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Easter Egg Hunt / Good bye party

We have a tradition of a neighborhood easter egg hunt every year, and the mom who has been organizing it every year is going to be out of town for a couple weeks so we had the Chinle egg hunt this weekend. After a few days of blustery wind storms and then rain, and snow...on Saturday we weren't sure it was going to happen.  Thankfully we woke up on sunday morning to sunshine, so we went ahead with plans for the hunt and a BBQ at the park.   We combined this with a going away party for one of my good friends who is moving back to Oklahoma next week.   I spent the weekend cleaning my house for everyone to come over after the BBQ for dessert.  Funny thing, no one had any room for dessert after the BBQ so we just all (about 12 adults and a handful of kids) sat crammed in one room chatting.  At least one other room I cleaned got some good use--our 3rd bedroom had become a pile of random items in preparation for a moving yard sale so I cleared it ALL out (filled garbage bags and shoved them in the closet ha ha) except for a tv.  I bought Tangled when I was in Phoenix recently so I put that on for the older kids and all 8 of them sat intently for the whole show so the grow-ups actually had uninterrupted conversation.

Here is Rachel and her best friend

The loot.   Kids don't care whether it's easter or not--they don't need an excuse to "hunt"  for candy filled eggs.  I say "hunt" because other these weeds growing next the the fence, the field is a dirt lot--so the eggs were more scattered than "hidden", I guess now that I think about it that is the same way it was for me when I was their age.  It is once they get a little older, to keep them into it--you have to make it a little more challenging and actually hide them. 

The other thing I have been busy with was putting together a Blurb book for my friend about her 2 years in Chinle.  I did it for partly selfish reasons...but I don't think she minds :)   I knew I wanted to put together a Chinle book for myself  (similar to my Boston book), and volunteering to do it for her forced me to get it together by a deadline.  Now all I will have to do is delete some of her family pictures and add mine in, plus all the pics from being here an extra year before her, then add in the pics from the next few months --and Voila! My Chinle book will be done too.  Click on the link above to see a preview. 

Since completing this, I have been in the "moving" mindset, and I have had to keep telling myself that I don't get to move on Tuesday--only she does.  :(  I still have two months to go, I still have to go to class, and do homework, and buy groceries, etc.   Lame.  But although my mind is ready to checkout --I still need to stick it out for a while longer.    The up-side is when you are in the "moving midset" it is like you are wearing the "good-time goggles" Let me explain.  When you know you are about to move--you start reminiscing, and remembering all the good times, and forgetting most of the bad times.   Being happy about all the good friends you have, all of the fun things you have been able to do, and somehow forgetting for a little while all of the annoyances and crappy times.  So it is nice that I am in this mood a few months before I am moving while I have a chance to enjoy it...that is..if the wind ever stops.  



I say most bad times, because it is hard to forget all of the bad times while we are in the middle of the miserable dust storm season.

You see, it's not only miserable outside, but the dust is constantly making it's way inside as well.   Of course, through the front door when you have to open it, but also through all of these windows--mind you --never opened, but the dust just comes through any crack/seams.  So it collects here, but it also makes its way over to all of your picture frames, tables, tv, etc.  lame.

Interviews

Sam had an interview in Phoenix a few weeks ago--and he was offered the job! YAHOO!

So the details are in the works, but we should be moving back to Phoenix in July.

And thankfully it is close enough that we will be able to move back to our house.  Double yahoo! :) 

And for those of you who have become great friends with my sister-in-law who has been living in our house--Yes, we are kicking them out, but I believe they are looking for another house to rent nearby since they have liked the area, and the friends, so much.   

 

Knowing this before I left for my interview at Creighton gave me a lot of peace of mind.  It was hard to imagine going back to school, when I didn't even know for sure where I was going to be living. 

That being said, I still have a hard time committing to school.  Not sure if it is just that I am a chicken...I mean who gets this far and still isn't sure?   But it is a big decision, and I don't want to have any regrets--because I know it is going to be hard.   Oh well.   I really liked the school, and I really like hearing all about the distance program, and how they have streamlined the distance program to run smoothly.  They have campus-based students as well, and they video tape their lectures for the distance students--they actually have motion activated video cameras that follow around the teacher as they walk around the classroom.  They post the videos within 24 hours and then we would watch them from home.  They are really on top of new technology and it is great to see how they incorporate it all, however they are very conscious of not incorporating anything new until the tech  department and the teachers have had a chance to test it and get used to it first.    I would have to go to a testing center to take all of my exams, and they actually give you an exam schedule at the beginning of the semester so i can go to the site and make appointments for all of those days--which is great because I will be able to plan ahead knowing when all those dates will be.    Anyhoo...lots of details, but I don't want to go into all of them now.

For those of you who don't know-it is a Catholic school, here is a beautiful church that is next to the Pharmacy school.  Gorgeous stain glass windows, and a beautiful interrior...would have snapped some photos of the inside, but when we walked in for a tour there was a wedding rehersal--oops--at least it wasn't a real wedding :)

Here is the science center, this is where we had the interview--it was a group interview date, there were about 40 of us there, all applying to the distance program.   My interview was really laid back, the school is really into service and so I talked about my experience here in the pharmacy in an underserved area.  Then they were concerned that I wouldn't be able to find locations for my rotations, but then I was able to tell them that we are actually moving to a city before I would start, so it would be no problem. 

There were about 40 of us there, and there are actually still about that many spots open in the program, so it didn't feel "cut-throat".  And actually, almost everyone was saying "see you in July!" (which is when orientation would be if we get in.)

They said they would let us know in about 3 weeks, and since my interview was April 1st, two weeks have already flown by and it could be any time now. 

I couldn't help but laugh when I saw this cute squirrel.  The funny thing is, he was not a small squirrel, and was not a large tree.  And since the branches were bare you could see just how tiny the branches were but he just climbed right up there to get some delicious berries. 

You can see in this picture you can see how he is gracefully balancing on a branch that can barely hold his weight  ha ha  (can you see how it is totally bent??) and he is just munching away on those berries. 

Final ski trip

March 26th,  Headed to Durango for a final ski trip of the season. 

Have I mentioned how much I have enjoyed spending so much time in Durango?  Well, let it be said, that I have.  A cute little town, and the ski resort never seems too busy--nothing like when we went to Salt Lake and got stuck in a giant traffic jam and never actually made it to the resort.  Hopefully we will continue to be able to spend time in Durango even when it isn't a convenient 3 hours away. 

Right as we were packing up the car to leave I realized some bumps on Cali's ear and figured we should actually take her with us to go get checked out at a vet.  In the next 15 minutes I was somehow able to cancel our hotel reservation and make one at a hotel that allowed full-size dogs, (who knew they even existed), found a vet open on a saturday and made an appointment, and found a kennel to board her during the day while we skiied. 

The diagnosis--food allergy.  And in the vet's words "She was about ready to pop."  I noticed her scratching a little more than normal, but apparently the severity of her reaction meant that she has been allergic to food for some time now and when I recently switched her to a new food with what must have more of the ingredient she is allergic to--it elevated her allergy to a whole new level, and if she were to keep going any longer, or say have another irritation like a bug bite--she might swelling up (even more than she already was), having hair fall out, etc.  I just pictured Will Smith's allergic reaction on the movie Hitch ha ha.  good movie.   Then the vet warned us about boarding her that weekend because there was apparently a bad dog virus going around.  So plan b.  We left her in the back of the Xterra while we went skiing.    We checked on her at lunch and got her out to run around, then decided to just be done skiing for the day.  Rachel wasn't finished yet so we compromised by letting her do the bunny slope by her self while we watched Cali.  Cali even ran up the slope to meet her and race down to the bottom.  

Campfire and smores

Thanks to Paige once again for hosting her second neighborhood get-together this month.  Nothing like sitting around a campfire with friends and eating marshmellows and smores.   We had a brief experience of actual warm spring weather before the dust storms arrived so it was nice to spend time enjoying some fresh air.

Spring break

This year I was happy that my spring break and Rachel's actually fell on the same week in mid-march, so we headed down to Phoenix for some cousin time. 

First stop--the Mortensen's.  Sam's bother that lives in Seattle was down with his kids, who Rachel hasn't seen in over a year.  So there was lots of excitement, lots of energy and lots of bouncing.

Here is the whole crew of grandkids with Grandma and Grandpa.

Next Stop:  My sisters house.

Dinner with all my siblings

Learned something new--my brother gets extremely annoyed at people who take pictures in restaurants. ha ha--we had a little bit of fun, before agreeing to take some shots outside afterwards.

The next day we headed to the zoo--where I had free passes (that I have sadly had for about 3 years.)
It was a sunny, hot March day in phoenix--around 80 degrees already so we had to dig out the sunscreen.  The splash pads weren't scheduled to open until april so we didn't have the kids wear their suits, but they ended up being open so we let the kids get soaked in their clothes--which they were happy to do...however, they were less happy about having to walk around in wet clothes afterwards. 

The final big event was talking Rachel and my 9 year old neice to the Justin Beiber movie.  I gotta say, we all enjoyed it-I wish I could have taken pics of them during the movie.  There were some great concert scenes and since it was in 3-D it made you feel like you were in the audience of the concert--so the girls were waving their hands and cheering with the "crowd"  ha ha.  There was even a sing-along song at the end of the film where the words came on the screen and everyone was encouraged to sing along.   Good times :)

Mardi Gras

Thanks to some friends who moved here recently from New Orleans, we had quite the Mardi Gras celebration.  Complete with a parade, beads (no crazy stunts required), some great food and even a king cake ordered in for the occasion.   The food was AMAZING and I got a few new great recipes. It is things like this that I am going to miss from Chinle. Events like this that you can pull off because you have about 15 friends that live within a quarter mile of you, and you live in an area where you have to make your own fun--so everyone is usually up for participating.

 Thanks Paige!

Catching up

I haven't posted in a while because we have actually been pretty busy doing lots of fun stuff :)    I am currently working on posts for March and so far in April  about everything--so stay tuned for details on:

• Spring break in Phoenix
• Sam's job hunt
• my interview at Creighton
• Mardi Gras
• Final ski trip of the season
• Easter egg hunt  (I know a little early, we are on our own calendar up here in Chinle :)