Halloween

 It was beautiful today.  In the 70s! On Halloween!!  We went to walk along the river.  We ended up walking all the way to canyon lake.

 I had told Katie when she was planning her trip, 'yes come and be here for Halloween!  It will be chilly and I'll make chili and cornbread.'  

And yet, it was warm.  Heating the oven to make the cornbread was almost intolerable.    

 Tomorrow there is snow in the forecast.  Seriously.

After our river walk we came home, ate chili and cornbread.  Then I gave Nate a beard and some bushy brows.

My little construction worker!

Katie was the egg to my bacon.  

Hope you had a Happy Halloween!!

Hills

Mt. Rushmore

Mountain Goat

Tourist

Fall Colors

Teamwork

Weather

Snow

Buffalo

No our car isn't posing for a "Got Milk?" ad.  We drove through the hills today where it was SNOWING!

It was a great day!!

easy

easy fun last night

Nate came up this morning for breakfast wearing his cozy slippers.

Yum breakfast.  

Katie is a fun houseguest

Sandbox Salutations wk 14

Well, we made it to the halfway point.  It seems like forever ago that we got here and now we have to do it again before we leave.  The good news is that everyone has finally settled into work and it seems as though we have gone into autopilot.  My job has settled down and some and I am to the point where I feel that i am being successful at it on a daily basis.  It was a rough start, but hopefully a smooth finish.

I finished my class last week and i got my results back from the final exam.  Well actually I did not find out what i got on my Exam, but I did get my final grade in the class which turned out to be an "A".  I'm pretty sure this means that I did quite well on the exam since it accounted for 40 percent of my grade.  But a pass is a pass and now i only have one more class left to get my degree.  I'm just really glad that I'm done with the class now because I have been missing alot of sleep because of it.

I hear the weather at home is getting colder, which is also true here.  The other night it dipped below 75 and we all were shivering and putting on our long sleeve shirts.  It's quite amazing how some one can get acclimated to 120 degree heat.  We also had a major fog out.  It got so bad that I could not see more than 5 feet in front of my truck, which is not a good thing since we drive around multi million aircraft all day.  I made one of the younger guys get out of the truck with a flashlight so that they could guide me back to the building.

I hope everyone is getting ready for Holloween next week, we are planning some sort of party.  maybe I will be able to take some pictures and post them afterward.  Of course it all depends on how busy we get at work.

Love you all

Do it again

Race-car Grandma(Dave's mom) left on a plane today to return to the mitten.  She was a load of help, especially with washing dishes!  Dave does the yard work, but his only real indoor job is the dinner dishes, so having his mom here to help with dishes was a nice break for me.  

I have a to do list about a mile long.  Today was sort of warmish out, so I washed the crusted dead grasshoppers from my grill and bumper.(Nathan LOVED this chore!)  Then I took care of the outdoor hoses, and loaded the van with stuff headed to Goodwill.  I put the snow scraper in the van too, just in case.

Look NO dead bugs!!
Those drives across South Dakota are nasty for my grill!

I've got a bunch of wash to do to get the guest room ready for Monday's arrival.  I think this will be my goal for today.  Then I can sit around and be lazy tomorrow.  That would be nice, touristing is tiring!

I dug out the Halloween costumes Katie and I will wear while we take Nate out trick or treating.  This is going to be a fun Halloween!!

Now to get the house ready to have company again!  I can do this!

Halfway

We are halfway through this deployment now.  I have a friend that is really enthusiastic about this fact, I however feel a little more FML about it.  It feels like forever ago that Dave was here, like I cant even remember what it was like.  That makes me sad almost all the time.  I really try to keep it together for Nathan, but sometimes I just want to sob.  Sometimes I just do.  

Nate is handling it pretty well now.  He still asks probably once a day to go get his daddy.  But atleast he isn't up all night asking for him anymore.  That just ripped my heart apart.  

We are just doing our best over here.  

Extra Photos

Every week I take a photo from our week, print it off, and send it to Dave. This week since we went to a park I figured I would probably take a good photo of Nathan there, and use that this week. These are the other photos I took, I thought I would share. I didn't include the photo that will be sent to Dave. I always try to keep them a secret until he gets them.

Sandbox Salutations Wk's 12 and 13

I'm sorry to all of my Faithful Followers about not posting last week, it was a rough one and i just couldn't find the time to do it.  So to catch you all up on whats been going on over the last 2 weeks.  Last week, I started coming down with a cold, a real nasty one.  I had a sore throat, head pressure and a\n aching body.  It got so bad that I had to go get some nyquil tablets to help stop the pain.  Now normally I don't ever really feel a response from over the counter pain killers, expecially one's that may cause drowsiness.  I think it's because I normally just pass out when I go to sleep anyway, just ask Teresa, she is always complaining that 5 minutes after I hit the sack i'm sawing logs.  Well, I had no choice but to take nyquil because they don't sell any day time medicine.  So I took it before work and I will tell you that about the first half of the shift I could not keep my eyes open, it probably was not safe since my job consist of me being behind the wheel for 12 hours a day.  So i spent last week dealing with this, but we did have some fun out there too.  Just watch the video.

This is one of the younger guys, they spent some time with big pieces of foam and speed tape (Silver Duct Tape).  Just stay tuned for additions to this, they have more plans to add to the getup.

This week we had interesting weather, first it got down to about 75, then yesterday we had a big sand/Thunderstorm and it rained a ton.  Well maybe not a ton, but alot for the desert.  I will say that this is the first time that I saw clouds since I have been here.  Take a look!

ne last thing, I had my math final last night.  It seems to have gone ok, but I'm hoping to get the final class grade this week, so I will let you know what I end up with.

Washed

If you have spoken to me in the past 4 months probably you heard a great deal about my dishwasher drama.  Well, after six calls I finally had a new dishwasher installed yesterday.  I've been though enough BS with this fiasco to last a decade or two. 

Today I am rewashing the dishes and glasses.  I think the bottom of the stacks and the back glasses haven't been used since I was still putting them in the gross dishwasher.   

Last night as I was listening to it run (our bedroom is right under the kitchen), and I heard it drain... and it made a real running water sound.  I had never heard that before.  Maybe that is why there was always a pool of scuzzy water in the bottom of my last dishwasher!

B9

Dave sent me flowers today. 

 With get well wishes.  

Yesterday I had a milk duct removed.  It had a papilloma inside the duct, which had to go.  I'm a little sore from being cut up, but it's really not too bad.  My doctor called this afternoon to tell me the papilloma was benign, so that is a huge relief.  I'm happy this is over finally.  It has been more than eight months that we have been worrying about this issue and waiting to get it taken care of.  Of course it would be a much easier thing to deal with if my husband were here.

SLC

I went to Salt Lake City this past weekend.  It was nice to travel alone and enjoy some young women talking about quilts and fabric. 

 The Mormon Temple

It was a nice trip.  I'm seriously happy to be home though.  I missed Nate like crazy.

Oil and Quilts

When your desperate you use anything to make the situation seem better than it is.  

This being October, I only have to change the wall hanging quilt twice more.  We wont be here for December, though so that's kind of cheating.   

I finally took the van for her oil change and the date on the window sticker says I only have to get the oil changed once more before Dave comes home.  Although probably I will nearly need to do it twice with the drive to and from Michigan being 1211 miles each way.   But still the date looking at me is only a few weeks before Dave should be home.  

We aren't even half way through this deployment.  This really stinks!

Danger

Jukibird has been real nervous the past couple days.  The wolf we are watching has been watching the bird with not so pure intentions.  There have been a few close calls.  So we are all a bit nervous.  

Poor bird. 

Sandbox Salutations wk 11

Ground Hog day

This is pretty much my life now.  I think I am at the point of the deployment where every day just runs into the next.  It seems like I just repeat the same steps over and over and over.  I wake up at the same time, eat the same food, see the same people do the same work and repeat it the next day.  The only excitement I get in my life is when i get to skype with Nate and Teresa.  It's what I look forward to every day.  

Well I hope everyone back home is safe and sound.  Not much new happening around here, and sorry if the update was a little boring, but as you can see there is not much new going on anyway.  

Love you all.