Mesa Verde

This week we had the opportunity to visit Mesa Verde National Park just outside of Cortez, Colorado. It was breath-takingly beautiful!! We took some pictures but the pictures just don't do them justice on how beautiful it really was. We drove up a 15 mile windy, mountainous road from the entrance to the top. We didn't have a chance to go on an official trails but walked around the pathways around the rest areas and lookout areas with the kids and Buster. The highest point was over 8500 feet!

Ryan worked very hard on re-grouting the bathroom tiles and it looks so much better now! It is amazing how much of a positive difference this has made in the overall appearance of the bathroom.

I am busy starting her new job as a Speech-Language Pathologist with the Farmington School District. I am working 2 days a week with preschool children in need of speech-language therapy. I am enjoying getting back into the "therapy" mode after being away from therapy for the last two years.

Our first family pet

Last Wednesday night, Krista was taking the trash outside and noticed a furry little brown thing behind the bushes by the front door. It startled her at first until she realized that it was a timid puppy waiting for us to find him. Given that it was placed on an old T-shirt and had a cottage-cheese container full of dog food placed beside him, someone had placed him there for us to find and obviously keep. We had mixed emotions at first about keeping him - lots of work to keep a dog given that we were still adjusting to our new home. We thought that we would keep him outside and feed him for a few days and see how things go. He definitely had one thing going for him right from the start - he is really cute and cuddly. He is very calm for a puppy and doesn't bark and jump which is great for the kids and for Krista, who is a cat lover by heart. By the way, we decided to name him Buster Brown Johnson - Buster for short. (That was Ryan's idea!)

Buster has done very well since Wednesday. He has adjusted well to live with us. Lily was a little unsure of him at first but now loves playing with him and doesn't mind his puppy play. James has even shared his yellow "beeps" with him and giggles like crazy when the beeps cover Buster. Buster is housetraining very well and has had only one accident in the house at night when he sleeps in his "crate". He loves to be "baby-ed" and held. It was as if he was made to be with us.

Things are starting to settle down a bit now. We continue to personalize the house and sort through everything. Lots of people own pick-up trucks in this area and James loves to point out all the trucks that he can especially when we walk through a parking lot in Farmington. Today, he was especially excited to find a "yellow truck" in the restaurant parking lot after church. We are attending Pinon Hills Community Church in Farmington and have enjoyed attending for several weeks. The young children's ministry is great for the kids and we have enjoyed the worship and sermon series.

Visiting the county fair

Last Friday, we went to the San Juan county fair in Farmington. The first things that the kids saw were all the rides. They were very expensive to ride at least 3 dollars per ride per child but we decided to treat the kids to just a few since they were so excited to see them. Then we headed down to the animals at the other end of the fairgrounds (it was a very large area!!). We saw the typical fair animals like goats, chickens, rabbits and such but we did see a few unusual ones like peacocks, turkeys and pigeons. We stepped in the "rodeo" barn for a few minutes to see the horse riders practicing together. The kids were more interested in running back and forth on the metal bleachers than watching the riders!!

We continue to work on our house. We bought a new computer desk and matching bookcase for our play/activity room. We also replaced our two old mismatched filing cabinets with a vertical 4-drawer one which makes more room for important papers. We have also unpacked all of our wall hangings from boxes and will be putting things on the walls in the next few days. Things are looking better and more organized each day sometimes a little at a time. Ryan has been busy assembling furniture and painting the medicine cabinet in the bathroom that is mostly likely the original cabinet given its condition. It does look a lot better now since the rust is covered!!

It's official!

We are now officially New Mexico residents. We braved the local DMV this morning (if you consider local being a one hour drive to get there!) and turned in our Indiana licenses for New Mexico ones. They make a really big deal here to prove your physical address (street address) for NM residency. The problem that we encountered is that we only use a PO Box number for our mailing address since the street address means nothing to the US post office (we don't have our mail delivered to our house. We have to go to the post office to pick it up.) So we had to get creative on how to show our physical address on official mail that we received. The lady at the DMV was very nice and she really liked our "In God We Trust" IN license plates because she was a Christian as well. How many times do you have a chance to talk about your faith with the clerk at the license branch? :-)

Ryan is starting to slowly get settled in to his job. Lots of new paperwork and processes to learn but he is a trooper and doing well with the adjustment. He has had night call twice so far and has survived them well.

Lily is our official "shiprock" spotter. Everytime she sees the rock formation called Shiprock from a distance, she quickly tells me "There is Shiprock." She is always right too!!

James and Lily have started to go to preschool together. I think that it is really good for them to go together because they can share some of these experiences together and they always know that they have one another close by. When I talk about Lily going to school, James always pipes up and says "I go too!" with a big proud smile. It is very cute!!!

Busy Saturday

Whew!! What a busy day we had today. The morning started about 5:30 am with Krista heading to the laundry mat to try to beat the Saturday laundry mat rush (if there really is one here). We, unfortunately, don't have our new washer and dryer set yet - it should be delivered on Tuesday, thank goodness!! One nice thing about going to a laundry mat is that you can wash, dry and fold your laundry for the week all at one time. It has been 10 years since I was last at a laundry mat. Brought back memories of undergraduate college days. Now that is a blast from the past. :-) Laundry mats are a lot more expensive when you are washing clothes for 4 instead of 1.

While I was doing laundry, Ryan worked hard on getting our TV and surround sound system all hooked up. We bought a new TV armoire for our front room this past week. I found a local DVD rental store in Shiprock and signed up for a membership. There were lots of great new movies available! Because of all Ryan's hard work today, we were able to watch our first movie on DVD in our new home. It felt great to take a break tonight after working so hard these past few weeks organizing the house and unpacking.

We were able to unpack the last of the boxes in our shed today. It is amazing how movers will use any available room left in a house to unload boxes. We found some things in these boxes that we were wondering what had happened to them in the move. The kids were able to enjoy the beautiful day outside while Ryan and I worked alongside of them. They played in the kiddy pool. We even unpacked a few of the kids' favorite outdoor toys like James' green tractor push toy and Lily's pink yard bucket. It was like Christmas morning in August!!

I made my first trip to the local supermarket today. The past few weeks I had been grocery shopping in Farmington since I was making daily runs to Farmington for house stuff. It was an unique experience to be the only non-Navajo in the store. Everyone was very nice and helpful to me. I felt very welcome. How blessed to have a grocery store that is large and well-stocked within less than 5 minutes from our home! This grocery store is even closer to our house than the Krogers store was to our old house in New Haven. Another plus is that the City Market grocery store is part of the Kroger chain so I can use my Kroger plus card that I already had. How cool is that!!

Cooling off

Thank goodness that the outside thermometer is cooling down a bit! I think that the high today was only in the 90s instead of the 100s. We are getting used to the dry desert heat but I admit that I was a bit taken over by the 100 degree temperature the last few days. The last several days we have seen lots of clouds as if it were going to rain but then, unfortunately, they pass us by with no precipitation.

The painting is just about done - just a few touchups here and there left. We now have a "girly" bathroom per Ryan's first words when he saw it. We have lots of pastel pink bath tile in the bathroom so I decided to paint the walls "vintage beige" which has shades of muted purple in it. I think that it helps tone down the pink tile. Hopefully Ryan can get used to it. :-)

Settling in

We have been in our new home for 1 week now. Everyone seems to be settling in well. It has been too hot outside for the kids to be out during the day. When I started the car yesterday after grocery shopping, the thermometer said 102 and this was at 5:00 pm! The forecast says that it will be hot again nearing the 100 degree mark today but then should be "cooling" down to a high of 90s for the next few days. I am getting used to the dry heat - it is definitely different than the humidity of the Midwest! Hope you enjoyed the photos of the Silverton train. These were actually photos that I took with our own camera during the train ride. Beautiful!!

The house is just about painted. Our painter has the bathroom to do yet and just a bit of touch up here and there. It is definitely helping our house to feel more like a home. We will now start the tedious process of deciding what decoration goes on the walls. Ah- the fun of moving! We have been making daily runs to Farmington for house stuff as each room is finished. When we drive by the road that goes directly toward the rock formation called Shiprock, Lily says, "Look Mom, there's Shiprock!" and gives me a big proud smile. James then points that way and says, "Look!" enthusiastically meaning that he wants to drive under the steel covered bridge. Since this is the way to the post office where our PO box is, we drive there often much to the kids' delight.

Busy weekend

Ryan and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary this past Friday. It is hard to believe that 10 years ago, we were getting married in the sweltering heat of the summer of '99. We decided to celebrate our special event with a family trip to Durango, Colorado to ride the narrow gauge scenic railroad from Durango to Silverton, Colorado. It was quite an adventure as the train climbed up to about 12,000 ft in elevation through the San Juan mountains along the Animas River. The train ride took a little over 3 hours each way with a 2-hour stop in Silverton, which is a small little once-mining town now turned tourist "trap" by the scenic railroad. The kids were quite the adventurers and did very well on the long ride to and from Silverton. James' eyes lit up every time he heard the train whistle (which was quite a few times!) and he loved to look our at the scenery. Lily enjoyed the scenery as well and fell in love with a stuffed bear that fits inside a special zipped purse. We think that this bear could be Bunny's replacement at least for the time being :-) !

We have posted new pictures of our trip and of our new home. We haven't quite finished unpacking everything yet but things are coming along. Ryan starts his first day of work tommorrow (Monday August 3rd). We visited a local church this morning. It was good to go to church since we had to miss last week being on the road. The kids adapted well to their new classrooms despite some initial resistance. It is nice to get back to a typical weekly routine slowly.