Christmas Day on the Plains

On Christmas morning we got up and drove to Brookings for Part II of our Christmas celebrations. We arrived just after lunch and had a yummy ham dinner. We spent some time with Eric's grandma and then took her back to her apartment later that evening. Then we opened presents and watched the fun commence with Anthony (nephew) tearing into his stuff. He was really aware of what was happening and got all kinds of goodies. Eric picked out his hunting gun (plastic) and fishing pole (real!). He also got a doctor's kit and got right down to business taking our heartbeat and declaring I was "sick; really, really sick -- call the ambulance." We have a budding physician on our hands, folks. He then proceeded to use his pager and radio to dispatch the ambulance. Good fun. He even dabbled in the veterinarian world and took Lily's heartbeat (from her spine) and declared her "ok." Whew - glad that's taken care of!! :)

At some point he busted out his plastic rifle from Eric (which smokes, by the way) and held it up like he just conquered a battle field. Then he was walking around the living room shooting at imaginary foes. He even had the one eye closed and tongue sticking out while he was bracing himself against the foot stool. I don't think Eric has to worry that he won't have a hunting buddy when A-man gets older.

Black Hills Christmas Eve

Here we are on Christmas eve at my Mom & Dad's house. We had my brother (Tony), sister-in-law (Kayla), and niece (Olivia) with us. Olivia is about 16 months and was really having a fun time. She opened a few gifts, but got bored with the paper after about a minute or so. She was excited to see an Elmo DVD and loved her Sit 'n Spin toy. She didn't quite get the spinning part, but she liked sitting her little butt on the edge of it and bouncing up and down. She loved the musical mat because it was pretty crinkly -- she's like a cat!! Eric and Tony had a fun time trying to get the toys together. But these are just toddler toys - imagine when Olivia is getting big girl toys with lots of moving pieces and parts. Then the fun begins!!

Kayla is due at the end of March with a little boy, whom they will will name Noah. So by next Christmas he should be able to have some fun, too.

Going to Denver

Well, it's been a little while since I've posted anything. There's nothing too exciting going on with us and I don't have any new pictures to share. I am going to Denver this week to take a Defensive Driving course to certify me as an instructor. I'll be there all week while Eric is back home studying for his finals. They get 3 weeks off from school!! Lucky ducks.

We're awaiting a phone call from GoldenWest Telecommunications where Eric interviewed last week. He unofficially heard that he was accepted for the position, but they need to call!! So it will be a good Christmas present if they offer him the job this week.

I'll try to take some pictures while I'm in Denver. Not sure what I'll get but you never know.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone had a good weekend! Eric and I went back to Brookings for the long weekend and visited his family. We did a lot of different things, including the parade of lights, dinner at the Cracker Barrel, putting up Christmas lights and taking Anthony to see "Happy Feet". What a fun movie! And what a good little boy he was! We had a nice time.

This week I am going to Pierre until Friday....so Eric will be all alone for his birthday on Wed. :( My folks are cruising in Mexico the next few weeks so it will just be Eric and the creatures blowing out his birthday candles.

Look at this gorgeous face!!

These are the latest and greatest pictures of Olivia. She's got the posing thing down pretty well. I'll have to post pictures of Tony at that age because they look a lot alike!

Clearing up the Confusion

Bingo

Lily

My brother, Tony, and his baby Olivia at Reptile Gardens this summer

Fat, chunky Yoda draped over our computer chair

Olivia on the way home from Reptile Gardens with the spoon in her mouth and foot in the air!


Ok, time to clear up the confusion -- the dog Eric is snuggling with is NOT ours. It was some puppies we went to see when we were back to Brookings a few weeks ago. Our nephew, Anthony, liked them until they cornered him in the dark backyard. They are a little different than the docile Lily!!

Ooohhh....that makes me sad that Jacob doesn't recognize his favorite feline! :( That is a sad day. Well, maybe sometime you can visit us and we can get the re-acquainted. I'm sure he has no clue who we are.

Nothing new here. I have been working on trying to prepare a stress management class for social workers. I've only got a few weeks to put it together and this is where the rubber meets the road. I could fake it in the Air Force, but I got hired for a reason for this so I had better produce!! I'll be fine, but I'm getting some ugly flashbacks to college where I'd wait until the end and then cram. But I WON'T do that here!

Eric is almost done with his first semester of school. He's even going to be on the Dean's List with honors if he stays on his current course. He's doing a really awesome job. Plus it's fun to hear his horror stories of classmates. He's keeping me entertained.

PS -- These are old pictures because I have nothing new. Snapshots of our totally boring, totally normal, totally great life! :)

What Season Are You?

At least they predicted the right season for me!

You Belong in Winter

Quiet, calm, and totally at peace... You're happy to be at home, wrapped in a blanket, completely snowed in Whether you're lighting a fire or having a snowball fight, you always feel best in the winter.

What Season Are You?

I'm back!

I was MIA for a little while but I have some free time and I'm ready to post. I don't really have many new pictures, but here is a small offering. I have been pretty busy with work, but our computer has been down for the past few weeks. We decided to "nuke" it because it was acting very slow and gave us the blue screen of death (not exactly, but that's more dramatic). It did give us a blue screen, but was stuck. I called my cousing who is a computer genius and has his own business and asked what to do He suggested my brother nuke it and we start over. Right after we got it back we went back East for Pheasant opener and then I've been working since. Eric's had a big project at school so our leisure surfing time has been not very important.

We've slowly been putting the programs back onto our computer. That's kind of wierd -- I didn't realize all of the "stuff" we had on there that goes away when you wipe out your operating system. It's kind of a good feeling -- like a colonic (though I've never had one). We feel all clean and light now!

Eric's sick and we have been debating if he has the bird flu. He was cleaning pheasants this weekend and he is the only one that's sick. So we had to get on the internet today and check out bird flu symptoms. We even bought a thermometer to check for fever, but we're cleared. He didn't roll around in the pheasant poop, so I think his chances of contracting the disease are less than 0%. We were thinking, though, if it was positive, we could get a book deal and when the big pandemic strikes, Eric could run to the grocery store for us since he's already immune. But luckily we don't have to go there.

Starting my new job

I have been MIA for the past week because I've been in Pierre at my new job! I spent 2 days in town getting to meet my new team and coworkers and getting my office set up. I have a nice little cube (which is actually very spacious) and work right across from the Capitol building. I'll be going back and forth and I'll have to take some pictures next time I'm there.

Eric picked me up in Pierre on Friday afternoon and then we went to Brookings for the long weekend. We went to the SDSU Jacks game with his mom and our nephew, Anthony. He's a pretty photogenic 3-yr old. He's a lot of fun and was helping Eric do "guy" stuff (hauling decoys, etc).

Then we had the scariest near-miss I have ever experienced when we were coming back to Pierre to retrieve my car. It's hard to describe if you weren't there, but basically a car-load of high-school girls (with that stupid homecoming writing on their windows) pulled out in front of us across a divided highway. We were going 65 mph and if Eric wasn't watching them from the other side of the highway we would have T-boned them (we were in the Tundra) and there is no doubt the girls on the passenger side would have been killed. Eric locked up the breaks twice and each time the tires squealed like I've never heard. It was so scary. Luckily Eric stopped in enough time and they didn't hit us, but Eric pulled over to the side of the highway after to compose himself. My legs were rubbery and I was looking to see what the girls did. They stopped too and if I had been thinking I would have gotten out and ran the 50 feet to their car and chewed them a new one. I get kind of worked up over stuff, but I was full of white-hot rage. HOW DARE THEY??!! We are good drivers, but I don't know if I would have been looking at them from across the highway like Eric was. That's the part that makes me mad -- I am SO careful to anticipate what other drivers do...but you still can't anticipate the stupidity. Ok...I"m getting all worked up again. I could have killed them with my bare hands I was so mad at what they'd done.

Ok...sorry. Enjoy the picture!! :) ha, ha.

More Fall Fun

These were taken last week on my last few days of freedom. Eric and I went to Canyon Lake Park and took some pictures and fed the ducks. Those fowl are out of control! Then we went to Pirate's Table restaurant, which we pass by every day and I've never been to in all the 10 years I've lived in Rapid. So we went. It was nice...but not my favorite.

The Wierdest Spider Ever...

I am going to post a bunch of new pics because I have been stockpiling them. This spider lived right outside our bedroom window for about a week. Then I wonder if it died. Well, I had to take this picture from the inside because I was afraid it would jump on my face if I got to close from the outside. Do you see the face?? I think that was its butt end because I saw it eating a few days later from the other end. It must be a survival tactic.

Snap, Crackle, Pop

I don't have a picture to post this time because I've been chasing an elusive Blue Jay but today I saw him and stepped outside to get a picture and he flew away. I was just standing there and realized that the woods sounded like a bowl of Rice Krispies!! It wasn't even the wind -- it was all the birds in the trees!! I saw a woodpecker banging into the tree, there was a teeny tiny hummingbird sized bird, and then those dang Blue Jays. There are tons of other birds I couldn't even see, but they all sounded like Rice Krispies together.

It will be nice to have our very own home once we move to the prairie, but I am so going to miss the woods.

Autumn in the Black Hills

Today was a perfect fall day -- 80 degrees and sunny. We decided to go on a drive through the scenic Spearfish Canyon in the northern Hills.....us and about 300 other people. It was so packed!! There were motorcycles everywhere -- it was like a Sturgis Rally encore. We managed to find a place to pull off the road and take a few pictures. Then we stopped at the Black Hills National Cemeteary for veterans. I've always wanted to go on a sunny day with the brilliant white headstones. It really was beautiful.

Birthday Weekend

Well, my 26th birthday came and went without much fanfare. Birthdays don't have quite the same meaning they used to as when I was little or 21. That was the only birthday where I actually felt "different" (and I'm not just talking about a hangover). Since I'm a year younger than all my friends my birthdays never really had much oomph to them!

My brother and his wife and baby went to dinner with us and then we came up for some Coldstone Strawberry cake (my folks know how to pick cake!). I found a Chicken Dance Elmo at a garage sale for $1.25 that day and Olivia, our niece, really got a kick out of it. And we couldn't get the stupid song out of our head for the next two days.

Then on Saturday we went out to supper at the fanciest restaraunt in town (not too hard to make that distinction) with my good friend from college, Rachel, and her boyfriend, Seth. We had a nice time talking with them and "breaking" him in to the group. Eric gave me crap all night and by the end of the night Seth had joined in. So I consider him officially "in" if he can stand a night with Eric and I.

All in all -- a good birthday.

I HAVE A JOB!

Whoo hoo!! I just got offered a job with the state of SD as a Training Specialist! I will be doing various employee training for state employees -- it's what I've wanted to do for as long as I can remember....but now that I actually have to do it for real I'm scared!! Ha, ha. I'm sure I'll be fine. I get to start next week or the week after. The job is supposed to be based out of Pierre, but they are going to let me work from home until next May when Eric's done with school. Then I'm sure we will have to move out there. But Eric's job can be out of Pierre, too, so I'm hoping it works for him to get a job in Pierre also. Well anyway, I'm just excited now that I'm employed! That worked out pretty dang well.....

I AM EMPLOYED!!!

Whew!! I got a job! I just got offered today and am really excited about it. It will be with the State of South Dakota as a Training Specialist. I don't have a definite start date, but I will travel to Pierre next week to get my office set up and then I will be working from home until Eric's done with school in May. Whoo hoo!! Just wanted to share the good news! What a good birthday present :)

NO NEWS

I didn't find out yesterday about my job, but that's ok. The boss emailed me and said that her last interview got moved and she wouldn't be able to finalize everything until next week. Crap. So I have to wait a few more days. But I will post as soon as I find out if I have a job or not....

The Toe Incident

Because I feel a perverse need to share the picture of my toe's bandage, I will tell you the story. Not much of story, really. Pretty disgusting. I picked at my toe and it got infected. It was ingrown and infected for over 2 months and I decided to do something about it. That something involved cutting off both sides of my toenail all the way down to the quick. Now I'm hobbling around with my jolly green giant toe.

Tomorrow, I will have a better post. I will find out if I got the job or not. Much better than a skanky toe.....

Weekend Wedding

I've been AWOL for a while since we've been kind of busy lately. We went to a wedding this weekend for my college roommate. It was fun to see friends we hadn't seen for a while.

I am awaiting results of a job interview and I think I've got a pretty good shot. I will let you know when I find out....

Living the Cowboy life....

We went to Theodore Roosevelt Ntl Park with Keith, Kara & Kenna this weekend. It was lots of fun to camp in the park for 2 days (without a shower!) and then we went into Medora the last night to see the Musical and Pitchfork Fondue. We saw lots of wildlife (bison, Peeps the rabbit, wild horses, prairie dogs) and did a few hikes. We also saw a lot of the history of the no-stoplight town and determined that the entire place closes at 6 pm and it's run by the same people. Very strange, but cute little place. Next time Eric and I want to go to the North Unit and visit some of the other historical sites up there! Another fun weekend with friends!! :)

Bye Bye Air Force...

My last day of work was this week. Needless to say, I was pretty sad to leave my squadron but since I've been on my first three days of terminal leave...I am loving this!!

Before I left the squadron I did get to do a 24-hour shift with the fire department on base. It was kind of like a perk that CE officers get to do if they want. So they had a few different exercises that day and we put on all the bunker gear. I expected it to be kind of heavy - but I didn't expect to not be able to move! At one point I was trying to get back on the truck and I couldn't even lift my leg high enough to heave myself up. The nice, young firefighter was standing patiently behind me but I still felt like an idiot! Oh well. It was fun.

Eric and I are going to the Central States Fair tonight for some fair food. I haven't been to a fair in many, many years and I'm sure Eric is in the same boat. Well -- 5 years since we've known each other at least! It's really cool and drizzly which will be fun, I think. Then we can put on jeans and sweatshirt and eat something yummy.

We'll post pictures of our fair goodies!!