Tagged

Thanks for the tip Brynn, obviously I haven't had much time for blog surfing. Here is the 4th picture in my 4th folder, it is a picture of when Rachel was 4 months old and we were living in our 1st apartment in Boston.

Our new place

Our back patio. There is more yard, but the rest is just dirt (and thorns).

The view from our back door. We are at the top of a small hill and there is no one behind us so if you look past all the other boring brown houses we can actually see the horizon, this is during a sun rise.

From the "office" looking into the kitchen. There is a nice pantry, and a gas stove, however there is no dishwasher--but it is okay-because Sam assured me that "Washing a few dishes after each meal really isn't that hard." Whew! I was worried there for a minute ;-)

One bonus is the cute window box...I am determined to plant some seeds that I bought and keep them alive long enough to have beautiful flowers. (crossing my fingers at least).

From the kitchen looking at the "office" (formerly the "paper" room).

Front yard, side yard. nice huh. suggestions welcome for inexpensive ways to make it usable. Sand box?

Entryway into the living room.


Living room, make sure to notice the new lamp and drapes.

Living room into dining room and sliding door to back patio.

Here is Rach's room.

So I still don't have any pictures hanging on the walls...but I am amazed at all I have been able to accomplish in the past 2 days. Let's just remember, the moving truck arrived just yesterday at 10am --that is impressive...I'm not gonna lie.

Unpacking in our new place

This is the first time we have had movers pack our stuff for us....and it didn't take very long to figure out the big difference compared to when we packed our own stuff. Movers use a LOT of paper!

Here is the pile of paper that came out of that one box...was there anything besides paper in there???

This was taken when we had unpacked a little over half of the boxes. Just in case anyone is wondering on the proper paper packing protocol: #1 when in doubt use 10 sheets at a time. #2 Wrap everything! (plastic items, coloring books, doesn't matter, just wrap it) #3 When you think the box is full, add 10 more sheets just to make sure. Thankfully, I found a recycling center here (even though it is only open for 1 hour today, and for 30 minutes on wednesday) and we filled up 22 black trash bags with all the paper! WOW!

Random pic--blasted stickers that are EVERYWHERE out here. They get tracked in on our shoes and then of course you never find them until you are barefoot. Lots of vaccuuming will be going on.

First visit back home

Here is Rach and her cousin with Grandpa when we came back to visit. We didn't have any other pictures, I was mostly shopping, trying to get stuff for our new place while I was actually near stores, and Sam spent the day at the ASU vs Georgia game.

One Bedroom Bad...3 bedroom-Ahhhhh

Today we are sleeping in our new 3 bedroom for the first time--YAY! It is nice and spacious...mainly because it is empty. Tomorrow morning the truck will be arriving with our furniture--I can't tell you how happy I will be! :-) :-) I miss my couch most of all. Camping chairs are good for a couple of nights by the fire, or for a t-ball game...not so much for 3 weeks. I will wait to post pictures until I get it set up all nice and pretty--my goal is to be all unpacked this weekend. (I am trying not to be shown up by my sister-in-law, (the one staying in our house right now) who when we went to go visit them last weekend I was shocked at how great the place looked. Sam said it best "Hey Amber, She's already hung more pictures on the wall in 2 weeks than you had in a whole year!" ha ha ha. The house looks great Heidi--you are my inspiration! :-)

Gold Medal Winner

Tonight we went on a family hike...but this was a lot different than our leisurely pace the other night. Some natives from Sam's work invited us on a hike, it was about 4 miles. We started at the top of one lookout and hiked all the way to the bottom, then across for a couple miles and then back up another side. Rach was a trooper!! I told her I would make her a gold medal for finishing, (even though she did ride on Dad's shoulders for a little while).

This was the easy part, I didn't get many pictures of the steap downhill climb-but it was a doosy.
The trail that we went on is for natives only. They actually had to get a permit to take us White folk with them--so I was taking lots of pictures--not sure when or if I would get the chance again. The land is still owned by the individual families who grew up here, and there are many places near their homes that you cannot take pictures.

We started the hike at 6pm and finished around 8:15--when it was nice and dark. Thank goodness for the full moon which led us for the last 15 mintes or so.
Definitely one for the record books. I love it when other people plan things and it gets me to do things I wouldn't normally do--there is no way I would have been just starting a 4 mile hike at 6pm!--but I am so glad we did.

All for a new camera

So -we got bored and wanted to go for a drive and go exploring, and we wanted to buy a new camera so we could fully capture all the scenery--so we drove to Farmington, NM to the nearest Best Buy. Yes, we could have just bought it online...but then we would have missed out on all of this. Tell me how great the pics with the new camera look ;-)

I was trying out the continuous shooting mode as we were driving past Shiprock --and was pleasantly surprised to find that this shot captured the wildflowers too.--Mom--next time dad won't stop to let you take pictures --you really should try this out--it is kind of like rolling the dice--and is kind of exciting to see what you will get. :-)

This is the mountain that we drove over to get to NM. The mountain area was gorgeous, and it is only about 45 minutes from our house, and we decided that in the future, there is no reason for us to drive any further than here. Anything past this point, is the bland desert (besides the glorious Shiprock structure of course) .
I like how the flat desert kind of looks like the ocean in these pictures and goes along with the "Ship" rock theme.

2 Thumbs up

Right now I am watching the premiere of Privileged--and I love it! So far at least, it shows the fun lives of rich (kind of bratty) teenagers, without all of the slutty making-out, and getting into trouble part. (I like watching Gossip Girl--but there are lots about that show that I can't stand--and this last episode deifnitely got WAY to dramatic!) I am sure these girls will get into trouble--but hopefully they show it in a less trashy way.

I love Megan and Rose. I love how there is actually an uplifting theme--and how even though no one is perfect, they are all trying to be the best person they can be and deal with life in the best possible way.

A New Friday Night Tradition

It used to be dinner at Boca's, and then it was dinner at Someburros (well, some weeks at least) and now it will be eating out and going on a leisurely hike in the canyon.

Enter.............

Our guide!

With such picturesque views and being lucky enough to find a rock just the perfect height for a camera stand--I tried to snap a family shot

Is it two much to ask to get these two to smile...normal?

Without a doubt! These two kept conspiring against me--and just thought it was sooooo funny!

What do you say--Christmas card??

Here we are on our drive to our new house

This was taken somewhere in Flaggstaff I think--the ground was just covered in wildflowers--GORGEOUS!

Another picture of the awesome view from my back yard...okay --so what if my back yard is all dirt, (and thorns). I have seen some of the other yards, and since some people have lived here for a long time they have actually spent some of their own money to fix up the yard. One friend that I met has a little batch of grass, lots of stone and brick pavers, pretty bushes, a swingset and a playhouse. I am crossing my fingers that we luck out and get one of these prized lots when we upgrade to the 3 bedroom in a couple months.

I have a follower!

When I signed onto my blog today I noticed a new message 'you have 1 follower'. Hmm interesting. So I clicked on it to see a picture of my friend Mindy--so cool!! so I thought she deserved a tribute to being my first follower :-) so I added the feature to my side bar, THanks Mindy--you made my day :-)

Right now

I am enjoying...

The laundromat. Random I know, but I forgot how nice it is to be able to wash all your clothes at the same time instead of laundry taking all day. Plus there was this added bonus of following the crowd and folding all of my clean clothes while I was there. I don't remember the last time that I washed my clothes and folded them in the same day.

• my gas stove--what's not to love? so much better than electric! We may be in a small one bedroom right now..but having a gas stove was a good bribe :-)

I am still getting used to...

• The time change--we're still in Arizona...but since the rez spans 4 states they wanted to keep everyone on the same time zone, so we are one hour ahead of Arizona. The problem is we haven't figured out how to get our cell phones to believe we are in a different time zone, and since I use my phone as my watch--I am always having to calculate what time it really is.
• cooking in high altitude--(we are at 5506 ft) the brownies we made yesterday just didn't turn out the same.

The town

I guess you could say these pictures were taken down 'main street'. Here is the church building--there is a ward here. Funny how I was in such a bigger city in Boston..and yet I had to drive 20 minutes to church, and here there is one just down the street. The elementary school is just across the street.
Here is 'the' stoplight. Yup, there's only one.

The shopping center. Bashas grocery store, burger king, movie rental place, pizza place, chinese food (reminds me of Panda Express), laundramat, post office, and a bank. The first of many random shots of livestock.

What you have all been waiting for...

Rach was psyched that she got to ride a bus again...even if it is a 45 minute ride . I thought that was a bit much, since the school is only a mile away, but they drop off all the kindergartners in front of their house so it just takes a while. I compromised and said she could ride it home but I will take her in the mornings.
Here is her school playground. Some side notes about school:

• Her school has only preschool and kindergarten (the elementary school for 1st -6th is next door) There are 11 kindergarten classes.
• They provide free breakfast and lunch for every student
• There are 19 kids in her class--and her teacher said that is a high enrollment for her (Rach's last school had 29 students on the first day and after adding a new teacher it was down to 22).
• Some kids ride the bus for 2 hours to and from school
• When I drop her off they greet both of us with a handshake and say "Yá'át'ééh Abíní!" (pronounced 'yata a beanie' )which means good morning
• Don't worry--classes are in english, but they do teach Navajo culture--and she learns some of the vocabulary, and will learn to count etc in Navajo
• There is one other Anglo child in her class, and a few others in the school
• There is an aquatic center next to the schools and Rach will get to go with her class for an hour every other week (as cool as that is, she didn't believe me that it was just as cool as a field trip)

Here is the view from our back door. Miles of glorious open space. It makes it not so bad being in a one bedroom--I hope our next place has this same view.

I have to go do laundry --but I will post more later

Bribing Rach

The only part of the move that was a downer for Rachel was that she will be missing her school field trip this week. So before we left I tried to bribe her with a super fun activity--I came up with taking her to the public pool with her cousin and friends. Thanks to Bailey and Collin and Brecken for coming--but most of all to their mom's who let me drag them there against their will! :-) It helped a TON that the lifeguards finally thought Rach was tall enough so they let her go down the slide. And here she is on the diving board-ya gotta love the little wave.

Saying See ya Later

Going to Peter Piper with Noah and Avery --so much fun ! The best part was that the candy crane was broken so it let them play over and over for FREE-and we never put any money in it at all! It was a little kid's dream come true!

Wednesday night at mutual with the girls

Seeing Megan's (one of my college roommates) new house!

This was Megan's Video game room--I just took this pic to make Sam jealous...and it worked! :-)

YAY!!! I have internet

Our family is officially living on 'the rez'. I have so much to share about our new town and the past 3 days have seemed like an eternity since we have had no internet. But all is well--we are now connected to the world again!