Steve is Back! (and we went on vacation)

After two months Steve is now back from is internship. Hurray! It is a fantastic thing to be married and actually be in the same state as your spouse.We celebrated by using PTO and going on vacation. We went to Carmel, CA and also to Santa Rosa, CA (to visit my family). Here are some pictures of our trip. I don't want to bore you with details, so let me just say that it was very relaxing and we had a lot of fun.

We were in a seaside town, so of course we went to the beach! We walked there from our rented cabin, and we walked back barefoot!

Steve put a flower (well, technically it was a cactus) in my hair.

When at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, we rode the "bumper cars of the future". Steve and Beth (Steve's younger sister) are looking at the camera, I am not.

This ride looks fun but it was actually kind of boring. I wish we had gone around more times.

Beth and I rode the lift across the park. Beth was kind of scared, but she did well. I thought it was very relaxing. I could ride these kinds of rides all day!

Loving Clothes...Sometimes

I have a love-hate relationship with clothes. Sometimes they are too big, sometimes they are too small, sometimes they make me too grungy for an occasion, sometimes they make me too formal. And most of the time I don't even really care about what I am wearing. But sometimes, you look into your closet and you think, "Hey, what if I put this with this? Would it work?". When it doesn't work, it makes you late for work, but when it does works, that is when the magic happens. I always have a good day when I feel like I look cute!

Midnight Fashion Shoot

At the end of the weekend are you ever in denial that you have to go to work at 8am the next day? Do you ever stay up late hoping that if you are up late enough you will magically have one more day added to your weekend? I sometimes do. (But I always go to work Monday morning.)

One night in particular I found a skirt of my sister's and we decided have our own dress-up, I mean, fashion shoot session. It was a lot of fun! (See below for details.) And sorry for the picture quality. It was late, the camera was old, and the lighting in my apartment is always bad.

Shot #1:
Posing in a bean bag by the fish tank. I am wearing my sister's skirt, my shirt, my belt, my hat, my shoes and my earrings. Très chic!

Shot #2:
Dancing! Added boots and a scarf for flare (boots and scarf are also mine). Shot #3:
I decided to wear the skirt as a skirt just to mix things up.
Shot #4:
My sister absconded with my hat.
And then I was exhausted and ready to go to bed.

The Zoo

Last weekend my sister and I went to the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City. We were lost for an hour in a car with no air-conditioning, but we finally made it there (a trip into Baskin Robbins helped us find our way). My sister had never been to a zoo. Ever. So I brought my camera and we took pictures. Enjoy!

We got our faces painted.

We talked with the macaw only because he said hello first!
We saw a very cute sleeping red panda.
A tiger went swimming.

And an elephant took a bow.

Manning the Home Front and Abigail Adams

As my husband is in California I feel akin to Abigail Adams who's husband was in Europe for 8 years on assignment from his fellow Founders (he was only supposed to be gone for 6 months!).

Our similarities:
She missed him terribly, as I miss mine
She was supportive of the reason for his absence but still didn't have to love it, as do I
She had to stay to take care of income, as I need to do

Our differences:
She let him leave for the good of the new nation and I let mine leave to help the future of only our family
She didn't know h0w long she would be without him and I know to the day when I'll see Steve again
She had to raise her children while he was away and I do not

I take comfort in our similarites and our differences

(My commentaries on Abigail come from my reaction to a book called "Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation" by Cokie Roberts.)

Home Improvement

So I've been in Fresno now for a few weeks and have been working on many things to make the house a little nicer. Two weekends ago I put up a fence on the north side of our house (there was none there before).

This past weekend was an extended weekend. Matt was in town and also our friend Jason. Rich and my Dad helped out also. We had lots of hands working on the yards. The projects overlapped, but over all we patche a dozen sprinkler issues, dug out many cubic yards of soil and replaced it with potting mix. We planted flower bushes and lillies along the outside border of half the back yard, planted some trees, and did some general trimming/branch cutting of old overgrowth.

The biggest pain was the ton of gravel we had in both yards. We tried hacking on it ourselves but ended up getting Luis (hispanic laborer waiting around Home Depot) to do it for us. We paid him a lot for day labor, but that little guy did what several of us big guys couldn't do!

After this past weekend's efforts our house should be much greener and more pleasant for our futures there. Next up on the list are some simple, fast, single-person jobs that I'll do once Matt leaves.

--Steve

For the Beauty of the Earth

There are only a few things more spiritually relaxing to me than a beautiful fall day. On these days, there is often a moment that comes which takes my breath away and relaxes me completely. When this happens I am usually standing outside, leaning up against the side of a building, taking in the fresh air and soaking up the sun. I am usually thinking of nothing in particular. Then, with a casual turn of my head - BAM! my eyes alight on a harmoneous veiw that catches my breath, clears my vision and helps me to feel connected to God. The picture on the right is one of those views. It is at a cabin near Zion's National Park in Utah.