Christmas 2009

Christmas Morning 2009. Chopping at the bit.







.
The Barbie Four Musketeers and ALB. Purple one from
Texas Grandma.

ME and her copy of the Silmarillion ... not pictured the three copies of the extended versions of the LOTR.




ALB and her new Scooter from Emily









ALB and her Three Musketeers dress from Colarado Grandma and Grandpa. She is happy just the picture caught her with a
sour face. :)

England Meeting In June 2009

JOWOG meeting at AWE in June 2009.

Angel on the tree

Elizabeth helps put the Angel on the tree.









Santa visit. We love Mr. Santa Fox and his story about Murray the other reindeer

Santa's Helper

White Rock Overlook visit

Recently visited the overlook with ALB.

The Rio Grande below.







ALB with Black Mesa in background








Black Mesa w/Sangre de Cristo in distance.








Waterfall .... frozen








Track has been redone with some crushed rock.

A few things we have been doing.

Turkey Cupcakes from Thanksgiving. ALB helped her Mom make these for school.







Elizabeth has been working puzzle a lot lately. She was proud of her Veggie tales one.








Here is a sample of the computing power in the house.

December Snow!

Not sure how much we got but it was enough to has a snow day!

No school or work.

At around 5am the power started going off and on. In some parts it was off for several hours. But we just got on and off power cuts.
The wind was blowing pretty hard too.



I had a doctor's appointment at 7:45am so I had to get the truck cleaned off so I could get there on time. But then the doctor could not get in for about an hour. I left the office at 10am. But I had a good book so time just flew.

Pals

Bailey Bud and the girls.
This is one of his favorite ways to visit.

Nacho (Notcho)

Can't a guy sleep in peace.
Picture courtesy of Emily.

Halloween stuff

Emily's pumpkin at Pumpkin Glow downtown.
The one in the middle, Mike W. from Monsters, Inc.








Lexie (fairy princess) and Elizabeth (R2D2).
Gwen made the R2D2 shirt.










Elizabeth with her light bulb face jack-o-lantern.








Elizabeth in her M&M costume for the Halloween Carnival at Emily's school.

Scarecrows

Emily and Elizabeth were downtown taking pictures of scarecrows.
These three were most scary.

The girls

Downtown, self-portrait

And She Was Swinging

Elizabeth can really get to swinging now on her own.

From almost Zero degrees ..... !!!!







To a full 180 degrees !!!


I was amazed when I saw her doing this.

Let's Go Climb A Tree, Up Where The Air Is Free!

While driving home from lunch and a trip to the bookstore, Elizabeth and I wondered why kids like to climb trees so much but when they growup and become adults that they seldom climb a tree except to get their stuck kids out of the tree. :)

So I said what the heck ... I used to spend alot of time in trees ... why not today.
Here are some pictures of our adventure so to speak.

View from the top of our apple tree.












Here is ALB in the street ....











And one of Dad in the tree as high as the apple tree limbs would safely carry me.








Here is one of the tree monkeys I found today. :)

Kawasaki Lets The Good Times Roll!

Talk about an advertising slogan that was "Made To Stick." After all these years, I still hear this slogan. No I did not buy a motorcycle or a JetSki or nor am I talking about Guy Kawasaki.

No, I am talking about the Kawasaki drill. What!? You have never heard of the Kawasaki drill? Neither had I before yesterday evening when Steve Nolen showed up at the house with his power tools and elbow grease to help me make some "temporary" protective covers for our skylights that got blown out by the golf ball sized hail that hit Los Alamos proper.

We started at about 6:30 and finished at about 11:30pm. Hopefully this will keep the rain out and protect the skylights that were not completely broke through until we return home.

Here is some pictures of the over engineering that Steve helped me with. It was a committed course that he had little say about. ;) Thanks brother! You are deserve a big steak dinner when I return. :)












Steve said it looks like coffins and we buried folks up here. :)
















We have fourteen skylights and we had ten break. They were double paned and all the ones that broke on over the house living areas directly only broke the outer pane so they were not leaking that we could tell. That was a blessing.

On the back porch which has six skylights, we had all six break the outer pane and four of those either broke all the way through the second pane. On two or three a hail ball went all the way through without stopping. Even though those where less important to cover even if they leaked we covered them anyway.

Again props to Steve for the help else I would be still here today instead of heading out to Texas to relax and visit family. Also thanks to April for loaning us Steve even though they had a class to teach last night. Thanks April...we love you!

See you soon TX Grandma and maybe Aunt TK for a quick hello and goodbye. We will call you Grandma after we get on the road.

UK Trip: Indian Food

The last two UK business trip usually has Steve and I eating Indian food. On this trip one of our colleagues at AWE invited to have dinner with him a few of his coworkers. We went to an Indian food place close to Newbury and at New Greenham called New Greenham Tandoori Restaurant. New Greenham is an old US military base that is now owned by UK citizens. RAF Greenham Common.

The food was very good and the location was interesting with a good bit of history. We had Indian food at least three times while we were there....actually four if we count the fast food Kabobs.

It's All About Elizabeth

A Self-Shot.








A Tony Romo fan. Cute.











A unique shot at Mountain Playground.








At White Rock Overlook with the Rio Grande in the background.










That is Black Mesa in the distance background. We are at White Rock Overlook before pre-school one morning.











A quote from the Preschool end of year report:

She has a desire to please, even though, she would love being in charge.

Eight Track Tapes

A recent find while helping my Mom clean out some storage units.











Wow, Queen, Boston, Loverboy, Cheryl Ladd, Dan Hill, Styx!
That may be the only copy of the Cheryl Ladd ever sold. :)







Here is one April might appreciate. Gerry Rafferty.










Note the second song on the the third track. Yep Baker Street which Dave Ramsey uses as his theme song on his show. Steve caught on to that fact quickly while when we discovered the box. Note this was released in 1977 and thee is a sticker at the top from Tape Town saying it was purchased in 1978. I bought this eight track mainly for the song Baker Street.

Sisters

It was a quiet and lazy day yesterday. Emily came in from playing and started baking cookies with Elizabeth. Gwen was napping and I was doing something on the computer. I snapped this one before they knew I was there.



















Today after church the girls went out to play. I looked out and saw this....











Of course Elizabeth has her own scooter but not as cool as riding M.E.'s with M.E. :)

They still do not know I took these pictures yet.

Happy Easter