Backpacking in Bandelier

This was a first for me. Sure, I've been camping, and I've even hiked in a mile or two to my camping spot. But backpacking in the wilderness for 3 days? Nope. Hadn't done that before. I had a great time, and I plan on doing it again, but I wouldn't recommend northern New Mexico as a starter point for new backpackers. I'd probably suggest somewhere pretty, with green and shade. However, if you're heart is set on New Mexico, Bandelier is a pretty cool place. It's famous for the ancient cliff dwellings where Native Americans lived once.

Day 1: We hiked along the trail until we came to a sweet cave with a reconstructed ceremonial house.

 

Then we hiked along this "river" until we realized we were on the wrong trail. At that point, we were several miles into the canyon. No biggie - we can just climb up the side of the mountain to get on the correct path! So, that's what we did. And nobody died (which was somewhat surprising).

 Day 2: We hiked about 7 miles, with 5.5 of it being a loop. The first half of the loop looked like this:

 barren desert with no shade. It was a little bit miserable until we got to a different canyon with a little stream. We took off our shoes and walked in the water a while. It felt so nice! Then we headed back toward camp to stop for the day.

Day 3: We hiked the 5 miles back to the visitor center. The weather was lovely and the walk was much less treacherous than the previous two days. No major mishaps (thankfully), so the trip left an overall good taste in my mouth.

Saturday Project and Some Pictures

Today was a very productive day. I did 3 loads of laundry worth of ironing. But that's not even the most productive part of the day. Mark and our friend, Abe, built hanging shelves in the garages of both homes. They did a fantastic job (besides the part where Abe drilled a hole in Mark's finger). Here's a picture of our very clean garage:

Or 3 pictures. Whatever. Also, I recently realized that I hadn't really posted any pictures of the decorated and cute version of our house, so here's a couple:

And, finally, during our trip to Europe last summer we bought 5 postcards from each city. Each set had to include only places we'd visited in that city, and had to be the same style, so we could do this:

Yes, I made those. Yes, I'm awesome. I glued wood together (in custom shapes!), painted it black, then glued the postcards to their corresponding piece of wood. Go ahead and pin that for later, ladies. :)

New Laptop!

Now that I have a laptop that works, I feel obligated to finally blog.

Why did I buy a new laptop? For my new job! A few weeks ago I was hired by UNM (University of New Mexico) as a part-time instructor in the Math/Stat department. School started this week, and it's been crazy! I decided when I got hired that I would continue my job at ITT Technical Institute, and my ordinance worker shift at the LDS temple. I'm now one busy lady! But I love it. At UNM I'm teaching 2 sections of intermediate algebra and 2 sections of introduction to statistics. Each section has about 60 student, so I've got about 240 students at UNM. It's crazy! Luckily, most of the grading is done by online programs that they're required to use. I still have to grade the in-class quizzes and tests, but I think I can handle that :)

In other news, I am becoming domesticated. I gave up facebook (in an effort to turn my internet time to blogging instead of reading lame facebook posts). I learned how to can peaches and green chiles. When you come to visit in the middle of winter, we'll have plenty of great food to eat!

Life is genuinely good :)

To Appease My Mother

I got a text the other day that said "I'm still waiting for your blog to update" from my mom. I responded "So am I." That was a couple of weeks ago, and seeing as how the blog hasn't written itself, I suppose it's my responsibility to appease my mother.

We have moved into our house! Here's a little virtual tour:
Kitchen & Dining Area

 Great Room

 Game Room

 Game Shelves

 Master Bedroom

 Master Bedroom Art

 Master Bathroom

 Master Closet

 Craft Room

 Laundry

 Pool Table Room

We love our house, and are thrilled to be here. I also need to thank everyone who helped us move. There were a lot of you and we're so grateful! These pictures weren't taken at the final stage of being completely moved in, so you'll have to come visit to see the fully decorated version of our house. :)

Even though we've just moved in, we still find time to do fun things. For 4th of July weekend, we met up with  my parents in Moab. They rode motorcycles every day, and we went climbing, hiking, and biking. Here are a couple of pictures from that trip.
Climbing Looking Glass. The climb was a joke, but the rappel was awesome!

 Hiking with the parentals in Arches National Park.

 We climbed to the top of Fiery Furnace. It was awesome!!

 Mark biked Slick Rock Trail.

That's about all we've been up to for the last couple of months. Rock on!

Sometimes I Love Facebook

Happy Mother's Day!

As a gift to all of the mother's who read my blog, I've decided to update. Also, we just barely got all of our recent pictures onto the computer.

Bullet-point updates:

• Jess went to Utah to meet her adorable nephew, Tavin.
• Mark went camping in Moab with friends.
• Ty (our friend) moved in to stay with us for a short while.
• Jess, Mark, Ty and Harrison (other friend) went camping and climbing in El Rito.
• House hit two major marks: Drywall/paint and cabinets/countertops installed!!!

My trip to Utah was fantastic - it was just the thing I needed. I got to spend a ton of time with family, spend countless hours playing with 2-week-old Tavin, and see many of my most treasured friends. Check out my facebook page for pictures of the beautiful little babe.

Here are some pictures of us climbing in El Rito.

These are the rocks we were climbing on.

While I was in Utah and Mark in Moab our house was filled with drywall and the outside got primed for bricks and stucco!

Finally, most recently, the inside was painted and countertops and cabinets installed. This is the point where they tell us the house will be finished in 45 days. Crazy!!!

Happy Mother's Day, Mother!

Pre-Drywall Update

This house is changing so fast! Here are the latest and greatest.

It's crazy to think that the next picture was taken only 3 days after the first two!

Party on! Until next time...

Home Sweet Home

Now that you've seen the floorplan for our home, it's time to update you on the progress. We try to get there once a week to see how it's coming along. Unfortunately, we didn't take pictures at the beginning. At first it was just dirt. The following week there were holes for plumbing. Then came plumbing. Next up was concrete. That's when I realized I really needed to bring the camera. I didn't expect much to happen for a while, but the next time I went, I got so excited!! Here's why:

It's like, a house!! That was probably the week I was most excited. Here's last week:

This week we forgot the camera, but imagine added windows and doors! I can't believe how fast it's moving.

In other news, Mark and I have been camping a few times recently and have done some fun things. Here's our favorite campsite:

 We had a campfire, played some frisbee, went to the natural hot springs and all in all had a good time.

Thanks for stopping by! Until next time... :)