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.