::first tuesday::

We live in a very small community outside of town.
We have very small cute little shopping center here. The couple of times that I've been out there it's seemed like a bit of a ghost town. In fact, the other afternoon when Max and I went there to get an ice cream cone from the little sandwich shop, we were the only people in sight.
I don't want them to close down though, that would be a bummer, since we're a good 10 or 15 minutes outside of town.

This week the stores all got together and hosted a First Tuesday party, and of course we went.
It was really fun, free and very small.
They gave out teeny hot fudge sundaes. There were dogs in the dog training place doing tricks (though we didn't see any of those.)
There was a marimba band playing on the sidewalk--and they were really good!

I mostly just took that video to test out the video skills on my new phone that I haven't really had a chance to try.
There's a little computer repair shop there, and he brought out all the old PCs that people had dropped off for recycling and let people take them apart. It was pretty cool. Max loved it.



I was really impressed with how much of the computer he got apart. I didn't know he was so good with a screwdriver!!

We finished up with some face painting. This lady said it was her first time ever doing it, and she was really worried and stressed about it and took forever with each kid. As a result the little things she painted were SO pretty. She had butterflies on all the little girls that were so gorgeous I couldn't have painted them if I'd worked on it for a week on a really nice piece of paper. Anyway, she did a very good job.



Max was very proud of his little dragon.
So proud in fact, that he wouldn't let us wash it off at bedtime, and then, he wouldn't let us wash the remnants of it off in the morning either. So he went to play at a friend's house looking like he had some sort of strange skin condition.
That night we compromised by taking a picture before we washed it off in the tub.

He's a cute little stinker.

::last night::

::a cautionary tale::

When trying to make a batch of yummy brownies (that everybody is looking forward to), and when living at very high altitudes....

It's best to follow the high altitude directions on the box. (It also doesn't hurt to remember to add the water that's required.)
At least I remembered to grease the pan so they all came out. Otherwise the pan might've been a casualty.

(He thinks he's pretty funny, doesn't he?)
The dang things smelled so good and brownieish, but once they cooled down they were definitely tooth breakers.
Hopefully I've learned my lesson!

::around the house::

I've been meaning to do this post forever--just a few more glimpses of the house and stuff.
But it's been such a crazy life the last couple of weeks. We're working hard and enjoying it. I don't know if Max is enjoying his hours at work with us, but we're at least glad we're all together! And all the ladies at work are so nice to Max. We've come up with a little system. He does some workbook pages and then he can play his games and stuff. Holding out on the fun stuff until after he's done his work has made the fun stuff a little more attractive I think.

Anyway, around the house:

Here's my bookshelf--organized by color. I think it turned out really fun, though not quite as sophisticated as I've seen others (online) do. It does make my eyes happy to look at it though.

This picture is a couple of weeks old. Max in "his" bathtub. It's nice to have a tub where he can keep his toys without Kris and I tripping on them every time we need to shower.

Here's another older one. Max on the back porch. Well it's not really the back porch I guess. It runs along the side of the house and connects to the garden down where Max is.

This is the sun room/workout room at the very end of the hall. It's nice because it has french doors that open out to a little cement patio and then the desert.
BUT we haven't gotten to use it yet. Things have just been too crazy. Hopefully soon. I know the treadmill has been calling my name.

The view from the windows in Max's room. Pretty green for the desert, don't you think?

Here's a little peek at the guest room and the hideousest curtains ever. Kris is snoozing in there right now because when the movers put our bed together they did a terrible job and it's all squeaky and feels like it's going to fall apart. So we're going to repair it this afternoon.

The cool sink in the hall/guest bathroom. Come visit!

The mirror that goes along with it.

My mom's star fits into the decor well, don't you think? There used to be kind of a nasty bunch of dried chilis hanging from this hook, but luckily the previous renters came back for their mail and also took their chilis. Yay! I like the star much much better.

My sister Charlotte gave me this cute little key rack quite a long time ago. I love it and I show you the picture of it now because it's just so appropriate for our house. Because as I was going around this afternoon taking photos I suddenly heard this weird scrabbling sound. I looked up at the kitchen window and what did I see?

The window was open a crack (ours open sideways here) and this lizard was hanging out between the window and the screen. What a crazy lizard.

So there you go. Maybe I'll blog again before next week--we'll see!

::hi::

We're still alive, just super busy in the office. Turns out most of the income at the office from last week got all messed up between our accounts and the previous dentist's, so I've been trying to unravel the mess. Hopefully this week will turn out better.

I finally got a new cell phone--Kris and I have been toughing it out with our old original iphones--they're great phones, but after three years they were both starting to fritz out, mine worse than his. You might have noticed if we've ever talked on the phone. For about the last 6 months the phone has randomly hung up, put people on hold and mute and conferenced called others in during calls. It wasn't super professional.
So I finally got to upgrade to the iphone 4 and it's nice. I really like it so far, except I don't have a case and I'm totally worried I'm going to drop it on our brick floor with a big smash.

But the point is that it has a great camera in it--with a ZOOM! Who knew? And so far the photos I've taken look pretty amazing for a phone.

The one at the top of this post of Max in his karate outfit eating a popsicle under the tree in the garden which is in the midst of a serious weeding is courtesy of New Phone. Straight out of the phone in fact. Looks pretty good, doesn't it? I like it a lot so far.

Frazer Mountain Taos Trip

This is Kris:
A few days after we moved here, we were in a bike store looking at bikes (big surprise) and I stumbled across a flyer for a bike race. It was a Saturday hill climb up from 9,000 ft to 12,000 ft at a ski village near Taos. I thought it would be a fun motivator for me to get into shape after living in cycling purgatory--I mean Rhode Island/Residency--and I thought it would make for a fun weekend trip. It also had a kid's race that Max could do, so I thought it would be perfect. With as much as we've both had to do around the office, I thought this would make a great diversion and Ginna agreed. We registered to race and planned the trip.

Friday:
Initially, I thought we would camp up there, but since baby number 2 is just a few months away, we decided to splurge and use one of the sponsoring lodges. Friday is the busiest day of the week in our office and so we weren't able to start our 1 3/4 hour drive until 6pm. But, I'm getting ahead of myself...the day actually started with Max throwing up first thing in the morning. We took him to the office, made him stay in the back and the staff babied him. He seemed fine and although he didn't eat much all day he didn't barf anymore, so we didn't stress it. We made the drive uneventfully, and for the first time in years, Max fell asleep in the car.
Because it's the off-season, the race got a great deal on lodging. We staying in a condo on the ski slope. The resort that hosted was a lot more quaint and down to earth than most of the ski resorts I've been to. When we finally got to the condo, they had printed out little signs with our name on it and taped them to the doors. Max was super excited to see our name on the door and he even had his own room. He fell asleep again, as soon as he hit the bed.

Saturday
When we woke up in the morning we realized just how beautiful Taos ski valley is. Here is the view from the condo balcony.

Max was very lethargic and obviously not feeling well, but he still managed to explore the surroundings a little in the shirt I got for racing.


Max and I got dressed up in our lycra--given his current fixation with car brands he was ecstatic to wear the volvo jersey.


Ginna and Max walked me down to the start line after I warmed up. The views were amazing although the rainy clouds kept us from being able to see the top of the climb. Since I abandoned the gears on my bike after they broke a few years ago, I had to race in the singlespeed category.


The group of racers was a mix of pros, amateurs and true beginners. I'm pretty sure the clydesdale behind me in this picture was in the latter category and I sure hope I beat him to the top.


Here is another view of the group.


I started at the back of the group because I prefer passing riders rather than being passed the whole race by the true hardcores. This picture is like a where's waldo. See if you can find me.


For the next 1 1/4 hour, as I sufferred up the mountain, Ginna took getting-sicker-by-the-minute Max back to the condo to watch movies. Max got so weak by the time I got back, that he didn't even have enough energy to ride the kid's race. We felt really bad for him. The funniest part of this picture is Max wiggling his loose central incisor It was hanging by a tread.

Max slept on Ginna's lap as we sat through the awards ceremony, which dragged on forever, only to find out that I got 4th place and wouldn't get a medal. But, I did win a raffle--maybe the first in my life. I got a gift certificate.


Poor Max is still not feeling 100%, but we had a great weekend and are looking forward to our next diversion. Special thanks to Ginna from me, for letting me have the time to train for the race and then taking care of Max during it. Actually, Sultan deserves some props too for sitting in the car for 12 hours on Saturday.

::this week::

This week was our first official week of work in the office and boy has it been crazy!
Our practice loan actually funded without any problems on monday, that was amazing and probably the least stressful thing that happened all week.
Kris's mom was here monday and tuesday and helped us so so much. She hung out with Max so he wouldn't have to spend all day with us at the office (for at least a couple of days) and she helped me with the housework. Without her here I probably wouldn't have survived the week.

We've got a lot of good patients coming into the office and everybody seems really excited to meet Kris. The staff has been great to work with so far and they're being patient with our learning curve. It's definitely really odd to suddenly be in charge of employees. At least they all pretty much know what they're expected to do and we just have to step in and tweak a few things.

Our biggest problem this week has been that one of the insurances that the office takes is SO slow and they haven't approved Kris as a provider yet. The other main insurance company took about two days to get it done. So far we're looking at two weeks plus with these guys and they can't even tell us if they've received the paperwork we faxed them at the beginning of the week. It's super frustrating because Kris can't see those patients, and there are definitely a good amount of them. We're just going to keep on bugging them. Kris and I have each been calling them at least once a day, and we're hoping they'll get so tired of us that they will just approve him so we will leave them alone.

I didn't have any time to take any fun pictures this week, nor did we have any exciting adventures besides Max's little bout with some sort of a stomach bug this morning. We did work a lot, I had a dr's appt out here, which is great because I was worried I was never going to find a doctor.

All in all it's been a good week, though I hope next week is a lot less stressful. It'll probably help that next week I won't have to speak in church or sub for the sunbeams...(like I have to do this week.)

Here's a picture of Kris and I on our first official work day. You can see Max in the corner there enjoying his breakfast, loving that he gets to hang out with Grandma all day.
Thanks for coming out Kathy and saving at least a part of my sanity!!!

(I look a little scared in this picture, maybe I was. Kris looks cute though.)

::the other night::

The skylights in the hall make a very satisfying pattern.

You just can't go wrong with the view from our french doors. Always different, always lovely.

Kris and his mom made it last night and we've been enjoying her company. This week is stacking up to be a little intense, with a first official work day and some other crazy things. But it should be fun, and at least we've got the weekend to relax and hopefully recharge a bit.

::craziness::

This week (and last really) has been so crazy for me.
We're officially taking over the dental office this coming monday. Our practice loan will close and we'll be in charge.
Kris had to go to Chicago to take a specialty exam (poor guy), at the beginning of the week, and poor me, I was left behind to try to do everything else. He took work with him, but it's hard to make phone calls and drop off papers at city hall while on planes and etc.

So I've been working at the office every day, trying to finish the unpacking and cleaning, entertaining Max and doing all the other various things there have been to do.

And I'm BEAT. I've used up all our phone minutes, gotten a sore ear and I'm just worn out.

Max has been entertaining himself by getting out as many of the old baby toys he can find and strewing them around the house. He also borrowed some disney movies on VHS from the neighbors, and we brought a little VHS TV combo home from the office (who knows why there was one there) and he's been watching VHSs. Somehow they seem to be WAY more entertaining than DVDs. It was funny that he had no idea how the videotapes worked. So old fashioned!

So anyway, it's been crazy. And I'm still tying up loose ends. I've gotten a lot done this week, but it's not nearly all that needs to be done.
But, basically it comes down to the fact that monday will come whether we're 100% ready or not. And if there's some stuff left undone it'll have to get done later.

The best part of this week was that our friend Amy from Kansas City was in Albuquerque at a business conference. So when I took Kris down to the airport for his trip (by way of a visit to the accountant, by way of some time at the office) we got to meet up with Amy for lunch. It was so nice to see her. Seeing her made me miss Kansas City!
Too bad all of our friends can't just live in the same place so we could always hang out.
And too bad Max was a bum at lunch, but that's basically to be expected. Sigh.


This crazy week is almost over, and Kris is bringing his mom back with him tonight. It'll be great. I'm looking forward to the weekend in which no office work can be done. I guess we'll wait and see what the ward has in store for us. They already have me speaking a week from sunday. Yikes!