Is it May yet?

Dave and I attended our first photography class today (of 3). We skipped the 101 class figuring we had all the basics (and I'm glad we did). The 201 class today was very helpful. We learned how to get out of automatic mode and learned some key rules for shooting in manual mode. I can't wait to get out and practice. We also bought a hiking backpack for our lenses/body so that when we're trekking across those glaciers in Alaska, we don't have to worry about the lenses being unprotected and we have an easy way to hike with them. It's almost time for our Alaskan cruise-- about a month away!
The month of May is going to be an extremely busy one for us. I'll be heading to Boston for work the first week of May, I'll be in the 'springs for 3 days for training the 2nd week of May. That brings us to Memorial Day weekend where we'll be heading to Iowa for Dave's cousin's wedding. We get back on Memorial Day and two days later we depart for Vancouver (via Seattle) to begin our Alaska vacation. Phew! I'm tired just thinking of all that packing I'll have to do... and laundry!
Well I best get to cleaning the house. We have an appraiser coming this evening (we are trying to refinance our house). Then it's off to Dave's boss' work party. Should be a busy day!

Marshmallows

I don't know how teachers, daycare providers, and stay-at-home moms do it without suffering from severe exhaustion. I spent the day launching marshmallows with kids at work today and I am BEAT. It was take your kid to work day and each year, I love helping out with the events. Since we moved to CO, I've done the marshmallow guns each year and it's always a "blast." But boy, I'm sunburned, my voice is depleting, and I feel like I could nap for an entire day! I've really got a lot of respect for those that spend each and every day working with kids. It was definitely a nice change of pace from the typical 10 hrs spent staring at a computer screen in a cube. We managed to break 2 of the 6 guns and we lost many of our volunteers in the first couple hours, so the lines were often very long (think 30+ minutes!). I had one kid that really cracked me up. (Background: there are 3 targets at 90, 120, and 180 ft and there are two variables to this problem-- pressure and angle of attack. By changing each of these, they can try to achieve their desired target. We've got plots that allow them to pick the most optimal angle and pressure for the given target as well). When he sat down, I asked him if he had selected a target that he'd like to shoot for. He replied "no." To this I said "you have three choices (pointed to them), which one catches your eye?". I get a very non-enthusiastic "I don't want to shoot a marshmallow." Almost left speechless (hard to do!), all I could think to reply with was "you sure waited in a long line to not get a chance at launching a marshmallow." He said "but I don't want to launch a marshmallow." I couldn't help but think how silly it seemed to stand in line for 30 minutes, but I quickly realized it was probably just teenage stubbornness. Luckily, I was quick to place myself in his shoes and made it more of a competition. Suddenly, it wasn't about rebelling against his father who had forced him to do this and more about beating his father in distance! So he may not have aimed for a particular target, but I think I managed to teach him a little bit about how to make it go further! (He ended up beating his dad.... but I may have rigged his father's pressure setting!) See, it wasn't only a physically exhausting day, but it also took a toll on me mentally!
As I was leaving work today, I remembered that Dave was running Waterton as part of a running club he has joined. I looked at my watch and realized that I could pull off a nice little surprise by showing up at the finish line. I hiked out to the end of the trail and got there just in time to watch him complete his 4-mile run (at a 6.5 min pace!). I think he was very shocked to see me there! I just love to play cheerleader!

Just another (manic) Monday

It's always difficult to return to work after a nice, long weekend. It's been awhile since we've had a 3 day weekend, but the snowstorm was a nice gift in that regard. We had a nice end to our weekend: we ran some errands including a stop at Michaels and Home Depot. I managed to score one of the brand new Cricut cartridges on sale for $40. We also found the world's coolest ceiling fan (see picture). We couldn't resist buying it. A true impulse buy, but hey, we're rocket scientists! Someday, I imagine it will go nice in a kids space-themed room. The rocket appears to be orbiting the earth when the fan is in motion. How cool!
We capped the night off with dinner at Dewey's (a local grill) and dessert at Coldstone (I had given Dave a little wrapped up gift card and homemade card earlier in the day). Sure was a nice relaxing weekend!
Today is back to the usual busy Monday-- and this is addition to the hectic Monday's at work. We went exercising and made a wonderful dinner (Chicken rigatoni with whine wine cream sauce, garlic bread, and chocolate covered strawberries for dessert). Now it's time to relax and enjoy our busy night of TV: Dancing with the Stars, Big Bang Theory, and 24!

Hey Mr. Snowman

We just finished building our first Colorado snowman! We got a couple feet of the really wet (perfect for snowman building) snow. The girls had a blast chasing eachother around the yard but I think Sequoia had even more fun trying to destroy each mound of snow that we started! They both sniffed Mr. Snowman trying to figure out if he was real. I'm thinking he'll melt before the girls have a chance to pounce and destroy him. Time (tomorrow) should tell...

It's all downhill from here?

The snow is still coming down, but it's very hard to tell how much we've gotten because it seems to melt at just a slightly slower rate than its snowing, so it appears that we only have a few inches, but I've heard its upwards of 2 feet already. It sure is pretty, but I can bet it will be completely melted by tomorrow night. It's going to be mid 60s tomorrow and 70s the rest of the week. It's too bad that this heavy wet snow confused all the blooming trees and may have taken away those pretty spring blossoms, too.
Once I kick this horrible fever and headache I woke up with, Dave and I are going to break out the sleds we got for Christmas (thanks Mom and Dad!) and hit the sled hill by our neighborhood park. I can't remember the last time we went sledding, but I think it involved college cafeteria lunch trays...
Also on the agenda for today is enjoying some QT in our "workshops." I would really like to finish up the honeymoon part of our scrapbook so I can move on to all of our other vacations over the past half a dozen years. I know they say you should work chronologically, but I find it easier to work in a more random fashion. At least I'm trying to keep up with the current trips fairly well... I'm just not sure when I'll get to those events from 7 years ago. I wonder what Dave will be cooking up in his mechatronics lab today?

Time flies!

Time as been flying by and I have found myself not taking enough time to smell the roses. With live roaring by at Mach 1, I thought it was time I start writing down what it is that keeps us so busy. I've found that many of my memories have faded and how frustrating it is to not remember all those little things that you told yourself (at the time) that you would not forget! Enter the blog: our way of being able to remind ourselves what it is we did "back in the day." I remember the kicks I'd get out of re-reading my childhood journal and marveling at what I considered to be a big deal back then. Someday, we'll re-read this blog and get the same chuckle.

Today was a nice gift for us: the nasty up-sloping spring snowstorm that arrived last morning (with no plans of departing until tomorrow night) gave us the excuse to bundle up and stay inside today. I had plans to go in and get some work done, but how easily I changed my mind when I woke up and saw the blanket of snow on the ground. It's coming down quite good but it doesn't seem to be sticking as it's just above freezing. They are expecting ~2 feet of snow from this storm, but I'm not sure we'll see more than a few inches stick. It of course will return to 70s all next week. Colorado is a bit moody in the springtime , but the bad weather isn't around long enough to complain.

Dave is working from home today. I bounce back and forth between jealousy and thankfulness with respect to this. There are times where it would be wonderful to be working at home with the hubby and girls, but it's also a blessing that I have to leave everything work-related at the office. I think I might feel as though there would always be one more line of code to write or one more simulation to run that would prevent me from just being able to relax while at home. I won't complain though that Dave gets to work from home. On days like this (and when he has to burn the midnight oil), it's nice to have him home even if he is completely focused on his monitor! It sure isn't great for our cell phone bill though... (CEV has lots of telecons!)

We were planning on having a GNO (Girls Night Out) at Scrapmania tonight, but I'm not so sure if the weather and roads are going to allow for this. It seems fine out now since it's warm enough that the roads are just slushy, but I'm not sure how we'll feel when we are driving home at 11 pm . I'm going to pretend as though we are going and get my supplies ready and get some layout ideas in mind.