Thanks to Beth, the blog has a pulse. I figured I should follow up, show some signs of life myself. The days of winter here in Colorado have a nice cyclical feel to them. A week of absurdly warm weather (I'm talking 50 plus degrees here folks) teases us with the thoughts of sprouting vegetables, and hours more of sunlight. These pleasant and Vitamin D filled thoughts are squashed by the blast of arctic air seemingly pouring off them mountains just west of us. And when I say squashing I mean it in the most unprepared, rude, and destructive way, because before you know it your looking at -15 degree nights. yea. This is usually followed by a dump of snow. 10-15 inches usually. The snow hangs around forever, even as the temperatures start to climb back to a more understandable level. The snow melts and turns to ice and you have daily mini-heart-attacks when your treadless shoes decide to move just slightly faster then the remaining 96% of your body. Thankfully no bones have broken, nor heads cracked. Just lotsa' "take deep breaths honey" types of sentences after recovering from so many near death experiences.

I wish I could be more specific, but that's a little tough now. I think a lot of things are going to change for us. We're realizing that the $50,000 education that was supposed to be "an investment into your future" has actually just taken a huge dump on us. sorry to be crude, but man I can hardly think of a better way to express that. I'm thankful for my education in many ways, just not in that "your gonna work at Starbucks and be poor/slightly miserable, for much longer then you EVVVVER expected" sorta way. Did you start reading to hear me whining?

So yea, things are probably going to be changing. There. Stay tuned. K?

Oliver (yes we are those type of dog owners) is forever growing in size and sass. He is even talking back to us now when we "correct" him. He gives us this throaty and disgruntled growl after you tell him to "shoosh!" And will continue to do it until you grow tired of his teenager ways. Kids.

Other then that I would strongly encourage you all to take care of your appendix's. If that tiny little pouch of flesh decides to get all infected and angry you WILL land yourself in the hospital. Also, that little stay in the five star hospital will cost you a pretty gosh darn fortune. Yep $16,000 for that little dangly flesh hanging off your small intensities. (Prepare yourself for sarcasm) Thanks to our unsurpassed and completely functional health insurance industry I paid next to nothing for this procedure. (Prepare yourself for absolutely no sarcasm whatsover, seriously) Except for a year later (which was about a couple days ago) when you receive a bill for $4,000 benjawashinglincolns. psssssst we have no such money!

Yep. SO the crapping on continues. Take care of your appendix's folks.

New Year, New Post

We're not very consistent bloggers to say the least, but in our defense, we honestly haven't had the time nor the motivation. So here's what we've been up to...

Mark's parents and Beth's family came out for a visit in October a few days apart.

_________________________________________

Beth sold her knits at a couple craft shows.

_________________________________________

Oliver experienced his first snow, and it turns out he LOVES snow!

_________________________________________

We celebrated Christmas together at home, and then again with the Preston family, and then the Beach family. It was wonderful to be welcomed into their family celebrations, as we were definitely missing our families back in PA.

_________________________________________

After coming home crying one too many nights, Beth decided to quit her job at AE. We both decided money wasn't worth being treated less than human. So since then she's been cleaning and doing all the laundry that we've put off for over a month, spending time with Oliver (who has spent way to much time pent up in his crate), knitting, and spending time with Mark. That's been the best part of course, since we were both working 40 hours per week, we rarely saw each other. We've also gotten to spend a lot more time with our friends out here, which we have both missed as well. We also got to see a couple of our dear friends from out east when they were in town visiting family.

SO that's just a tiny bit of what our lives have been like lately.