I broiled in the oven some of my more finely marinated & seasoned steaks tonight. and the steaks weren't tough either. I also made a decent batch of mashed potatos and boiled a few ears of corn.
and the husband, when asked to bring home chocolate chip cookies..brought back these 1-inch diameter things that taste awful...
Steak good. I'm enjoying what I can while I feel good for these few hours, and before I go into an easy diet post surgery Tuesday.
For an honors acquaintance Joy, who just lost her husband of a year in a plane crash. Both are LU grads.
and I'm having surgery Tuesday morning to have the gallbladder removed. Because it works at 10% of what is should be doing, and hence, lots of nausea and occasional pain.
I have one more week of vacation left and than the workdays and than classes begin....and I have a whole new crew of 9th grade math teachers I'll be working with.
Wildflowers: names to come soon....
I'm not quite a master of my zoom & focus yet....just be forewarned with the pictures from American Basin:
More below--like animals and scenery.
I'm so trying to catch a deer or moose crossing the road in Lake City....
The Italians who run a ranch and some restaurants now have an alpaca farm...
Goats or sheep? (my brother had the camera and didn't know how to zoom)
Now for scenery from our hikes:
(Cataract Gulch Trail)
The waterfall behind Camp Redcloud:
Alright, as promised, here are some pictures of the little ones and wildflowers (next post).
To start with--comparison photos of Caedin & Sarah, each just under the age of two:
Now here's Caedin all grown up to a few months shy of 4....(almost exactly two years later!)
Waterfall with their Mommy--Sarah didn't seem to like the drops of water that came her way...
Caedin goes driving with Uncle Kirk:
(keep going for more below:)
Fun at the playground:
Do you know how hard it is to get the click-timing right on action pictures.....
Then the garden....where Sarah is making "coffee" (she really said that...)
Finally, sleepy kids after some swimming in Montrose...
(Alright, so this is a few days late....)
People watching in airports is fun. I wonder at the younger 20 something guy who decided to drink a $5 beer at 7 in the morning.
I'm also struck that people eat strange things in the morning, like the lady eating chili-cheese fritos.
Or I think about the contrast of the two younger, again 20something guys across from me...one who looks like a sterotypical nerd (but no laptop?) reading The Bourne Legacy. The guy next to him looks like someone who likes to travel and do things...various patches on his shirt. Reminds me of some of the people who come to Lake City--hiking the Divide, or aiming to hike as many fourteeners as they can. Lake City has five mountains over 14000 feet. I've been on two of them.
Anyways. I was disappointed to find that the wi-fi network here in IAH actually costs money to use....10 bucks for 24 hour access. blah. Tyler boasts free wi-fi apparently.
Hmm. It's always fun to notice what people are wearing and what they look like when traveling to a unique location, such as tourist-trap Colorado.
Part 2: Return Trip
The flight from Montrose to Houston was so pretty! I saw the Black Canyon, and Blue Mesa, Lake San Cristobal (I'd have seen Lake City if I was on the other side of the plane!), Gunnison & Western State College, the Great Sand Dunes near Alamosa, and so many other places that I wish I knew how to identify. I couldn't believe how many trees I saw as we started the descent.
After an enjoyable meal at Chili's since I have a 2 1/2 layover--a meal of Chili, salad, and yummy Chambord Margarita, I took the shuttle bus over to the hopper terminal. Continental has rearranged or something because this waiting area is much nicer than the last ghetto area we connected to Tyler from. If i'd know there this was this much stuff with so many few people, I'd have come over here earlier. The Chili's I ate at was in one of the main food courts I think--a central area in the B terminal where secuirty comes out.
I suspect that the young schmoopy couple I saw on the bus were honeymooners; his ring looked shiny-new.
For the next 24 hours i'm not supposed to make any important decisions or doing anything require mental alertness and coordination. They sedated me quite nicely for the upper GI endoscopy today. It only took a few minutes but I don't remember any of the actual procedure--just talking to the dr, relaxing my mouth around the bite-guard, and then coming too and being rolled out of the room.
The scope showed that I had an angry stomach. A stomach that is angry because my gallbladder is NOT working, which the doctor told me the Hida scan they did two weeks ago showed a bad gallbladder. Which means, I'm having surgery again soon. Hopefully before stuff starts at school.
Tomorrow, I have plans of writing about and posting pictures of my lovely little vacation last week. FOr now, i think I'm going to read myself back into the sleep of sedation medicine running its course.
The title is my niece Sarah's way of saying "yes". I'm here in Colorado having a nice time seeing old friends and old haunts, and playing with the nephew Caedin and Sarah. Of course, they make for getting me up early in the day and sometimes frying my eardrums, but kids. It's interesting to observe them as they are getting older...Caedin the older brother who is learning to be bossy. Sarah who, just why of two, is getting more independent. More often than not Caedin wants what Sarah has...but she's exerting her own wants now which he doesn't quite get yet.
Sadly, it's been mostly rainy and overcast while I've been here. However, during the few occasional hours of sunlight we've been able to go hiking and walking. I went on a hike! and I was able to breathe and what not after the pacemaker figured out I was hiking and adjusted itself accordingly. It's been really neat to feel the difference in activity. I'm desperately searching for the missing camera cable...hoping I may have left it up here at Christmas but searching to no avail. and my mom's doesn't work and she doesn't have a card reader. And stores with such technologies aren't easy to find within L.C. city limits...I have ten pictures left on my card after deleting the bad ones (the ones where I was trying to figure out the timing of catching action moments (slides and swings) in action instead of just air. Hopefully I'll find something REALLY soon. Especially cause we will probably try and go up to American Basin which should be inundated in wildflowers.
I got lucky this week as paster David was preaching at church this morning. (everytime I have brought Josh, it's been a guest speaker....) Pastor D. is definitely a man that God is working through. He preaches with such passion and power, and truth and honesty, and sincerity that I imagine it would be hard not to believe. He preached today from the beginnings of John, 1 John, and Revelation about the eternal-ness (my word) of Christ as God and how we can believe the truth of what John says because he was a direct witness of Christ on Earth.
WEll, that's my news for now and lunch is starting to smell like it's about ready. I will try and records some more Caedin-isms and Sarah-isms.
Well, here I sit in our office amidst the boxes and boxes of mostly books. Things are coming along rather nicely. We have our living room arranged in a cozy fashion, ready for visitors and the kitchen and dining area are almost done. I doubt it'll all be finished before I leave on Wednesday to go see la familia, but that's okay. Unfortunately, it'll be August before I know it and I have to go back to school....
I hope our internet connection holds long enough for me to get this posted. If not, I'll switch to stealing somebody's unsecure wireless nearby. I will try and post pictures when things get more settled. At any rate, we're still alive. Now to see if anybody else has posted this week....