told that I'm not that big. Some people said that I don't even really look pregnant...which you'd think I'd like to hear, but I'm definitely not my not pregnant size...so I wish I looked pregnant enough to "look pregnant." None of my regular clothes fit, and my belly is hard, so at least I can reassure myself that I am, in fact, pregnant and not just gaining weight in vain. I know...I sound irrational, but let's blame that on the hormones (I've done a lot of blaming of them, lately.)

The other question we keep getting is whether or not we'll find out if it's a boy or girl. Though we've heard numerous opinions in favor of finding out or waiting, none of them have been compelling enough to sway us away from our ultimate decision to find out. We both agree that we think it will help us mentally prepare for what lies ahead to know. It'll also be nice to call the baby "she" or "he" and not "it." In addition, while we plan to buy/register/etc. for mostly gender neutral things, there's only so much yellow, green, and white that one baby can have in it's wardrobe...and if they're anything like me (and won't have hair until they turn three years old), we'll need some pink or blue in the mix to ward off controversy. While we won't call the baby by its name until it's born (and no...we won't tell you the names we have in mind), it would still be more beneficial, in our minds, to know. The surprise factor isn't enough for us to wait it out. We're both planners, in our own respects, so that side of us will win, this time. As for when we'll find out...probably at next month's appointment in December, but we'll let you know when we know and are ready :).

Other than all that, there's days I look at the house with utter lack of motivation and wonder how I'll get anything done or keep things at all in order when I can't even manage to do that some days without any kids involved. I'm sure that whole maternal instinct thing will kick in and it won't be any problem, right ;)?

Anyway...as we move closer to the due date (April 20th officially...at least for now), I am getting a little more excited. I'm sure that, once I have more reassurance that things are going alright and that the baby is healthy and okay, there will be less anxiousness and more room for excitement to build. Adam's doing well with all of it. He has his usual, "We can't change it, and I think it'll be fun," positive attitude...which is good, 'cause we all know that I do enough worrying for both of us.

So to wrap up, pray for us. Pray for the well-being of the baby and that things continue to be okay. Pray that my doctor's appointment is, as they said, "just a routine checkup" and that I have some sense of peace and reassurance when I leave. Pray that we can do everything in our power to prepare for the baby, girl or boy, and that we are relaxed and the best parents we can be...both now and after they arrive.

Thanks for going on this journey with us. I know it's hard for some of you. I was at that point, too...watching everyone else go through something that I wanted so badly to experience. I appreciate your love and support, though. I also appreciate those that are over the moon excited for us. Your excitement often rubs off on me and helps me through the anxiousness. Keep it coming :). Like I've said in the past, our baby is very lucky to be able to inherit all of you and I can't wait for all of us to meet him/her/them/it :). Peace out.

2011-10-11T22:00:00.000-07:00

So, I'm sure any hope of maintaining readership on this blog is lost by my neglect to post consistently, but I figured we needed a little GOOD news after the last entry.

First of all, my cousin is doing fine. He's recovering well any hasn't had any further setbacks. On a similar note, my uncle recently had brain surgery, as well, and it at home recovering from that, but doing well, too.

And on the happiest note (which I can now officially say since some of the nerves have melted now that I've actually gotten to see our child), as I'm sure all of you know by now, Adam and I are expecting our first child in April. The official due date is April 20th (as I've been saying, but have now had confirmed by the ultrasound and the doctor). Also, much to the relief of most of the Kuesters (including us, actually), it is only ONE baby :). We have not found out the gender, though we do plan to. It was too early to tell, and even if it wasn't, Baby Kuester didn't want to uncross its legs...or do much cooperating with the doctor who was diligently trying to get measurements. I think we may already have a stubborn one on our hands. In any case, I've included the picture here. It's not a great quality considering how clearly we saw it on the screen. You could see the little hands and feet, the legs crossed, even the eyes and facial features. This is a good enough reminder for me, for now...and it helps me to look at it when I get a little nervous or apprehensive...as sappy as that sounds...to be calm and smile. Anyway, now that we don't have any secrets, I will, once again, attempt to do a better job of keeping this updated. I figure that I better try to make it a habit before little Kuester comes along. Thanks for praying for us and for all your support. You guys mean a lot!

Where my heart and head have been...

2011-07-22T09:28:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of a person who's been on my mind a lot this past week. As of last Friday, he's one of the luckiest people I know, though the picture might suggest otherwise. Every year, my cousin Jesse goes to Madeline Island with some friends. This year's activities included taking some mopeds for a spin. If you'd describe him as looking like he got in a fight with a car....and the car won...you'd be right. While enjoying a ride and minding his own business, Jesse got in a pretty bad collision.

While I didn't learn about any of this until the next day, the prognosis on Saturday didn't seem that great. Having had a friend in the ICU for a far too similar situation (and the sad reality of that friend never leaving ICU) put my brain into overdrive, so I did the only productive thing that I could think to do....start soliciting prayers for Jesse. Unless you were at my wedding, and you were one of the more outgoing people there, you have probably never met Jesse, but there were and are countless people praying for him...thank you.

A couple days ago, I got to chat with Jesse for a while on Facebook. As impersonal as Facebook chat (or any online messenger) can be, it was the first time that I've been literally overwhelmed with emotion just to be "talking" to someone. My husband asked me, when I told him that I cried, why. I said...I'm just so happy that Jesse is alive. After losing someone who, while I considered him a good friend, wasn't nearly as much a part of my life as Jesse, this one hit even more close to home. Just the fact that he was home, and awake, and on Facebook...all those things are a HUGE blessing. I was trying to, no pun intended, put all the pieces together, and all I can credit for what seems like a miraculous outcome is the grace of God and the prayers of all of you.

Jesse is having surgery on monday. Having one of my good friends from college going through far too similar of an operation about five years ago, but also knowing how great God was to her through all of that, I have faith that God will do the same for him. Because I'm not so good at praying sometimes, period, and knowing that Jesse could definitely use more prayer than I am able to offer up, I'm again asking for your prayers. Pray for him, that he would heal quickly. Pray for his doctors, that their hands may be guided, that they get plenty of sleep Sunday night, and that they are able to put him back together as flawlessly as possible. Pray for Jesse's parents, as he's their only child, and all this hospital stuff is scary...especially when this is one of their only experiences with it (and he's only about a year and a half younger than me).

We have all learned a lot about love through this experience. A lot. Thank you so much for all your love, support, friendship, and most of all, prayer. You are all great.

-Erin

Making the Most of Hollywood

2011-07-15T10:35:00.000-07:00

My friend Fia said to me, the other day, "You certainly are taking advantage of living there, aren't you?" By there, she meant close to LA. By taking advantage of, she was referring to my adventures in TV show audiences. Thus far, I've made it to "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", "Hell's Kitchen", and most recently "America's Got Talent."

Ever since some friends of mine from our church back home were chosen for "Extreme Makeover:Home Edition" (Not more than a couple weeks after we had moved away, I might add. Talk about making someone homesick), I've been intrigued by how shows are produced. Hearing all the background details, seeing pictures and tweets, and learning about what goes into making a show like EMHE made me fascinated about what Hollywood calls "The magic of television". (I call it "fake," but I guess it is magic that so many people buy into it :-p.

My grandparents will be the first to tell you that it's not just the cast and crew of a show that put in a big commitment. More times than not, being in the audience can seem like a big job in itself. When my mom and I went to Jay Leno (because that seemed more interesting...and cheaper...than the $9 "studio tour"), we waited in a line in a holding area for an hour. Then they moved us like cattle to another holding area (at least this one had benches) for another hour. Afterwards, you get to go to your seat in the studio, but there was still an hour before the show began. The show itself lasted about an hour. Then they filmed a few promo pieces and we were released shortly after. This doesn't at all include the one to two hours it takes each way to get to the tapings, either. For some of them, you also usually would arrive even earlier to ensure you get a seat, as they issue more tickets than they have spots available. So, in total, the experience can take any where from 6-12 hours, I suppose, depending on what show or event you're going to.

Thus far, though, I've found it to be worthwhile. I wouldn't go weekly, or anything, but the shows that I've been to, it's been very interesting to see how they're put together and the "secrets" they use to make them the way you see them on television. In an effort not to spoil anything, I'll only give you details on that if you ask :). However, one secret I will tell you ('cause it's not really a secret) is that, if you want to be on TV, you need to be a standard Hollywood beauty. If you are ever in an audience, it won't take you long to figure out how they decide who sits where. On Jay Leno, my mom and I were shoved all the way to the right. Granted, we were in the front row, and we were only feet away from the band (Bright Eyes, that night), but we never made it on camera. At Hell's Kitchen, we were 10th and 11th in line, and yet, we were put up in the balcony. (That episode won't air until next month, so I'll let you know if we ever made it on screen once it does.)

Yesterday, I went with my friend Carol to America's Got Talent. Because she's technically handicapped, she got us a parking spot in the studio lot (AWESOME since the last time we had to pay for parking!) and to the front of the line. This is the first show that seated first come first served (though they did have the pretty people section behind the judges that they pulled people from line for), so we got front row seats. I DID make it on camera, though you'd never know it was me unless I told you :). But for the sake of sharing that with my adoring fans, here's some screen shots from the show:

This first one is of the back of my head watching Avril Lavigne sign. Good thing my hair looked alright :). I'm the one all the way to the right.
As you can see on this one, I'm one of the very few (the other ones aren't pictured) that actually stood up and rocked out to Avril. I may look dumb, but what fun is it to sit down when you're at a rock show?
That's me at the top left, clapping away...probably also looking at the teleprompter, but we'll pretend I was listening to the j

This last one is so that you can get a perspective of where I was among the audience, should you want to go back and look for me in the show. That's me under the red me :). If you missed the show or just want to watch it again knowing that your good friend Erin was on it, here's a link:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/258342/americas-got-talent-week-7-night-2

So, that's about it, for now. We have our friends Trevor and Heather Little coming in with their daughter Audrey for a few days starting tomorrow, so I have plenty to do to get ready for guests. I just wanted to put a little something out in the "blogosphere" as I've heard it coined since it had been a while. Happy Birthday to my mom, Deb! Peace.

2011-06-24T16:50:00.000-07:00

One of my absolute favorite things in California so far is visits from friends from back home. There's nothing that's quite as sweet as seeing a familiar face...especially one that you haven't seen in far too long...and feeling like you had never been apart in the first place. Today was one of those days that I was blessed with one such visit.

Next Friday will be five years from the day that my dad passed away. I do my best to be in good spirits and dwell on the good over the bad. I usually do a pretty good job of this, but I credit that to the friends and family I have that have helped me get to the point where I can. One of those people is my good friend Jason Whipple. When something like losing a loved one happens to you, there are very few people that can say, "I know what you're going through," that you'll actually believe. Jason's dad passed away a few years before mine did. Jason was bold enough to ask me to go to him to GriefShare, a support group at our church for people that were experiencing loss. There were so many people in the time shortly after my dad died that wanted to help but didn't know what to do or say. It wasn't their fault. I didn't blame them, but it did suck...and hurt a little...that I felt like I had no place to go. Jason's invitation changed that. I can't thank him enough for the invite or for sharing that part of his life with me. There were a lot of tears, a lot of stories, and more vulnerability than even I was used to. I would never have gone on my own...but I'll be eternally grateful that I did.

Anyway, it had been a long time since I had seen Jason. His wife Beth and he left Champaign long before I ever did. They had a baby, and I had seen Beth and their daughter Wren once when they were back to visit before we left, but that was it. Jason is in the Army and had a class to teach in CA last week and thought to let me know to see if we could meet up. That in and of itself meant a lot, but the fact that we actually made it happen was even better. I drove up to Tehachapi to meet them (Beth, Jason, and Wren) for lunch on their way back to New Mexico. I think we sat in Quiznos for almost an hour and a half just chatting, laughing, and hanging out like the good ol' times. Their daughter is 4 now. I can't believe that much time has passed.

Times like these make me a little homesick, though a good number of the people I miss from back home don't even live there anymore themselves. Jason asked me if I like it here. My answer was that I've decided to like it. I think that there's a lot here that I could complain about if I wanted to, but it's a lot easier to be happy if I try to find as many things to like as I can, instead....like the sunshine. I have many friends here, too...and a good handful of pretty close ones. I don't at all want to take them for granted, either, or make them feel unappreciated. Being that many of them are military or new transplants here, themselves, I think they understand where I'm coming from.

Long story short, let me know if you're ever in my area. (For all you midwesterners that haven't experienced desert life, my area is anywhere within a 2-3 hour radius :)). I would love to see you. At the end of the day, Adam often asks me what my favorite part of the day was. Today it was the Whipples. I'd love to be able to say the same about you. Thanks for the visit Jason, Beth, and Wren. You are more important to me than you'll ever know.

2011-06-17T13:08:00.001-07:00

So, I don't usually blog about specific giveaways, but this one was just too cool to pass up! Mommy and Me Giveaways is doing a review and giveaway of customized postage stamps! You get to upload your own picture and they'll print off actual stamps that you can use. I used to collect stamps...and I love fun stamps. Can you imagine how fun it would be to be able to send someone a card with a stamp you actually created....or better yet...that had you on it?! Here's the link to the giveaway. http://mommyandmegiveaways.com/?p=7222 The prize is worth $100 and is 100 of your own customized stamps. How cool?!

And along with that, they're also giving away a customized Yoga towel! You can choose from any of the tons of designs they already have or upload your own photo and have them put that on the towel for you. Adam thinks things like that are kind of corny and probably would never pay for them...so to win either of these things would be kinda fun for me :). Here's the link for the towel giveaway: http://mommyandmegiveaways.com/?p=7212

Anyway, I'll do a more personal update here in a couple days, but for now, that's what made my day today. Have a great weekend! (And Happy Father's Day!)

Anniversaries, Giveaways, and Life

2011-06-11T11:05:00.000-07:00

It's already June! That means that we've been married for over two years! This time two years ago, we were in Virginia Beach on our honeymoon. It doesn't seem like that long ago that we were back in Champaign, and yet, a TON of things have happened in our lives since then. In just a couple weeks, we'll have been in California for two years. I can't even begin to list all the adventures we've had here, or thank all the friends and family that have supported us along our way...both in CA and back home.

Adam and I celebrated our 2nd Anniversary in Las Vegas, this year. While this may seem somewhat out of character for the two of us, we both really enjoyed our time there. We actually decided to go because we found a great deal on The Lion King tickets and wanted to see it before it closed in Vegas in December. After comparing notes with my mom on the stage show versus the touring version, I am convinced without a doubt that it was worth going. If you have the opportunity to see it there before it closes, I would highly recommend it!

Other than the show, we ate at a few resorts, found a champagne buffet, and did some sight seeing of the free attractions...one of our favorites being the Bellagio fountain! It was so cool to see the choreographed fountain shows. Adam got a kick out of how loud the water rockets were. There's a video of it on my face book, as well as some pictures of both that and other stops on our visit.

We also took our stab at a little gambling while we were there (not too much, though...we're cheap, remember? :) ). Adam won $50 in a slot machine pretty early on and gave me hope that I might have the same luck. As you could expect, I did not. We also had bad luck on video poker, table black jack, and our first go around at roulette. Adam's determined, though, to win more next time and has written a computer program to help him figure out the best way to lay his chips in roulette next time he plays. Crazy engineers.

I have found my stroke of luck elsewhere. My friend Kimberlie got me hooked on giveaway blogs. She has won so much cool free stuff just by entering giveaways that I decided to try my hand at it. Originally, I was just going to enter for dog and pet products. I was pretty convinced that, if I started entering all sorts of mommy and baby giveaways, people would surely start speculating if I was pregnant. Being that I'm not, I had said that I wasn't going to enter anything like that until I was both pregnant and ready for that to be public information. However, seeing how much Kimberlie was winning, I decided that it couldn't hurt to start entering for anything I think that I could someday use (or give as baby shower presents for the countless pregnant friends I seem to keep collecting). I mean, I wasn't going to win much (if anything), and some of them are really expensive products that I'd love to get for free! So...I started entering. I've had a few questioning minds and put them to rest, but I've also already won a few times (and it's only been a week!). I'm actually quite shocked that I've won so many times as I usually don't win things. With that kind of luck...how can you pass that up?! I've also gotten a few other people hooked. Anyway, I just wanted to put any inquiring minds to rest, and spread the word for anyone else who wants an easy way to win stuff they might not otherwise buy. There's a button at the bottom of my blog to my favorite giveaway blog (where I've won twice, already). You can also just google "giveaway blogs" and find all sorts of other blogs. I hope you have the same luck that I've seemed to have! (And don't worry...when the day does come that I am both pregnant and ready to announce it, there will be more of a formal announcement than implicitly mentioning it through mommy giveaways :)).

In other news...my art classes have taken kind of a new path. While I don't want to go into much detail on here, my run at the Arts and Crafts center has come to an end (by no fault of my own.). Since I had to leave, the mothers of the children that were in my one and only class there have been very gracious and supportive. They have let me continue teaching in their homes to finish off the session we were on, and plan on continuing with that in the weeks to come. It also inspired me to start teaching lessons/classes in other peoples' homes. Since then, I've had four people independent of the classes I was teaching contact me to do lessons for their children. This week, I taught two classes and one private drawing lesson. Things seem to be going smoothly. While I'm not thrilled with how things fell apart on base, I'm excited to see where this leads me and had fun teaching this week. It's nice to feel like I've (at least for now) found a niche.

So, that's the past few weeks in a nutshell. I've definitely kept busy...not only with the aforementioned, but I've also started running more in preparation for a 1/2 marathon I'm planning on running in LA in October. My friend Dania and I are participating in the Rock'n'Roll 1/2, there. It should be a lot of fun. You get to run through downtown LA, and every mile, there's a live band. Bret Michaels is the finisher concert, so that could be entertaining. I'm excited to run my first 1/2 marathon...especially with a good friend. So, with that, entering giveaways, art, Zumba, and whatever else I can keep myself busy with, I've been passing the time (as evidenced by lack of journal entries.) Thinking about it all makes me sleepy...

...so with that, I'm off to make some coffee. Peace out.

2011-05-13T17:08:00.000-07:00

As promised, I'm back to do more updating (and in my defense....Blogger was down for a whole day, hence the lateness. This was supposed to be posted yesterday).

So, the weekend after my mom went home was Easter. We decided that it worked out well to at Thanksgiving to have dinner here and dessert across the street at the Tiegens, so we did that again for Easter. Heidi and her boys came over and the Tiegens joined us (obviously). Adam made a ham and homemade rolls. He even made them in the shape of bunnies....how cute:

We had a good time hanging out with everyone, as always...and especially enjoyed initiating Heidi into our Rockband band. Look for us on the standings (Blasted Man Rabbits / tiejas). We're pretty good :-p.

The next Monday, I went with the Lucas, Tiegens, and our new friends the Smiths to Santa Monica. There were 4 adults and 9 boys between the ages of 1 and 7. It was a little crazy, but a lot of fun...minus the MASSIVE sunburn I got on my legs. I'm still recovering from that mistake. Oops.

May has been a month of trying to reconnect with friends and myself, both which I somewhat lost touch with over the past several months. I've had lunch with several friends (Krystal Wolfard, Susie Sincock, Kimberlie Tiegen, Prisca Norris) and started working out with my friend Dania...not only because of the previously mentioned physical and emotional need to, but also to spend more time with her. I started going to Zumba classes on Tuesday nights with Tricia Smith, and STOPPED having Starbucks all the time :). (I love you Elizabeth...and I love Starbucks...but we're back to having it be a special rare occasion treat instead :)). I've spent time helping out my friend Prisca who went into pre-term labor and spent a couple weeks in the hospital by setting up meals for her and visiting during her hospital stay. We got to be a part of our baby friend Jared's birthday party at his family's house...which was an honor since it was only family other than us.

And one of the most unique things that I was able to do to reconnect with a friend (whom I had honestly never had that much of a chance to connect with in the first place) was going to a Hell's Kitchen taping with my friend Krystal. I had seen the tickets available online and knew Adam would love to go, so I jumped at the opportunity to snatch them up. However, Adam wasn't able to take off work that day, so in my efforts to find someone else to go with me, (I was bound and determined to go, even if I had to go myself.) Krystal saved the day. The taping took a LOOOOONG time (4 1/2) hours, so by the 2nd hour or so, we were no longer upset about them putting us up in the balcony where it's a far shot that we'll be on the show, but were instead happy that we had seats and that they were handing out water to us. It was definitely a fun and interesting experience, regardless of if we'll make the final cut, to see how a show like that is produced. The season starts on July 19th, and we'll be the second to the final show (it was the final challenge that they taped...where they typically have the last two chefs cook dishes for 5ish esteemed chefs to judge who's are better), so I'll keep you posted as to when it will actually air when I know, myself. My next goal is to get Adam and I tickets to actually dine there in a dinner service.

To catch you up on what I've done in the art classes...I mentioned that the week my mom came begun our unit on storybook art. The other three weeks of that included "It Looked Like Spilt Milk," (We made 3 dimensional art in the style of the book illustrations with a combination of shaving cream and glue that dries puffy), "Mouse Paint" (We used rubber mice (thanks Mom) to emulate what the mice in the book did by walking them through paint and using their feet to mix colors on our paper and also created our own paper cut out mice in the style of those in the book), and "Olivia" (We created our own Jackson Pollock paintings like Olivia did after she visited the art museum.) This next week, our classes are moving to Wednesdays and we'll being a unit studying some of arts masters. I think one of the units will have to involve taping paper under the tables and having them make some Michelangelo masterpieces. :)

Well, that pretty much brings us up to this week. In my effort to get out of my emotional slump, I was going to join Curves. Well, being frugal and adding up the yearly cost, I decided I'd rather save that money up for something else and do the exercising on my own. Once I decided that, several friends have offered to help me along the way. Thus, I've exercised every day (but today...we're calling this my day off) in the morning with Kim and in the evenings with Dania/Zumba. Tomorrow night is a softball game and I'll head back over to Kim's in the a.m. It's helped me feel better about myself, be more motivated, and already lose a bit of weight...so hopefully I'll be able to maintain motivation and not get burned out.

I also had my baby friend Aly, this week, for babysitting. She's asleep upstairs, right now, and this is her last day here for the week, but she's a lot of fun. She's been in a good mood all week, which is lucky considering she spent last week with Rubeola :(....poor baby. So...since we're pretty much caught up, I'm going to wrap this up. Again, my apologies for the break in updates, but life got the better of me...and I make no promises that it won't happen again, but I'll do my best.

Happy May!

Erin

2011-05-11T16:02:00.000-07:00

After about a one month hiatus, I'm back. To be honest, I haven't felt much up to blogging. Since my friend Elizabeth left, I've had more time on my hands, which it turns out, can be a bad thing for me. I've had my days where I've just felt a little down on things, lonely, and just plain blah. I think part of it, too, was how I had been eating and how I hadn't been exercising. But, we'll get to that...

...In the meantime, I'll pick up with some "highlights" that have happened since we left off. In the week following the last post, my mom came from Illinois to visit. We had a good, and very busy, visit. The day after my mom came, she headed with me to base to babysit Elizabeth's kids. For the first time since January, Aubrey stayed, too. I thinks she was hoping my mom would give her special treatment....hehe. After Emma Grace got done with school, we took Elizabeth to lunch at the club on base for her birthday since Mid-Week Lenten worship prevented us from being able to join her for dinner.

Thursday, we attempted to get Day Of tickets to Ellen, but a turn in events landed us in the audience of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, instead. Since the Ellen people never called back, we were going to go on the NBC Studio tour in Burbank, but I asked if there were still show tickets and was excited to hear there were. I'm not really a huge fan of Jay Leno, but I enjoy seeing behind the scenes type things, so watching how a show is produced seemed fun. So my mom and I stood in line to get in line for an hour, got our numbers and sat in line for an hour, sat in the studio for an hour waiting for the show to start, and then sat for another hour through the show. All in all, it was a fun experience and I'm glad we did it.

Friday, my mom joined us for my art class. We were starting our 4 week series of projects based on story book illustrations. This particular one was based on Eric Carle's "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" The kids painted pieces of paper and then cut shapes out to make their own animals. It ended up being a little more complicated than I thought it might be, all in all, it was a success. After class, we went to say goodbye to the Strongs. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I fully intended on not crying, but in the end, even my mom cried. I guess when you spend practically every day with someone, it's harder to let go than you'd think.

Saturday, my mom had the opportunity to reconnect with one of her best friends from her military days. While my dad was in the Navy, my mom spent practically every day with her friend Teresa Rutherford, and my dad was roommates with her husband Gordon out on the ship. They hadn't seen each other in over twenty years. Through the wonders of Facebook, they reconnected and discovered that Teresa lives a mere 3 hours from me. So, on Saturday, we decided to meet up halfway in Manhattan Beach. We spent the day walking around, had lunch together, and my mom had time to "catch up" as much as possible in the short time we had to visit. I'm looking forward to my mom's next visit and hopefully reuniting again. I think those are the most noteworthy parts of the trip. We, of course, had lunch with friends, did Rockband, went to church, and all the other parts of normal life, too....and enjoyed it all :).

And...because I don't want this to get too long and Adam's on the way home....and you like to read journal entries :)...I'm going to end this hear and pick up again tomorrow (I PROMISE! :)). Thanks for not giving up on me. Enjoy the rest of your day!

Spring Has Sprung!

2011-04-05T17:56:00.000-07:00

In the past several months, I have come to realize how heavily I rely on my planner. Things often get so busy that, if I didn't write down what I was supposed to be doing, I would completely forget to do things. Last week was no different, though most of the chaos was unplanned. Thus why I haven't gotten to this entry earlier. I had a whole paragraph typed out to explain how my week went, but I decided not to include it since much of it was a blessing in disguise and a chance for me to learn about giving of myself and sharing my resources. While it was crazy, it was a huge blessing for me to be able to serve in the many and various ways I was given the opportunity to do, and thus, I don't want to detract from that by making it sound like it was a burden by listing it all off.

Regardless, it WAS a busy week, and this will be no different.

Some highlights of the past week are worthy of mentioning, though. In the midst of all the chaos, I was able to grow some friendships that I hadn't otherwise had the opportunity to do. Tuesday, I was able to go to lunch at Panera with Michelle Farmer, someone I originally met at Wayside and have ran into on several occasions, but never had the chance to get to know much in depth. We had a great conversation (so much so that we didn't realize that there were literally people standing around watching us waiting to snag our table the minute we moved) and I'm looking forward to getting to know her more as time goes on.

I also had the opportunity to go on the Edwards' Officers' Spouses Club Retreat. I have to admit that I was initially severely hesitant to agree to go. Over the past several months of being involved, I've found it somewhat hard to connect with many of the ladies in the group. I realize that the majority of them are older than I am and already have kids of varying ages which I've learned is a barrier for most people. I also don't live on base and am not actually a military wife, which also makes it harder for people to relate to me, though I try my best to relate to them. In addition, I've found some of the common interests of the club don't as much apply to me (I'm very frugal, hate shopping, I'm not much for dressing up or fashion, etc.). And to add to all that, I've found myself to be very busy and time management has led me to miss several of the events. All that being said, leading up to the retreat, I have to say that I wasn't even sure I was going to be a part of OSC, next year. In hindsight, I am glad that I went. While all the above qualities still apply, I feel like I did have some breakthroughs with several of the ladies. I added many new people to my Facebook friends (which we all know makes friendships official, right ;)?), as well as getting to know some ladies that I didn't know as well a lot better than I would have, otherwise. The ladies that I spent most of the weekend with were really great and made me feel like a part of the pack. I didn't once question myself amongst them and didn't feel like any of the things I was lacking (kids, military affiliation, etc.) mattered to them. The ironic part is that several of them will be moving away in the next months. However, going to the retreat has made me rethink my position on "renewing my membership," so to speak. I have met some really cool ladies, even in the last couple weeks. It still might take a little more convincing, but hopefully some of those cool ladies will help me weigh the pros and cons of it all when decision time does come around. I guess I didn't even mention in all that what we actually DID at the retreat :-p. We headed to Temecula, CA and walked around Old Temecula. It's really cute and has a lot of nice shops and boutiques. We also did some wine tasting, olive oil tasting, ate at some nice restaurants, did some sight seeing, and hung out. There are some pictures (the ones I'm in, anyway) on my Facebook page, but since it's not my album, I can't share the link on here. (Sorry Grandma). Long story short, I'm glad that I went. I think one of my favorite moments was went Michele was lost looking for the hotel when the Pink song came on and she belted, "Took a wrong turn...once or twice...." Good times :).

As for my art classes, last week we learned about how you can use colors to express your emotions. We read "My Many Colored Days" by Dr. Seuss and looked at how the artist used different colors in his paintings to represent different emotions. Then we talked about how they made some of the colors they used. The kids picked out some colors that they wanted to paint with and we painted self-portraits of us happy and surrounded them with things that made us happy. All the kids did a great job. They got to share with their friends about what they painted. One little boy told me that his was actually him sad because he was sad at home, and the others all painted themselves and talked about that, as well. This week, we'll talk about warm and cool colors and paint landscapes with whichever they like better.

We lost our softball game, last week, but we tried our best! I actually caught a fly ball and got someone out at first (not in the same play, but both things I was proud of :)). Regardless, hopefully losing the past two games will help insure that we won't get demolished like we did last season. The last couple games have been more fun than last season, so if it keeps up that way, hopefully it'll be more enjoyable.

Anyway, I'm heading into town with Adam tonight to meet up with the Wrights and Strongs for dinner at a newish restaurant in Lancaster called BEX. It's our first time there, so I'm excited to see how it is. Until next time....

March Madness

2011-03-28T16:58:00.000-07:00

Well, the second of the two baby friends I watched today just left. I guess that gives me a few minutes before Adam comes home to try and cram in a journal entry.

My second art class last Friday went pretty well. I was shocked to have five children in my class as I thought there were only five signed up, one was absent, and I only had 3 there the week before. Regardless, things went well. It was a little more chaotic this go around since the three new children were all boys, two of which weren't really sure about staying without their parents...and thus didn't. I wasn't that uncomfortable with them in the room...and actually taught them something new, as well, so that made me feel good. We learned about shades and tints by coloring on black paper, doing some paint mixing in plastic bags, made a value scales and a couple collages. I think they had a good time. I think this week we'll learn about using color to express emotions.

I said that Adam's been working a lot, and this weekend was no exception. He worked most of the day Saturday and Sunday morning, but I'm sure he didn't mind missing my Scentsy party as a result :-p. I had a good time with the friends that made it to my house for the party (thanks for coming!) and Adam and I headed across the street afterwards for some pizza and Rockband. Sunday, Adam (like I said) worked in the morning and I headed to church. We both got home around lunch time and then caught up on TV shows we watch that we had missed with the crazy week we had (I think I was home for about one night last week!).

A lot of our friends have been going through some really tough times, lately, and that's been on my heart a lot. There's been a lot of illness, death, and other really hard things going on. If you wouldn't mind joining us in sending up a collective prayer for friends and family that need some strength right now, we sure would appreciate it. My prayers and thoughts are especially with the town of Byron, IL and the friends and family of Megan Clift over these next two days.

I've been working hard on collecting donations for Relay for Life. My church has put a team together and I'll be walking the relay in less than 2 weeks. Thanks to many of my friends and family, I very quickly surpassed my original goal of $100...and by pretty quickly, I mean in less than 4 hours. I decided to increase my goal to $250, and I currently only have to collect $10 more to reach that goal! I am amazed at all of your generosity and am so grateful for your contributions and to be able to help American Cancer Society more than I originally thought. To think that I was initially hesitant to even participate (I'm a little busy :-p) and knowing how much you have backed me up makes me that much more grateful that I decided to do it, afterall. Thanks!

The highlight of today for me has been watching Colin "play" guitar. Here's a picture:

He was very careful with the pick and refused to play it any other way. He also, surprisingly, only dropped it inside the guitar once! I think we have a future rockstar in our midst. I'm gonna miss him when he moves in a few weeks!

Well, Adam's home and I have laundry to do. This might shock some of you, but you can't get much done with a baby around :-p. I hope all of you had a good week/weekend and look forward to hearing from you soon. -Erin

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2011-03-18T17:17:00.000-07:00

I can say that since I haven't posted since last July, right? I can't believe how fast time gets away from you, but feel blessed that I've been busy enough to neglect this journal (as strange as that may sound).

Life has been a whirlwind since we returned home from our Christmas trip to Illinois. I've stayed busy with Homemade Gourmet (which I coincidentally started doing just last journal post :-p). I haven't tried too hard to schedule parties since I've also stayed quite busy with other things, but I've had events pretty regularly every couple weeks or so. I decided to dedicate my profits from that to our friends in ministry that we regularly support. It's taken a quite a while to even accrue a profit to speak of, but hopefully my friends will soon reap the benefits.

I also started teaching my friend Elizabeth's daughter Aubrey preschool at my house the week after we got back. While that was short lived (she wasn't quite ready for that, yet), I do still watch her younger brother Colin (and occasionally one or both of his sisters) at least twice a week. They are fun kids and keep me pretty busy, but I'm going to miss their family when they move next month!

On top of those two things, I recently (as in today) started teaching art classes at Edwards Air Force Base. While I was initially VERY apprehensive about starting something new in my life and about how they would be received (by both parents and children alike), today's class gave me a lot of hope and joy about teaching. This session I have just one class of 3 and 4 year olds. The five of them signed on to learn about color and todays lesson we dove right in with a lesson about primary and secondary colors. We mixed colors and made color wheels and rainbows. The kids were SO great. They were super attentive and responsive and seemed like they had a great time. Aubrey is in my class there, too, and I was really proud of how well she did. Next week, we'll learn about shades and tints. I'm excited to continue forward and to watch the program grow. In fact, it went so well that I'm toying with the idea of starting a class in collaboration with the Palmdale Mom's Club so non-Edwards people can be involved, as well.

In other news, Adam and I went to Death Valley camping a couple weekends ago. I'm very glad that we went early in the year. It was already really warm. Not unbearably so, yet, but we did each drink at least a gallon of water per day we were there. There were a lot of really neat things to see, though, that we don't have in this neck of the desert. It was nice, too, just to get away for a weekend together. We hadn't been on a trip for a while, so the quality time with no commitments was very enjoyable. Here's the link to some of the pictures we took that I've posted on Facebook:

ttp://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2070384&id=48701321&l=f0da58d746

Adam and I are taking another swing (pun intended) at softball, again. Our church signed up for the Spring league in Lancaster and our first game is tonight. If you ever wanted an illustration of the difference in weather between the midwest and here, starting your spring softball league in Mid-March should do the trick. And if that wasn't enough, the last game of summer league was on my birthday (IN NOVEMBER!!!). I wasn't too fond of my experience last go around, however, we found out after the season was over that we were misplaced in the top bracket of the league because one of our qualifying games had been smoked out by a wildfire. This season, the city promised to put us in the lower bracket, so hopefully we won't get stomped and it'll be more fun for me :).

So, I think that covers a good chunk of the notable happenings going on. In any free time we come across, we've been enjoying spending time with our neighbors and trying to reconnect with some friends. We had what seems like TONS of birthday parties to attend, I've played bunco a few times, Adam's working on finishing building a workbench, and I have tried to keep up on the house. We play a lot of Rockband, try to keep up with some TV shows, but mostly find enough time once all that is scheduled in to come home and crash.

All that being said, I'll do my best to do better on keeping you up to date on our lives. If you're ever curious and this doesn't suffice, I'm always just a phone call away (which is much easier for me to keep up with since I can multi-task while I chat!) I'd love to catch up with you when you and I have coinciding free time :). Until then, peace out!

2010-07-27T15:39:00.000-07:00

Well, talk about time getting away from you! I can't believe the month is already over! Needless to say, I've kept myself pretty busy. I'm honestly wishing I had a huge cup of coffee right now, and the day isn't even close to being over! Luckily, I purchased a planner at the beginning of the month, so even though it's been crazy and I'm kind of wiped out, I don't have to remember what we did to be able to tell you :).

This month, I started a new direct sales business called Homemade Gourmet. It's basically a company that sells dinner mixes, drink mixes, desserts, etc. to make cooking super quick and super easy. I am far from a chef and I don't really like cooking, so this was right up my alley. I am so excited to be able to make awesome food for Adam to come home to instead of having to rely on him to make dinner from what we have lying around and do it before our stomachs eat themselves in hunger :-p. Things have been going pretty well, so far. I had a "cook-off" party to get my business somewhat off the ground running. It's been kind of a slow start, but it's definitely a relationship business, so I've been doing my best to build my contacts and referrals and get the ball rolling that way. My friend Elizabeth has been gracious enough to double book a party she was already having and include my business in it, as well...so my first official party will be August 7th at her place. Hopefully I'll get some bookings off of that start moving forward some more.

We've also been working hard on building relationships with our friends and neighbors. Up until this week (which is too busy to even attempt) we've been having friends over for dinner pretty regularly (which Homemade Gourmet also is awesome for....especially since, for one of the meals, all I had to do was throw it in the crock pot and have it ready when they got here). We've also, sadly, had to say goodbye to several of our good friends that have moved, this month. Camille and Will, Bethany and Paul (and Stevie), and Leanna and Nathan (and Makaela) have all hit the road. We'll miss all of them, but are sincerely hoping that our paths will cross very soon.

Adam and I have also joined a softball league with our church. We had our first game a couple weeks ago and our second one this Friday. While the 9 p.m. start time isn't really ideal for me, it is far too hot (100-120 degrees) to do it any earlier than that. Our first game was really successful, and it was really fun to see how well everyone did! I'm looking forward to our game on Friday...if the league would ever tell us what time it's going to be at.

Last week was quite the busy and random week for me...but very rewarding because of that. Monday, I got to have coffee with Sarah Tyndall, a girl from our church. We actually graduated with the exact same degree, so it was fun getting to sit down and talk to someone we both could relate to (there's too many engineers around here that don't get it ;)).

Tuesday, I ended up spending the whole day over at my friend Elizabeth's playing with her daughters to give her a break and some adult conversation :-p.

I spent the next morning with her, as well. We took her daughter to preschool, her other daughter and son to the doctor, and then spent the rest of the morning hanging out with my friend Jen and her two kids. When I got home, I set to getting the house ready for dinner with the Fodges before we had to say goodbye, and then they rushed off to rehearsal at church, and we rushed off to The Well for some heart to heart with Pastor Todd.

Thursday, I stayed home to let Ryan and Sandy's (who also moved...but only about 3 blocks away, so we permitted it. That and they're renter is the new vet, so we approved of that choice, as well :)) cleaning crew into their old place. While they worked, I had visits from Laura Gulley, Leanna to bring Makaela over while she ran errands, and Daniela our new neighbor from down the street. When Daniela left, I got a call from Kim asking for help getting a splinter out of her elbow. Then Adam and I scarfed some food down and headed to church for worship practice (Adam just dropped me off, not actually rehearsed. :)).

Friday, I spent the day doing stuff around the house and baking pecan pie muffins for Saturday. Kim and Jason had us over to play Rockband and have dinner that night, which was SUPER fun. We're looking forward to doing it again!

Saturday, I sat at Ryan and Sandy's garage sale with Ryan all morning. They were gracious enough to let me set up a Homemade Gourmet table (hence the pecan pie muffins for samples) and I think it was good exposure. I'm not sure if anything will come of it, but it never hurts to get your name out there...and i definitely handed out a bunch of cards.

That night, we headed down to North LA to have dinner with Adam's cousin Dan and his new wife Amanda. We went to the Eclectic Wine Bar and Grille thanks to the gift certificate we got for signing up as NPR subscribers last year. It was really expensive, but nice to splurge and great to spend time with family.

So that, in a nutshell, brings us up to this week. Yesterday was a pretty easy going day for me. I spent most of the morning being lazy and then caught a burst of motivation around 2 and worked on straightening up the house and cleaning some boxes out of the garage. And today, I practice for worship rehearsal with Heidi, spent a little time across the street at the Tiegens', worked on prepping my new Homemade Gourmet catalogs, ate some lunch, did some work for Create, and now this. In less than 30 minutes, I'll also be off to church again for the first day of Create (our art camp I mentioned several entries ago). It's going to be 3 nights of teaching kids about Jesus, God, and printmaking. I'm pretty excited about it, and while there won't be tons of kids, I think it'll be a lot of fun with the ones we have....and good practice for if we ever do it again with a larger group.

So, with Create the next three days, worship practice Wednesday, and our softball game Friday, I'm bracing myself to be pooped by the weekend. However, I'm very excited to say that we'll be spending the evening with none other than Candace Hatchett in Pasadena on Saturday...and that we'll also be heading to Redondo Beach to hit up Adam's friend Bob Wilson's homebrew party. I'm playing piano at church Sunday, so with all this excitement and not much sleep...this could be interesting :).

Well, we hope everyone has been having a great summer, and that you do your best to make the most of the rest of it. I have to say, I'm super excited about some of the things we'll be doing in August....but I'll leave you on the edge of your seat, for now :). Thanks for all your love and prayers. Things keep getting better in CA, and I'm super excited to see what happens in the months ahead! Happy rest of July!

2010-07-01T17:05:00.000-07:00

It's update time, again. Unlike the last couple weeks, this one has gone by pretty fast. Perhaps that's because I spent the last 3 days making curtains. Regardless, I can't believe tomorrow is Friday...and that Adam doesn't have to work for the next 4 days. Both are crazy notions to me, at the moment.

So, to pick up where we left off: Last week was a rough week for me as far as being emotional goes. It's safe to say that adjusting to a new place is definitely not something that happens over night (or is even complete after over a year). I was really disappointed that we didn't get to see the Woods' while they were in California, and that more or less snowballed into me feeling a lot of loneliness and homesickness for my friends and family back in the midwest. Saturday was no different. I was really antsy and, while we had planned to spend the day relaxing and doing nothing, we ended up filling it up the morning and afternoon with grocery shopping and softball shopping. Then we headed to Adam's friend Keith's new house to check out his new digs. We ended up staying up really late (mostly because I was being emotional :-p) and then hitting the hay.

Sunday was Camille's last day at The Well and Arianna Niebling's baptism. Both left most of the church in tears (I say most because I know at least one person (Adam) was not crying.) To add to the fun, we also went out to a surprise lunch for my friend Christy Starr's 30th birthday. We ended up going to the restaurant we swore we'd never eat at again after we had gone with Adam's aunt and uncle Julie and Jack, but it was for a good cause. We learned yet another important lesson, though...do not eat out (especially at this place) right before softball practice. It definitely didn't sit well. And to add to the discomfort, the 106 degree temperature taught me what it's like to be seconds away from passing out. Good times. Needless to say, the rest of the evening was spent drinking a lot of water and trying to recover.

So the last few days, like I said, I've spent the better part of making curtains to try and save on our cooling bill. Strangely, some of the fabric I used seems to have an unbearable odor to them now that I'm done. I've washed them 3 times, today, so we'll see if that did the trick. Otherwise, I'll be making at least three more pairs of curtains before I call it quits. I took a break from sewing, today (the sewing room gets quite hot during the day, so it was a welcome change) to paint. I'd say I finished the gray, but some touch ups still need to happen, so I'm reserving the celebration until I feel completely done.

In other news, we met a couple of new neighbors, last night, and got to know the next door neighbors a bit better, too. It was quite interesting. The couple that just moved in across and down the street seem pretty cool. He (Lee) works on base and his wife (Daniella) is from Germany and is going to go back to school in a month full-time to get a nursing degree. They just moved from a rental in California City. I somewhat volun-told Adam that he was going to help them get stuff inside, and though they didn't really need much help (Lee's dad came in to help) it was good to go say hello. On the way back, we stopped next door to say hello to Tim and Sirell who were sitting out on their patio. We figured it would be nice to talk to the neighbors we've "known" longer, too :-p. We learned that Sirell is pregnant with her 11th child and has served as a surrogate for the last 7 pregnancies. She has 3 children of their own, and then 6 surrogates with another on the way. I've never met a surrogate in real life, so it was really interesting to learn that we live next door to one. She said this is her last pregnancy, but she keeps in touch with all the families she's carried for. Crazy.

So, I guess I'll take care of what is somewhat of an elephant in the room for me, on this day. For people that don't know, four years ago today, my dad passed away very unexpectedly of a brain aneurism. While I think about my dad everyday, there's certain days and moments that are harder than others. Our family does their best to be strong...that's just the type of people we all are...and we try not to dwell on the day in a negative light, but there's so much of my dad still around during this time of year that's it's hard not to tear up and relive the moments of that day. So much has happened in the past four years, and yet, it's still really hard to believe it's been that long since we had to say goodbye. Thankfully, we have very understanding, loving, and supportive friends and family that surround us, hold us up, and give us strength. Thanks for all your love and prayers. You will never know how much it means to us that we are not alone. Thank you. That's all folks.

2010-06-25T12:55:00.000-07:00

Well, this has been another long week, but it has gone by much faster than last week (if that makes any sense). It just seems like Sunday was so long ago. Not too much to report from last Friday. Adam and I both had an anti-social night and stayed in to catch up on "Hell's Kitchen" (at least I think that's what we did.) I also got to talk to my uncle Chris, who I don't hear from often, and my mom for a while. It was a nice end to the day.

Saturday, we both slept in until about 9:30 when we were waken by a phone call from Adam's friend Bob Wilson. They (Bob, his roommate, and his roommate's girlfriend) were heading to Ridgecrest and wanted to know if we'd be up for lunch on their way through town. We always like when people come to visit, so we whole-heartedly took them up on the offer. We scrambled to clean up the house before our visitors arrived and then watched "Gilmore Girls" until the momentous occasion. (Yes, Adam does watch Gilmore Girls with me....and I'm pretty sure he enjoys it.) We were going to take the crew to Golden Cantina. It's one of our favorite places in Rosamond to bring visitors because it's right on the runway for the skypark, so we've yet to have a visit where we haven't seen a plane taking off or landing. It's a pretty cool atmosphere. Well, apparently Golden Cantina doesn't open until 4, so we headed over to Ramone's. We've heard good things about Ramone's, so we had high hopes. We were NOT impressed. Adam found a large piece of plastic wrap in his enchilada, and the prices were definitely not indicative of the quality of food. We finished off the experience with ice cream at Fosters Freeze. We had a great time and are looking forward to the next visit.

To finish off the day, we headed into Lancaster to buy some regulation softballs to help hone our softball playing skills. Afterwards, we headed over to Adam's friend Keith's new place. We got the official tour (we approved :-p) and then hung out and chatted with him and his parents for a while before heading home. We ended up renting "The Hangover" from the Red Box. I had very low expectations from all the thing I had heard, but it actually wasn't too bad. I thought the credits portion was a little unnecessary, but it wasn't a horrible movie (if that says anything).

Sunday morning, we woke up "early" to have some pancakes before church. We went to service and then did some quick grocery shopping, afterwards. We got together a last minute softball practice that afternoon...and we're a little nervous about how badly our team might do :-p. At least we'll have fun doing it...or something. I think we'll need a few more practices.

Monday, I spent the day mowing the lawn and painting. That's literally all I did, that day :-p. Tuesday, I worked most of the day on a brochure and registration form for "Create" (the art camp we're doing at church). My computer was not my friend, that day, so it unfortunately literally took me all day to get that worked out.

Wednesday was spent cleaning and prepping for our two nights of dinner guests. We had our friends Will and Camille Griffin over on Wednesday for grilled teriyaki chicken. Their packers came that day, so we thought we'd spare them another meal of restaurant food and have them over. They head out for Monterey on Sunday, so it was also nice to have one last hurrah before they go. We're looking forward to visiting them sometime, too. Last was day two of dinner guests. This time we had our "one last hurrah" with Paul and Bethany Wojotwicz and their one year old Stevie. It's always interesting having kids over, but Stevie took to his first attempt at climbing stairs on his own (with his dad's help and supervision). This time, we had stuffed shells, homemade french bread...and my disaster of a strawberry shortcake dessert. You see, after spending the morning doing some more painting, I literally spent all afternoon in the kitchen...and I think I may have tried to do too many things at once because I accidentally replaced the Baking Powder with Baking Soda. It was awful...and embarrassing, but I guess it's a mistake I won't be making again anytime soon. At least the shells and bread turned out good and made up for the disaster of a dessert.

I've kept myself pretty busy today, as well. After a small breakfast, I spent the morning painting, again. I've decided that small doses of this might be the best way to get this done without burnout. If I haven't already mentioned this to you, our walls have AWFUL texture. It's fine once it's painted and everything, but it is so deep that the most effective way I've found to paint it is with a brush...which obviously takes longer. When I tried the roller, it didn't get into all the divots, etc. and I had to use the brush for touch-ups, anyway. Even with the brush, there's still a few spots that I have to go back and touch up, but far less than with the roller. The painting is coming along, though. And while it's going to be a long ongoing process, I think it's going to be nice when it's all done. I stopped painting at noon and took to making a few phone calls, typing this, doing some laundry, and working on dishes from the last couple nights. This evening, we're joining Matt and Dania Rottman at church to clean. Hopefully that won't take too long and we'll have the evening to relax. And with that, I'm off to be productive to help reach that relaxation goal. TTFN.

2010-06-17T16:25:00.000-07:00

I think it's fair to say that this week has been a long one, for me. I don't know if it's because I crammed a lot into a few days and don't have much to do today or tomorrow or what. Regardless, today I have been very lazy and not very motivated. I'm happy to say, though, that as long as the week has been...and as much time as I've wasted today, I think the rest of the week makes up for it.

Last Saturday, we woke up "early" (Adam was actually up long before I was...which doesn't happen often) and took Lacy for her first hike in the mountains with her new shoes. She did fine, except for losing one every once in a while. We're still fine tuning the strap adjustment. She also did a great job filling them with sand and little prickers from all the weeds she ventured through. Hopefully they won't be too hard to clean out before the next time. After our hike, we did a little quick shopping in Lancaster before we had our friends, Luke and Katie Goossen, over for dinner. It's always nice to have dinner guests....especially ones that don't mind that we are a far cry from sophisticated or winning any awards for hospitality (I'm working on that :)). We grilled out, talked, ate the amazing dessert Katie made, and generally had a good time. We enjoy the kind of company that surprises you when you realize how late it's gotten!

Sunday, we spent a good portion of the day in Palmdale. We got to witness Elizabeth and Kevin Daughery's son Micah's baptism at church (and will get to see Todd and Sarah's daughter Ari's this Sunday). After all that, we headed to the mall, initially to get our tires rotated and to get an alignment, which turned into getting all 4 tires replaced and balanced and an alignment. It was an expensive (and long) trip to Sears, but hopefully the tires will last longer, this time. In the meantime, I got my quarterly hair cut and a curling iron in an attempt to someday be able to duplicate what the stylist did (yeah right.) Once we got home, Adam and I headed out to the ball field to try and hone our skills before our league starts up. Yes, you heard that right, Adam and I joined a softball league with our church. We'll be in the co-ed league to, as Todd says, be a light instead of preaching to the choir in the church league. It makes me a little nervous to be in a more competitive league, but Todd seems pretty comfortable with us being a light that's not good at softball :-p.

Monday, I dedicated the day to relationship building. My new friend Marci (also from Illinois...Collinsville, actually) was gracious enough to drive me to my doctor's appointment in Palmdale. To make the trip a little more worthwhile for both of us, we left a little early to have lunch at Quiznos. After finding ourselves at a Quiznos "coming soon" and one that no longer existed, we turned in the towel and headed to Wendy's, instead. It was no Quiznos lunch, but it was really good to spend time with Marci and her new daughter Aly, regardless. Marci ended up dropping me off at Heidi's house, since we were overdue for a hangout session. Heidi was working on "a cake for a friend's anniversary." As was later prematurely revealed to me by her son Jack, it was a belated gift for Adam and I. It was delicious and we were touched that she thought of us.

Last Friday, I got an email from Todd telling me that him and his wife Sarah had been discussing the possibility of putting on an art camp, this summer, and asking me if I'd like to be involved with helping make that happen. Of course, I jumped at the opportunity, and because of my lack of self-transportation during the day, Tuesday was filled with tidying up the house in preparation for the brainstorming and planning meeting that ended up being at our dining room table. I'm really excited to see how this all plays out. The plan is to do a three day "camp" in the evenings to teach kids about printmaking while tying it into a theme that teaches them a little about God, as well. We'll be teaching them several different methods of printmaking, and Todd will be doing a short devotional each night. At the end of the 3 days, we'll have a public reception at The Well to see some of the best of what each child has done. It's exciting to me to be able to use my degree to do something productive :). I also quickly set to work, Wednesday afternoon, on the promo video that we'll play at church and possibly distribute to other places interested in viewing it. Here is the finished product, for your viewing pleasure. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out:

Create: An Art Experience For Kids from Todd Niebling on Vimeo.

Last night, Adam and I picked up Heidi and headed to church for a music ministry meeting. Our current worship leader is leaving in a few weeks since her husband is getting re-stationed in Montarey (We'll miss you, Will and Camille!). While I'm sad to see them go, I am excited for the added opportunities to play more piano at church. I'll also have a couple of weeks in the next couple months that I'll be singing, as well. It'll be pretty busy for all us musicians while we're sans a leader, but I'm looking forward to the added effort to pull together and make things happen.

So that brings me back to today. It's been probably a good hour or so since I started this, but in the meantime, I've been a bit more productive than I was when I started out. Not only have I accomplished yet another journal entry, but I have managed to chat with Dan Davis, Amanda Moloney, Christy Starr, and Karimah Salaam. Adam should be calling, soon, as well, to report his departure from work. Maybe I'll take this opportunity, then, to actually get dressed and brush my hair :-p. Later!

The Whirlwind Continues

2010-06-10T13:06:00.000-07:00

Things haven't gotten any less crazy since the last time I wrote in here. I filled any "free" time that I've had with so many things that this journal was pretty much not on my mind. However, in the past few days, now that things have "calmed down" (I've learned that this phrase is pretty much relative) I've been thinking about those of you that I know read this faithfully and decided it was time to try and reinstate posts into my routine. (Try being the operative word there.)

As anyone who reads this probably already knows, we now live in our very own awesome house in Rosamond, CA. While the desert wasn't my dream place to be...it is really nice to have something that is our own that we can do whatever we want with. Noah's brother Adam, along with several of our friends here, helped us move from the rental house to the new one in a matter of days. It has helped tremendously in feeling settled here to know that, unlike the last 10 years or so of my life, we won't be moving for a very long time. In case you missed it on Facebook, here's the video of our house (pre-painting and decoration).

Strangely enough, it has also helped me strengthen my friendship base by moving to the neighborhood that all my friends, both old and new, seem to live in. I found it kind of amusing that moving a mere mile closer to said people changed things, but it's nice to have more people within walking distance. It's also nice to have more people around now that Adam's work hours are picking up. I definitely appreciate the company, and Adam appreciates that the majority of my non-working friends are also new moms, so I can get my baby fix.

And between all this moving, decorating, painting, and building relationships craziness, we've also somehow crammed in quite a bit of traveling. In the past couple months, Adam's been gone to Texas and Seattle for work. While the being away from each other part isn't always that thrilling for either of us, Adam saw some awesome sights (waterfalls, cool bridges, rodeos, etc) that made his trips more worthwhile. I also had the rare opportunity to travel a couple times in such a short amount of time, myself. At the end of April, I traveled to Los Vegas to meet up with my grandparents for my Great Uncle Ross' memorial service. While the circumstances were obviously not the best, it was really nice to spend a few days with them and to explore Las Vegas. I also had the opportunity to meet a sect of the family that I didn't know before and learn a little more about my dad and my family. (Side note: Does anyone else find it strange that my dad's cousin Jan met a rocket scientist getting his degree at U of I and proceeded to get married in Champaign by a CCF minister?)

A couple weeks after getting back from Las Vegas, I traveled again, this time to Illinois for my little brothers U of I graduation. I had originally padded the trip with a few days on either side to spend in Bloomington and Champaign visiting my friends, but my mom had to have some pretty intensive shoulder surgery, so I rerouted my trip and stayed with her to help as much as I could and drive her around. Though my stay was short (especially in Champaign), I managed to cram in visits with many people (including Chris, Kelli, Andy, Maggie, and Ben Johnson, Jo, Ethan, and Emily Ramirez, Keith Brooks, Ben, Crystal, Ezra, and Calla Woods, Molly Sandgren, my father-in-law, Dan and Nola Compton (who graciously let my mom and I stay with them), Sam and Jessica Davis, Will and Mary Kuester, Cheyenne Green, Shannon Carter, and several of my brother's and mom's friends that I hadn't seen in a while.) It was definitely a crazy trip, but it was good and refreshing to see familiar faces. I'm very proud of my little brother and was really grateful to be able to be there with him, my family, and my grandparents to watch him graduate and celebrate with him and his friends.

About a week after I got back from IL, Adam's parents and sister came to visit us. Needless to say, those several days in between were spent frantically getting the house in presentable shape since we had both been really busy leading up to that. We had a great time visiting with them and got to do a lot of cool stuff. I really enjoy company 'cause I get to spend the week doing fun stuff and not feeling guilty about it :). Adam was at work all week (other than the Monday they were here, since it was Memorial Day) so I was charged with the entertainment. In the week they were here, we managed to introduce the fam to The Well, dine at Gordon Ramsey at the London Hotel in Hollywood (definitely intimidating eating at a fine dining restaurant, but a great experience to share), cook out at the Lucas' for Memorial Day, hike in the mountains several times, explore the local Walmart and JC Penney, buy and install two ceiling fans, eat at Fosters Freeze, pick Lauren (Adam's cousin) up from the airport, dine at Bubba Gump Shrimp, travel Highway 1 along the Pacific Ocean, drive through the mountains, eat at Rubio's for our church's fundraiser, go to the Cat House Exotic Cat Conservatory, have drinks at Golden Cantina, and travel to Avalon on Catalina Island for the day to celebrate Adam's cousin Danny's wedding. They left this past Sunday, and while we were sad to see them go, I think it's safe to say that we were all pretty wiped out.

Adam and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary this Sunday. We had an awesome day together. We spent the morning at The Well with our church family. After some quick grocery shopping for our anniversary dinner, we went home, made some lunch, and watched "The Blindside." Since that took up most of the afternoon, Adam set to work making dinner soon after that. We had my favorite, linguini with white wine clam sauce. It was delicious...and accompanied but watching our wedding video for the first time together. We loved being able to experience that again, and being reminded of our vows and the touching things people said to and about us. I couldn't think of anything I would've rather done together.

Since then, most of our free time has been spent cleaning up the mess we accumulated over the week and catching up on laundry and dishes. I'm still a little wiped out, to be honest. While the family was here, they woke up a good hour or two before I'm used to most days (because of the time change). My body just now started sleeping in and not waking up consistently earlier than I wanted to. I guess it's given me a couple more hours to get things done, but it also makes me a couple hours more tired when Adam gets home. I'll do my best to catch up on that in the next week :-p.
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Well, that, in a nutshell, is what you missed. I'll do my best to try and write more often...at least about the "important" things. Like always, we miss you all a lot. We think of you often and would love to see and hear from you anytime you have the chance. Take care and God Bless!

2010-02-02T22:01:00.000-08:00

Things have been a little crazy here in California. 2010 has been sort of a whirlwind for us, so far. Now that things have gotten a little more concrete in potential outcomes, it's time to fill you in on the excitement we call our lives.

My mom just left from her 11 day visit on Saturday. It was really nice to have her here to keep me company while Adam was gone...especially considering the excitement that I'll talk about later. We tried not to cram too much into the visit so we wouldn't be overwhelmed....but the massive amounts of rain for the desert aided in that. We were even actually flooded into our subdivision for one of the days she was here. After that, we were able to get in and out, but only if you drove on the wrong side of the road...and sometimes not on the road at all. I think we had a really full trip, though, considering. We did make it to The Getty Center in L.A., the musical road, Fosters Freeze, Tehachapi, Mojave, a couple different animal shelters, the opening for the art show I'm in, had a girl's night at my house with people from church, went bowling, showed my mom around Edwards, CA, hung out with Heidi and the boys on several occasions, got to take my mom to my church, watched several movies and a bunch of home improvement shows, and just generally had a good time together. I miss having her here, but am looking forward to her next visit...and her getting to see our new place with our personal touches in it.

So...the excitement I was talking about: The weekend before Adam left, we decided to look at some houses. The only reason we decided to fast forward this venture is that there was a house down the street that got foreclosed on that we wanted to look at to see if it was an opportunity we wouldn't want to pass on. Conveniently, a friend of ours had just been hired by Keller Williams, gotten her real estate license and was eager to get some use out of it. She arranged for us to see the house we were initially excited about, as well as three others. So the day before Adam left, we went and saw all four houses. We quickly learned what your money can buy you, and were VERY unimpressed with three of the four houses we saw. The fourth we were really quite surprised by how nice it was considering it being a foreclosure, and the size of it for the price. We decided that we couldn't pass it up, and waiting for Adam to get home would be risking losing our shot at it. Therefore, a few hours later, we put an offer on the house.

In record real-estate time, (four days later, to be exact) our offer was accepted and we moved forward with all the hoopla and paperwork. My mom happened to get here the day before, so she had the opportunity to come with us to see the house on the day Lisa (our realtor friend) came for more paperwork action. We got our deposit turned in and our loan approved and strapped on our seat belts for the road ahead. We feel very lucky that things have gone so quickly for us, especially after hearing our other friends utter shock when they compare to their experiences (putting in 12 offers before getting one accepted, putting offers in last July and just now closing, etc.). Our inspection was this afternoon and we passed with flying colors. There were a few things that need to happen as soon as we move in, but fairly minor things like replacing a side door and putting in an overflow pan for the washing machine before we install it. Other than that, the inspector was impressed with the condition, as well, and said we were getting a great deal....especially considering what the other houses in the market are like these days. He said it was a real breath of fresh air. There are plenty of minor improvement we can make over the years, but nothing pressing or too expensive, which is great.

So our closing date is March 8th. There's a good chance we will close before that and slim to no chance at all it will be later. Adam and I have already starting talking paint colors and looking at appliances...and though I'm a little more vocal and outwardly excited about it, I think he's pretty pumped about having our own place, too.

I apologize to anyone that may have been offended about us not talking to you personally about all this stuff. I'm sure we'll eventually make our rounds via chats, phone calls, emails, etc....but this all happened so fast that we hardly have a grasp on it yet ourselves. We were trying not to be TOO public about it all until after our inspection to make sure we weren't hyping it up too much and ending up disappointed. It seems like all systems are go, at this point, though...and we should be in our house in less than 30 days. We're hoping that a lot of you will get to come visit, eventually....and we are looking forward to not moving again for a very long time!

Here's a link to some photos of the house to tide you over until we can get some better ones: The Kuester House: A Sneak Peak

A quick update...

2010-01-15T17:57:00.000-08:00

I did have some artwork chosen for the Juried Art Show...however, I'm not sure what. I entered two pieces (a painting and a photo) and they assigned each entry a number. My numbers were 131 and 132...though I didn't have the forethought to write down which one corresponded to which piece. Therefore, all I know at the moment is that 131 is in the show. I guess we'll have to wait until tomorrow to know for sure if it was the painting or the photo...but my guess is the photo.

2010-01-11T17:05:00.000-08:00

My apologies to any faithful readers that we've let down by slacking off on the updates on here. Maybe now that things are starting to slow down for us (kind of) I'll be able to do more regular updates, though I have to admit that they probably won't be as frequent as in the past. Our holiday season was really nice. We spent Christmas plus a few extra days in Byron with my mom and brothers. It was really nice to see and spend time with them after not seeing them in a few months (and my mom in 6). We, sadly, didn't get to see Adam's family as planned due to snow, but we're hoping to see his parents here in California sometime in February. Fortunately, we beat all the craziness of increased security at airports, though Adam and my mom will have to deal with it next week.

New Year's was nice, as well. We planned a party at Heidi's with us and several people from church and other places...although it ended up only being us, Heidi, and the boys. We watched the ball drop live via internet and convinced the boys it was bedtime after that. We indulged in more food than we should've and had some wine while we watched movies until 3 (Adam didn't make it that long, but considering our selections, I'm not sure he minded). Adam and I stayed the night, had breakfast at their place, and enjoyed our New Year's buying clearance Christmas goods and just chilling together.

Since then, Adam's gotten back into the swing of things at work and I've had some time to work on our wedding albums. We've decided to set a trip to Red Lobster as a motivator to finish, and I think we just might be able to make that trip in the next week. I also finished and entered a painting into the Lancaster Art Gallery's annual juried exhibition. I'll find out if either that or the photo I also submitted were selected this Friday.

Also in the next week, Adam will again be trekking to Texas for work...this time for two weeks. Thankfully, though, my mom will be arriving the day before he leaves and leaving only a few days before he gets back. I'm really looking forward to my mom's visit. It kind of stinks that there will be a lot more time between our visits in the future than between this one and Christmas, but I guess that will make them that more meaningful. I hope I don't overwhelm her with all the things I want her to see! :).

Well, Adam just got home, so even though this is a short one, I'm going to wrap it up for now. I'll try and do another update this week, but for now...thanks for your patience and not giving up on our journal yet :). Happy New Year!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

2009-12-24T17:42:00.000-08:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

2009-12-07T19:54:00.000-08:00

Adam is, once again, in Fort Worth traveling for work...and I'm left to my own devices. It's kind of ironic that I have full access to the car and didn't feel like leaving the house. That could have a lot to do with the fact that there are wind gusts of 70 mph and it has been raining all day (for the first time since we've been here). Tomorrow will be a much busier day, though...and with Lacy getting her teeth cleaned, I'll be forced to leave the house. Let's hope for better weather.

We had a very full, busy weekend...but it was one of the better ones we've had here (in my opinion, anyway). Friday evening we relaxed and watched Thursday night TV shows and went to bed somewhat early. If I remember correctly, that was the night after I didn't sleep well on the previous one, and Adam and I were both exhausted.

Saturday we devoted to celebrating Colton's 5th birthday. We spent a little time together relaxing and Wii playing in the morning and then kicked off festivities with lunch at Fosters Freeze, cake, and present opening. Colton and I spent the afternoon making paper snowflakes while Jack napped and Adam devoted himself to designing paper airplanes. That evening, we bundled up and went to Rosamond's Christmas parade, tree-lighting, and live nativity at Fosters. It's funny to me that most of the community events seem to revolve around Fosters, but I guess the owners are life long Rosamond residents and took it in their hands to keep traditions alive. We scarfed down some pizza after the parade, had hot chocolate, and realized the day slipped away from us and it was time to head home. It really was one of the better birthday celebrations I've been to, though...and miraculously, both boys were very upbeat and well behaved for it all.

Sunday was church and Gather 45 (our sunday school before church). Afterwards, we headed to Edwards and bought ourselves a Christmas tree. I wasn't really anticipated having anything as big or pretty as we got...especially for the 25 dollars we paid for it, but I'm really glad to have it. It adds a lot of warmth and beauty to our house. I like just sitting in here and looking at it. It is really pretty. I spent most of the afternoon and some of this morning cutting out snowflakes, but it was worth it.

And when my hands couldn't take anymore for the night (last night) Adam and I settled down to watch "The Polar Express." He slept through a lot of it, but I cut him SOME slack since he was leaving in the morning for Texas (but not much. He probably won't even admit I cut him any).

So, here we are. Adam's not home until late Wednesday night. Tomorrow, I'm taking Lacy to get her teeth cleaned (dogs are EXPENSIVE!), buying Adam's Christmas present, and seeing where the rest of the day takes me. Wednesday will be devoted to doing a bit of cleaning, probably, and making some spinach artichoke dip for our Mid-Week Advent potluck and worship gather at church. That seems like far away and I hope time flies. He'll be gone for two weeks at the end of January. I really hate when Adam's gone. I'm grateful that he loves his job and for the awesome opportunities he gets through it, though...so I'm just learning to suck it up...especially since Heidi's husband is gone for MONTHS at a time and she's surviving.

And that's life in Rosamond. I'm hoping we don't blow away and that the lights stay on...but for now, I'm gonna go cover up and stay warm.

2009-12-03T21:35:00.000-08:00

It is very hard to believe that it is already December. Part of the reason it's difficult it is a lot different to be so close to Christmas and still have temperatures in the 70's. Don't get me wrong, I like not freezing during the day, but the temperatures still get down to the 30's at night. It is crazy to me that there can be such a difference in such short amounts of time. And while I'm not the biggest fan of snow, I admit that something other than constant sunshine might make it seem a little more festive :-p. This is why I hung garland from our stairs and keep getting on Adam about buying a tree. We may just get a real one this year and try our luck at discounted artificial trees after Christmas. It is true that we won't even be here for Christmas...we'll be heading to Illinois on the 23rd...but having a tree would just add so much to to stark white cold house we live in...and give me somewhere to put the presents once they're wrapped.

In other Holiday news, we had a good first California Thanksgiving. We spent most of the day after we finished our homemade croissants (a two day process, I might add) at Heidi's with her family. Heidi's mom and dad, sister and brother-in-law, two nieces, grandma, aunt, and aunt's grandson all came in from out of town for the festivities. It was really nice to meet all of her family and to spend the holiday somewhere where, although we weren't related by blood, we felt at home, too. There was TONS of delicious food, plenty of mischief, and good times had by all.

We also celebrated Colton's birthday at his "friend" party last Tuesday. When I say we, I mean all of Colton's family and his friends from school, his neighborhood, and church. Adam was actually at work, that day...but we'll be having Colton's "family" party this weekend. It was a lot of fun, though. We went bowling and then had cake at the nearest park. A friend of our's from church and I decided we needed to bowl since we were at a bowling alley and ended up started our game during the 4th frame of the game the kids were bowling. In the end, we finished 3 games (one of which I bowled a 150...and no, we didn't have bumpers...and yes, it was REAL bowling and not on the Wii :)) in the time it took them to finish their last 6 frames of the only game they played. I guess you should never underestimate how slowly a ball can roll down a lane and how many times young children can manage to get a ball stick halfway down it.

Since then, we got all our Christmas shopping done (thank you internet) which is awesome. The silly part is that, although we only had ONE order from Target.com, it will be arriving in SEVEN different packages. Oh well, I guess we got our shipping charges worth :-p. I've also started an oil painting, though I'm waiting on the smaller brushes to get here to finish it. Detail work is hard with big brushes on small canvases. I've gotten a lot of cleaning done (I finished ALL the laundry, cleaned a bunch of bathrooms, have tried to keep the kitchen clean, etc.), but our vacuum finally stopped working. We did, however, get a new one from Macy's for not much money out of pocket thanks to a giftcard we got from them from our Registry. It's on it's way and will hopefully be a lot more reliable than this last one. I also broke the Wii Fit back out. I jumped right into things when I accidentally selected the 10 minute hula hoop game. We'll see how the abs feel about that tomorrow.

Advent has been good to us, so far. My mom sent us chocolate advent calendars, which made my day since we passed up on purchasing them ourselves only days beforehand. Our church also has mid-week gatherings during advent where we have a potluck dinner and then a short worship service every Wednesday. We had our first one last night. It was really nice to see the people we generally see only on Sundays again during the week...and it was great to have so much yummy food. It definitely won't help me in my effort not to eat so much, but that's the price of fellowship, right :-p?

Anyway, I'm gonna wrap this up for now. I was killing time doing this while Adam was trying to get AT&T to fix the server problem that they claim is responsible for our unreliable, often interrupted internet signal. I hope you've all enjoyed your Advent, so far. Happy December.

2009-11-21T21:02:00.000-08:00

We have definitely kept ourselves busy in the past week. Heidi was still on driving restriction, so I got my fill of driving and another glimpse into motherhood helping them get around to all their various destinations, this week. This is why, after Colton's soccer game last Saturday, we took the rest of the day to be as conventionally unproductive as we could...especially since Sunday was also quite eventful, what with church, chili-making, and our church's Golden Ladle Chili Cook-off. It was great to get to hang out with some of the people from The Well (our church.) A lot of them live in Lancaster or Palmdale, so it's not as easy to get together with them...and the spirit of competition made for some good entertainment, as well...both with the chili recipes and tasting AND the coincidentally unscored game of Taboo.

Through out the rest of the week, I spent a lot of time with Heidi and the boys doing various things: taking Colton to and from preschool, getting the boys their H1N1 flu mists, going to the Commissary, desert at Foster's Freeze, story time at the library, going to the grocery store, taking molly to the groomers, and going to Thanksgiving dinner on base for families of deployed military. In between all that frenzy, I somehow found time to make a dent in our two week (or so) overdue laundry, Adam and I made it to the dentist for fillings and gum cleaning, we caught up on our TV shows, played some Wii Resort, and found time to go to bed pretty early on a couple of those days.

Heidi's family is now in town for the next week...so she won't need me to play taxi-driver. While I will have a lot more time on my hands, I don't really think I'll have too much trouble filling it. For one, I decided that...in order to make the house homier and easier for me to spend my days in it, I'm going to try to add some color by trying to churn out some paintings to brighten the walls. We were going to go to Michael's tomorrow, in fact, to check out the canvas selection. I also thought about removable decals...but those are pretty expensive, so I am going to look into colored contact paper that I could cut into my own designs and see if that might be comparable. There's also the violin that needs to be learned, the guitar that also needs some work, and the piano that hasn't been played much. We have a book that we've been reading from and discussing at our Sunday school at church that we haven't dug into other than the 45 minutes of Sunday school each week. Adam bought me a book for my birthday...and there's plenty of other books here that I haven't read, either. Lacy undoubtedly would love more of my attention (and George, too, for that matter) after the lack of it in the past few weeks. The wedding album is inching closer to completion, as well...all the photos are uploaded, so now it's down to editing, ordering, and mounting them. And somehow, there's there's still a few more loads of laundry to be done...and will probably be a few more by the time I'm done with those. The house could use a little t.l.c., too, after being somewhat neglected for longer than it should have. Now all I need is eternal motivation to accomplish all that.

Today, however, we tried to escape our to-do lists and the overwhelming nature of such and heading out into nature. Adam actually made an appearance at Colton's last soccer game of the season, first...then we had lunch and drove to Devil's Punchbowl County Park in Pearblossom, California. It's actually less than an hour away and amazingly quiet, peaceful, and great hiking. We brought Lacy with us and spent the afternoon enjoying our surroundings. Here is a link to the pictures from our trip:

The Kuesters Go to Devil's Punchbowl

We are definitely looking forward to going back in the future. Lacy loved it and it's always nice to have somewhere were we can enjoy taking her with us. We are all pretty exhausted, but hopefully we'll be better prepared next time and can make it a bit of a longer trip. It was definitely a nice note to end our week on (especially since tomorrow's excitement includes taking the car to Sears to get some tires replaced :)). For now, it's time to further wrap up the week with a good night's sleep.

2009-11-13T14:44:00.000-08:00

Well, here we are...November 13th. I'm no longer only a quarter of a century old. An abnormally large amount of things have happened in year 25, and I'm still unsure of where all of it is taking me. It's been a good day, so far. In the past, a birthday by myself without many plans or family and only a handful of friends around would be somewhat depressing to me. However, the peacefulness and quiet of today has been a gift in itself. As you know, the last week has been rather hectic for both of us. Our good friend Heidi had a hysterectomy on Monday. Her husband is deployed in Iraq, making Adam and I instant parents of a couple very active two and four year olds for the better part of this week. I knew from the get go that this experience would be challenging, and it wasn't actually as hard as I thought it could be, but it was definitely an exhausting adventure.

I do not enjoy Mario Brothers. Pardon the randomness, but I'm not sorry for any disgust you may have for this confession. I played it once, this week, because I was asked to...but I did not enjoy it, nor did I engage in it again. My reasoning is this...I do not like to engage in activities that I am not good at. It's draining to me in a whole different sense of the word and leaves me frustrated and feeling bad about myself. There are video games that I can succeed at, even if they are somewhat challenging to me, but once they become frustrating to me, I do my best to set them aside and be done with them until I'm ready to go at them with a sense of fun and not defeat. I tend to be a person who puts my whole self into what I'm doing...which is part of why I don't like to do things I'm not good at. If I put my whole self into something that frustrates me, I leave not only drained, but defeated and feeling like I have lost more than I have gained.

I'm not sure where I'm going with all this, except to say that I think I learned a lot, this week. While our time with the boys was frustrating at points...I think it's fair to say that we're both good at it. Unlike playing Mario brothers, even when I felt drained and defeated, I felt like I just needed to step aside for a bit...even if all that I could afford was a few minutes while they were momentarily distracted by a video or their imagination. Most of the time, I had given so much of myself that, once Adam got home, I needed to not be a parent, anymore, and just absorb myself in my own little world for a while.

Our week was anything but boring. I woke the boys up "early" on Monday to get Colton ready for school. After explaining to Jack that his mom was at the hospital and had not run away, breakfast was made...books were read...clothes were changed...and we successfully got Colton off to school. Even though Jack is only 2, he is far more easily entertained than his brother. He spent a better part of the time his brother was at school watching Kidsongs and "helping" me clean up the house...though it took us a considerable amount of that time to walk back to their house and return to school (Jack's sense of urgency leaves him on foot). We spent the afternoon and the rest of the evening adjusting to our new lives together, playing with Lacy, having dinner, and ultimately getting all of ourselves to bed.

Tuesday, Jack felt a little more comfortable in his two-year-old skin and pulled out the "Why?" card. After spending part of the morning back at their house with their dog, we decided to head back to our dog and take a LONG walk. As educational as it can prove to be, answering "Why?" questions for hours can wear on a grown person...but somehow, sunshine and exercise not only diminishes the quantity of questions, but the sanity of the answerer. However, I had somehow forgotten about the lack of speed the pedestrian Jack possessed, so I was as ready to be done with our walk, in the end, as I was to begin it. After a nap, a game of chess with Colton, and some quiet time for both of us while Jack slept, Adam and I embraced parenthood and took the kids to Tom's where kids eat free on Tuesdays. Pretty worn out from the day after all that, we headed home again and crashed for the night.

Wednesday; our last day of our temporary parenthood. With our "Welcome Home Mommy" banner already proudly displayed and Colton off to school, Adam, Jack, and I hung out with Molly until it was time to pick Colton up. Having Adam by my sidea made the day SO much easier and made me all the more grateful to have him as a partner. The day dragged quite a bit, though, with the knowledge that Heidi was coming home, and all of us pretty ready to have some sort of normalcy restored to our lives. The hours got harder to bear as the day wore on and there was no sign of when Heidi would be coming home. As we waited for the telling phone call, everyone became increasingly worried that she wouldn't make it back within the day. Sometime around 6:00, we finally got the call that Heidi was ready to come home and a sense of relief filled the anxiety the boys had when they overheard me tell someone I wasn't sure they'd let Heidi come home tonight. After over an hour of waiting for Heidi's medicine and Adam's adventure changing diapers and giving two little boys a shower, we were all finally reuinted....and horribly exhausted.

I stayed the night at Heidi's and through all of yesterday to make sure that Heidi didn't need my help to get the essentials done, but also didn't overdo things too much. We didn't anticipate how mentally exhausting and hard this experience would be on the boys, but yesterday was more trying, I thought, than any of the other three days without Heidi home. Thankfully, she was on major pain killers that kept her pretty mellow through the intense emotional outbreaks and massive hunger the boys had for her attention. I'm not sure I was much help, myself, as I found it hard to pry myself from the comfort of the couch for the majority of the day other than to drive us all to story time at the library. I didn't want to desert Heidi, though, if she needed me...and even when she admitted that she'd probably be fine on her own, I didn't have the heart or energy to make myself go home. By the end of the day, though...I was more than ready and grateful to know that today would be more peaceful and eventful than the last four...and my bed felt more comfortable than it ever had in the past.

None of this is to say that I, in any way, regret the past week. Heidi has been one of the biggest blessings to me since we've been in California, and I would do anything for her that she needed me to. I've struggled a lot with purpose since arriving here and have accepted that providing for Heidi and her boys is a big part of my purpose here. I know she would do the same for me if I was in her position, and we were glad to do what we could to help. I don't think I would feel right if we hadn't done all that we did. That being said, I think the biggest gift they have given me TODAY is understanding that I do love them all a lot...and I definitely would do anything and drop everything to help them...but as selfish as it sounds, I needed today for myself.

I haven't done much of anything productive, today. In fact, when I went to the store to pick up last minute supplies for my birthday cake...I went in my pajamas...'cause it's my birthday and I could. Up until this entry, I spent the rest of the day laying on the couch watching TV shows I missed this week, smiling at post-its Adam left for me and eating the lunch he made, and being grateful for all the birthday wishes that have been thrown my way. Like I said, in the past, such an uneventful day alone would've been more of a downer for me...but today, I appreciate every moment for what it is and am grateful for all I have. Tonight, I'll have dinner with Adam, Heidi, and the boys, open presents, and be grateful to have people that love me around...but for now...I'm grateful to know I'm loved enough to have the day to myself without feeling like I have to do anything.

It's been a good week. I'm glad Heidi is home and that she's recovering well. I'm glad that things will go back to normal. And I'm glad for this experience to make us all appreciate more, especially on the days when normal can seem less than ideal, all that normal is. If nothing else, this week has taught me that, whether we realize it or not...everything happens to teach us something. In this case, that would be to embrace what I have, respect what I don't, and know that everything happens in time for a reason...and we should embrace each moment of that in the meantime.

2009-11-11T23:33:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update to say that Heidi is home from the hospital and doing well. The boys were THRILLED to see her and have her back home. Everyone is exhausted, but we had a good time with the boys. We'll still be helping out a bit while Heidi recovers, and she can't drive for a couple weeks, so we'll be helping her and the boys get around a bit, too, so that will keep me busy. I'll try to give a bit more of an update about our brief parental experience later on, but for now...I'm gonna shower while I still have some time and energy to do it. Peace.

2009-11-08T17:33:00.000-08:00

It's going to be a pretty busy week for us, so I thought I'd update while I have the chance. It's stayed pretty warm here as far as highs go, but it doesn't stay warm for that long. It takes a good part of the day to reach the high, and then it only stays that warm for a half hour or so. The house stays really cool inside, though, and I've found myself opening most of the windows not only to get fresh air and sanity, but to stay warm. I'm sure that won't be the case soon.

I'm hoping we've resolved the cat issues. We made an emergency trip to Petsmart Thursday to try and remedy, once and for all, the cat peeing fiasco. Adam's convinced that George was peeing on things out of spite. He's really only ever peed two places here (once in our clothes basket and several times RIGHT outside of his litter box). We decided to take the shower door off the shower in downstair bathroom and put the litter box in there. So far, it's worked out fine. We've also beein feeding him more. We both had agreed that he ate too much in the past, so we had taken to feeding him less and less often. Maybe we'll just let him be fat and happy if that's what's going to keep him from peeing....we'll see how the theory pans out.

Earlier in the day, Thursday, I set forth to bake chocolate chip cookies...moreso (as always) because I was craving chocolate chip cookie dough than anything. Luckily, I realized before adding any of the wet ingredients that we were out of sugar...a fairly important element of cookies. Luckily for me, our friend Elizabeth mentioned she was going to the store and was gracious enough to pick me up some sugar. I used the recipe off the bag of Hershey's chips and am quite pleased with the results. As a result of that, I have consume many more chocolate chip cookies in the last several days than I probably should have. Adam brought a bunch to work Friday, though, and put the rest in the freezer (as though that's actually a deterrent for me :-p).

Friday morning, I had the boys for a while so Heidi could go to her pre-op appointment. At first, Jack was abusing the 2-year-old "Whhyyyyy???" card and driving me nuts, but eventually, lunch and a walk through the desert took care of that. They boys surprisingly liked walking through the desert. We saw cactuses (which ironically were definitely there as a part of landscaping and not actually native) and various pieces of interesting garbage. Jack found a couple pine cones (which he left here)...and thanks to the less than swift pace of return, we came back to find Heidi enjoying her new book on our driveway. Once the boys had left, I set forth cleaning and preparing the sunday school lesson. By the time I was done with those things, Adam was on his way home from work. Adam made some delicious turkey burgers with sun-dried tomato basil cream cheese and then we headed to Fosters for dessert with Heidi and the boys.

After we returned from Fosters, we got an interesting visitor. After proclaiming how cold it was outside (it wasn't) and asking us not to kidnap her, she asked to come in so she could sit down at our table (she ended up standing by the door). She told us several different inconsistent stories (She was having a contest...boys against girls...and needed our help earning points; she was doing a career related activity and wanted to know what cool jobs we had; she was trying to win a trip to Bermuda; etc.) but finally admitted to selling magazines. It seemed a little shady. Adam gave her our address, though (she could've figured that out pretty easily) and told her we didn't have a phone number. After a very interesting conversation where she didn't help her case with her aviation revelations and trying to name drop, we ended up giving her 10 dollars and sending her on her way. I then text messaged the neighbor since this salesgirl claimed they referred her to us as the cool neighbors and I asked her what she bought. Strangely enough, she said nothing....even though the girl told us she bought subscriptions to donate to the troops. Oh well...it broke the ice with the neighbor and we're getting together Tuesday. That's something.

Our goal for Saturday was to try and be as productive but relaxed as possible. We slept in until 8:30 or so (fairly late considering we had gone to bed shortly after 10 the night before). We didn't actually DO anything until much later, though. In fact, when the man from Lancaster Baptist was going door to door inviting people to his church's Veteran's service Sunday, Adam answered in a t-shirt and boxers, and I hid. We played Wii for a while, that afternoon, had lunch, cleaned up a bit, and eventuallllllllllly made it out the door for a hike in the mountains with Lacy. We ended up hiking for over an hour and came home for dinner. Adam picked up an acorn squash at the store out of curiosity. We cut it in half and on half put garlic, salt, and butter...and on the other half put cinnamon, brown sugar, and butter. I thought it was pretty good, but Adam wasn't too impressed with the texture. We'll see how the spaghetti squash we got at Trader Joe's goes over, tonight. (Which got me to wondering what my parents ate before they had kids...). After dinner, we just vegged and watched a couple shows and a movie while consuming wine, crackers, salami, and Brie. We watched "The Calcium Kid" on Hulu...which had Orlando Bloom in it, but probably wasn't one of his proudest moments. It was entertaining enough, though, considering we didn't pay for it.

Today has been a pretty productive, yet not too tiring (yet) day. We went to church this morning, followed by lunch at Panera and shopping at Sam's Club and Trader Joe's with Heidi and the boys. Since then, we came home, vegged a little, cut hair, and now are gearing up for our spaghetti squash. We're heading back over to Heidi's around 7 since I'm spending the night there (she has to be at the hospital at 6 a.m. for her surgery.)

In case you had missed the memo, Heidi is having surgery this week and will be in the hospital until Wednesday. We will be taking care of Jack and Colton until she gets back since Jedd is deployed in Iraq. I don't have any qualms or regrets about offering to do this for her...and honestly feel like it is and has been my purpose here to serve their family, so this helps me fulfill that. I think that while it will be incredibly tiring, and possibly trying at times, too...it will not only be good practice for the future (we're talking years down the road here, people...don't get any ideas :)), but it will be great to have her have one less (and pretty HUGE) thing to worry about while she's gone.

A couple prayer requests for the week:
-Adam is AWESOME with kids (no matter what he might lead you to believe when he's NOT around them), especially with Jack and Colton. Sometimes, though, he has a hard time understanding and coping with 2 and 4 year old personality traits. He's doing a better job understanding the correlation between tiredness and crankiness, but sometimes little things get to him. The boys absolutely LOVE Adam, so when he's around them, he gets little time to himself. Pray that Adam can have the strength, stamina, and understanding to get through the next few days gracefully...and that everyone's love for each other stays intact :).
-I, too, love kids. I've realized lately that I am a lot farther down the road from being ready to have some of my own that I had initially thought, but saying that I don't mind being around other people's for periods of time is more than an understatement. It has been almost 5 months, though, since we met the Lucas', and the closer the boys grow to us, the more free they are to be themselves (not that a 2 year old is ever inhibited from being himself.) This means that while they love us more, sometimes we become more parent like figures to them then "idols"...and they tend to mind us more like parents at times, as well. Not that I'm saying kids don't or shouldn't listen to their parents, but I'm fairly sure than anyone who has kids at some point realizes that they listen to and act better for other people sometimes. Please pray that the boys and I can thoroughly enjoy our time together...and while I'll be getting a LOT less sleep than I normally do...that I can maintain the same level of patience and understanding that I would if I had the same amount of sleep I normally get.
-Finally, pray that Heidi's surgery goes without a hitch, that her nerves can be kept calm, that she doesn't get too lonely at the hospital (there's no wi-fi and children aren't allowed...though a couple people are definitely stopping by), that she heals quickly afterwards and doesn't have complications, and all the other things you can think of that go with having surgery.

I am actually really looking forward to the next three days. I think it will be fun to get to spend time with the boys on a more "intimate" level and get to experience real life with kids (without breaks or being able to give them back :)). We already have a play date scheduled with the neighbors on Tuesday and are possibly taking the boys to dinner 'cause kids eat free on Tuesday's at Tom's. As worn out as we will be when Heidi gets back, I'm sure she will be too, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to be able to help out in any way we can.

And that is why I may not have much time for updating this for a while. Even after Heidi's back, she won't be in full working order for a while. I'll try and keep track of the highlights of our pseudo parenthood and update when we do get the chance...Until then...thanks for your prayers, and have a great week.

Leave us some comments...

2009-11-05T06:42:00.001-08:00

In addition to updating the look of the blog, I also changed the settings so that ANYONE can leave comments without having to have an account. We like comments (hint, hint) :).

2009-11-04T15:14:00.000-08:00

The days have gotten dark enough...so I figured it was time to amp up the blog a bit to try to compensate...It seems that this has become a weekly post, at best, so I'm going to declare that the new case and let you feel more excited when the bonus posts show up :-p. It's been a good week, thus far. When asked how we're adjusting to being back in California from Illinois, my general response is that A. I was never completely adjusted to life in Cali, anyway...and B. we were barely in Illinois long enough to have it factor much into the adjustment levels :-p.

Some of last week has already escaped me. I do remember quite clearly, though, being overall pretty tired. I think one of the highlights of the week was going to Old Navy for the stuff and save sale. If you know me well, you know that I DEPISE shopping! (especially when I don't have a goal in mind). I think it's more that the idea of spending money stresses me out quite a bit. Adam even does most of the grocery shopping because we probably wouldn't eat half as well if it were up to me to buy the groceries. I usually end up guessing the amount he spent fairly close to the actual price, but by that time, it's already spent and not up for debate. In any case, Old Navy did what they set out to do with the sale by getting a very unexcitable customer up and in line before the store opened to get my 50 percent off...not to mention the 50 percent off of clearance. I ended up spending less than 100 dollars and significantly improving my winter wardrobe...and Adam's! I was pretty proud of my purchases...and it doesn't hurt that I got several compliments about one of my new ensembles at church on Sunday. Friday evening, Adam and I decided to go play some baseball before eating dinner. It didn't last too long, though, since Adam twisted his ankle...followed by my best pitch ever being hit quite well by Adam directly into my shoulder. Unfortunately, the bruise wasn't half as cool as I had wanted it to be. We then decided to come home, eat, and try our luck at Wii Baseball, instead.

Saturday was a pretty fun day for us. It was both Halloween and Heidi's birthday, so we had a full day of festivities. We slept in a bit that morning, and then got to carving our pumpkins. With only one carving knife between us, homemade patterns, not gutting the pumpkins before carving them, and all the other events that come along with pumpkin carving...it was quite the adventure. Our pumpkins both turned out how we wanted them to, and while after one night of candle heat, my poor Charlie Brown cooked too much to keep his face intact, we got one good night of pride out of our pumpkins.

After carving, we took Colton and Jack to Albertsons to pick out flowers for their mom, went to lunch with Heidi and the boys, gave her our present, and shared a pumpkin pie twister at Fosters Freeze (delicious!) It was nice to spend some time not thinking about Halloween and focusing on Heidi's birthday. I think she had fun, too. However, afterwards, we had to head home...get out some energy playing Wii, and devote some time to our amazing costumes :-p. Originally, I was going to try to be Amelia Earhart. I have a hat from Gap that looks somewhat like a pilot's helmet, so I was going to go off that...but I wasn't happy with my options for the rest of the costume. Therefore, in true Erin last minute costume style, I threw together "Roadkill" instead and Adam creatively pulled together a baseball player costume.

Fully adorned in our costumes (and amazed that, at 80-90 degrees at the end of October, we didn't need more clothes to stay warm) we headed to Heidi's to pass out candy while they made their rounds to Wayside's Fall Fest and trick-or-treating in their neighborhood. We were somewhat disappointed in the beginning at the lack of kids, but we ended up running out of candy by the end of the night, so that made up for it. We also frightened a couple neighbors that had asked if we were new to the neighborhood with our less than well thought out responses of "No, we're just borrowing the porch to hand out candy....But we do know the people that live here." Oh well...we don't live there :-p.

Sunday, we headed to The Well. We hadn't been in two weeks, which felt like a lot longer, so it was nice to see everyone again. Afterwards, we stopped by Petsmart and Trader Joes, made it home long enough to make a shopping list for groceries, and then Adam headed to the store while I worked on roasting pumpkin seeds.

I spent most of the day on Monday fighting with my computer again trying to convert our wedding video to a readable format. I had bought a program when the trial version seemed to be what I needed but would only do 5 minutes of our video without paying for the full version. Of course, when I bought the full version, it only did the first 18 minutes of the video, even after multiple tries, and I am still fighting with the very elusive company (no contact phone number and broken english email responses) to get my money back. After they sent me a different program that only converts files to the format it's already in and them asking me to email them the file that was too big to have on anything other than an external hard drive and thus impossible to transfer by email, I have now threatened to get other parties involved if he didn't comply with my numerous requests for them to return my money. I'm really not expecting that to happen, but it can't hurt to try. I have since resolved my issues of video conversion using other means and hope to have time and motivation to do something with the videos...and inspiration of what the final format should look like. That evening, we decided to do something different together and ended up playing the board game version of "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" We both eventually were able to say we were...after 7 times playing (although Adam is pretty upset with the accuracy of some of the answers to questions involving weight, density, mass, etc. He says he's TOO smart to be a 5th grader, apparently.)

Yesterday, I had yet another appointment with the dentist to get my other half of my mouth cleaned. This time, they gave me a lot more medicine to numb my mouth in the beginning than last time since I ended up needing more last week. Even that amount, though, needed supplementation. It seems that I inherited my mom's gene's for high tolerance to pain medicine. Thanks Mom. In light of dental work, the afternoon was spent doing some laundry and making rosemary, parmesan, garlic bread and heating up some Trader Joe's Butternut Squash soup. We had a very filling dinner! After some Wii time (we've been doing a bit more of that, lately) we headed to Heidi's. She invited me to go out for margaritas with some of the neighbor ladies on the street...and Adam graciously watched the boys so we could go. I had a good time, and while I don't see myself being very close with the other ladies, it's always nice to have opportunities to meet new people. I was really impressed, when we got back, to find Adam, Colton and Jack doing an art project at the table. Adam was really tired to begin with, but knew that opportunities for me to meet people are times to cease, so he agreed to hang out with the boys. They LOVE him, too, so they will take any opportunity to spend time with him and run with it. I have to admit that I like watching them interact, too. It makes me smile to see how good Adam is with kids...and as much as he won't always openly admit it, how much he enjoys spending time with them.

It's hard to remember that it's November here with the weather as warm as it is. I'm not enjoying it getting dark so quickly, so I'm doing the best I can to savor the sunshine (not that there's any lack of it.). We'll get to try out our parenting skills next week. Heidi is having surgery and will be in the hospital for a few days, so we'll have the boys for all of Monday-Wednesday. I anticipate both of us being VERY tired by Thursday! Adam's on his way home, now, so I'm going to make a frantic last attempt to get some things accomplished in the next half hour. Enjoy your week!

2009-10-28T15:45:00.000-07:00

Jiminy Cricket...It's been a long time since I've written in here. My apologies. Sometimes, I just get in a funk and don't feel like doing much, including updating the blog. Last week was pretty crazy for us...as most of you know since a lot of you were included in that craziness!

We finally got our car back on Wednesday, I think. It turned out it wasn't the transmission and only the O2 sensor, so that was good news. The rest of our time at home included packing, cleaning up a bit, and getting ready for our big trip to Illinois for Will's wedding and our Champaign Visit.

On Friday, we woke up at 1 a.m. to leave by 2 for LAX. I do remember being a morning person at some point in my life, but I have since become very much NOT a morning person. Waking up with only four hours of sleep under our belt was not ideal :-p. I slept a bit on the way to the airport and a bit more on the plane, and that and our second winds got us through the rest of the day. We landed in Peoria at about 2 p.m. CST...and thus started our whirlwind of four days. As soon as we landed, we got our rental car and went to get Adam's tux, close my Regions Bank account, go to Target to pick up stuff we couldn't bring on the plane, and headed to the hotel to check in. We showered, changed, and headed off to the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. At the rehearsal, I was designated as "The Starter" which meant I knocked on the door when it was time for Will and the pastor to come out...but I also helped with getting everyone down the aisle. We had dinner at Olive Garden...which was delicious...followed by Adam's mom's cheesecakes...which were also quite good. They were so good, in fact, that after raving after raving from the serving staff who had some, the manager gave Jane (Momma Kuester) a $25 dollar gift certificate for making the staff so happy. It was funny. After dinner, Adam, Noah, Emma and I went down to the bar for our complimentary drinks. We had fun chatting for a while and then headed back upstairs to watch a movie...which turned into us just crashing in the first 2 minutes. (Side note: when checking out the DVD, Adam found out that Joel McHale (from The Soup and Community) would be staying in our hotel the next night. I made it my mission to meet him).

Saturday, we slept in a bit before we headed to breakfast and got ready to head to the church. We arrived at 11:30 to start primping and pictures (which I actually got be in.) The ceremony started pretty much on time and went well...as did the reception. We can tell you more about both in person sometime. Towards the end of the reception, I remembered my mission to meet Joel McHale and headed over to the hotel with Adam's aunt Mary to try and find out if he was there. After less than a minute or two, I had gotten enough out of the conversations of people in the bar asking if that was for the dude from the show to know he had checked in and was not there. So I went to the front desk and asked them if they'd do what they could to introduce him to Will and Mary (who just got married and would think that was the best wedding gift ever.) She said she'd do what she could, but in the meantime, the bartender came by, asked if he was in Room 912, and they said, yeah, he should be up there. I left really proud of myself for my super sleuth skills...and Mary left amazed at how I collected so much info so quickly. I gave the info to Will and Mary since they were staying on the same floor, and also gave them a fool proof plan to meet him. They succeeded in meeting him....as did Adam when we got back. He went down to the bar to get us sodas and ended up sharing an elevator ride and a short conversation with Joel. Of course the one person TRYING to meet him is the one that completely missed out. After that, we tired to rewatch Tropic Thunder (the movie we slept through the night before), but I quickly lost interest and instead devoted myself to keeping Adam awake since it was his idea to watch it again. Then we crashed...another late night without much sleep.

Sunday morning, we woke up early in a failed attempt to run into Joel McHale at breakfast. After breakfast and packing, we hit the road to Champaign to make it to WRCC in time for church. It was great to see everyone there and get to hang out for a bit. We headed over to Za's for lunch with the Gappers...which was also good times. I'd love to list everyone we got to see and spend time with, but this journal entry is already getting quite long. After lunch, we headed to Jon's house for a tour of the place and briefly saw his roommates (they were fairly consumed watching Mall Cop). Adam and I went to Eli and Nic's for a bit to catch up a bit, and then continued our whirlwind at Ben and Crystal's to visit them, Ezra, and meet Emma. Time flew by pretty quickly and we headed over to Dan and Nola's to see our small group, some other friends from church, and watch the Montgomery's episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (it's on ABC.com if you missed it). By the time all the other attendees had left, it was getting late, again, and we were wiped out, so we settled in and crashed yet again.

Monday, we woke up around 8, packed, had breakfast and watched 7th Heaven with Nola, and then headed to Curtis Orchard with Kelli, Maggie, and Ben and Jo, Ethan, and Emily. I saw some of my old Cheetah students there and laughed when I thought about them telling their parents they saw me and the potential for their parents not to believe them since I live in California, now. It quickly became nap time for the little ones, so we parted ways and Adam and I headed to campus so he could visit some friends and professors and I could get a new cord form my MacBook. After that, we stopped by Salt and Light and WBGL to visit people there and then made one last trip to Za's before heading for the airport to head home.

Needless to say, it was a bit of a whirlwind and we're both still getting over exhaustion. Yesterday, I went to the dentist to get a deep cleaning and irrigation and had a numb right side of my face for the rest of the afternoon. Heidi made us some homemade lasagna (with homemade noodles) since I'm not supposed to eat anything crunchy for a few days, so we enjoyed dinner and brownies with them and then went to bed to catch up on some sleep.

We are SO grateful for the time we had in Illinois. It was really really good to reconnect with so many family members and friends in person. We can't wait to see you guys in our neck of the woods and to actually be able to show you what we've been doing out West. We could do without the frigid cold we seem to have brought back with us, though. We left with temps in the 90s and now have a freeze warning for tonight! Anyway, thank you to everyone for your hospitality and for spending time with us. It meant a lot and we're looking forward to seeing you sooner rather than later. Peace!

2009-10-19T12:06:00.000-07:00

Well, if we haven't talked to you and/or you weren't on Facebook Saturday, you missed a lot of excitment this weekend. Saturday was the Edwards Air Force Base Air Show and Open House. Of course, we were there...and we got there early enough to hear General Yeager break the sound barrier to start the show. It took us about 2 hours to get to the base and parked, though. We took a different route than most because Rosamond boulevard was backed up all the way onto the highway. It was a little crazy. So we finally arrived and started engaging in festivities somewhere around 10.

One thing that has and still is taking a little time to get used to is the fact that it is the middle of October and highs are still in the 90's. Granted, it's cooler than a couple months ago when highs were in the 100's. Regardless, we packed water bottles and sunscreen and made a go of it.

The show was a lot of fun. It's always fun to see Adam get excited about things, and this is obviously his cup of tea. He took a lot of pictures and we walked through a lot of cool planes. I think his favorite was the WWII plane. We also ran into his friend Keith and sat with him and his family to watch the majority of the show. The show was officially over at 4, and shortly after, we headed back to the parking lot (also known as the dry lake bed). We decided to go by foot on the 1.4 mile walking path to kill time and let some other people leave. Once we got back to the car, we decided just to camp out on our lawn chairs while others fought to leave. After realizing that the cars around us had moved about 200 feet in over an hour, we decided to just wait it out. Some of those cars even had their cars off and made the passengers push to save gas. In the meantime, we were entertained by the pessimism of a person who's car was grid locked in line near our still parked car. We gave him all sorts of reasons to be less pessimistic...there could be an accident holding up traffic, there's only so many ways off base and tons of cars, you could've guessed when you came that it might be hard to get all the cars off when it took so long to get on, etc. He decided to stick with the fact that he thinks the Air Force is unorganized and uneffective because they were risking civilians lives by having so many of them unable to get off base. Whatever.

By 7:30 or 8, we decided to make a go of getting off and out of base. We ALMOST made it before the car started sputtering and breaking down. Adam did what his dad would do (as Adam put it) and poured more transmission fluid in hoping to at least make it outside the gate. This we did, slowly and with emergency lights on, and then called the tow truck. The tow truck picked us up and drove us and the car to the Ford dealer (he offered to just take us to Rosamond and fill out our paperwork for us...but I wasn't so keen on that idea). Of course, the truck seemed to be having the same symptoms that the car was having...and there was no seat belt for Adam, so the ride was something less than relaxing. Once we and the car were dropped off, Sandra gave us a lift home.

Our friends Elizabeth and Kevin are awesome and loaned us their extra car for the time being, and we're waiting on the diagnosis from the dealer, but so far, it seems like they think it might be less severe than we thought, which is good...less severe, actually, by thousands of dollars. We'll see what the final diagnosis ends up being.

So yesterday, we, thanks to Kevin and Elizabeth, made it to church and sunday school, went to the mall, took care of some recycling and grocery shopping, and relaxed for the rest of the evening.

This week will be mostly the same as usual...minus the fact that super early Friday morning we'll be heading to LAX to visit Illinois!!! I'm really excited about seeing familiar faces and spending time with friends. Sometimes I forget how far we are from Illinois, and I'm hoping this visit doesn't set in more homesickness, but I'll be happy to have a vacation with Adam to see all of you, if not just a short one.

Also, because many people have asked me to remind them, the Extreme Makeover Home Edition that the Montgomery's (the family from our Church in Champaign) are on is THIS SUNDAY at 7 central. Watch it :)...

2009-10-16T06:20:00.000-07:00

The past couple days have gone by quite quickly. It's hard to believe it's already Friday. Being that it's only been two days, there's not much to say, but it seems worth saying. Wednesday, I spent most of the day uploading pictures to get them more ready to start printing and working on our wedding album. That evening, we had dinner and then went to see Colton's pumpkins and head to Fosters Freeze for some ice cream. Then we headed home and watched the finale of Hell's Kitchen. We're on a mission, now, to figure out how to get on the show to eat in the dining room, next season. We'll see how far we get.

Yesterday was the real reason for writing this entry. Adam spent the day at work doing whatever it is he does at work. I watched Glee and then headed with Heidi and the boys to story time at the library. (I just wanted to get out of the house for a while.) Afterwards, we went to the park for a while with one of the boys Colton knows from his Sunday school class. When I got home, I got ready to meet up with Adam and go meet Chuck Yeager.

Like most events Adam's invited to through work, this one wasn't very "organized" in the sense of there being any sort of schedule or agenda. In fact, though most of the people who work there were invited, it was mostly only test pilots in their green suits and colonels, lieutenants, (important people), etc that were actually there. I found one that I kinda "know" from our days at Wayside Chapel, and asked him what the protocol was for meeting Mr. Yeager (being that he had been there for quite a while, at this point, and we had seen him talking to other people, but we didn't know how or if it was even okay to just approach him. After we were given the "just go say hello. Don't be shy." I was determined. Adam and his friends were, too...but in a much more passive, if we don't get to....whatever, kind of way. We ended up talking to a bomber pilot...quite entertaining, I might add...and entertaining HIM by forming a strategy. After pondering different ways to wedge ourselves in between the commander and Yeager for a quick hello and picture, I finally went up and tapped one on the shoulder and asked if we might be able to get a quick photo. Of course, we were helped out a bit by some fighter pilots that asked first and broke up the conversation. So we got our picture...and Adam got to talk to Yeager (who Adam says is actually pretty nice, even though Adam had no idea what he was talking about)...I told him that Colin said hi (even though he didn't really seem to know how to react to that)...and we parted ways. I could tell Adam thought it was cool to have met him, and that he would've been disappointed if we hadn't been able to talk to him....hence my determination to get to him despite ranking of said officials. I'm glad we went, as awkward and out of place as we felt.

And now to start a hopefully equally worthwhile Friday (though it won't include meeting world famous legends :)). Have a great weekend!

2009-10-13T20:55:00.000-07:00

Wow...it's been a while. And I can't really claim that I've been too busy, this time, either. I just didn't really feel like doing this and then time got away from me. :-p. I realized, though, in the past moments of racking our brains to try and figure out what we actually did in the time I didn't post that it's actually somewhat productive for me to do because then it's harder to take for granted the things we've gotten to do.

So that it doesn't take you 2 weeks to read about the last two, I'll just try and give you some of the highlights.

A couple weekends ago, we took Lacy to "Bark at the Park" in Lancaster. She loved it. From the moment we pulled into the parking lot, she must've known it was something for her because she got obnoxiously excited. We should record it, sometime...it's really quite amusing...for the first 5 minutes. (Unfortunately, we had a really hard time finding a parking spot, so it got old.) While there wasn't THAT much to do, we stretched the event for all we could and ended up staying for about 5 hours. We watched a performing dog show, "clocked" Lacy (though it was run by over-zealous, disinterested cheerleaders, so we're not sure how accurate Lacy's 34 MPH was), tried Lacy out on the agility course, picked up a bunch of free stuff, had some lunch, watched a friend's dog run the lure course, and people watched. Lacy was pretty tired that night...I'm pretty sure she actually slept.

Sunday, we were invited to go to lunch with some of the people we used to go to church with at Wayside. It was nice to see them...but that's about all we got to do since we were the last ones there, and Heidi and the boys just beat us in that, so we ended up at a table together and none of us got to talk much to any of the Wayside people...Oh well.

Last week, we did a lot of the usual...Adam worked and I did stuff at home and hung out with the Lucas'. I did get to go with Heidi and the boys to see "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs." Parts of it were a little scary for the younger ones, but it was fairly good. I would probably say rent it. I am excited to see "Where the Wild Things Are" eventually, though. Other events of note...we had dinner at Heidi's, Heidi and Sandra came over for dinner here on Thursday, and on Friday, I got to go to Family Day at Adam's job. That was interesting, but kind of unorganized and confusing :-p.

Also on Friday, I had my first visit to the dermatologist...and my last to that particular one. I guess I got what I needed accomplished...but in addition to that, he prescribed me two medications for things I didn't go in wanting or needing to address (bascially a breakout....) with some pretty serious and scary potential side effects...which I am not going to use. I also had a very severely deflated ego. I spent most of the afternoon feeling dejected and miserable...but found some resolve in the fact that I found only bad (and very coincidentally similar) reviews about this doctor, so I knew it wasn't just me and that I am going to move on.

This past Saturday, we headed into Tehachapi for a trip to the pumpkin patch. I didn't realize how much I'd miss having one around until we moved here and their idea of a pumpkin patch is renting an empty lot, having some inflatables and pony rides, and putting out hale bales with pumpkins stacked on them and around them. I was very grateful to Sandra for finding us a map with all the u-pick orchards and patches in the area. Unfortunately, they were falsely advertised, and while we found and partook in u-pick apple orchards, we'll have to compensate for the lack of pumpkin patches on our very short return to Champaign in a couple weeks. On the way home from the fairly disappointing trip, we stopped in Mojave and the Space Port and saw Space Ship 1. Adam can tell you more details, but the Space Port is where Burt Rattan built and launched the first private civilian space crafts and still has a company working there, today. You can, undoubtedly, find plenty of info about that online, and we'll post pictures of Adam by the ship soon (but no promises I guess :)).

Sunday, we went to church and then set on a mission to play tennis. Apparently, though I have NEVER seen ANY of the minimal courts in town occupied, plenty of other people in Rosamond had the same idea, that day. We decided to go buy some baseball equipment and hit balls, instead. Even though the bat, balls, and glove we bought ended up being far more than we thought, it was good therapy and felt good to get out and do something (though I've been pretty sore for the past few days.) Adam told me that I was a lot better than he thought I would be...I guess I'll take that as a compliment.

Yesterday, since Adam had the day off for Columbus Day, we decided it would be a good day to go to the dentist. Adam hadn't gone in 2 years or so...and I hadn't been in over 7...gasp. I knew that they'd tell me I need to floss...and that I needed to come more often, but I definitely wasn't prepared for them showing me 14 cavities and telling me I'd need to come back for a series of deep cleanings and irrigations where they'd have to give us shots and clean under our gums. And yes...our....Adam has about 8 or 9 cavities and needs the deep cleaning, too. Let this be your lesson not to skip your annual appointments. Sigh.

Adam was pretty spent after that visit. He hates dentists, anyway, so the fact they had to do excessive scraping and picking didn't do much for him, either. So while he took a nap, I made apple butter with our orchard harvest to surprise him. Most of the recipes were for the slow cooker and/or took over 20 hours to completion...so I opted for the 20 minute microwave version. Adam laughed at me when he found out I made it in the microwave, but it still turned out well (despite also eliminating the cloves and the apple cider since we didn't have any.)

So now, it's back to the grind. Adam went back to work early this morning, and I spent most of the day uploading and editing wedding photos to try and make some headway on having an album. I'm very grateful to have so many pictures to commemorate the day...but it is going to take me a long time to get this together. I'm sure it will be worth it in the end. It's hard to believe it's already Wednesday tomorrow. I'm also not really liking how dark it's getting earlier everyday...and definitely not looking forward to going back to Standard Daylight Time or whatever it's called. No wonder people get more gloomy in the winter. We do get to meet Chuck Yeager on Thursday, though...so that gives us something to look forward to. It's also the Edwards Air Show and Open House this weekend, so that should be fun, if not somewhat chaotic and busy, too.

We can't wait to make our valiant return to Illinois in less than two weeks, now. While it won't be a very long visit, it will be nice to see some familiar faces. I just hope it helps me and doesn't make me more homesick. For now, though, I'm still struggling through trying to find purpose and balancing that with being motivated to do what I need to get done.

Until next time....

2009-10-01T20:47:00.001-07:00

Is anyone else in disbelief about the fact that it's October already? Time has definitely flown by, it seems. I was asked, tonight, about how I'm adjusting to married life. It's funny because that wasn't really hard at all. It's pretty similar to not married life except Adam doesn't have to leave at night, anymore. It's been a lot more difficult adjusting to life in California. I think I'm starting to get the hang of things a little bit, now. If nothing else, we've kept quite busy. Who'd have thought there would be so much to do in the desert?!

Let's see...where did we leave off? Ah yes...Tuesday. Well, surprisingly, Adam did NOT suggest hiking. I think he was pretty tired from going in to work early, so we ended up relaxing a bit, watching Project Runway, and going to bed early.

Yesterday was a bit more exciting (for me, anyway). I woke up and decided that it was GORGEOUS outside so I opened all the windows and turned off the A/C. This has been the first week where it's been consistently under 100 degrees. In fact, I'm not sure it's gotten over 85. Then I decided to go lay outside and listen to music because it was so nice. So I did. Afterwards, I ran a few miles...came home and relaxed and showered...and then got ready to head to Heidi's with Adam for dinner. Dinner was awesome...and so were the S'mores that followed. Adam headed home after dessert, and I stayed the night. Jedd's (Heidi's husband) mom was in town and Heidi had to drive her to the airport at 4 a.m., so I stayed at their house so that she didn't have to wake the boys up to go. Before the sleeping part, though, Heidi and I stayed up way too late watching Gilmore Girls. When I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, I headed to bed. I was woken up by a 2 year old at about 5 looking for his pillow :-p. If I wasn't sure before that about not being ready for kids...that was enough to drill it home for now.

So, after a night of not enough sleep and an entire morning of more Gilmore Girls and everyone lying around and doing nothing...with the exception of Colton who got more sleep than all of us and was put off by the fact that nobody else wanted to do anything...I returned home to do more nothing here. I was REALLY tired up until after Adam got home, and then I got a second wind somewhere around the time we were watching Hell's Kitchen.

AND

Ben and Crystal had their new baby Dos, today.

This is Calla Adelaide Woods. I think she looks like Ben. And I'm super excited to meet her in person...hopefully when we're in town in October. Adam thinks babies are gross...but I told him to give her a few days. I mean, I think she's cute now...but it's fine. It's funny, too...after being more than sure that I was ready to wait a long while....seeing Calla makes me want one (but I think we'll stick with the not having one just yet plan :)).

So that's about how things have gone for the last couple days. I can't believe I've made it this late without falling asleep, and I'm starting to feel the effects of that, again, so I'm going to head to bed. CONGRATS BEN AND CRYSTAL!

2009-09-29T12:08:00.000-07:00

Last week went by super fast...which is good, I guess. I think we've started to catch up a bit on sleep, too. Friday was our last day of dog sitting Molly...and then we went for another hike in the mountains. Adam's become quite addicted to this activity. It started out as something Sandra and I were gonna do, but we might have to find a different girls only activity :-p.

Saturday, we went to Rosamond's Armed Forces Appreciation Day and SeptemberFest. We sat outside for a couple hours watching Colton's soccer team march in the parade (and, for some reason, every single beauty queen contestant in the entire Southern California area....). We didn't hang out too long there since it was 108 degrees, but we did get some snow cones and watch Colton climb the climbing wall before heading to Foster's Freeze for lunch. After lunch, Adam and I headed to Lancaster/Palmdale on a hunt for a dress for me to wear to Will's wedding. I'm pretty happy with what we ended up with, though it took a lot of different stores to find something that fit correctly. When we got home, we headed back to the park for some baseball (or as much as you can call it baseball with 5 people, two of which are under 5 years old)...followed by s'mores at Heidi's.

Sunday, we made it back to The Well for church. It was good to be back after missing last week. The message was good and it was nice to see people again. I'm so glad we fond this church. After church, we came back to clean up the mess that had accumulated over the week and then headed to the mountains again.

Yesterday was a fairly good day for both of us. Adam headed to work and I made some lego man cakes from the cake mold Heidi brought us back from Legoland. Their's turned out well, but I got excited to make another and forgot to spray the mold, so our's was a little mutilated. It still tasted good, though.

We had a delicious dinner of roast beef from the crock pot and then dropped off the cake at Heidi's before heading back to Palmdale for a little errand running. After returning the mattress pad that melted in the dryer even though it said tumble dry low and picking up some things from Target, we called it a night.

So far, I feel like I've been fairly relaxed, and yet productive, today. I've worked on laundry, written some letters to some of my old students from Next Generation, cleaned up a bit, sat out in the sun for a while this morning, updated this, and gone to the mailbox a few times. That might not sound like much, but it's only noon and I also got a couple hours of sleep in there after Adam left for work :-p. (That probably sounds lazy, but trust me...I'm a lot more pleasant that way :)).

Tonight, I'm sure Adam will suggest more hiking, and then possibly catching up on Project Runway.

It's been a little cooler here the past couple days. Yesterday, it barely was in the nineties, and today it hasn't reached 90 yet. It probably will in the next couple hours, though. This sounds warm, still, but considering we've rarely had a day that was under 100, things are cooling off.

I hope things are going well in the tundra of the midwest (and beyond). Drop us a line, and take care!

2009-09-25T17:55:00.001-07:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GRANDPA.

2009-09-24T11:41:00.001-07:00

Wow...it's been more than a week. I think that's a new record for me...sorry about that. As you can see from lack of blogging, things have been a bit crazy here. We'll rewind to last Wednesday and go from there.

Adam found out on Wednesday that our German guests, who we initially thought were coming on Friday night, were actually coming Thursday afternoon. (Thankfully, we later found out that, due to time differences amongst the two countries, they were just confused and actually were still coming Friday). This meant that I spent a lot of the day Wednesday frantically trying to get the house ready for guests. In addition to the craziness, Adam and I had plans to go see Sandra's horses that evening, and being that it's getting dark earlier these days, that left us little time to do much once Adam was home for work. So, we ended up going to the see horses and doing an emergency shopping trip for some food and wine for our guests. Sandra has been gone this week, but I'm looking forward to spending more time with her and Magic, too.

Funny story about the emergency shopping trip...We decided to check out the Hispanic grocery story we had heard so much about. They sell pretty inexpensive fresh meat, so we decided to pick up some chicken for dinner for the guests. Being that it is freshly butchered, we were unaware that a chicken breast is actually the ENTIRE breast and not just half as we were used to. Therefore, Adam asked for 5 breasts...and we ended up with close to 10 pounds of chicken. It was a little excessive, but we won't be needing chicken for a while.

Thursday, we got word that the Germans were actually NOT coming until Thursday. Our only means of communication with them was email, so it made for a lot of waiting, and having to only go with the information we had...so it was somewhat of a relief to know we had some extra time to get ready for company. It also gave me time (Adam was at work, so he got to go on the clock) to go see the Shuttle "up close." Heidi and the boys and I met up with Adam and we stood in line for about an hour and a half to take a bus to the viewing area. While it wasn't THAT close, it was still neat to see it at all! Afterwards, I went home and cleaned, made pretzels, and waited for Adam. That evening, we joined Heidi and the boys for dinner at their place.

On Friday, Adam took the day off work so he'd be home when the guests arrived. It also gave him the time to get his physical so he can have approval to exercise at work. Oh, and I forgot to mention that we had also gotten word that the shuttle was taking off on it's 747 to head back to Florida early Friday morning. Thus, we woke up at 5 and went to base to try and catch the event. However, after waiting until almost 7 and not seeing anything, we called my mom and had her look up phone numbers for us...only to find out that bad weather in the south and high temps here postponed the takeoff until at least Saturday....so I was very tired and pretty grumpy. Thus, I went back to bed until Adam left for the doctor, worked hard cleaning while he was gone, and tried to forget how early I had gotten up :-p. We cleaned until we couldn't take it anymore and then sat down to watch a show...and the guests arrived shortly after starting. That night, we just sat and caught up a bit, looked at pictures, and had dinner with the Kesslers. They turned in somewhat early and we headed to bed soon after.

Saturday, we did some sight seeing. We drove to Long Beach to see the Queen Mary. The tours were very expensive, so we just looked from the outside and watched the movie about the Russian submarine that is parked there, as well. Not to mention the fact that I got a little creeped out by the Pirate convention happening there. I'm not joking...the place was swimming with pirates. I then realized it was National Talk Like A Pirate Day and was a little less frightened. After we exhausted things to look at, there, we headed to the Griffith Observatory that overlooks all of LA. We had a great view of the Hollywood sign, saw a Planetarium show, ate lunch on the veranda, and enjoyed the sights. Once we were finished there, we moved on to Hollywood Boulevard, which none of us really enjoyed all that much. We decided that, since we had done it once, we're pretty set and don't need to again. It was kind of tacky, full of tourist traps and junky stores, people trying to make money by charging for pictures with them dressed in costumes, and disoriented sight seers. I thought it was neat to see the Kodak Theater, but even that is surrounded by a shopping complex, now. We did take some pictures at Gruman's Chinese Theater, but weren't that impressed with the Walk of Fame, either. It will definitely take some convincing to go back there. Saturday evening, we went to see Julianne Hough in concert. It was a good show, and despite my grumblings, I actually enjoyed having the hour and a half or so to myself where I saved a spot for us so the others could go get more clothes, chairs, and food. When we got home, I tried to update the maps on the GPS, and only ended up succeeding in deleting everything from it and having to start over...it was finally resolved by Monday morning.

Sunday, we again woke up long before dawn to head out to see the shuttle depart. It WAS actually happening, this time, so we made a point of getting there. I went on base, and Adam and the guests stood just outside the gate. We got some good videos, and it was very peaceful watching the sun rise over the mountains....especially sans the frustration of the purpose of you being there being invalid. We came home, got some breakfast and headed west, again...this time to Santa Monica. We checked out the pier and spent most of the afternoon at the beach. Adam and I could probably spend all day just sitting there and people watching...and might someday. Adam's favorite part, by far, was playing in the waves. It started out as fun for me, too...but I don't like the out of control of your body sensation you get when you mix huge waves with undertow and can't find the ground for a few seconds. We headed back to Rosamond around 4, showered, and then brought the Kesslers to a Mexican food restaurant in town. It wasn't typical for a Mexican restaurant, but we didn't want to scare them too much with their first experience at one. It took a lot just to explain the menu. When we were all full, some more than others, we headed home and relaxed for the night.

Monday morning, the Kesslers took off pretty early to catch a flight at LAX to Millstadt to visit the other sector of Kuesters. Adam spent the day at work trying not to fall asleep...and I spent the day trying to get my computer to agree with me and cleaning up a bit from the weekend. (By the way, even though it says to tumble dry our mattress pad on low...which I did...it melted...grr.) We also began watching Molly (Heidi's dog) while they're on vacation in San Diego. I walked there in the afternoon (which it was way too hot to do), and after taking Lacy on a hike in the mountains, we spent a couple hours with her that evening.

Tuesday, I drove Adam to work so I could have the car to spend time with Molly, instead of walking in 100+ degree heat. I got lost after stopping at Starbucks and trying to get home on the one day I didn't bring the GPS. I finally made it to Heidi's around 8 and spent a couple hours there. I, again, spent most of the day fighting with my computer and external harddrive, and was thoroughly emotional and frustrated by the time Adam got home. After two days of trying to fix it, we ate, and went to Heidi's, watched Project Runway, and called it a night.

Yesterday, Adam dropped me off at Heidi's in the morning and I walked home after my Molly time. While it was a little boring, it gives me some good thinking time. I fought with the computer some more, and finally came to a resolve with it...fixing what I could and figuring out how to prevent said problems from happening again. I made the DVD of the Shuttle events, called USAA for more name changing nonsense (which I need to do again after this), ate dinner with Adam when he got home, went up to the mountains, again, and watched Hell's Kitchen at Heidi's.

Today, I went to Heidi's again, walked home with a short detour to the post office, ate some lunch and watched Glee (which I agree, Mom, is not that good...), and here I sit. I imagine we might go up to the mountains again, tonight (Adam's a little addicted). This is our last full day of dog sitting...which is exciting because it means Heidi and the boys will be back tomorrow. And with that, I have a lot that I've been putting off (including this, apparently...check that off the list), so I'm gonna get going and try and get some things done.

Sorry for the delay on updating this, and thanks for reading this far!

2009-09-16T10:30:00.000-07:00

I realize it's been a few days, again...and such will probably be the norm from here on out. Things have gotten a bit more busy for us, which isn't really a bad thing, but keeps us away from the blog a bit more. Since I know this weekend will be no different, I'll update now to tide you over.

We've had a lot of excitement, lately (as you know), and this weekend was no different. Sunday, we went to The Well and rushed home to clean and get ready for our first overnight guest. Our good friend Andy Rice came to town on his road trip and good time was had by all. After spending a few hours getting ready, Andy showed up around 4. We took him on a tour of the area including pretty much what Rosamond has to offer. When we got home, we had a yummy dinner of stuffed shells, salad, and fruit that Adam made. It was really good. After dinner, we took Andy to the musical road (a strip of road that has rumble strips that play the William Tell Overture as you drive across them, constructed for a Honda Civic commerical). We proceeded to drive across it 4 times, tried to take pictures in the dark, and headed home to finish the production of our video of the shuttle landing.

Monday morning, Andy departed. It's always sad to see familiar faces go. It's generally kinda strange to see them out of place, anyway. It seems natural to hang out with those people, but odd to do it somewhere other than Champaign. And then, when they leave, it leaves a strange void for a while...It was GREAT to see Andy. It's been somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 years or something like that. He's going to be stationed in Hawaii, next, so it could be awhile before we see him again...but it was great to see him.

Monday evening, Adam got to ride his bike, and Sandra and I went for a hike in the mountains that surround Rosamond. We took our dogs...who miraculously got along amazingly...and went for what proved to be a challenging climb for me. It was really great to be able to let Lacy off her leash and see her explore and be free...AND more importantly PLAY WITH ANOTHER DOG! That doesn't happen too often, so it's awesome that she found a friend she likes. It was really good to get to talk to Sandra and get to know her better, too. (As a refresher, she works with Adam and is the person who's B-Day party we went to when I flew a plane). After our hike/bike, Adam and I ate dinner (It's left over week because we need to empty out the fridge. This means we will be having stuffed shells, lasagna, and spaghetti all week until it's gone). We watched Project Runway and then headed to bet to recoup from the busy weekend.

Speaking of which, I've had a really hard time getting up in the morning...and I generally go back to bed for a bit once Adam leaves for work. The past few days, I haven't been getting up as early as I should, but with another busy weekend ahead of us, I figure I should get rested up.

Anyway, yesterday, I DID wake up at a decent time...I guess...and took to making some cresent rolls thinking they'd need to be refridgerated and that I'd need most of the day to do that in order to make them for dinner. It turns out that the cresent rolls and croissants were right next to each other and the recipe I was already well into would pretty much need my attention for the next couple hours. So, after finishing that, Heidi and the boys and I headed to Palmdale for a little shopping. The highlight of the trip for Colton was Trader Joe's....and for me was purchasing my Drive and Learn German CD's. We'll see if I can be fluent by the time our visitors come...but considering Adam just told me they might be arriving a day earlier...it could be quite a feat :-p. When Adam got home, we had dinner, watched some Three Sheets, vegged out a bit online, and went to bed.

Today, I'm working on cleaning upon news that Adam's friends from Germany might be arriving TOMORROW NIGHT. This means a few things...One less day to get things done, we might not be able to eat at Heidi's, and a lot of effort for me to remain calm and stress. However, tonight, I get to go horseback riding, so that should help. Turns out that Sandra has a horse, and while she is wildly allergic to it, she still has him for sake of therapy. And being that I'm NOT allergic to horses, I might get to spend some good quality time with Magic to help her out. It's been a while since I've had any sort of "regular" contact with horses, so I'm looking forward to it.

Like I said, Adam's friends (Fritz, Elke, and Toby Kessler) are coming from Germany this weekend to visit. They will most likely come tomorrow and stay through Monday. We'll probably be venturing into Los Angeles, possibly Santa Barbara, and who know what other fun desitnations along the way. Next week Heidi and the boys AND Sandra are going to be going to San Diego (not together) so Adam and I will have to fill the weeks ourselves :-p (which probably won't be hard and somewhat relaxing.)

So that's the new from the homefront for now. Take care!

2009-09-12T22:27:00.000-07:00

It's been a good weekend. As you may have heard, we got to see the space shuttle land last night. It was really cool to have that opportunity and to get to watch it with friends. The sonic boom it made was really loud. We have a couple pictures, but we couldn't get too close. Here's the best one: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31529619&l=be3de54afd&id=48701321

After watching the shuttle, I went with Heidi and the boys back to their house where Camille and Sarah (some new friends from church) eventually joined us and we stayed up until way too late talking, drinking coffee, and eating french silk pie. Adam went home and got to ride his bike, ate some Taco Bell, took a shower, looked for plane tickets, and went to bed.

Today, we woke up and took Lacy to the pool. It was the last day it was open, so they opened it up to dogs. Lacy is NOT a fan of water. We dragged her in a couple times and both ended up pretty scratched up by her panic. She would only go as far as the first step...and only to retrieve a tennis ball. After that, she looked at us like..."what? you're in the water. you get it." We eventually left because Lacy doesn't like other dogs much lately...especially when she thinks they're a threat to her tennis ball possession.

While at the dog thingy at the pool, we ran into some people from church who told us about Oktoberfest in Tehachapi today. We decided to check it out. At first glance, it wasn't too impressive. There really wasn't much to see, and it was pretty much just eating food, drinking beer, and listening to polka music. But because we probably would've just sat around the house all day, today...we decided to sit around Tehachapi and people watch...for five hours. The time actually flew by, and eventually we were joined up by Sandra and her parents...and Rob and his friend Mike. Lots of craziness ensued and we had a great time. Afterwards we went to Heidi's to eat the leftovers of pie and play Mario Brothers...also a great time.

So tomorrow, we have church and then getting ready for ANDY RICE! We're really excited because Andy is coming to spend the night tomorrow. We haven't seen him in over a year...and we haven't had many visitors, yet, so we're very excited to have him stay with us. So for now, we're gonna call it a night. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

well...time flies...

2009-09-10T20:56:00.000-07:00

l
I guess it's been a while since the last time I got around to writing in here. This, in my opinion, is a good thing because we've been keeping more busy and my priorities have shifted a bit. It's been nice to have things to do and places to go to keep us busy. I assume that a lot of you are on Facebook, too...and both of us tend to do a better job keeping those more up to date than I have found myself doing this, lately. Here's what we've been up to the last several days:

Sunday morning, we went to The Well (our new church). I'm still really excited about finding it and we have made some good connections. It feels a lot more like home than anywhere else has, and I think it's going to be a good fit for us. I'm actually going to be teaching the younger kids once a month, too...so that should be fun.

After church, we spontaneously decided to drive to Ontario, CA (about 1 1/2 hours away) to go furniture shopping for our much needed and overdue table. Some people from church had gone on Saturday to pick up some things for The Well and highly recommended it since they got great deals. We went to tons of different stores and ended up back at the place we started at. We found a table, chairs and bench for a pretty good deal. The table is pretty big for just two people, but it's nice that we can finally invite people over. (It wasn't too appealing to invite people over for dinner on the floor.) Here's the table, along with our new rug:

For Labor Day, we spent the morning shopping (...which I LOVE to do...end sarcasm) because we needed the above rug so the table wouldn't scratch the floor. We also picked up some things we needed for the guest rooms since we have company coming next weekend. Then we watched Project Runway for a while and headed to Heidi's to grill out and hang out.

Tuesday, Adam went back to work and I bummed around while I waited for the table delivery guys. I was pretty wiped out from the craziness of the weekend, so it felt good to just relax a bit. Later on, after the table was there, I did some laundry, watched some TV, made some soft pretzels from scratch, and then waited for Adam to come home while frustrating myself by trying to find decent AFFORDABLE patio furniture. We ate some chicken salad and just hung out.

Wednesday was the all exciting 09/09/09. I had fun pretending that it was a big deal :-p. I even got a call from my mom at 9:09 (though that was entirely on accident.). I did more laundry, brushed the dog, vacuumed up all the hair...and I'm so tired I don't remember. Oh, I did whack my head really hard on the bed...that was fun.

This morning, I woke up feeling horrible. I was feeling really sick to my stomach and had a terrible headache. I was hoping it would go away before I left to go to the base with Heidi and the boys...but alas, it did not. I ate a couple of Colton's hashbrowns and felt a little better, and gradually felt better throughout the day. After getting my civilian dependent ID and doing some shopping with Heidi at the Commissary, I came home and laid around a bit. I finally brought myself to eat a leftover pretzel and a couple pieces of salami, made some dinner rolls, and cleaned up a bit to have the Lucas' over for dinner. The boys were a little crazy tonight, but they watched some of Muppets Take Manhattan, got to play some Wii with Adam, and ultimately left tired and happy.

I'm excited because I get to hang out with some new friends from church tomorrow with Heidi. We're going to eat French Silk Pie, talk, and watch girly movies. I'm also going to start walking/hiking with Sandra...a new friend Adam met from work. Things are getting better...and I'm starting to feel more comfortable here. (Don't worry...we still miss all of you, too :)).

So for now take care and...peace out.

2009-09-06T00:32:00.001-07:00

It's late, so I'll elaborate tomorrow, but here's the highlights of the past couple days:

Friday Night-
-turned AWFUL wine into "sangria" by mixing it with pineapple/orange juice....it kinda worked.
-watched Shaq vs. Albert Pujols on Hulu.com...it was ridiculous.

Saturday-
-woke up early to be at church by 7 to help with some construction. I helped smooth drywall mudding and clean up after the texture guy. Adam helped tape down tarps, transport and move/life/etc a granite countertop and other various things.
-after coming home briefly, we went to our friend Sandra's birthday party where we exchanged many a humorous anecdotes, swam, sat in a hot tub, ate AWESOME food and cake, oh...and flew in an airplane over Rosamond (which, by the way, I also got to fly.)

Now it's time for bed and church in the morning. I'll post pictures of our flight tomorrow.

G'nite!

2009-09-03T14:42:00.000-07:00

Alright...let's take a time machine back to Saturday for a moment, shall we? On Saturday, we spent most of the day marveling at how creepy the sky was. I assume that most of you hve seen the pictures I posted on Facebook, so I'll spare you from monotony. Regardless, it was weird and there were ashes falling from the sky. I kinda hope that doesn't happen again. (By the way, the fire is now 38% contained. We can still see some smoke in the sky, but haven't seen flames in a couple days and the sky has been pretty clear for the most part.) After checking the air quality reports, several news stations, the websites set up to update on the fire, etc...we decided to brave the outdoors and head to the Antelope Valley Fair and Alfalfa Festival.

Entering the Fairgrounds at about 2 p.m. Beautiful day, huh? At least the cloud cover kept the temperatures down.

This is what the sky looked like from the parking lot. It was somewhat amusing to me how, every once in a while, you'd see someone marveling at the sky...but other than that people just kind of walked around like nothing was out of the ordinary.

After we looked at a lot of art exhibits (which seemed mostly like crafts people did in classes and entered. There were even a few catagories where there were several different entries of the same project) we went to the Rural Olympics. The picture above is what the sky looked like from the grandstands. You might find the idea of Rural Olympics odd...but this is apparently (according to them) one of the most popular events at the fair. It was fairly entertaining to watch (better than the 2 hour Truck and Tractor Pull). Here's a taste of some of the events.

Yeah, that's right..the Antique Car Potato Race. This was kinda crazy. People hang out the passenger window of their car with a harpoon while someone drives and they try to stab potatoes. The video won't load for this either...perhaps another day.

The next video is...I don't remember what they called it...but the trucks had to back up straight through these barriers they put up for them. Whoever got done first won.

Another event was this race where you had to drive a tractor between these insanely close together stakes. The video is of a guy doing it, and the stakes are kind of hard to see, but it was impressive. The lady's did it, two, but without the arm on the tractor. One lady almost fell off and got crushed 'cause she turned to hard and too fast, but the girl that one was really impressive..and almost set the world record. Who knew there was a world record in this sort of thing? (but the video won't load)
There were plenty more events in the Rural Olympics, but that's where my camera died :).

Of course, being the Antelope Valley Fair and Alfalfa Festival, we HAD to get a picture of the award winning Alfalfa.

The following was an event that we happened upon accidentally. Adam didn't want to stay to watch but I convinced him to, and then he didn't want to leave until it was over. What was this tantalizing event, you ask? It was a sheep riding rodeo. Kids were put on top of sheep, they let the sheep go, and the kids (for the most part) promptly fell off. It was crazy...most of the kids fell...a few made it all the way across the "arena." Here's a bit of the excitment:

So that was Saturday. On to Sunday. On Sunday, we woke up early, bought some food for a potluck BBQ at Albertson's, went to Sunday School at Wayside (possibly for the last time there) and then headed to our second visit to The Well (thewellav.org). We had a good time, had a good lunch, and decided that we like the church and are going to continue going and get more involved with things. It's exciting to have a church we actually feel compelled to support and go to. It makes it feel a little more hopeful that things will start to feel like home sooner rather than later. After church, we headed home, went to the grocery store, and then went back to the fair for the demolition derby. Four hours later...we crashed (no pun intended) for the night ourselves after taking pictures of the fires burning.

Monday, Adam went back to work, and I more or less bummed around the house. I didn't end up waking up until 9:30 or something ridiculous like that. I honestly don't remember what all I did besides making banana bread...possibly doing some laundry, though I don't remember...and making dinner (a revisit to the stuffed sweet potatoes). Then Adam and I caught up on all the Hell's Kitchens we had missed thanks to not having our modem from AT&T (by the way...they DID send it, it turns out...just to Adam's old apartment...durrr.)

Tuesday, I did laundry, baked some bread (I have yeast that has to get used up before October's through), cleaned the kitchen, and started to make dinner. (I'm sure I did more than just these things. At least it seems like it...but I'm a little behind on this, so it's hard to remember.) Heidi called just as Adam was getting home and dinner was well under way to see if we wanted to come over for fajitas. Since I had made far more fettucini alfredo than we needed for two of us, we compromised and I brought the bread I baked and the pasta over to her house and we all ate there. After dinner, watching the Criss Angel "Mindfreak" episode that Jedd starred in (VERY fake and VERY frustrating to watch), and playing outside with the neighbor girl, we headed home.

Yesterday, I DEFINITELY did some laundry...again woke up kind of late, made some pretzels to use up yeast, put away all the laundry that was clean but not hung, watched some TV shows online, and then got ready to go back to Heidi's for fajitas. Adam bought us some plane tickets for Illinois before we left. He'd want me to tell you this story, so I will. On Tuesday, we were going to buy the tickets, but we ended up going to Heidi's instead. When we got home, they were 125 dollars more expensive than they had been. Then, Adam called his brother because we found out we might need to be in Peoria earlier than we thought, but to do that, we'd be spending a lot more money...so we held off buying them until Will could talk to his fiance and see what the plans were. So...Adam got home from work last night and checked on the tickets again to find out that they had gone back down to the original price....thus eliminating any need for rearranging schedules and plans...and we jumped to buy them. He JUST texted me to tell me the prices have yet AGAIN gone back up...so it's good that we went to Heidi's to prevent us from spending too much...and that we bought them when we did.

Today, I have spent a lot of time A. writing this, B. trying to get wedding pictures organized to get them printed for an album, C. finishing up laundry (there was a lot), D. talking to some people online, E. switching my Sallie Mae to the joint account, and F. just thinking. We're going to watch Hell's Kitchen...have some lemon pepper fish...and go to bed early, tonight.

And now that I'm done with the novella I promise you, I'm going to get back to being productive. Hope you feel caught up and enjoyed our weekend/week as much as we have. Peace out.

2009-09-02T21:46:00.000-07:00

ooops...I guess I haven't been so good about updating this this week...sorry. we've been really a lot busier this week than i thought we would be...i PROMISE i'll do better tomorrow. the good news is that the fire is 22% contained and we can't see flames anymore :). YAWN...more tomorrow. g'nite.

2009-08-31T21:23:00.000-07:00

Sorry about not updating about the weekend, today. I got a late start, this morning, baked some Starbucks Banana Walnut bread, got frustrated during clean up, and then found myself needing to start dinner. In any case, it will happen in the next couple days, I promise. However, so as to keep you informed, here's another fire update. I will continue to post pictures to the album on Facebook, so if you go to yesterday's entry and click the link, it should have the most recent photos included. Also, I found a better website for more detailed, accurate information...and to keep posted on evacuations. If it eases anyones fears, the evacuation places for animals are both located in Lancaster which is near us, so there's no question that it's safe for now. As far as where the evacuations are, the closest one is still over 40 miles away, and they've been good about getting people out in plenty of time. They also have said they're making it a point to work hard keeping it south of the 14 highway. Here's the link to that site, if you're curious:

http://inciweb.org/incident/1856/

And here's a picture from that site of where the fires are in comparison to us. We're in Rosamond, CA. Palmdale is about 30 miles from us.

Also, some people have asked what we would do should we need to leave (which isn't likely). Heidi has a sister in Washington that has offered her place to us if that became necessary, so that's the plan, for now. Don't be worried, though...we'll be okay and chances are slim that it would get this far, anyway. We just wanted to keep you posted so you're not concerned (hope it worked :)).

Okay, time for some rest. Have a good night!

2009-08-30T22:30:00.001-07:00

It's been a long...and slightly eerie weekend. We got home from the fair late both nights, so I haven't had a chance to write much in here. I'll try to get more caught up and get videos and pictures up on here tomorrow. For now, a fire update. Yes, the wildfires are getting closer...and this evening we can even see some flames in the distance. The fires are still a good 60-70 miles south of us, but they're up in the mountains, so it's easier to see. We are in no immediate danger. And while flames aren't as fun...the smoke clouds have been kinda pretty in a weird sort of way. I'm going to put a link for you to see our album, thus far, of smoke pictures. And we'll keep you posted on the progress of the fire. Here's the pictures:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2045453&id=48701321&l=80d3c08a53

and if you're interested in keeping more up to date on the fire info in your own real time, here's the link to the website we've been looking at (keep in mind that we're in Pacific Time, so it's 2 hours behind the midwest. Refer to the Station Fire. That's the one closest to us):

http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_current

Sorry if this concerns anyone more than it should. I figured some info is better than none. We are being safe and informed and aren't in any danger right now. You can pray that the fires can be effectively contained regardless... Thanks :)...and have a good night.

2009-08-28T20:23:00.000-07:00

ADAM'S HOME! And because of that, it kinda feels like Saturday...I've been a little unsure of what day it is for most of the day. I guess that's okay, though. It's better to have two Saturdays than it feeling like a Monday tomorrow or something. I don't really know where I'm going with this.

This morning, I woke up early to go to the DMV for what I was hoping would be my last trip there. It's been quite the saga trying to get my registration and title switched to my married name. Chase FINALLY sent me what I needed to have to get it all done...I thought...until I was IN LINE and realized that they only sent me a letter of permission to have it changed and registered to my new name in ILLINOIS. Now, I don't know if any of you have picked up on this yet, but...we don't live in Illinois, anymore. You'd think that Chase would have picked up on that, too...when I changed our address, registration, and insurance to California. But whatever...after arguing with the guy, hanging up on him, and coincidentally calling back to get the exact same guy, I was told they'd fax a new copy of the letter to the DMV. Thank goodness...OH WAIT...in three business hours. What the crap is the difference between a REGULAR hour and a BUSINESS hour?! Regardless, I got up to the window and explained my frustration and saga to the woman...and after a lot of silence and her looking things up on her computer, she checked the fax machine to find nothing, and had mercy on me and changed it all anyway. I profusely thanked her and was REALLY glad to walk out with my new registration and the hopes I won't have to return to the DMV again until next June.

The rest of the day consisted of some laundry...vegging out playing games on the computer...being frustrated trying to find the car rental place to pick up Adam...coming home...driving out to the base to get my ID to find out that we can't 'cause everyone went home 30 minutes before we got there...watching Hell's Kitchen and Shaq Vs., and eating a flatbread pizza. We were originally going to go out to the fair tonight, but by the end of the day, neither of us were up for it, so we'll save that for tomorrow and/or Sunday.

And so that you're all not too worried....LA County is HUGE...and while part of it is VERY nearby us (only 10 minute or so), the wild fires are further away. Adam, however, did have to drive through some areas of a lot of smoke to get home...but he's safe and unscorched :). We'll keep you posted, but from what I heard, they're starting to get them under control. Adam theorizes that some of the haze around here might have been leftover smoke...but I think it may have just been a bit cloudy.

And with that, I am going to wrap up for the night. I know it's hard to post comments on here if you're not a blogger, gmailer, etc...but feel free to shoot us an email/facebook message/etc. While this is probably considered fishing...it's always nice to get an unexpected word from back home. We miss you guys. Peace out.

(oh, and other than being excited to see Adam...Lacy's still been uncharacteristically well behaved....not that we mind.)

2009-08-27T20:28:00.001-07:00

Here are the pictures I was too lazy to upload earlier...let's just say I got a second wind.

This is a toad picture requested by Matt when he heard that I was freaked out by unexpected toads hopping in my yard last night. Coincidentally...they scared me tonight, too.

Here's a better, less blurry one.

This is the fur I brushed off Lacy AFTER her bath and AFTER she was brushed at the groomer...who said, "You wouldn't BELIEVE the amount of hair that came off of her."

This is Lacy in her little bandana they gave her. I don't know completely why...but she's been REALLY good this afternoon. Maybe she likes being pretty, or her bandana...or maybe she's afraid I'll bring her back :-p. I don't know.

Alright peeps. Enjoy and goodnight.

2009-08-27T17:15:00.000-07:00

My apologies for the lack of entries. I do admit that we have had our internet back since Tuesday evening, but I've been keeping myself busy to kill the time while Adam's been gone, and I just haven't done it by writing in the journal.

So...Tuesday was the big reveal day of the Extreme Makeover House. It went well, and since then, their dog has been returned to them...AND...I got word that my picture not only made it in the house before the reveal was filmed...but was also hung in the dining room. The family said they noticed it right away and there's a chance that it'll make the episode airing in October. It makes me feel good that I was able to be a part of everything. I'm excited to be able to watch the show with everyone in Champaign. It gives me something to look forward to and makes me a little less homesick knowing that I have been and will be a part of the excitement. Here's a picture of the drawing for your viewing entertainment:

Lacy had her first ever grooming appointment, today. I was a little nervous because she has a sore on her leg that she's been pretty touchy about. They said she did a great job with everything...except her nails and ears. She usually is nervous about both....she had a bad experience with that at a vet once and has been snippy about it ever since. At least she's clean now...matt free...and has a lot less hair to shed. However, I brushed her again when we got home and had massive amounts of hair come off still. I took pictures, but frankly, I'm feeling too lazy to upload them from my camera, right now....and I'm busy finding creative ways to sneak the First Aid Spray close enough to Lacy to spray her sore without her having warning.

So...tomorrow, I think I might ONCE AGAIN brave the DMV office. I was SUPPOSED to go today...with an appointment...meaning no wait time...BUT I didn't have the title, yet...so I couldn't go. Guess what came in the mail, today. Yeah...the title. So...I'm conisdering going tomorrow morning at 7:30 and getting in line. We'll see how that works out. Hopefully, this can be the end of the saga of getting my name changed.

Well, for now...I'm gonna go. Perhaps, now that the internet is back up and running, there will be more regular updates. Have a good one.

2009-08-24T19:28:00.000-07:00

Once again...I'm writing to lament the fact that AT&T has yet again failed us. The modem was supposed to be here today at the latest...but it looks like I'll get to spend some more quality time on the phone with them tomorrow...grrr...

In other news...Adam's in Texas for work, again. He's gone a week, this time and will be home on Friday. We went grocery shopping before he left because he was worried I wouldn't eat otherwise. I guess eating cookie dough every day last week and forgetting lunch on a few occasions tipped him off to that one :). No worries, though...I am stocked and ready to go.

The Extreme Makeover: Home Edition reveal is tomorrow in Philo. It has been really hard hearing about all the awesome stuff going on there and not being able to be in the mix of it. Yesterday, four celebrity chefs (including Rocco Despirito) from the Food Network joined in the festivities. I think it's been somewhat of a blessing not having consistent internet availability so that I'm not able to dwell on things as much. My picture I drew of the old house made it to Champaign, though. Elizabeth Giger and Scott Olthoff rock and got it into the new house this evening (THANK YOU!). I don't know where exactly it'll end up, but I'm glad it'll be there for the Montgomery's when they get home.

More importantly, though, I hope their dog will be there when they get home. It's been killing me, the last couple of days, to think about Samson (their dog). He was staying at Nathan's sister's house and got stressed, broke off his collar, and escaped...and is still missing. Nathan found out about it this evening...so just PRAY that he is returned home before the big reveal tomorrow. That would be horrible...and my heart is breaking for them...

So...I have an eventful week ahead. I'm going to catch up on some doctor's appointments, take Lacy to get groomed (she needs it...she's getting matted...which is a first), hopefully have the sprinkler people come fix our sprinklers, go to the DMV AGAIN to try and finish getting my registration and title and such switched to my married name, and whatever else comes my way in the meantime. Hopefully getting the modem will be somewhere in there...there's a lot you can't do when you're worried about an unsecure connection.

Well..I'm not going to push my luck with the length of time i'll be able to be online without interruption and call it a night. Peace out....

2009-08-21T08:46:00.000-07:00

It's been a tough week for me. All the excitement back home keeps me in a pretty homesick and disappointed state. It's just hard getting over the fact that all this happened so quickly after we left. That and I think I just have too much time to think about things, sometimes...and when you're already in a slump, negativity comes naturally. I've been having a hard time feeling left out of things, which is something I'm just going to have to get used to, I guess, 'cause I can't be included in much when I'm not there to be included. I'm doing my best to try and get out of the slump for Adam's sake, but I'm learning the hard way that moving away is not as easy emotionally as it is to pick up and go materially...

Not to mention the fact that we STILL don't have our modem...and why? OH RIGHT...because they didn't SEND it...so after 2 hours or so on the phone with them, we supposedly have one on our way and should be here by Monday...we'll see. I was pretty forceful, to say the least, by the time I had been transferred and put on hold countless times...I didn't have it in me to be cordial, anymore. I demanded a direct line when I was told to call and be put on hold again...and finally got somewhere. We'll see how quickly the results come to fruition.

Wednesday, I spent most of the day doing a drawing to sent to Illinois. I'll post it in the coming week or so. It was good to draw for someone. That's generally when I have the most motivation TO draw...when it's as a gift for someone else. I'm hoping that since I have good connections, it will end up in Ty Pennington's hands and in the Montgomery's house for them when they get home...but Nathan will get it eventually, regardless, and that's pretty cool. I just checked, and it's actually in Champaign, so it will probably be on it's way to Elizabeth, then to Scott, then potentially Ty, by tomorrow...sweet.

After drawing, I made some chocolate mousse:

It turned out well, but it was really rich, and after a big dinner, Adam and I couldn't stomach it to finish it. In fact, we only got about 1/4 of the way through and put the rest away for another day. It was almost like chocolate frosting, it was so rich. At least it was good.

Yesterday, like I said, I spent a lot of time on the phone. AT&T, USAA, various doctor's offices...by the time I was done, I was ready to do something mindless not involving communication...so I watched Gilmore Girls. Adam and I then drove to Tehachapi to go to the farmer's market there...only to find out last Thursday was the last one of the year. So...disappointed and a little frustrated (the theme of the day for me :-p), we went to see (500) Days of Summer, instead. It was a really good movie up until the very last line...which could be construed as poetic and symbolic...but was not a good choice in our (and it seems others) opinion.

By the way...it's been rumored by a Champaign radio station that the air date of the show will be October 25th. Adam and I will actually be in Champaign that day...and are trying to work out arrangements to stay an extra night and watch it with everyone down there.

And that's all I have for right now...I think I might go make a dent in that mousse. Peace.

2009-08-18T15:49:00.000-07:00

STILL no modem...though the UPS truck did, again, drive by our house today. 3-5 days...riiiight. Fortunately, I've had decent luck during the day with the internet connection...so I've taken to trying to update now incase it's not free to do so later.

Last night was not a good night for us. We discovered that the cat had decided to pee on a bunch of our stuff. Granted, it was our fault that it had been lying on the floor...but that didn't change the fact that I was very angry with the cat...especially when we had to throw away several bags and books...and are hoping to be able to revive a few more things. After several suggested remedies we discovered online...we called it a night...exhausted, frustrated, tired, and definitely ready for sleep.

This morning...I became a little more homesick than I've been so far. ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition has been saying they'll be in Central Illinois for a while, but today was the day they announced the official location and family. I was very much hoping it would be somewhere I wouldn't recognize and people I didn't know so that I wouldn't be disappointed not to be there....but....not only was it a family from the Champaign area...but they are also members of the church we went to and run the ministry that our church was heavily involved in. Nathan Montgomery is the director of Salt and Light (saltandlightministry.org) and, as I said, a regular attender at Windsor Road...so not only is he from Champaign....but I know his family. All morning, I got texts, read Facebook statuses, and talked on the phone to people in the thick of it...and I must say...it's killing me not to be there. I really really wish I could be more a part of it than a bystander watching it happen from afar (but I'm so glad I've had internet so much today to be able to stay as connected as I have). It's hard knowing that tons of my closest friends are all rallying together...and there in person seeing it all happen...and I'll have to wait until the day after it airs to be a part of the process. Here's a link to an article and the website you, too, can keep posted on the progess:

http://extremebradyhomes.com/index.php/news/press-releases/extreme-makeover-home-edition-rewards-the-generosity-of-a-big-hearted-neighbor/?id=16

In other news...we're going over to grill at the Lucas' tonight. I'm hoping the tri-tip i've been marinading turns out well. We'll be indulging in that, fresh corn on the cob, veal burgers, and whatever Heidi has in store for us. It will be nice to spend some time with them. It's been kind of a lonely couple days for me.

On a happier note...we're getting a washer and dryer tomorrow. Some people at work were getting rid of it since they're moving and are giving them to us. I'm not sure of the energy efficiency of them or anything like that that I'd look into when purchasing them new...but it will be worth whatever money it will require to free up the hours that we would otherwise be spending at the laundromat that we will now have for other things.

Well...back to the grind. Hopefully...the next time this is updated will be from our very own internet connection. We can only hope...

2009-08-17T12:48:00.001-07:00

So...we still don't have our own internet...but...I've gotten the "free" connection to last long enough to do some sort of update. It was a pretty eventful weekend.

Friday, I spent most of the day drinking coffee, eating cookie dough, and watching Gilmore Girls. It was wonderful. Then, I went to the Lucas' that afternoon...where Adam met up with us later to babysit Colton and Jack while Heidi and Jedd had date night. It seemed a little odd, though, that Dominos kept me on hold for 15 minutes...I hung up...they answered...and told me that I'd be on hold for another 15 minutes before they could take my order...and yet, Adam went TO the store, made an order, and had pizzas to us in 15 minutes. There seems to be something wrong with that...maybe it's just me. We enjoyed babysitting. We had dinner, walked to Foster's Freeze and back for some ice cream, and then watched Follow That Bird (the perfect excuse to subject Adam to a Sesame Street movie without objection.) There was a moment of excitement for Adam though...as the Belleville News-Democrat (his hometown newspaper) made it's cameo. He also enjoyed his return to Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt.

Saturday, we woke up late(ish) and had some homemade croissants. I now know how Pillsbury made their money. While they were good...a 2-3 day process is a little labor intensive for 8 croissants. It's worth doing once in a while, though.

Then we went to Palmdale to return some clothes and go kitchen table shopping. We didn't end up getting anything...much to the dismay of the very pushy salespeople...but we're closer to making a purchase. After I had had enough (which didn't take a whole lot...I'm not a big fan of shopping) we had lunch at Souplantation. It was a buffet style soup, salad, etc. place. I wasn't that impressed...and it was a little expensive...but Adam liked it, and said while he wouldn't go without a coupon, he'd consider going back with one. That evening, we packed a picnic dinner, met up with the Lucas', and went to watch "Grease" in the park.

Waiting for the movie to start...

Watching the screen go up...

Let the fun begin.

Not only did we have fun watching the movie...but Adam also won a Pujol's jersey in a drawing. Of course, the drawing was to soley benefit the man running it...but...he won a nice jersey for only $2...so it was worth it, right? Here's a picture of him in it. I know it's hard to prove it's him with his head cut off...but he made me take it like that so "it will be like a magazine ad."

I was hoping that, after that, I'd win the Macbook Pro or Macbook Air from the local NPR station we donated to...but alas, being that I haven't gotten a call, I'm pretty sure we didn't.

Sunday, we went to Sunday school at Wayside Chapel (the church we've been going to). And while we've been going to this church since we've been here...and enjoy the people we've made friends with in the process...we decided to search for a new church to go to service at. We will still probably go to Sunday School...and possibly service once in a while...but we want to see what other churches might have to offer that might be more suited to what we want in a church. Therefore, we visited the Church of Christ with Jedd and Heidi. It was nice. There were only about 30 people there, and most of them said hello to us and welcomed us. There were no instruments, and we sang mostly hymns...but it seemed more homey and we agreed we liked it better...but it still wasn't everything we had hoped...though we also agreed that we wouldn't mind going to visit there once in a while. Heidi showed me a website, though, of a new church plant in the Lancaster/Palmdale area. Originially, we had wanted to stick with churches in the area in order to meet people in town. Now that we have made some connections...I think we feel more open to look other places. I'm excited to see what this church is like. The pastor is from St. Louis...and was an art major before seminary. He's a younger guy...and the congregation is also younger, but I like that. Here's the website, incase you're interested: thewellav.org I think it'll be interesting to check out.

After church, we went to the Lucas' for fajitas. They were delicious, and as always, it was fun spending time with them and the boys. Adam's been bonding quite a bit with the boys lately. It's fun watching them do things together.

After lunch, we went to the laundromat, Adam went grocery shopping, we watched some Gilmore Girls (a common theme lately...especially without reliable internet...our usual source of TV shows to watch), and then went to bed...being that we had been up late several night in a row prior.

Today...we received a cool wedding gift in the mail from Jill and Denny Doss. It was a picnic/insulated carry bag for wine...along with a really neat, engraved bottle of wine. Everything, other than the printed label, was personally engraved on the bottle. It was pretty elaborate and very cool. The bag came with a gel ice pack, a cheese board, cheese knife, and a cork screw. It's neat...here's some pictures:

And with that...I'm going to try and get geared up to clean a little more before Adam gets home. I hope this was a fair compensation to daily updates. Hopefully, our modem will come in the mail soon...and we'll be back up and running more consistantly.

Have a great day!

2009-08-13T21:57:00.000-07:00

We are, again, without our own internet connection. Hopefully our new router will make it here soon. It makes for a longer day when you feel disconnected and don't know what's going on in other people's lives :-p.

To keep you slightly updated...the dreams last night consisted of Will Ferrell being in love with me and me having to tell him I'm taken...and then him hiding on the roof from people coming after him...or something. Also, someone breaking into my house (well, she was let in by the sheriff) and executing a birthday party for her husband. I didn't know her and was mad about the whole thing, so I kicked her out and ate the cake.

I started making croissants, today. They're very involved...and won't be done until tomorrow...but I think they'll be good. I also watched numerous hours of Gilmore Girls. It was just one of those days. And in my defense, much of it was more listening to the show while I cooked and cleaned up the huge mess I made in the process.

We went to another Jethawks game, tonight. It was fun...and one of Adam's coworkers gave us free tickets. Also, one of the guys behind us was really drunk and lost 11 dollars out of his pocket during the YMCA dance. Though there were NUMEROUS attempts to give the money back to him...he swore up and down that it wasn't his and the beer fairy must have come...so we made ourselves 5 dollars. Krista got the other 5...and he kept the one...thinking it was sweet that he made a dollar. Too bad we won't be around to see him when he realizes how many he lost.

Now it's time to say goodbye to all our family...M-I-C....errr....g'nite.

2009-08-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

After almost an hour on the phone, most of which was on hold, AT&T has confirmed that our router is broken (which I already knew and told them to begin with...but what's an hour of my life?!). You may wonder, then, how I'm managing to post a blog. Well, you can go ahead and thank the people that have a router that is not password protected for that one. We just wanted to reassure our loyal followers that we are alright...and will be back up and running legally in hopefully a couple of days. Until then, we'll get what we can out of free airwaves.

Quick wrap up of the day:
-I went to some places on the base including Jungle Zone (and indoor play place for kids), Story Time at the Children's Library, Subway for lunch with Adam, and the Commissary with Heidi and the boys. By the time we got back from that...I was exhausted and ready for a nap...which, by the way, I was robbed from by the lovely people at AT&T. So..I crashed for the 30 minutes between Adam's coming home call and him arriving.
-Then we ate dinner (tortellini, organic corn on the cob, spinach salad, chocolate chip cookies) and watched some Ace of Cakes.
-We then sat on what Adam refers to as "The Veranda"...otherwise known as our back porch...and now we're getting ready to turn in for the night a little early.

T-ttt-ttht-that's all Folks.

2009-08-11T20:19:00.000-07:00

ADAM'S HOME! (Not that I'm excited about that or anything.) He got home about half an hour or so ago...freshly awaken from his slumber in his boss' car. He had a good trip, but he's glad to be back...especially since he'll be going to Fort Worth again in a couple weeks. Oh the life of a grown up.

I spent most of today cleaning the house up for Adam's arrival. I remember him saying at one point (thought I don't remember how it came up...I think it may have been in an answer to some silly quiz on Facebook I made him take) that he doesn't like coming home to a messy house...so I thought I'd do what I could to avoid that happening. I think I did alright...though I didn't make it to our bathroom....but you gotta have something to look forward to, right?

I also took some time, today, to search for free offers online. I'm not sure why...I guess I just had the urge. I ended up finding a coupon only valid for today for 2 Free Tacos at Jack In The Box. I debated for a long time as to whether or not it was worth redeeming. There's a JITB right down the road...literally...you don't even have to turn. After some warnings I did not heed and Adam's suggestion to go if I hadn't eaten yet, I ended up getting my tacos. I felt guilty, though, not spending ANY money, so I ended up getting an egg roll, too. This was my first experience at the Jack...and while the food tasted good...I didn't feel very healthy afterwards...so naturally, I ate some cookie dough and sat around for the rest of the night. But here's the kicker....Minutes after I pulled into our garage with my freshly deep fried foods...Heidi called to invite me to dinner. I wish I had gone...but Adam was on his way home, and I was fairly certain that fast food egg rolls and tacos would NOT taste good after reheating...so I stayed put.

On a slightly different note....I had a dream that I went to the White House. I wasn't sure why I was told to come or who had asked me...but I knew I was to go to the 5th floor and check in (I didn't know it had 5 floors...). When I went, she called someone about my appointment and was told to let us up for dinner with the president. For some reason, I was thinking the president was still Bush, I think...so I was surprised to find The Obamas waiting for me. I asked where their older daughter was...and they said, who knows. She had been unruly lately, and they decided it was best to let her learn her lessons on her own. Then I came home and told people they would never guess who I had lunch with...and Adam was like....Heidi. I said, no...the Obamas. Then I called my little brother who didn't believe me and then was jealous. The end.

So that's that. I didn't go to the pool today because I didn't feel like going by myself...and was feeling satisfied in my cleaning endeavors (and all the breaks in between tasks). Tomorrow, I'm going with Heidi and the boys to the base for story time at the library, playing at the park, and lunch with Adam. Then, perhaps I'll get to our bathroom.

Until then....

2009-08-10T21:01:00.000-07:00

Adam's still gone in Fort Worth, but is having a good time. Lacy misses him (I'd say I do...but then I'd be "that guy". :)). Here's the fun and excitment that happened in his absence:

I woke up at 7 this morning to get to the DMV right when it opened at 8...only to find that the line was already 25 minutes long outside the door! (Side note: I had to go to the DMV because they wouldn't let me register my car under my new name until I had contacted that bank and they changed it on the title. I had a letter sent to me from the bank confirming that they had updated all my accounts to reflect that change...and thus, I was going back to update my registration.) Well...long story short...my registration ISN'T changed. They said that they can't do it without an updated copy of the title....WHY DIDN'T THEY SAY THAT LAST TIME?!!! They also tried to tell me that the only car registered to my name was a '84 Chevy...I don't own, nor have I ever owned, neither an '84 OR a Chevy! Then they tried to tell my that the car I DO own is a 2004 and not a 2003. Needless to say...I left with a hatred for the DMV. A GREAT way to start the day.

Then I got home and decompressed for about an hour...watched a little TV...had some lunch...and decided to go to the laundromat. That WAS a good idea. I got to read a bit (I've been reading "The Last Lecture" while waiting at the laundromat on various trips.) and it was nice just to be away and in quiet, for all intents and purposes, by myself for a bit. Of course, I ripped the laundry bag on the way to put clothes away once I got home...but at least the clothes are still clean.

After the laundromat, I went to the store. I found out that there's trouble on the homefront for Jillian and Ed...but after watching Good Morning America and finding out it's false, am glad I didn't give in and buy US Weekly just for that. I did, however, buy Crush, spinach, pasta, and grapes. Then, I went home...ate dinner...and tried to watch "Hair." After the first few scenes being more wranchy than I had hoped...I decided to watch "Jesus Christ Superstar" instead...which was a very good decision.

I now have wasted an hour or so on Facebook and am going to open up the windows to let the breeze in and get some sleep. Maybe I'll go to the pool tomorrow. Hmmm... For now...g'nite.

2009-08-09T22:26:00.000-07:00

Well, Adam's off in Fort Worth for a few days...and in his absence, I nearly forgot to write in the journal. Like I said yesterday, it's been helpful in recounting blessings of the day to write in here, so it's a nice way to wrap up before bed.

We spent the majority of the day together at church. We went to Sunday School and the service...and came away feeling like, after the time we've spent there thus far, we might visit some other churches. We love our Sunday School class and the people we've met there...but we just don't feel like we're getting what we should out of service. Granted, we were spoiled at Windsor Road and won't ever find anything that compares...but I think we felt more at home there and that's something I need to feel more at home here, period. We'll see what our search turns up. We may very well remain at the church we're at, but I have to know that it's the best option...and without having visited any other churches, I can't definitively say that, yet.

After church, we scarfed down some lunch and went to Lancaster to drop off Adam at the house of his boss. She drove him to LAX to catch the plane. Not to sound sappy, but this is the first we've been apart since we've been married....so it's a little strange...but somehow, it was a little easier than before, too. I'm looking forward to him coming home, Tuesday night, though...and it'll be a little strange to be sharing the bed only with a dog and cat. At least they'll keep me warm.

The rest of my day was spent with the Lucas'. We went to the pool...but only to find it closed about 3 minutes after we arrived...so we spent an hour at the park, instead. It was nice hanging out and talking to Heidi...and she got the first taste of my emotional side. At least she's broken in, now. I went back to their house with them for a delicious dinner, some coffee, and more good conversation.

I didn't get back here until late...and now have been bumming around on the computer for long enough. I'm hoping to wake up "early" and get to the DMV right when it opens to get my registration changed over to my new name. So with that...I'm going to go shower and get to bed. Have a good night!

2009-08-08T21:15:00.000-07:00

It's another late night for us...but so totally worth it. We spent today in Pasadena visiting Candace before she leaves the country. It was SO nice to see a familiar face (as it has been with other visitors). Today was one of those days that made you realize that it doesn't really matter what you do when you have good company. We spent most of the day just walking around Old Pasadena and window shopping. We stopped in Gap (only to buy socks, though. I wore the shoes from our wedding...which were MUCH more comfortable that day, for some reason....and quickly ended up with blistered, painful feet...so we bought socks hoping to remedy that. Of course, while they helped the blisters, they made the shoes too tight, so my feet are happy to have a break), Crate and Barrel, an antique store that was going out of business, a lawn furniture store, and a couple other places.

An awkward specimen of a wedding dress we found in a boutique as we were walking. Candace's question was if a man or woman would design a dress with such, shall we say, attention drawing flowers. Wow.

Somewhere mid-walk, we stopped at 21 Flavors, a frozen yogurt place recommended to us by one of Adam's co-workers. It was good...even though I immediately spilled chocolate on my shirt. Oh well.

Candace and I enjoying our frozen yogurt treats.

Adam...on the other side of the table...enjoying his selection.

We found this little courtyard place to sit and eat our snacks. It was nice and a good place for people watching. We started our journey here and returned a couple times in the day to take a load off. The restaurants in that area, however, were a little pricey, so we traveled on in search of a place to eat. We eventually decided on a sushi bar. I was a little frightened because I didn't know how much I'd like it. It was alright...but my favorite was the Philadelphia roll. We also learned that soy sauce that says less salt doesn't mean a whole lot...it's still very salty. Regardless, though, we all enjoyed our meal.

Adam and Candace at the sushi bar.

Adam enjoying some of Candace's shrimp sushi.

By the time we were done with dinner, we realized it was a lot later than we had thought and how fast time flies when you're spending it with good people. We walked back to the parking garage and headed back to Candace's campus to say farewell. Here's a view from the parking garage of where we spent our afternoon. It was a lot more impressive from the ground :).

We had tons of fun with Candace and didn't want to have to leave...but knew that we had to. We said goodbye, fired up the GPS, and went on our way. For whatever reason, the GPS took us a completely different way to get back...and while it was very pretty...it was also very windy and made Adam a little tense. We did a lot of going up and down and around and all over mountains. This is just a little taste of the long (and far more scenic) ride that we had

So now we're back home in Rosamond. We had a great day and will miss Candace...but wish her luck teaching overseas. Adam's packing for his trip to Texas tomorrow...and I'm going to go get ready for bed. Thanks for reading this and giving us motivation to keep it up. It's nice to recount our days and all we have to be thankful for. Enjoy!

2009-08-07T21:35:00.000-07:00

Highlights of today:

I ran...though the dust made my sinuses feel crappy and my head hurt.
George got out...I don't know for how long or where he went...I just know he found his way to the front door and meowed.
We walked to Foster's Freeze for ice cream.
Adam got his new computer at his new desk in his new building.
It's payday.

Tomorrow we get to see Candace!

Stay tuned.

2009-08-06T22:50:00.000-07:00

It's super late, so we're gonna make this a fast one. It's our 2 month-iversary...and we celebrated at the Jethawks (the local farm team) baseball game. It was $1 beer night, so a bunch of Adam's co-workers were there (some of their heads are in the picture above). It was good to meet the people he works with and his boss and we had a lot of fun. After 11 innings, the Jethawks were defeated by the Mavericks 4-2. The two mascots (Kaboom and Stealth) were getting restless and started 'fighting'. Many people almost got beaned by foul balls. Adam actually retrieved one, but very kindly gave it a girl whining that adults were the only ones who ever got the balls. Among other festivities were the kid run where they let all the kids run across the outfield...and fall...and fall over each other...which was pretty funny. We also enjoyed cringing at the "Hawkettes"...which, as the name suggests...are the Jethawk cheerleaders...who also happen to be very very underage, unenthusiastic, and pretty awful dancers...though the random staff guy who danced with them was pretty entertaining. And for anyone wonders if it gets cold in the desert...the answer is yes. We were both very cold by the end of the game (it's 66 with a lot of wind) and comtemplated running the heater in the car on the way home. Speaking of which...our air conditioner ran for 1 minute, today. I don't think it got above 85 at our house. In anycase...We'll leave you with this picture. Proof that we participated in the festivities of Thirsty Thursday...though do not be alarmed...Adam did not drink all those cups on his own.

Cheers.

2009-08-05T19:21:00.000-07:00

So, I'm sitting on the veranda drinking wine and eating some crackers, and its beautiful outside, but Erin says its a little cold for her taste and she's dying from not having a lactaid with grilled cheese sandwiches.
Today Erin went to a park with Heidi and her kids and got a little sunburned. Then they went to Foster's Freeze and everyone 25 or under had corn dog kids meals. Erin was frightened by the day care people who brought 11 kids to Foster's Freeze and were pretty bad at their job. Then she came home and made soup and sandwiches and probably did some other things too.
I, on the other hand, had a very unique day. It involved some of the most severe boredom I've had since starting as well as a lot of excitement. Well, I figure you don't really need to know about the exciting things, but the boring things involved sitting on a bus for a long time, listening to boring talks about mundane things, and waiting outside of fancy rooms for our turn to go in. At several points I contemplated falling asleep standing against a wall.
In slightly different news, I think I will be going to Fort Worth on Sunday. It should be fun to see how things go there, and if anyone wants to visit Erin Sunday afternoon through Tuesday afternoon, she'll be available. That's about that.
Also, the ignition on the car feels buttery smooth.

2009-08-04T20:06:00.003-07:00

We had a casserole in the crockpot. It wasn't good. And now a word from our sponsors:

Ferrell Sings "West Side Story" on Letterman from Will Ferrell

Good Customer Service was NOT the theme of the day...

2009-08-03T20:21:00.001-07:00

This is the first day I've had a car on a weekday since Adam started work. Of course, I couldn't take the key out of ignition if I wanted it to work, again...unless I wanted to chance it and whack it with a hammer to get it to turn...but we weren't too excited about finding out how many times that would actually work before it stopped working...and I wasn't too keen on getting stuck in Lancaster by myself without a working car. So, I drove to AV Ford and bought a new ignition cylander...which cost over 140 dollars. I was pretty shocked, but tried not to show it in order to maintain what little credibility I might have with the people there. Granted, it wasn't easy to get this part...the person in parts told me I had to go to service...the person in service told me to go to parts...but I eventually came away victorious.

Then I went to Best Buy...which doesn't open until 10...or 10:05ish in this case. I was the 2nd person in line at the Geek Squad counter, but of course someone who had gotten there far after I had butted in front of me...grr. All I had gone for was to trade in a faulty Wii Remote for a new one like the dude on the phone said I could. After a good 15 minutes or so of confusion, the woman behind me getting pissed at me (seriously) and the guy asking a lot of repetitve questions...he told me that my warranty was a product replacement one and the only way he could replace it was if I bring the entire system in...and they'd give me a new one. Doesn't it make a lot more sense business and budget wise for them just to give me a new remote and not lose the money on an entire system? Whatever.

By the time I got home, I was pretty tired and cranky. So, naturally, I ate some cookie dough :-p...and my left over eggplant parmesean. I watched the view...and then I decided to start a new drawing. I thought it might make me feel a bit better...and it did. I probably won't take pictures of it every step of the way...but sometimes it's fun to see what my pictures look like now compared to the finished product. It maks me feel better, sometimes, about the way they end up turning out. Here's the start of the first E.Kuester drawing of my life:

I also found time, today, to start working on figuring out our wedding album out a bit, repot some plants in hopes they'll be revived, make a very good grilled chicken salad for dinner, do some dishes, and attempt to conserve as much energy as possible since we both ended up getting up earlier than normal so Adam could get a ride to work...(and I didn't take my usual 7-8 nap...which usually gets me through the day in higher spirits.

While repotting plants...I inadvertantly sat in the grass. Normally, I would love that. I love the way grass feels. But ever since we moved here (and perhaps it's this type of grass...I don't know) I have had a sudden allergy to grass. It doesn't effect me if I just walk in it, but if I sit in it, my legs break out and get all itchy...and then for a good 20-30 minutes or so, end up looking like this:

It's not exactly fun. And you'd think with a result like that, I wouldn't forget as readily as I did, today. Oh well...

Back to the car. We got a replacement cylander that you can set to your keys you already have...thereby saving us the money and trouble to get new keys programmed (Ford keys have to be programmed to your car or they won't work) and the inconvenience of having a seperate key for the doors and the ignition. Adam had the old one out and the new one constructed and put back in in a little over an hour. And considering the price of the part, he probably saved us a good chunk of dough. Speaking of which...our electric bill was WAY cheaper than we expected it to be. Granted, it didn't include the gas bill...which we're used to both being combined...but we were both pleseantly surprised by the amount.

Well, it's time to sign off and get some rest. Who knows what tomorrow has in store. Adam will have the car once again...and I will continue to delve into the world of Domestic Engineering. G'nite folks.

2009-08-02T21:07:00.000-07:00

Adam dropped me off at the Lucas' this morning to take care of Molly while he went to Autozone to buy a part to fix our car. They had the part, but not the part necessary to cut it to fit different programmed keys such as the ones have. Well, you'll be happy to know that, after some whacking on the car and keys with a hammer, the car now is able to be started...but it only works if you a. don't take the key out of the ignition...or b. hit the key with a hammer before trying to turn it. This being said, it seems fairly obvious that we are not going to settle with either solution and I will be making a trip to Lancaster, tomorrow, to bring the car to the dealership for repair. At least we were able to return the Brown's truck.

Sidenote: We're not sure it actually reached 100 today...if this is, infact, true...that would be a first in over a month.

Adam's not feeling so well, right now...which stinks. We don't really think he's SICK though...just more so had too much grease, today. You'll understand that as you read on.

In other news, we had a pretty fun day...which was nice after the night we had had. Sunday school was very interesting. We've started learning a bit about Hebrews, and today we talked about the history behind the chapter and what life was like when it was written. (You'd love this class, Ben :)). In addition to learning a lot...we also eat a lot. Today, Mike brought a homemade breakfast pizza with lots of cheese, cream cheese, sausage, eggs, etc. Paul also brought some homemade "sweet kind of sweet bread type thing...it's really more of a muffin in bread form" that Bethany made. We, of course, had to eat that, too.

After church...we went to the Lucas' to take care of Molly. We're not gonna lie...we had a lot of fun with her. (More later.)

Adam's Aunt Julie and Uncle Jack came into town for a few hours to visit. They got to see our place, see a bit of Rosamond, ask Adam questions about his job...and then we traversed together to Palmdale for a late lunch. We ended up eating at Johnny Carino's, which is an Italian restaurant that really believes in garlic and oil...yet another part of why Adam isn't feeling so hot. He had a panini...and homemade potato chips...which probably did him in. But we had a good time...and at the time, enjoyed our meals, for the most part. It was fun to get to visit with them. It's always nice to see familiar faces around these parts.

This is Adam showing Julie and Jack about the airplane he'll be working on in his obnoxiously large airplane book that my mom so kindly bestowed on us :). You could only consider it a coffee table book because you could literally use it as a coffee table.

After Jack and Julie left, we decided we should probably do some laundry. So we did...and then went to pay Molly one last visit before the Lucas Family got back from their trip. She was pretty funny. A lot of times, she just lays around, but she seemed to be really happy to see us. She did a good bit of laying around, too...but a lot of the time, she sat with us...put her head in our laps, followed us around outside...but our most favorite, entertaining thing to do with her was to get her to shake. This seems like a pretty standard dog trick, these days...but somehow...When a dog is HUGE and uses great force and intensity in getting her paw in position...it becomes way more amusing. Heidi said you have to be careful or she could take you're arm off if you're not expecting it.:

I mean...come on...that's entertaining. (Or maybe you had to be there, but these movies will always put a smile on my face.) As will this:

I think that was probably the most fun I've ever had dogsitting (Sorry Abby and Bella...). Once we got home, we ate a Farmer's Market Avacado for dinner (we weren't really that hungry after lunch...and I didn't even eat half of mine)...and followed up with some of our free pint of Starbucks Java Chip Ice Cream (AMAZING! Adam thought it was a little strong on the coffee flavor...but come on...that's the point....though it probably doesn't help his unsettled stomach much...then again, that orange juice probably didn't do much good, either.) After some TV...we played a little Wii...which, in hindsight, probably wasn't a good idea for him...but it didn't really hit him much until we were already into it a bit. After a couple games of tennis and bowling, he was done for...and is currently fighting hiccups in addition to everything else :-p.

BUT...like I said...all in all, we had a great day...and Adam will be fine in a bit...so hopefully tomorrow will be another of the same. Welcome Home Lucas'...and have a great night!

2009-08-01T22:50:00.001-07:00

You must have guessed (and have probably been waiting for this) that our life couldn't stay easy, smooth, and well adjusted for too long before something "exciting" happened to us. Perhaps the unusually late time of this post would be a clue to you that this time in our lives is upon us (as though anyone actually regularly checks the time of a blog post.)

At about 7 this evening, after having leftover buffalo burgers, tater tots, and cauliflower (had to throw that in for you)...Adam dropped me off at the Lucas' to hang out with Molly (their dog) for a bit while he went grocery shopping. He called around 8 to tell me he was on his way to come pick me up. Talking on the cell phone while driving is illegal in CA, so he normally calls right before he leaves. I got a call about 5 minutes or so later and assumed he was calling to tell me he was there...but rather, he was calling to tell me he can't come because he can't get the car started. The key won't turn in the ignition. Thus, I started my half hour walk from the Lucas' across town to the grocery store parking lot that Adam was in...hoping that my key might do the trick.

Alas, it did not...and after Adam tried, I tried, a random guy that had parked next to us and heard my frustration tried, and our friend Ryan who came to pick us and the groceries up tried...we lost hope and determined it is very much broken. After calling USAA for some roadside assistance, and waiting about an hour and a half...the tow truck FINALLY showed up. Even the tow truck guy insisted on trying to get it fixed...which resulted in this:

So...now, about three hours later...we are home. Our car is parked on the street...and we're left to figure out what the next step is. This is rather inconvenient considering we only have one car, we're dog sitting, we have Sunday School and church in the morning, Adam's aunt and uncle are coming to visit tomorrow, there's not any garages open on Sundays to fix the problem, and Adam has to work on Monday. Fortunately, we have some awesome friends from church (Ryan and Sandy Brown) who have very graciously loaned us their extra car to use for a while. We also ran into the next door neighbor in the parking lot who offered to drive me to the Lucas' (before we were offered the Brown's truck) if I had no other way to get over to take care of Molly. We're lucky to have met good people...and I'm definitely glad we made that effort.

On a lighter note, my dog is crazy. I somewhat blame Eli's dogs for teaching her this method of sitting on things...but here's some comic relief. The following is what happened when her toy got stuck on the random landing area at the top of the stairs and she was waiting for one of us to come get it:

So, pray that our car might get to where it needs to be and be fixed without too much stress both mentally and financially. Tomorrow will be interesting...but for now...goodnight!

2009-07-31T20:58:00.000-07:00

It's been kind of a long feeling week, but alas, it is the weekend. We have a busy weekend in store with Adam's aunt and uncle visiting, dogsitting Molly, going to the Farmer's Market, bank, possibly Bed, Bath, and Beyond and Best Buy, doing laundry, cleaning the house, and anything else that might come our way...but that's tomorrow, and we're not there yet :).

I'm pretty drained, at the moment. I think the McDonald's workout DVD has a good deal to do with that. It was seriously challenging...not at all what I expected. I'm going to make Adam do it with me sometime so he can appreciate how hard I worked :-p. Of course, I did pick the "I'm up for a challenge" feature over "Ease me into it," but in my defense, I was thinking...How hard could a workout DVD from MCDONALD'S be?!! I guess I got owned on that one.

Other things I accomplished today included making some chocolate chip cookie dough (this time from the recipe on the Ghirardelli chips that were on clearance at Target). I say dough because I actually froze all but 3 cookies (and the dough consumed in the process) worth. I waited until Adam was home to bake the three cookies so I wasn't the only one to appreciate the fresh baked-ness...and so I wouldn't eat more than I needed to.

I also vacuumed (it's amazing how much these animals shed...then again, I suppose we ARE in the desert), caught up with a couple people on the internet, read for a bit, played with Lacy in an attempt to wear her out before Adam got home, caught up on yesterday's news on "The View" online, beat my reigning contender on Bejeweled, cleaned up after Lacy when she got mildly sick for a bit (she's fine now), did some dishes, made dinner with Adam, watched a little of our new favorite show on Hulu ("Three Sheets"...it's about drinking customs around the world...and while we don't even consume ANY amount of alcohol on a regular basis...much less the amount the host of this show does, it is interesting and entertaining. Don't knock it until you try it :)), paid some bills, got the mail, applied for Renter's Insurance, and, of course, wrote this journal entry.

Phew.

Adam, again, worked on getting familiar with his job...and doing engineer type things.

And for an added twist for journals to come...feel free to submit any questions you have and we'll do our best to answer them :).

Happy Friday, and Goodnight!

2009-07-30T16:47:00.001-07:00

Early post today. I'm hungry...and waiting on Adam to get here so we can dig up some leftovers for dinner. I figured I might just take the time to write the journal now and have the rest of the evening to vacuum (maybe) or just relax. It's been a pretty relaxing day, thought I've been somewhat productive, too. I went to the library and got out a book to read...and actually read some of it. I also sent emails that I've been meaning to send for a few days and got the dishwasher loaded up and ran. I got to talk to my brother, my mom, and Eli. I braved the heat and walked to the mailbox (our's isn't at the end of our driveway. We have 'community mailboxes' that are around the block...they're basically the equivelant of P.O. Boxes, but closer to our house). I cleaned up the floor in preparation to vacuum. And I remembered to eat (thought I haven't drank as much water today as I probably should have.) I thought about exercising...but I didn't actually do it. Perhaps tomorrow would be a good day to start that. I found my free McDonald's workout DVD (that's about the epitomy of ironic, if you ask me), so maybe I'll give it a shot, tomorrow.

The gardeners come on Thursdays to mow the lawn...and Lacy doesn't like that at all, so the morning was started out with our sound machine blaring to drown them out and Lacy and I locked in the bedroom until they left. I swear there were probably five of them, today...with rakes and mowers and weedeaters and...I didn't get a really good look, but it seemed excessive. Then again, so does mowing the grass every Thursday in the desert.

And that's the news from Rosamond...Adam's home, so it's time for some grub. Bon Appetite!

2009-07-29T21:18:00.000-07:00

We just got home from a delicious meal and a good time hanging out with the Lucas'. Heidi made some really good parmesean crusted chicken and green beans with garlic, onions, and parmesean cheese, among other things, I'm sure. It was really good...and Adam remarked about how much he liked the green beans...which he, honestly, doesn't normally like at all...but he said..."They were really good....they didn't taste like green beans." I guess I'll have to snag that recipe since I love them. For desert, we had strawberry shortcake. Heidi made the biscuit part, I cut strawberries, and Adam and I made whipped cream together from scratch to bring along. Adam also got his first taste (I think) of espresso and was alarmed at it's strength. All in all, it was a great meal, and we had a good time.

Lacy meeting their dog didn't go as well as hoped. We had some idea that it might not go swimmingly since Lacy isn't really a huge fan of dogs that are bigger than her. It wasn't bad...and if Lacy wasn't so possessive about balls she's playing with...and actually was social with other dogs (we've tried hard to get her more social...but even when we had her at the dog park and DIDN'T bring a ball...she's just spend the whole time looking for one until she found one)...I think they would've done fine. Perhaps in time they'll win each other over. Regardless, we'll be watching Molly next week while the Lucas' are on vacation. She's a good dog, so it shouldn't be hard at all...and we're always happy to find people to trade dogsitting with. Here's a picture of our newest furry friend:

In other news, I had a pretty full day. I generally take a short nap after Adam gets off to work so I'm not too tired and in the best mood possible (I NEED my sleep), but couldn't sleep this morning...so I opted to watch "The Bachlorette:After the Final Rose" instead. I'm sorry, it's addictive. By the time I finished that, had some pizza for breakfast, and got myself in some sort of acceptable form, Heidi, Colton, and Jack came to pick me up for my first babysitting gig in CA. Originally, I was going to stay with them while their mom went to the doctor, but we ended up going with so we could go to lunch afterwards. They did really well, considering the amount of time it took for them to get Heidi in. Colton has a very vivid imagination that came up with things like robotic black widow spider...a pocket-sized sheep and pig that are now his pets...and me losing to him in Hangman because he thought I was keeping track of what the word that he came up with was, though I didn't have any idea...nor did he, apparently. It makes it easier to lose in Hangman when you know the only objective was for me to lose :-p. Jack is fun, too. He likes to be just like his big brother, but sometimes he says some stuff that's pretty funny.

So after a good two or three hours of imaginiation, games, losing a Pass the Pigs pig (which surprisingly was more exciting than disappointing because it meant that both boys MUST be magic), and Hangman...we went to lunch...and then headed home.

In the couple hours between returning home and dinner, I was able to straighten up the office, clean the catbox, clean the backyard, put dishes in the dishwasher, and rebuild my drawing table. Adam admitted that, though he said he would, he didn't really feel like putting it together...which I gathered since it was still in pieces...so it's a good thing I did it. I think I might take a crack at drawing again tomorrow. When you're home by yourself most of the time...it wouldn't hurt to have a good creative outlet for all the thoughts you suddenly have time to entertain.

Anyway, we're home now. We're going to get a later start on getting to bed than normal, but it was good to bond...and to see Adam bond with the boys. I always enjoy watching him interact with kids. It was funny when I told him he could come inside and he opted out for throwing rocks at plastic bottles with Colton, followed by playing "soccer" with them once they did come inside. Needless to say, they took a liking to Adam pretty quickly.

Adam seemed to have a good day at work. He's doing a lot more specific things, lately, so other than telling you that he's enjoying his job, gets to do and learn a lot of neat things, and comes home generally excited about what he's doing...there's not many details to be disclosed. But rest assured...he's enjoying himself.

I think we'll wrap things up for tonight. If I get a drawing accomplished, I'll share, but we'll see how tomorrow goes. Oh, and yes...my toe is much better. It's still a little stiff, but then, so is my finger that a student of mine jammed months ago by pulling on it. Such is life. Have a great night and an even better tomorrow. Peace out.

2009-07-28T20:51:00.000-07:00

Another slightly unproductive day of home life for me. I spent most of the day frustrated with my computer. As lame as it sounds, I shamelessly admit that I was trying to get last night's season finale of The Bachlorette to load. For most of the time, I thought there was something wrong with my computer or brower or something...and spend a lot of time and effort trying to resolve that...only to find out it was moreso that too many other people must have been trying to watch and overloaded the server. The View worked fine, though...so I killed some time with that. I also realized that we were planning on having leftover roast beef for dinner...but had nothing to put it on...so naturally, I made some hoagie rolls from scratch. They turned out a little more dense than rolls we've bought in the bakery, but they were good. Other than doing the dishes from that...and indulging my horrible addiction to beating Lynn Fiscella and my brother on Bejeweled Blitz...my day was fairly uneventful an 'relaxing'. Tomorrow, I will have my first babysitting experience since we've moved. I feel somewhat honored to be able to do this since it's a compliment to have someone trust you with their children after just over a month or so of knowing them. I have spent more time with them recently, though. It should be fun.

I think I forgot to mention...the marriage license safely arrived home a week or so (i think) ago. I didn't want you to lose any more sleep wondering.

Life in California is still a lot different than Illinois, and possibly a lot different than I expected. We still have yet to get a kitchen table and eat most of our meals leaning against the couch in the living room. Two of our four bedrooms (though we use one as an office) haven't been touched much since we moved in and the doors stay closed to save on air conditioning. I think, when I have some more time...I'm going to try and put my drawing table back together so I can get some emotion out in drawing...though that'll be interesting since I wasn't there when it was taken apart, and Adam wasn't even the one who did it. Nothing like a good challenge, though, right? We've started getting more invites to do things...the Christening Sunday, hanging out with the Lucas', dinner at their house tomorrow, lunch with some girls, Disneyland...etc. It's nice to be thought of, but I think it's been good to have so much time to ourselves, too. It'll be good to have those options, though. Our neighborhood is literally only two streets. I'm not really used to that concept. Granted, my house last year was kind of in the middle of nowhere...and it wasn't really a "neighborhood") We've met all the immediate neighbors, but haven't really made any strong connections with any of them. I've done a lot more baking and cooking than I ever had...and it's been fun. It's a good way to feel productive...and to raise the A/C bill :). The dog and cat seem to finally be settling in a bit...though the cat seems to get crazier every day. He was literally chasing the dog, the other day. We have yet to have a day since the first week or so that the high has been below 100. I hear it'll cool off soon (like, the end of August, probably), but hearing about how there's been times that the temperature didn't get BELOW three degrees at NIGHT is a little daunting. So far, we've been fortunate enough to be able to have the windows open at night, and only have run the A/C for two or three hours a day (though we keep it on 84 or 85 most of the time...trust me, it feels good compared to outside.)

I think that's a sufficient glimsp for now. I miss talking to everyone and seeing people on a regular basis. I've actually kinda been in an introspective, introverted mood the past couple days (weird, I know) and haven't been much in the loop...but I usually am up for a Facebook Chat, text message, email, or phone call...so feel free to drop me/us a line. Thanks for keeping up with us this far...and stay tuned. Peace out.

2009-07-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

Apparently, the weekend wore both of us out. I had a hard time waking up, this morning...and Adam had a hard time staying awake, today. I probably shouldn't have slept as long as I did...but there's not much to do about that, now.

Today, I felt very lazy. I think the most productive thing I did (other than taking my clothes from the garage upstairs to our room...and throwing them in a basket to take care of later) was making homemade pretzels. They turned out pretty well and tasted equally good.

It has come to my attention that people would like recipes for some of the things I've made...and if that's the case, feel free to send me an email and I'll send you the one you're interested in. Besides violating copywrights...it would take too long to post them all up on here, but I'll send them to you if you request them.

I learned an important lesson, today. Never check Facebook before you watch a show with a finale that you don't want to know about. Someone on your facebook is bound to be too excited to hold back details...and then the surprise is ruined. (If you're a Hell's Kitchen fan...don't tell us what happened until Thursday :)).

That's about it for now. We're gonna head to bed early tonight to try and catch up on the rest we apparently didn't get enough of this weekend. Peace out.

2009-07-26T21:08:00.000-07:00

Here's some photos of the injured appendage. It's not as impressive in photographs. I have decided that I didn't break it because the only time I've been in significant pain today was when I tried to wear normal dress shoes. I quickly opted for the flip flops. Weight bearing hasn't been an issue, though...which is why I don't think it's broken...just a little bruised. I think it'll be better in a couple days.

Today, we kept pretty busy, and again were successful in wearing ourselves out. We made it Sunday school a few minutes late...but we don't usually start on time, anyway...so that was okay. After a lesson and some donuts, we went to service...followed by going to a friend's for a Christening and some lunch. We left very full and with plenty of food to take home with us, too. Thus, we've opted out of grocery shopping this week in lieu of leftovers (and dinner with the Lucas Family on Wednesday). It was nice to hang out with some people from church and get to know them a bit better. When that wrapped up, we came back home and dropped off the food, let out the dog, and collected our dirty clothes before going for our now weekly trip to the laundromat. It didn't take long since we didn't have as much to do this week, so we came home, and finished up thank yous, watched a little tv, and relaxed the evening away.

We feel pretty lucky that we have already found a dog-loving family to swap dog-sitting with. It's always hard to find people you trust and know are used to dogs enough to be able to handle your's. Therefore, the fact that we've found one after a little over a month of living here is pretty sweet! Heidi and Jedd (and Jack and Colton) have a huge dog name Molly. Adam and I decided she's actually not that much bigger than Lacy, probably...but her head is large :-p. Unbeknownst to either of them...Lacy and Molly will be meeting each other on Wednesday. We're hoping they like each other enough to co-exist during the times we are swapping dogsitting...but we don't live that far from each other, if it doesn't work out. We'll see how things go on Wednesday and play it by ear from there.

It's been a good day. Have a good night!

Oh Woe is my Toe

2009-07-25T21:14:00.000-07:00

Today was an eventful day. We slept in (which was 8:30. It's amazing how the definition of sleeping in changes throughout your life.) After putzing around a bit, we decided to go to the Antelope Valley Mall, get a new tire, and shop for some shirts for Adam for work. We found shirts fairly quickly after we had dropped the car off, and walked around the rest of the mall to kill time. Adam got bombarded not once, but TWICE, by this guy who REALLY wanted to clean Adam's shoes and try to sell him cleaner. Adam said no both times and the guy still harassed us "Where you going man...dude, come on....seriously." Do people realize that is NOT a good tactic? We stopped by the kiosk claiming to be selling pre-sale tickets for the fair...but of course, after a lot of discussion about costs and whatnot...they didn't actually sell tickets for the fair at all. They sold tickets for ONE of the grandstand shows (and definitely not the one we wanted)...and the rest you had to get somewhere else. Lame.

When they still hadn't called us about the car, we decided to have lunch...and picked up an added bonus on the way. Wearing flipflops in the desert seems logical...but it is not a good way to protect your feet from accidentally toe stubbings by people walking in front of you. I've never had a broken toe before...so I have no reference for what it would feel like or how much or little they hurt...but my toe hurts. I mean, I can physically bend it and wiggle it without too much trouble...but I definitely can't put weight on it normally without it hurting...and it's definitely bruised. Oh well...even if it was broken (which it seems like it should hurt more than it does if that was the case) there's not much to do about it from what I understand. I'll just deal with it and hope it heals fast (and that Lacy doesn't step on it too many more times).

So then...after all that fun...and picking the car back up...we headed to Target, Petsmart, and then back home for the night. We watched Garden State...which is a good movie (better than I remembered it), and now...it's time to put ourselves to bed. Sorry about the abruptness and anti-climactic nature of that ending...but...G'nite.

2009-07-24T20:28:00.000-07:00

At work today...Adam got to go to the Global Hawk hanger. It was cool.

I went with Heidi to get my hair cut. Here's the results.

Before:

After:

I decided I like it...but I almost wish it was shorter. However, it's hot here, so it probably wouldn't be good right now if I couldn't pull it back...so as backwards as it sounds...we'll save shorter (if I still feel that way) for the winter when it's cooler and I wouldn't have to pull it back. Besides...when you consider how much hair I have (or don't have), I cut off a lot today, already.

After my haircut, Heidi, Jack, Colton, and I had a "picnic" outside the library, then went to their end of the summer reading party (which was really more just kids eating ice cream.) I got a library card...but didn't check out any books, this time. When I got back here, I played with Lacy, uploaded yet some more wedding pictures to Facebook...and made dinner. We had macaroni and cheese (of the Kraft variety), tuna salad sandwiches, and orange juice. Delicious, I know.

Adam was shocked to learn that I ate the whole half pound of salami this week...by myself. But sometimes a girl has just gotta have her red meat ... or something. We enjoyed a glass of Moscato wine and some dark chocolate over some "Better Off Ted" and now we're getting ready to turn in for the night.

It wasn't quite as productive a day as I had hoped, but it was good spending time with friends. Hopefully we'll have our thank yous done and out by Monday...that's the goal anyway. I'm tired of them sitting here staring at me :-p. Tomorrow, I think we might go on a hunt for a kitchen table...since our slew of visitors (or something) starts next weekend. We'll see what we come up with. Otherwise...our visitors might just have to picnic on the floor like we often do (or eat out :)). Wo...we're both exhausted. While it hasn't been an incredibly busy week...it somehow still managed to drain us.

Happy Birthday, Hayden...and Happy Friday to all. G'nite.

2009-07-23T20:28:00.001-07:00

As I sit here listening to the soothing sounds of Medal of Honor, I am frustrated by the fact that, somehow, a dog hair got INSIDE my screen. It's rather annoying because I keep trying to wipe it off...and it's not a problem covered under Apple Care, so it would cost money to get it out. So, here I sit...trying to learn how to deal since it is now a part of my computer...for better or for worse. How frustrating.

Today was kind of a lazy day for me...but you need one of those every now and then. I watched the View (which I actually do most mornings...but a day behind since we don't have real TV and watch our shows online the day after) and I caught up with a couple people on Facebook chat. Then I went to watch the kids sing for a bit at VBS with Heidi and Luke...where we later picked up Colton. Afterwards, we went to have lunch at Fosters Freeze. By the time we were done there, it was already well into the afternoon...so I came back here and looked online at some websites about the area and talked to my mom for a bit. I lost track of time and Adam was home before I knew it. I had gotten somewhat of a head start on dinner, but not enough...so Adam helped me a bit with cutting up vegetables and such. We had something called Chicken Supreme Casserole or something like that. I could go look, but I'm having a lazy day...so we'll just go with that for now. It was soup, chicken bouillion, vegetables, and chicken under a layer of crescent rolls from a can. Of course, we only made half the recipe...and still had leftovers. It was a little soupy because I forgot to half the amount of milk, but it still turned out decent. Here's what it looked like finished:

After dinner, we played some Wii Sports...and then went outside with the dog for a bit. Before our Wii Tennis tournament, I looked behind me and saw this and laughed:

Tomorrow's the big hair cut day. I'll take a picture and show you the final results. I hope I like it...but as Adam so eloquently said...it'll grow back. It's been a while since my hair has been shorter, so it'll probably be a nice change...and it'll be good to actually have some style to it...even though I'll probably have it up half the time anyway since it's generally just hot here.

Adam came home very mentally exhausted, today. He wasn't quite entirely sure what caused him to be so drained, but he literally just laid on the couch for a little bit to decompress a bit. Now he's shooting things to take out what's left. Nothing like a good war video game to make your brain relax, I always say....end of sarcasm.

So it's officially been a month and a day in Rosamond. So far so good...and like I said, it's been a lot better now that I have people to talk to during the day and go places with on occasion. Adam likes his job...and Lacy and George like having a bigger house to run around in. Candace is only an hour and a half away...and Andy should be in the area soon...and Adam's Aunt Julie and Uncle Jack will be here next weekend, so we're looking seeing all of them soon.

As for now, we're looking forward to going to sleep. Good night, all.

2009-07-22T21:16:00.001-07:00

First of all...Lacy is TERRIFIED of bubble wrap. Adam forgot this small fact and popped some last night in our bedroom from our new noise machine...and she freaked out and needed a lot of convincing to even come back upstairs. On Lacy's behalf (and mine so I can keep my sanity around her) please keep this in mind and refrain from popping bubble wrap should you be around her. Thanks :).

Today was a better day for me mood wise. The past couple days I've been a little down and not in the mood to really be a people person, but today helped a bit. I got some of the moodiness out by cleaning up a bit around here. I vacuumed and cleaned up the kitchen and our bathroom. We had leftovers for dinner, (roast beef, baked beans, and salad), so that made things a little easier, too. I got to talk to my friend Crystal and she says she's gonna come visit. She's said that before, so we'll see if it happens (love ya, Crystal), but it would be really cool if she actually does. I also got a new high score in Bejeweled...and we all know how that can help the self-esteem. Heh. I also got to talk to Eli for a while...and while it hadn't been as long since I had talked to her, it's always nice when time allows for a good conversation.

Hell's Kitchen started...and it drove me crazy. I usually get drawn in after the first few episodes...but if I were to watch just the first one or two...I don't think I could handle watching it anymore. Adam thinks it's hilarious...but the chaos and immaturity is almost too much for me. We'll see if it gets better as time goes on. If nothing else, it's fun to watch it together...and it's nice for Adam to be able to talk to his family about it, 'cause they watch it, too.

We met Vicki, today. She's Harry Moore's wife. I'm glad I have her name down in writing, now, too...incase I forget :-p. She seems really nice and like the neighbor you should know because she has a handle on everything happening on the street and everyone who lives here. She said she'd come over and ask me to walk with her sometime in the evening and she can give me more of the lowdown about the neighborhood. She works at NASA on the base, so she's seen Adam coming to and fro. She knows the people that actually own our house, too...so she can put a good word in for us, now (hopefully :)). I think she'll be fun to be friends with. I liked her.

Well...it's a late night for us. I made Adam crack down on his thank you notes so we can get them out, and Hell's Kitchen was two hours long this week...so we're getting a late start on bedtime prep. Therefore, I'm going to wrap it up for the night. It's been a good day. I'm looking forward to another one, tomorrow. G'nite.

"Uh....guys...I know Kung Fu."

2009-07-21T20:06:00.000-07:00

Well, after going through literally every box in the garage and everything in the house...I still cannot find the address list of my students that came to the wedding (though I did find all the thank you notes from my bachlorette party that I thought I had sent a while ago...sorry about that girls. They'll be on their way)...so I got creative and did what I could to find them through facebook messages and emails. We'll see how that works out. If nothing else, I'll just sent them to the school and hope they get into the right hands.

My birthday is on Friday the 13th. I can get into Disneyland for free on that day...who's in?

I attempted my grandma's chocolate chip cookie recipe again, today...this time WITH the oatmeal. They turned out fathomly, if that's a word, better. I don't remember them having oatmeal in them...but this particular recipe definitely works a lot better with it...trust me. Other than cutting my finger with a butter knife...and having to fish egg shells out of the dough (I tried to turn the mixer off...but accidentally pushed it the wrong way...so it took a lot more effort to correct than I had hoped), today's baking excursion was a success.

We finished Season 2 of Chuck, today. Season 3 starts next March, so we've got some waiting to do...but never fear because the new season of Hell's Kitchen started today...so we've got that to look forward to :). We'll have to be a new audio cord for my computer, though, because I forgot it was attached and it got bent. Oh well.

Lacy was weird today 'cause there was a Sonic boom. After that, any sound that could be even remotely skewed to sound some what like a boom made her bark...including the cookies being put into a tupperware container. It got a little old after a while.

Dinner update: Buffalo Burgers (grass fed and raised in the Antelope Valley), tater tots (NOT homemade), an baked beans (from a can).

Onward...