Go 'Cuse!!

Thanks to some sweet nose-bleed tickets facilitated by the SU Club of DC, I got to see the much-anticipated SU Orange vs Georgetown Hoyas game on Thursday. What a game! We started out REALLY strong and soon held a commanding 20 point-plus lead. But, the Orange failed to stick it out as strong in the second half, and soon the crowd was on fire as Georgetown came within 1 point with only minutes to go. The tension got my heart pounding, and sitting in the upper bowl of the arena, we had to work hard to make our voices carry over the ever-energized Georgetown fans. Luckily, we held out in the end and pulled off a VERY VERY tight win.



I forgot to bring my orange shirt that I had laid out the night before...but at least I wasn't wearing blue and gray.



I invited my friend Nicole from the ward to come with me. She got a hard time from her coworkers because she had refused to get hyped about a Jazz game and all of a sudden was going to basketball games anyway. Funny.



A live action shot...

And the final score. Go 'Cuse!!

Adventures in the desert

Being in the dry deserts of Arizona has its advantages besides just warm weather and nice warm sun...lots of friends and family! Valentine's is a special day as Dave and I celebrated our 1 year engagement anniversary and we were VERY happy that we actually got to spend it together. It has been a LONG month apart as Dave has been training while I have been working at my internship. So, celebrating Valentine's Day was a great reason to travel, but it became even better as we realized how many wonderful people we could visit with!

I have to start out with Dawsha--I can't believe I didn't snap any pictures!!! BUT, after our fun-filled day in Tombstone, we hung out with my old college roommate and her fun family. We even got to see an amazing stained glass window that she had designed and created and installed above their back door. So talented!! We got a good visit in over dinner and then tagged along to a stake Valentine's Day dance where we got in some line dancing and Dave stole me away for a couple slow dances to make it seem like he enjoyed the dance floor :)

The next day, after our adventure trying to find a place to go to church on Sunday (I say "trying" because the address online led us to a bunch of old houses and there wasn't a church in sight...so no Sunday worship for us despite our good intentions!) we headed up to visit my sister Jennifer and her family in Casa Grande. They moved out of Syracuse UT while I was still in Paraguay and preparing to move to Syracuse NY (funny huh!) so I hadn't seen their new house though I had heard lots of stories about the neighboring coyotes, scorpions, and jackrabbits. Since Marc had been working during the wedding, he hadn't gotten a chance to meet Dave yet, so I was really excited to get everyone together. Marc grilled some yummy steaks on the grill and Jennifer whipped up some amazing jello cake for desert.

They have a BEAUTIFUL home with lots of space for all the boys to have their own room, a gigantic master closet that is bigger than my entire bedroom, and lots of open space for the boys to run around. The lawn is dead (Jennifer explained you had to re-seed every 6 months if you wanted to keep a lawn!) and there are cacti growing in the front yard instead of the lilies she had in Utah, but it was delightfully warm and sunny. We took a walk up to the neighborhood duck pond that is part of the housing development. They forced me to take a shortcut through some empty land that I was positive crawled with scorpions and rattlesnakes but thankfully I survived...


Some ducks blissfully unaware they are living in an illusory world of ponds and fountains in the desert.



Feeding old bagels to the ducks. Scotty was so excited he barely broke his apart at all and, instead, chucked about 4 pieces in and wanted another bagel.



Dave about to get his first point in our traditional breaded duck hunt game. To make throwing bread a little more enjoyable, I made up the game a while back--3 points if you hit the head, 1 point for a body shot, best score when the bag runs out wins!



Back at the homestead, the boys showed off a Wii game where you have to do various actions to rock songs--like Rock Band but without the instruments and with admittedly more hand-eye coordination required. At first, I thought Scotty was just feigning the motions because he looked a little over-anxious to cross his arms and pump his fists, but as I learned how to play the game, I saw that he actually knew what he was doing! So cute! The 'big guy' is already 5 years old...crazy that he's growing so fast!
Here's the family getting into the action. You can't tell here, but Jennifer looks more and more like mom every time I see her!! I about died seeing her pick up the remote and swinging her arms around too. Nathan lost interest, but A.J. and Josh are still in, and Scotty patiently awaits his next turn.

Gotta love the whole-body experience :)



It was great to spend time with the Webbs! Thanks for having us over!

On Monday, we enjoyed a swim in the hotel swimming pool (swimming in February!!!) and I got in a workout in the hotel fitness room before we headed over to meet Dave's sister Ashley and family on their way to the new job in San Diego. Dave LOVES his adorable little niece and I was glad to see that Parker took to him so quickly.

We stopped for lunch at a steak house to give the crew a break from driving and enjoy some visiting time before Dave heads to Iraq.

Despite being tired from a few long days on the road, Parker managed to wrangle up enough energy to put on a show in the restaurant:



It was GREAT to be able to cross paths with the Nesbitts on their way to San Diego. Here is the clan in front of Hank's truck with the remnants of stuff that didn't fit with the Marine moving truck. Ashley's car followed behind and a very energetic Miles is inside the cab.

And off they go to California!! I hear Parker has a great sense of direction ;)



Last but not least, Monday night was our time to visit with Chris Olsen and his family. Dave's childhood friend, Chris is now happily married with 2 adorable kids and a very lick-y Boston Terrier. We got in a great visit and learned a new game called "Power Grid" that is a lot like Ticket to Ride but building power plants and trying to expand your power company. A super fun relaxing couples night as the kiddos were put to bed!

We had missed seeing the Olsen family for our wedding because Lolly was due with their second child on our wedding day!! Chris made an admirable effort to try and be there, but we made sure to keep him home for his family. Here is Chris with 7-month-old baby David.



Lots of friends and family and a quick weekend in the sunshine. Love you all!!

Tombstone

Tombstone, AZ "The Town too Tough to Die."

Dave: Thankfully the Army gave me a three day weekend during Valentine's Day weekend, so Kristine flew out Friday night to see me. Saturday day we took off to find adventure and found ourselves arriving in Tombstone. One of the most visited sites in AZ besides the Grand Canyon, Tombstone, exists as a truly peculiar place. Having once been a city of approximately 30,000 to 40,000, Tombstone now has a population of 1800 or so who live to sell souvenirs to tourists. It's faded glory is that of an era of lawlessness. The clashing of villains amongst themselves or with lawmen have covered the streets in blood. It is really interesting in that Tombstone is supposed to be an embodiment of spirit of the Old West. Pioneers, explorers, and others have all passed that way, but in recollection the only real points of interest for Tombstone are the gunfights and murders. As explained by the re-enactor, Tombstone once had over 100 saloons, over 3000 registered ladies of the night, and a red light district 9 blocks deep. Everyday during the height of it's glory, a man was killed in a gunfight.

Nowadays, whats left of that time period is about 3 blocks of buildings encompassing: 3 gunfight reenactments, the courthouse, the Birdcage theater, and Doc Holliday's house. All along the touristy main drag are tons of shops selling a variety of souvenirs and junk. Also there are two really nice jewelry stores on opposite sides of the street, that we found out later are actually both the same store.

Here is one of the more famous gunfight sites. Now a site for reenactments

Here is the local mayor and guard. We tried to talk to him and find out about his town, but he refused to get off his high horse(donkey). Actually he couldn't get down and just wanted people to pet him.



We had lunch in this really fun restaurant with live music and awesome stained glass. It was so busy we were put at a table that already had another couple waiting for food.

Here's a couple of the mementos for the tourists to buy.

We went to a gunfight reenactment show. It was supposed to be the history and reenactment of six major shootings in Tombstone. Here's how the first one went down.
Guy 1 " You cheated"
Guy 2 "No I didn't"
Guy 1 shoots Guy 2.
Scene 1 ends and on to scene 2
Guy 1 "How come you didn't pay me back that money you owed me?"
Guy 2 "I just bought this expensive ridiculous looking shirt from New York and I don't have any money left"
Guy 1 "I want my money. Take it back!"
Guy 2 "No."
Guy 1 shoots guy 2.
Scene 2 ends.
After the first two scenes, we had our fill of fake gunfights and bad acting. The really entertaining part was that most of the time the guns were actually pointed at the ground.





We had a really wonderful day. Good food, good ice cream, a few pieces of nice American Indian jewelry, and lots of laughs. Spending time together is great, pretty much no matter where we are.

New roommates

Warning to the faint of heart: this is NOT a post for you! Actually it's not that bad, but definitely not a post for those that are faint of heart when looking at bugs (I'm thinking of YOU Suzanne!)

SO, in light of the oncoming snowstorm (YES another one! This one is being dubbed Snowpocalypse II), the city is once again closed for business and I've been indoors catching up on some email, phone calls, and working remotely since none of the other interns had tried to check in and with the office closed, my boss is in need of a little more help than usual. It was actually a very restful morning and I enjoyed doing my laundry during the day rather than rushing at the end of the night when I usually find time for house chores.

Then my roommate McArthur revealed some mysterious bug bites on her hip. She is caught in DC despite having planned to leave for California this past weekend and her flights keep getting canceled. She's found good use of her time but it also postpones the room swap we plan for when she heads out. Now I'm a little relieved that the swap hasn't happened sooner because, this way, she can help determine what to do with her bed and bedding and I'm not freaking out on my own hoping I don't become infested with fleas.

Upon discovering the bug bites, she started to examine her bedding and mattress. She yelled out to me...."Kristine, how tough are you?" I thought she was leading into a favor for lifting something but, no, she was asking if I would be brave enough to kill some bugs because she was not thrilled about the job. While I am admittedly a woos when it comes to spiders and large creepy things, somehow the small buggers didn't bother me. I started digging around and we found a score of them all around the edges of the bed, along the floorboards, and under the radiator. I tried to figure out if they were fleas or bedbugs etc but couldn't find anything that matched them for a while. There were these long, skinny, fluffy ones that looked honestly like lint until they started moving and you could see it was just hair around the outside of a little striped body. Then I some round, spotted bugs that freaked me out some more. So I went to the trusty whatsthatbug.com and found that they were carpet beetles. Yes. Carpet beetles. I found some additional information from the University of Florida talking about their feeding habits and how to get rid of them. Apparently they like to feed on any organic fibers...wool, cotton, you name it. So basically anything fabric is susceptible. They also like dark areas when they are young but seek the light when they are adults and look VERY different in the different stages. I still wonder if there were more bugs in the mattress or something because nothing mentioned the carpet beetles biting humans but maybe they got defensive.

We hauled the mattress and box springs downstairs and on to the porch, dusted EVERYTHING around the room and then sprayed the edges with some very chemical-ly RAID. I got a little paranoid thinking that the bugs could have traveled into my room so I pulled my bed away from the wall and started inspecting. Sure enough there were a few against the wall, around the curtains that separate our rooms, and in the floor rug. I couldn't find any in the bed at all, and the bugs were only in one corner of the room. So, either they went into escape mode once we started spraying McArthur's room or they are recent additions to the family. To be safe, we stripped off the bedding and sprayed all around the room and will be hauling the bed onto the porch for freeze control soon too.

What an adventure! It's good in that it gives me motivation to thoroughly dust the room and I'll be adding some cedar blocks to my closet and drawers, but I'm definitely glad this happened before McArthur left so that she can help with the cleanup effort.

Here is the official mugshot of carpet beetles from U of Florida for your viewing enjoyment. I didn't take any pictures of the ones we actually found but they are an exact match for both of these pics:

The "Snowpocalypse!!"

Kristine: That's what they were calling this storm before it even arrived. The Snowpocalypse. Also affectionately known as Snowmaggedon. I laughed and laughed. DC really doesn't know how to handle snow. They don't clean the streets well. Nobody knows how to drive in it. So they just prefer to wait until it melts and take a day off.

So when the weather forecasts kept giving bigger and bigger estimates of the snowfall to hit us this weekend, I figured it was just more scare tactics so people would be justified in getting out of work. Last weekend we got about 6" from a very constant snow on Saturday that wrecked all the busy people's grocery runs and shut down most public transportation. Back in December, it was about a foot that got the entire region a snow day inside. So, having lived through the "blizzard of '09" when Dave and I came down to finalize the housing arrangements, I knew that the entire DC metropolitan area was sure to come to a screeching halt at any sign of oncoming snow. The huge estimates of 24"-30" was honestly a bit irrelevant. It all meant we would be spending the day inside.

When it started snowing on Friday, I was a little skeptical about the overall panic this storm had caused. The snow was light and fluffy and didn't look all that menacing. But, once the sun went down, it started snowing en force. We accumulated about 2 inches an hour, and woke up to more than a foot deep outside our front door. My roommates were brave in taking turns shoveling, but I sincerely doubted it would be worth the pain as the snow kept coming down.

I finally made a break outside to get these pictures when McArthur needed some help to save one of the heavily burdened trees in the back yard. She had run out twice to shake off the heavy snow and try to liberate the poor pine tree, but to no avail. It was drooped at almost a 90 degree angle and destined to crack in half. So, armed with a big broom for leverage, I leaned into the tree and McArthur got around the back to tie it to the fence. We were both about frozen by the end of the 10 minutes it took to get it aright, but it's a much happier tree now. Plus, I took advantage of the fact that I was already wet to venture out and get a few pictures of the neighborhood.........

I still can't figure out why the storms are ONLY coming on weekends though! Seriously, aren't you supposed to get snow days to get a day off from WORK?? I guess it works out though, I was supposed to speak in church last Sunday and it got canceled. DEFINITELY no church tomorrow either....

Yesterday this was my car. Today it's a driveway ornament.

Right next to the tree (I couldn't get a good picture because the car was in the way) is a metal sculpture McArthur made...it used to be a lot taller and now it kinda looks like it grew a hump.

This is the front of the house...and what used to serve as stairs. As a side note, these stairs had already been shoveled twice.

Looking down the street at what usually serves as a sidewalk. Just a few minutes after I took this, our neighbor got filmed by a local TV station as she attempted to dig herself out. I was THIS CLOSE to getting on TV!

I really like this picture. Almost picturesque. Oh wait, those mounds are cars on the side of the road. And, yeah, this is supposed to be a thoroughfare used for getting places. But not today!!

Admittedly ironic--I left Syracuse this semester to get away from the winter. I've decided that either Syracuse misses me or the weather gods have refused my request. In any case, I'm witnessing an historic series of snowstorms here in the nation's capital. If you want to see more, we made BBC top headlines. And some great local photos from the Washington Post. But, so far, I'm happy to say I'm surviving just fine inside my room.

The Army, AZ and Me

Dave: I guess when I am away, I take it for granted that other people might want to hear from me or see how I am doing. Seeing as it is my wife who wants to see pictures of me the most, I don't mind putting up a few.

I am in Ft Huachuca, AZ attending a battlefield forensics class for the army before I get sent to Iraq again. What is battlefield forensics one might ask, and the anwser is that it is Crime Scene Investigating, but with big explosions and short time periods included. Basically we do all the interesting stuff you see on the CSI crime shows, but while wearing full body armor and with only a half hour to do it in. Its a fun class, and once again the army is giving me a very specialized set of skills that I am trying to find a use for in the civilian world.

I sent this to Kristine and she asked me who this is. Incredulously I responded that this was me, her husband, and couldn't believe she didn't recognize me. Now that I can actually see the picture, I don't really recognize me either. I was on a GPS scavenger hunt, when I found this really cool cactus. It was the only thing around that didn't look like it was dying, but was actually thriving in the midst of adversity.

Luckily I am out west and I have access to a vehicle on sundays, which means I can go to church. When I was mobilized last time I went as often as I could, but the military doesn't respect the Lord's day and that turned out to be not that often. This time I go every sunday and really appreciate it. I find that this deployment, focusing on my faith and my family has made living the army lifestyle much more bareable.

One last shot of the mountains for my Kristine. She misses the Rockies. These aren't quite the same but are the best I can provide.