Survival

The slogan of the Cosmos Mystery Area in the Black Hills is, "Survive it!"  I thought it was overkill, but for mom, it was a close one.  

Watching balls roll uphill was weird. 

 Watching this shit was weird..

 Standing around was rough...

 Walking around was really rough...

 It was some mystery to wtf was going on!

 Nate didn't care much, he just thought his new shoes weren't working very well!

 This photo makes me almost pee my pants, because I swear I was standing straight up!  But its so messed up, I just don't get it! 

We survived it!  

But Mom had a rough time.  She said she thought she was going to have to crawl out of the mystery area on her hands and knees.  And it took a good long time for her to feel normal again.  

I have to say its still a mystery, I don't know what the hell was wrong with that place!  I just know weird stuff happens there, and it makes your brains feel like they are upside down!

If you come to visit I will drive you to the mystery area, and I will kindly wait in the car while you go in and see how messed up your head feels! 

I just don't get it! 

 Its still a mystery!

My new theme song

I seriously have to listen to this atleast once a day.

One Year

Today is our family blog's first blogiversary.  In the past year, Nate has grown up a ton and our life has changed drastically!  You've watched us chase Nathan around with yucky toys, move across the country, take trips, celebrate birthdays and holidays, visit with family, and lots lots more.  Through all 217 posts about dinner, ball games, coloring, and a million other day to day ramblings we have been trying to keep a log to save the memories, and keep our far away family up to date with us.  

This blog roll, is also a real comfort to Nate.  Since his dad left Nathan will often ask to look at the pictures and videos.  Daily.  I think he feels better looking at the photos of our family, and watching the videos of him and his dad.  

We started off with an ear of corn... remember?!  But this blog has been a really useful tool in connecting us.  Thanks for reading.  Even though the comment usage is controversial, its nice to hear that you are enjoying it when we talk.  

Moment of the Week

Mail from Daddy makes Nate a happy boy today! 

Add caption

Skype with Dave makes me happy too!(even if I do have to watch him put on lotion.)

Sandbox Salutations wk 5

Oh Jeesh, Please help

So, I decided to sign up for a math class while i was here.  It starts next Monday, and I'm not really looking forward to it.  The thing is, I was always good at school, but it was never really for me.  That's why I did Vo-Tech back in high school and joined the Air Force.  Unfortunately, the Air Force pretty much requires you to earn at least an Associates Degree before I can make the higher ranks.  The cool part is that all the training I took to learn my job counted toward a big part of earning one.  It's just that it has taken me almost 10 years to finish the rest of the classes.  All I had left was Math, Social Science, Humanities, Speech, and English.  I have been able to finish most of the other ones, however I was dreading to do a math class.  Then I got here and I learned that they require no pre-requisite or placement test to take the class I needed to finish my CCAF (Community College of the Air Force, this is the Associate degree program that you automatically get enrolled into when you join the Air Force.)  This was great news not to have to place into a college math class.  the last time I took a placement test was 2 years ago, and I was placed into Math 009, (pretty much math for dummies).  This meant I would have had to finish Math 009, 012, and finally college level.  So to immediately go into a math class that counts is great news.  Plus I hear it's pretty easy to take here, BONUS!!!

SMALL POX SUCKS

The vaccine anyway, I'm pretty sure that real small pox sucks too though.

LUCY UPDATE.

She is still in the shop, they decided to do some scheduled maintenance as well.  Hopefully they will replace the brakes, not 100% sure, but I think there is metal on metal grinding going on down there.

So my replacement truck had no A/C, no Radio, and burned more oil than lucy.  I said had because the second day I had that Beautiful thing, she threw a serpentine belt and they towed it away.  I swear I did not do it on purpose, but my replacement, replacement truck has A/C, radio and is a Diesel.  Nice!!  Stay Tuned for More updates on Lucy.

translations

 Isn't it just SO sweet of Nate to grab Philippe and try to help me assemble this new thing?  I would love to say, that he was filling in on a job normal done by the big man of the house and we really missed his talents tonight.  However the last time we brought home a storage thing from Target I believe the exact words that came out of his mouth were,"You're putting that stuff together"  humft.  Well, I did.  So today I happily assembled the new item.  Because even if my husband were here, I think he would have made me do it anyway!

 But Nate was more than willing to lend me one of Manny's tools.

Here is the successful venture.  It turned out exactly how I had it in my head.  I love it when things translate to real life just as I imagined them in my melon.  I'm happy :)

p.s.  what the heck do I do with my jade?  Its going nuts!

Figuring it out

I think I am finally getting the hang of cooking meals for two!  When Dave is here I make regular sized meals, and we enjoy the leftovers for lunch and then also have a weekly leftovers night.  But when he is gone, I just cant stand to eat the same leftovers 8 time..it makes me wanna gag. And eating frozen pizza or box mac and cheese every other night doesn't work either!  So I've been working at scaling down my recipes, and freezing the extra ingredients. 

 This is a scaled down twist to our favorite Taco Skillet.  I used 1/2 lb of beef, and 1/2 a can of refried beans.  I froze the other half of the beans, Its worth a try, and maybe it will work out fine for this recipe later.  I froze the other half of the salsa jar as well.  This meal served dinner and two lunch tacos.  That I can handle!

 Homemade pizza dough cut in half for a mini pizza.  The toppings too. The sauce froze well in a ziploc, and surprisingly the pineapple slices froze really well!!  I'm just learning as I go!

Mini meatloaf, small portions of meat sauce, individually wrapped chicken breasts, and 1/2 lb packages of ground beef, and lots of other things are working their way in and out of the freezer...I think I'll get the hang of it all, probably the week before Dave returns home.  Then it will be back to big pots of soup, and normal casseroles!