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!