Quick Update

Okay, okay! I've been told by a few friends that we need to update the blog! That is SO cool that you are reading it! :-)

It's getting down to the wire on departure, and we've just been really busy, with getting ready and the holidays and all - and trying to fit in doing fun things with friends and family before we leave as well. And both Devin and I have been sick recently, too, on top of that - ick. So that's the official excuse.

Here's some of the fun stuff we've been up to, just since Christmas:

Last Saturday we went to Supercross Race "Anaheim 1" with friend Ushruf - his first race - my second. My favorite, James Stewart, won! It was a very exciting race for the first few laps, as Chad Reed started in first, and Ricky Carmichael got tangled up in the start, and both James Stewart and Ricky Carmichael fell, making it anybody's race for a while, but Stewart pulled ahead, and Carmichael took second, with Reed, racing with a fractured shoulder blade and chipped collar bone, in third. These guys are gladiators! Yet such cute nice guys, too!

Last night, I went to a Dead Cookie Party with friend Jenny Dodge. The idea is to create a gingerbread cookie of someone who died in the previous year.

People take this very seriously! Jenny sketches out her cookie design in advance, and most people research their person and bring notes! After baking and icing, we each did a short presentation on our cookie. Jenny did Steve Irwin, and I did Buck Owens. Crikey! Hee Haw!

On New Year's Day, we watched the Rose Parade from our apartment building balcony - since this is the last time we'll be living on the parade route, we figured we'd better do this! This year, George Lucas was the Grand Marshall, so it had some special effects... I liked the Star Wars band - a marching band (from Louisiana, I think?) that really rocked! The storm troopers were a little disappointing. I told Devin, "they weren't real storm troopers, just some guys in storm trooper outfits..." Ha. What I meant was, they were just fans and not trained and didn't march in step, even, so they weren't very imposing, as one would expect. But the floats were neat from our fourth floor balcony viewpoint! And the Stealth Bomber and Stealth Fighters that do a fly over at the beginning of the parade each year were truly awesome! Seeing it on TV cannot compare to the overwhelming feeling of having it fly directly over your head - low, loud, and fast! If I hadn't been at the start of a bad cold, I could have enjoyed the parade more, but after a while, I had to go inside and watch it on TV - funny - you could hear outside what I was watching inside.

Between Christmas and New Year's, we went camping with friends Anita and Greg and family out near Blythe at Coon Hollow campground. I went with everyone out to the Hauser Beds and the boys dug for geodes while Anita and I played with our cameras. Devin stayed at the Moho and did some repairs while I was out playing - he fixed two drawers and worked on a broken awning latch. Go Devin! That evening, I made my first soon-to-be-famous "Holy Shit Margaritas" while we grilled steak and veggies and mashed potatoes (well, Anita made the mashed potatoes - we didn't grill them - ha!). The boys each brought a friend and they spent a lot of time on their bikes making jumps and just exploring, when they weren't digging or climbing.

We really like having our solar panels! We can camp with friends in tents and not be obnoxious. Now if we could just keep our water pump and furnace quiet... well, we can - there are fixes for both, but we've spent enough money at this point that if it works, we'll probably just keep it as is, at least for now. We've considered getting catalytic heaters installed, which, along with the SHURflo Comfort Air fans that can work like a ceiling fan to help circulate the heat, would make a very quiet heater alternative, but our built in forced air furnace works fine to keep us warm, so we are holding off on that. And there are quiet water pumps and special accesories to make it quiet, but again, ours works okay, so we're holding off.

Well, that's an update of some of the fun stuff we've been doing - before Christmas we have had a few family get-togethers and camping in the desert over Thanksgiving with friends. The rest of what we are doing isn't so fun - sorting, cleaning, packing, storing... and getting the MoHo set up for our trip with all the details, and getting our business taken care of here - bills, and taxes, and mail and such. Once we hit the road I will update more often!!

We'll keep everyone posted on a Bon Voyage Party/Moho Open House - possibly in early February.

PS - our Jeep went to D1 status!! (That means it's scheduled to be built, so we'll probably get it later this month - yay!!!