We're back

Well, it's been a while. You'll notice there are no pictures in this post. That is because I left the camera & cable in the car and I am too lazy to go get it, and it is too cold. So you'll see pictures later. Here's an update of what we have been doing the past couple weeks. Chad worked 48 hours Monday and Tuesday of last week, and Wednesday we went on a 16 mile backpacking trip in the Juniper Mesa Wilderness. The weather was perfect during the day--sunny and in the 30s. You may think this is cold weather, but it was actually nice when we were huffing and puffing and the sun was shining on us. The really cold part was when we camped on top of the mesa at night and it got down to 11 degrees. The water in our Nalgene bottles was freezing as the wind was blowing. We snuggled in our warm sleeping bags in our tent, and I wore the new down jacket Chad got me for Christmas. Then, it was too hot. Hard to strike a happy medium! But, better to be warm and be able to get cooler than not to be able to warm up at all. The backpacking trip was fun except for the blister I got on each foot...the one on my right foot was actually on the bottom of my heel. I didn't even know you could get blisters on the bottom of your heel. Well, if you haven't gotten one of those, you haven't lived.

We got back from our trip and spent a restful few days at home. Chad worked Christmas Eve and came home Christmas morning. I had made breakfast, so we ate and then opened presents. Chad got a ton of DVDs and CDs and some gear, and I got a brand new sewing machine, dishes, CDs, cookware, and the jacket I mentioned earlier. We lounged around Christmas Day and took all our boxes & wrapping to the recycling bin (I couldn't believe how many boxes just the two of us accumulated for Christmas alone), and got ready for our next trip. The 26th we drove to Vegas to spend a couple days with Emily, Joey, Riley and Josey. It was a lot of fun to hang out with them, and our nieces are just adorable. Then Thursday we drove to San Diego to see the Aggies play in the Holiday Bowl, and we won't talk about that game. It was fun anyway, and we got to see the Aggie band play twice. As usual, the Aggies won at halftime even though we didn't win the game. Being there made me excited to go to even more A&M games when we get back to Texas.

And so now, I am in my classroom, planning what I will teach my students over the next 20 weeks. Looking at a new year is always exciting, especially this year for us and all the unknowns it holds right now. In the next few months we will know where we are moving, what our jobs will be, etc. Sometimes the thought of moving and getting new jobs is scary and daunting, but these next few months for me I think will be very exciting. Keep us in your prayers as we look at making some pretty big decisions...and look for pictures in the next few days.

New Pics

Here are some new pics of me at work. After 3 weeks of our base being back open we had only done 2 calls.....until yesterday. Yesterday the crew did two calls and today we have done one so far. The holidays are always a little less than happy for some, which makes them busy for people like me. Anyways, enjoy and be safe on the roads this holiday season.



P.S. No comments allowed about how funny I look in my hemet.


About to take off















Our pilot Bob flying us over some Indian ruins on the way back home from PHX.






























Me in the air betwee PHX and Prescott

Oh the weather outside is...

Snowing, kind of. As I sit here writing this post there are a good number of flurries outside, but they are mostly tiny little snowballs (think Dippin Dots, the ice cream of the "future") that really just roll off everything and don't stick. The weather is supposed to get a little worse tonight. We were going to go backpacking tomorrow but Chad is working instead so we will leave on Wednesday, for two days only. We both decided that 2 days is plenty in the cold weather. Tonight is supposed to get to 16 degrees...brrrr. Okay, the snow has turned into fat flakes now. My favorite.

Anyway, not much new here. I did get tickets to the holiday bowl where the Aggies will play the Golden Bears, which as far as I can tell do not really exist in wildlife. I have never heard of a golden bear. So it's the matchup of the two mythical mascots. Anyhow, they are ranked #21 and #20 respectively, so they are pretty well matched. It should be a good game. So this week we're backpacking, next week we'll be in Vegas and San Diego, and then we'll be back home to start work again. :( That's about it from here. I knew I hadn't posted in a while so here it is. By the way, look for some pictures from our trips in the next couple weeks.

the Element: off-road

Here are some pictures from the weekend before last. There is this historical Stagecoach stop that is about 20 miles from Prescott down windng mountain dirt roads. I have been wanting to check this place out ever since i say it on a Forest Service map right after we moved here. Anywho, we set out in the Element and had quite the adventure. Using only a less-than-detailed forest service map and a giant orange box of a car, we set off in search of Palace Station. we ended up a a few roads that, although they weren't labeled 4X4 only, they should have been. One was barely wide enough for Ele (our car, and niece i suppose) to fit through. The area was gorgeous. Its like having Blue Haven in your backyard. Well, we mad a wrong turn and ended up a mile frm the top of one of the major mountains in the area that has a fie look-out tower at the top. I bet you can't do that in texas (arkansas maybe). we decided that we didn't have any pressing matters at hand so we hiked up to the top. Afterwards, we realized where our wrong turn had been and we began our journey back towards Palace station. Shawn called my wife (as he often does) as we were leaving the top, which surprised me at the fact that we got such great reception. When we finally arrived we were greeted by a sign that basically said: Palace Station. Look at a distance but do not trespass. People live here. Please respect their privacy. After driving all day on these horrible raods we couldn't even explore. It was a cool trip anyway

That was one sharp curve. I'm glad I got insurance on the rental car.

The beautiful Lesley at the top of Mt. Union.

Finally

Here are the pictures we promised, although you probably don't care about them now.

This is Lesley when she was a pateint for a nightime scenario with the Wilderness Emergency Care class I was teaching this semester. She was ejected from a bus that rolled over on mountainous terrain. She landed on a stick which implaed her back and gave her a severly collapsed lung. She also had copious amounts of cold, wet blood on her back, and laid in only a t-shirt and jeans in 25 degree weather. Then my students took FOREVER to find her. I finally had to lead them to her (I was supposed to be in the van crash, but i was uninjured, lucky for them)

A close up of her wound.

YUCK!!!!!!

My wonderful students doing a great patient assessment on Lesley. (They have no idea that their patient is the teacher's wife at this point.)

Trying to get Lesley, who is now truly shivering, into a sleeping bag.

They are so serious!!

Test

The Aggies are playing in the holiday bowl. If anyone knows how I can get decently priced tickets please let me know!

Help

Okay, So I am actually ready to post pictures, but all of the buttons are missing above this window...in other words there is no button to click to upload pictures. Any help would be appreciated.

Our Thanksgiving

Hey guys, well I'm not able to post any recent pictures quite yet, but it is coming. It would take too long to explain why. Anyway, we had a good Thanksgiving break. Tuesday afternoon right after school/work we left for Vegas and were there until Thursday. We had fun seeing the sights and eating at bad buffets. The Vegas buffets were definitely an experience unlike any other. If you have never been to one, let me explain it for you. First, you stand in a line to pay just like any other all-you-can eat place like Gattitown or Golden Corral. Then, after you pay, you are herded (and I'm not using this word by accident) into 2 other lines, for optimal crowd control. After a table comes open (even if there are numerous tables open), the host comes to you and lets you through the rope barrier (picture an exclusive night club, only not exclusive and not at night). He leads you to your table (surrounded by many other empty tables) and says "everything is self-serve," as if previous customers have made the mistake of thinking that all those people standing in line at the buffet were waiters getting the food that the diners had custom-ordered. Anyway, it was a funny experience. Other lessons learned in Vegas:

1. Be alert. You may be walking down the street, trusting the people in front of you to continue walking as well, when they stop abruptly to read a map or talk on the phone, not realizing that other people exist on the sidewalk as well.

2. Vegas is not a place for children's eyes. Lots of other people did not seem to think this was the case.

3. It's possible to be very sore simply from walking on a fairly level street for a good amount of time, if you did not plan ahead and wear the right footwear.

So Thursday we got back home in time to have Thanksgiving dinner at some friends' house. The food was great, but it was even better that we didn't have to come home and cook and clean. Friday Chad had to work a 12 hour shift, so I was left to my own devices and decided to take a stroll around some of the shopping places. I got some Christmas decorations and a couple of other things and put up our Christmas tree on Friday as well. The local mall on the busiest shopping day of the year reminded me of other malls on regular days of the year. This makes sense, given that our mall is usually quite deserted. Friday I also watched the Aggies beat the Longhorns, which was pretty exciting 1. because they were actually showing an A&M game on a network in Arizona, and 2. because the Aggies haven't beat the Longhorns since before I became a student at A&M. I wish Colt McCoy hadn't gotten hurt in the process.

Chad is at work again today and I am about to leave for church. By the way, we didn't get any pictures in Vegas so the ones I post will be when I played victim and a couple ones from a hike we went on yesterday when we took a wrong turn.

Not again...

Well, I just received in the mail my 3rd jury summons in 3 months. I have not actually gone to jury duty yet, so I guess that is why I keep getting called. Maybe I will actually get to sit on a jury this time.

Today Chad and I are going on a little trip to Las Vegas and we will be back in town on Thanksgiving day. Not your traditional Thanksgiving, but it will be fun nonetheless. I have pictures to post of when I was a patient for Chad's class and I flew out of a rolling van and a stick punctured my right lung. It was gross, and the wound looked very real. I'll post those pictures when we have pictures from Vegas to post as well.

Everything else is going well. Chad is officially finished with one of his classes and is busy writing papers, papers and more papers.

Have a happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Este mundo es LOCO!

Here is an article that I thought some of you might be interested in. I found on the usually liberally fluffed arena of MSN news. http://men.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=1127694&GT1=8784 .

Also, we have some great pictures from last night when Lesley was a patient for my Wilderness First Responder class that I have been a teaching assistant for this semester. I am sure one of us will post those later. (one of us meaning Lesley). She was an incredible patient!!! Well...I have a ten page research paper to start because I have another 5 page paper that i will have to type between Thursday and Tuesday ( I guess I'll have to fit it into the 36 hours I'm working this weekend).

Chad

Okay, I'm on

Caving in to peer pressure (also known as the bandwagon technique which is one of the persuasive techniques I am teaching my students this week), I have switched to the blogger beta. Apparently it is better, and I hope it is because I can't switch back. I hate commitments like this. Anyway, you can't comment on my blog if you have the old version so you need to switch. Since Emma and Emily are my main commenters and they both switched to the beta version, I felt compelled. Comment away!

Chad's Soapbox

Hey everyone. I have been making a lot of life changes lately and have begun to put some of my convictions into action. Soooooo here is some stuff I think everyone will be interested in. I am writing a research paper on how the current dismal state of America's physical, mental, and social health is, in large part, due to our growing disconnect with nature. Naturally our kids are feeling the brunt of all this because they are subject to a much chasm between mature and their culture than we were. This is one of the big reasons why I have become an adventure educator, and much of my knowledge on this topic comes from reading Last Child in the Woods : Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv. Anyone who has kids or works with kids should read this book! You will love it! (for some reason I think Joey will especially like it) If you have a great library system like we do then you can check it out. If not, then it is worth every penny that you will spend on it. Here are some other cool resources:
www.cnaturenet.org
www.playingforkeeps.org
www.playingforkeeps.org/site/documents/statistics.pdf

Also I would like for everyone to continue to pray for my future in Adventure Education. I have gotten approval for my senior project to be the drafting of a business plan for a nonprofit AE program. I will then use this plan for a proposal to the Blue Haven board of directors for the establishment of this program under the umbrella of CBH. I you know of any waelthy benefactors that would like to pay me >$35,000 a years to do this then PLEASE let me know!

On another note, there is a great burgeoning program at Prescott College called the Centaur Leadership program. It train people to use horses for therapy to just about any population of people you can think of. It is really great work and has been started by one of my favorite instructors here. I am mentioning this because they now have a fund-raising program that everybody can help out with. If you go to this link www.prescott.edu/cls and click on the Amazon.com link then they will get 5% or more of the money you spend. It is an esy way to help a good program.

I have officially stepped off of my soapbox.

P.S. Anything that is underlined is linked to an internet site. I'm so tech savvy.

Birthday pictures

This sign was waiting for me when I got home from Texas. What a sweet husband!

Mom in with Kellen and Bonnie "posing"

Blowing out my turkey cupcake

Kellen asked for "number two" because this one got messed up
Close-up of my birthday cake

I had a good birthday. My family threw me a little party in Texas and then when I got home Chad had cleaned the house and had a happy birthday sign and a present for me. We went out to eat after church. 25 is pretty good so far.

Good weekend

This weekend I went to Texas to visit my family since I had a long weekend. It was a lot of fun to get to visit them for a few days since Chad had to work a lot of the weekend. Here are some pictures of Kellen and Bonnie. Mom bought Kellen a farm set with animals and he just loved it. Everytime I told him to say "Cheese" he would put one of the animals in front of his face and say cheese. He was very excited about the animals. Bonnie liked the farm too. Good job mom!

Update

Hi everyone, I just wanted to give an update on our lives. Chad only has about a month left of classes, and then he will be in his last semester! We are so excited. Next semester Chad is going to school part time, taking one class and working on his senior project. This will be good because it will give Chad time to work and will also give us the flexibility to job and house hunt.

I am flying out tomorrow evening to Texas for the three-day weekend. I will get to see all of the immediate family so that will be fun. I'll take pictures so I'll have something to post next week.

I guess that's about it. Chad and I are making plans for the Christmas break, which at this point include a backpacking trip close to home and a visit to Vegas to see Emily, Joey and the kids. I'll post again next week.

Halloween Fun

What else would you expect your preacher to dress as?

Little Orphan Alan

Heather (Chad's 2nd cousin's wife) and the newest addition to the Montandon family, Silas

This picture is very unflattering, but funny

Typical '80s prom pose (check out the shoes)

Random

Yay! The picture uploader is finally working. The top picture is Chad doing the robot in his authentic Members Only jacket that we found while looking for our Halloween costumes last weekend. I said, "Oh, that will be good for the '80s theme," and he said, "No, I'm going to actually wear this." And he has been true to his word. The bottom picture is of the apples we picked at an orchard in the middle of the forest. No one knows how the apple trees got there, but most think that when settlers came to Prescott they planted the orchard. Pretty cool that you can still go out and pick apples for free!

Blogging woes

Well, we have some pretty good pictures from last night's Halloween party, but the blog site is not letting me post them. I was excited about sharing them with y'all and actually had some time to do it. I will try again a little later on.

Two weeks and counting

Two weeks from yesterday (Thursday) I will be flying in to Texas for the weekend to see my family. I am so excited! Erin even said she was going to have a little birthday party for me with cupcakes. I don't remember when my last birthday party was. It will be fun. This has been a hard week for me at work, and now I have this trip to look forward to. Chad and I are probably going to go camping again tonight, before it starts getting TOO cold...even though it was 29 degrees here last night which is already cold in my book.

Today dad will arrive in Texas and get to his new place tomorrow and start his new job next week. So now officially all my family is back in Texas except for us. It won't be long! I can't believe how fast time flies. In about a month it will be time to apply for Blue Haven again, and it seems like we were just there.

Say a little prayer for Chad because he takes his "oral boards" today which, if he passes, will officially release him from training. Our Civic is in the shop again so he's driving the Element down to Phoenix...glad we decided to buy a second car! I calculated this morning that we'll have spent a couple thousand dollars on the Civic's maintenance this year. Not cheap, but better than two car payments. Yes, lots of random thoughts today.

Oh, one more...Chad and I are going to a Halloween party on Tuesday night and we need easy Halloween costume ideas. Any ideas would be great, but Emma, I'm especially depending on you since this is your favorite holiday. Comment away!

The joys of technology

Well, I had this great blog all typed up earlier this morning and of course, it all got erased when I tried to post pictures so now I'm trying again. Thanks for giving me time to get back in the swing of things. I wanted to post these pictures of Kellen and Bonnie because I thought they were really cute and Chad and I don't have any new pictures of us from recent happenings.

The good news for us lately is that Chad is scheduled to work HERE two weeks from today, and from then on. Yay, no more driving to Phoenix all the time! We have been so blessed with Chad getting this new job and being able to work it out with school.

We also just planned a trip for three days during Thanksgiving to Las Vegas...the big flashy one, not the one in New Mexico. It's kind of a Lesley's birthday/Thanksgiving/3 year anniversary trip. I think it will be a lot of fun. If you've been to LV and want to recommend anything that we need to do, let me know!

I guess that's about it for now. Tonight is Homecoming so Chad and I will go to the football game and see all the cool college freshmen all dressed up to visit their old high school. :) Is it cold over there in Texas yet? It's getting into the 30s here at night...I'm not sure I'm ready for this!

No whining

For those of you who check the blog on a fairly obsessive basis, be aware that today (10/6/06) will be my last day to post for at least the next week. Next week is my Fall Break and I probably won't have time to post, and also since we don't have internet at home I probably wouldn't get a chance anyway. Just a forewarning before people start complaining that there's nothing new on the site.

Car camping at its finest

The only way to eat Rice Krispy treats

The only way to make Rice Krispie treats (nice feet!)

If that's not 5-star, I don't know what is

Carl's Jr. for dinner--how rugged of us

"Me love Rice Krispie treats!"

Saturday night Chad and I took a break from our boring apartment and went camping about 7 miles away from our house. Well, camping wouldn't really be the right word. Chad decided it would be fun to take the back seats out of the Element and inflate the queen-size mattress and put it back there. We also just took some burgers out there with us so we wouldn't have to cook out (we were running a little short on daylight). We did have a dessert cookout though, with Rice Krispie treats Blue Haven style. It was a blast!

Chad hard at work

The laptop is being put to good use
"I'm so pumped about going to the airshow."

Here are some pictures of Chad writing away...counting this summer and fall he will have had 3 writing intensive courses, one of which was an independent study, so he has been doing a LOT of writing. I've also posted a picture of Chad in his flight suit. He was about to go to the airshow at the Prescott airport last Saturday. You can tell he was very excited about me taking this picture. Chad is in Phoenix again today (surprise surprise) but at least he doesn't have to go every day this week. He starts school again tomorrow...his last full-time semester! Yay!

I'm going to try and post more pictures now of our "camping" trip this weekend.

For the blog checkers

I knew when I got on our blog again someone would have made a comment about how there haven't been any posts in a while. Since we don't have internet at home and the internet that we use has been down for the past few days we have been a little out of the loop. We are busy, busy, busy. Chad is traveling to Phoenix every day this week for his job but it has been during the day so we still get to see each other in the evenings. I have been busy booking Arbonne presentations--I have six presentations the week of October 9th, all within a span of five days! So in addition to my regular job I have been planning for that as well.

Emily, I haven't forgotten about your request for a picture of Chad in his flight suit, we just haven't gotten around to it yet. Sorry...

I feel like I haven't talked to any family in a while but since you guys are a lot better about posting on your blogs than I am I still feel like I know a little bit of what's going on in your life. The next time something changes with us or I have pictures to post I will post again.

Ava

Here is a picture of Shawn and Emma's new little girl, Ava. She was born early this morning and we are so excited. Check Emily's blog for details about her height/weight, etc.

My job is cooler than yours

Jury Duty

I was supposed to have jury duty tomorrow, but it got canceled. Truthfully, I'm kind of disappointed. Everyone else I know has been to jury duty, but since I was first summoned about a month ago, I still haven't been able to go. The first time was a summons for a grand jury but I would have had to miss every Friday for 4 months at work, and I couldn't do that, so they excused me. Then, not two weeks later, I got this summons. I called and found out today that this trial was canceled. So anyway, I guess I'm going back in the pool of potential jurors, waiting for my turn. Maybe I should just be glad I don't have to go, but I thought it would be kind of fun.

It's true...

Chad has, in fact, been driving almost three hours one way to get to the station he is supposed to be doing his ride-outs out of for training. So since he is going to school Monday through Friday he has to do all these 24-hour shifts on Saturday. The original reason for him going down to Casa Grande for his ride-outs was because the station was a lot like Prescotts, and I quote: "Rural, high call-volume." Well, in this, his 3rd 24-hour shift, he has yet to ride out on a single call. People just aren't getting hurt enough or having enough high-risk baby deliveries down there. Also, when the weather is bad they can't go up in the air and his last shift it was raining quite a bit, so he couldn't go up at all. So, at this point, even though today is supposed to be his last ride-out shift, he will most likely have to do more because he was also supposed to have gotten 6 calls by this point (I think).

Chad will also start his clinicals soon, which is actual hours in Pediatric ICU, the ER, etc. Those he has to do down in Phoenix as well. Fact of the matter is that he is just super busy right now, but I know that will slow down once his quarter starts in October and he is only going to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and also once he is able to start working in Prescott. Hey, at least he's getting paid, right?

I guess that's about it. I really can't think of anything interesting new in my life right now. Nothing really happening at school or anything like that. I guess that's what happens when you only teach regular academic classes and don't have any extra-curriculars you're responsible for. It's great.

I hope everyone has a great weekend. And Emma, I will try to keep up the blog a little bit more, although here in a few days I'm sure you won't be checking it, you know, with the new baby and all.

Agassi and Sampras called...they want their skills back.

Recently, Chad and I have taken up a new hobby together: tennis. As most of my family and friends know, I used to play tennis in my younger years and really enjoyed it. So, Chad and I found some courts at PHS and have played a couple times in the past week. We are having fun. I will take some pictures of us in action and post them when I get a chance.

And just so you know, we played our first real set last night...and I won. :)

Sorry

Since some of you are a little impatient, I am posting even though there's not a whole lot to say. The picture of Kellen is because I know people (Chad mostly) will complain if I post another post with just words and no pictures. Also, Kellen is cute so I thought you guys would like to see another picture of him. Chad comes back tomorrow from two weeks in Phoenix for job training and begins school on Tuesday. The next four weeks will be extremely busy for him because he will be going to school every day while trying to get in more training down in Phoenix for his job. Great...

In other news, the AC is out in the Civic so we need a new compressor.

I have almost two hours of prep time today, because they decided to change the bell schedule at school and so on Wednesday and Thursday now the kids have three classes a day for an hour and 50 minutes each. Makes for a looooong day. It's good for me now though because I have a ton of grading and entering of grades to do...the first progress reports are coming out soon. Can't believe it's already been three weeks of school.

That's about it from here. See? Boring.

Back to the drawing board

For those of you who were posting comments as "other" and "anonymous," you will now have to get a user name and password if you would like to comment on my blog. Sorry, but I started getting some X-rated comment spam and I am just not willing to receive that stuff for the sake of letting anybody comment. So if you would like to make comments on our blog go to blogger.com and register.

In the club

Something interesting has been happening since we bought our Element. Everytime we pass another one, they wave at us as if we are now in a secret society. We wave and smile at each other as if to say, "You're driving a big bright box? I'M driving a big bright box!" The other day I stopped at a 4-way stop sign at the same exact time as another red-orange Element, same year and everything. He smiled so big and waved, I think it made his day. Anyway, just another reason I'm glad we bought the Element, so I can be a part of this weird subculture...Civic drivers are soooo unfriendly.

Home away from home

View from the door

Front corner of the room

View from the students' desks of me saying "Put that cell phone up before I confiscate it!"

My desk is in the back left corner

Here are some pictures of my classroom, where I spend most of my waking hours. Now when you are wondering what I am doing at that very moment you can visualize a location.

School starts Monday

It seems like school just ended, but sure enough, I will have 130 new kiddos in my class on Monday. I spent the last 3 days up at school preparing and I am ready. Bring it on!

New job, new wheels

Chad wanted to show the floors of the car

I'm in most of these pictures too, since Chad had the camera and it's "technically" my car

This is how the back seats fold up on the wall, although they can also be completely removed

Note to self: close doors before driving

So last week when Chad and I were in Phoenix for my AP Institute Chad found out that he got the job with Airevac as a flight medic. Yay!!!!!! So that was Monday...and then we realized we needed a second car. Chad and I have gone almost an entire year with one vehicle and it has worked out pretty well, but we are at the point where we need two cars again. So after I got finished with my class every day at 3:30, we would go car shopping until pretty much the dealerships were closed. In 114 degree heat that can be a little exhausting. If you are interested in the whole story about how we got our car I will tell it to you another time, but since most of you probably don't care a wit I'm just posting pictures. Let me just preface this by saying that I have loved Honda Elements since they came out a few years ago and pretty much had my mind set on one. Then I'll say that in all of Phoenix we found about two used Elements at dealerships that were in our price range, one of which smelled like an ashtray. We did not get the ash tray. So here are pictures of our new car which I love. If you want to know more about it you can just give me a call sometime.