SURPRISE!!!

Last night was our "Annual Nurse's Christmas Party" at one of the local Mexican restaurants here in Starkville. To my surprise, it wasn't ACTUALLY our annual party, but a surprise going away party for your favorite blogger ... ME!!! It even included PRESENTS!! I got some excellent things...some things that will help me in my new adventure in learning to cook, and some things that will help me to always remember that i'm a true southerner at heart!!

I work with some of the sweetest people in the world. I can't imagine my life without them. Luckily, I won't have to because I know that no distance is going to keep us apart. (I can bug them from a world away!!)

Thanksgiving 2009 -- Albuquerque style.

I write this on my phone as I'm cruising at about 30,000 feet flying home, so please forgive any errors. It's a lot harder to type on a phone than you think!

Thanksgiving week in Albuquerque was great (entirely too short, but excellent none the less). It was actually very different for us in that usually we eat almost every meal out when we are together and this time we attempted to cook nearly every meal in. It was good. And fun. One night we made Thai green curry chicken that was delicious but so hot that I couldn't eat it. (granola bar dinner for me that night! Ha!)
One day we went to the commissary to do a little food shopping and Justin saw a package of scrapple in the freezer section. I'm not even exaggerating when I say I think it made his week! Don't know what scrapple is? Well, if you were like me and thought that everything left over after bacon and ham and pork chops made hot dogs, you were sadly mistaken... That's what scrapple is for. It's a lower food group. Here is the unaltered ingredient list with a photo to follow. The omlet on the side was MY breakfast because Justin loves me and knows I'm not eating that stuff ;) I will admit, I was brave enough to try a bite. So now I never have to do it again! (ingredients: Pork stock, Pork, Pork skin, Corn Meal, Pork livers, Wheat flour, Pork fat, Pork hearts, Salt, Spices)

Here is our thanksgiving dinner. Excluding the pumpkin pie that I slaved over. All that stirring was killer! Ha! We had a turkey breast that Justin grilled, some cranberry sauce, and some veggie-kabobs. And the bottle of wine was one that we picked up while we were in Italy and saved. It was nice.

That sums up the food portion of my trip. Not sure about you guys but it has made me hungry!!

I don't have any other pictures to post. We went out to the air base one day and Justin took me on a tour of his plane. I got to go inside it and sit in the cockpit and everything, but they had a "no picture" policy. I was bummed out. I looked really cool sitting in the seat playing co-pilot. You'll have to take my word for it I guess. I was amazed at how big the plane was and how many buttons and functions it has. And I know he only told me a small portion of it!! So much went over my head. It's a good thing there wasn't a quiz at the end!

I hope everyone else had a great thanksgiving as well!

Signing off from delta flight 1014
Sent from my iPhone

Anniversary in Albuquerque

Today is the two year anniversary of Justin and I's first date ... I wish I had a picture from that night to put here, but I don't. I can describe it. It was an excellent night with the worst service ever!! We went out for sushi at the ONLY sushi place in Columbus, MS and ordered. About two hours and lots of angry walk outs later, right before we both slipped into a diabetic coma, we got our food. Luckily, conversation has been one of our strong suits from the beginning or that could have been disasterous! ;)

Maybe to celebrate, we will go out for sushi tonight to reminisce. Here is a peak at the awesome present that Justin gave me. The picture doesn't do it justice but it will have to do until you can see it in real life. I'm going to have to start going better places besides home and work to accomidate all the shiny things he keeps buying me!! One of these days he will learn that he doesn't have to buy me stuff like that to make me happy...until then, i'll keep quiet! ;)

"Take Your Kid to Work" day

So it wasn't REALLY take your child to work day, but Logan tagged along with me anyway while I worked first aid at the Basketball game and then came along while I gave flu shots to the team afterwards in the training room. And he just HAPPENED to bring along a basketball and a sharpie...Just like a boyscout, always prepared.

Boredom = new blog post

So, this entire week I have the "honor" of handling first aid at the Wood Magic Science fair on campus. It has now been four and a half hours and I've seen one person. Splinter. Imagine that. With all this wood. So...that means that I am scrambling to find things to occupy my time. So I decided to work on the blog. I really must get some things to post about in between trips.

I started out my day fairly productively. My friend Jared made me a copy of his Rosetta Stone CD to help me learn Japanese. I did this for a couple of hours until my brain felt like it was leaking from my ears. It is a really cool program, but it's a full immersion program. No English. It's jump in and see what you can figure out. Wrong answer? Keep trying...you'll get it. Same questions over and over and over. Eventually you figure out what's right and why it's right (or at least you hope you do) Remember when you were an infant and you didn't know English? Same theory. Or so they say. I've had fun with it.

Here are a couple of pictures that I thought I'd post. Since this is a post about nothing (kind of like a Seinfeld episode) these random pictures should fit right in!!

The first one is a picture of my friend Casey and I after my very first 5k walk/run in May. The second is Logan, hiding from the camera on the first day of school, and the last is my friend Sonja and I.

My latest trip...

I've been back in the land of the "bulldawgs" for almost 24 hours now and I realized that I have yet to post one picture or one blog from my weekend with Justin in Albuquerque. Of course it was great fun!!

My excuse for going out there this weekend was the Balloon Fiesta...unfortunately the winds were not cooperative. Both the Saturday and Sunday balloon functions were canceled because of the high winds. (I did see a couple of balloons before they deflated them!! AND we still saw some pretty awesome fireworks.) Luckily the balloons were just my excuse to go. My REASON for going was still there!!

Since the balloons were a no go, we used our time doing a lot of hiking. Hard core (for me) hiking. I even had to get my very first pair of hiking shoes. Oh yeah. I'm a pro now. When we hiked part way up the Cabazon, peak, we did pretty well about 2/3rds of the way up, and then SLID the rest of the way down on our butts. It was pretty comical.

Cabazon Peak

Me...with no way up, no way down...

While we didn't make it to the top of Cabazon Peak, we did make it to the top of Battleship rock...

Battleship Rock

and went to Soda Dam and saw some hot springs

and met some locals...

Big news for some...old news for others

As I begin to get things in order and squared away, I decided to write a new post. I know several of you know this already, but there are probably several of you who don't. So this seemed like the best way to update the masses. (Read as, the two people who actually read my blog.)

In January 2010, Justin will be transferring to Okinawa, Japan and I will be joining him. I am very, very happy with my decision and have the support of my friends and family. This will be for an extended period (a couple of years). But you guys are all invited to visit any time you want. Just google Okinawa. It's beautiful. Beaches, sushi, snorkeling, lots of cool stuff. :)

This was a big decision. And not entered into lightly. There will be a lot of people and things that I will miss here, but I am so very excited about my decision. You guys will DEFINITELY have to bookmark my blog now....stay tuned to see what's next!!!

Vocanoes and Petroglyphs

Today we went hiking to see the petroglyphs (google's definition: rock carvings made by pecking directly on the rock surface using a stone chisel and a hammerstone. When the "desert varnish" on the surface of the rock was pecked off, the lighter rock underneath was exposed, creating the petroglyph. Archaeologists have estimated there may be over 25,000 petroglyph images along the 17 miles of escarpment within the monument boundary) and the volcanoes. It was really cool. Apparently the volcanoes aren't active anymore but they still lie on an active fault line. Pretty cool. Lots of rock climbing. or at least as close as I've ever been. Here are some pictures.



The veiw from the top of one of the volcanoes.


Holding on for dear life as the wind almost took me down!!



Exhausted!!!

Comments...

There has been a problem that has stopped anyone from being able to leave comments on any of the posts ... I think I finally fixed it. It has been driving me crazy for months!! Luckily I've had some down time today to address that pesky issue since Justin had a SIM. ;) So, feel free to add comments if you want. Or don't. But now I know that my blog is fully working. And that makes me smile ;)

Dinner in Albuquerque...

Last night Justin and I went this really nice french restaurant here in Albuquerque. It was really good. Here are a couple of pictures before we left the house. It was as close to a trip down memory lane for Paris as we could get in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Complete with escargot.

Bonding

Shadow?? Sitting in my lap? Had to document it with a picture. She
came up on her own, and no, I don't have tuna in my pocket ;)

The end of the rainbow...

Look at the beautiful rainbow I saw this afternoon!!! Just had to
share! Stay tuned for more pictures...

Food, big guns, and movies...

Food, big guns, and movies...that about sums up my Saturday. We went out to lunch went to the gun range, and then went to see District 9 at the theater. Fun times, fun times!!! Here are some pictures.

Dinner at 10,378 feet

Here are some pictures from our dinner at "High Finance" and the tram ride up. The view was amazing. It was crazy how much colder it was up there! I was less than prepared! ha!

Made it!

My plane landed last night about 9:30. Just a little behind schedule.
Haven't had a chance to see much of the city yet but here's the view
from justin's patio to get started. It's cloudy, rainy, and even a
little chilly here this morning. Hopefully that changes or my wardrobe
choices are going to prove to be a little problematic! Tomorrow is
suppossed to be pretty and hot again though I think.

We have dinner reservations at "High finance" tonight which is a
restauraunt at the top of the Sandia peak at like 10,000 feet
elevation. Stay tuned for picures from that, as well as from the 2.7
mile tram trip up there :)