Ash and Will

Ash and Will
We are a happy family! : )

Sunday, May 31, 2009

the waybacks

after being here nearly 4 weeks we decided to check out the concert on friday night that was the week's event for the summer concert series here in los alamos. this one was actually just a couple of blocks over from our home, so we walked. it was a nice night, and a nice night for a free concert. the environment was a little different than we're used to, but all in all it was pretty family friendly... it was supposed to be from 7-10... we walked over at about 8:30, of course right when they're going to take a break... we had just eaten dinner, so there was no reason to buy anything from the overpriced vendors, we didn't have chairs to sit down, and we didn't really know anyone else... so we walked down to smith's for a few minutes for some things we needed... when we got back, luckily they were about to get started again!!! (we looked them up on google, and apparently they are real, and didn't just join up for the concert...) so when they're advertised as "bluegrass, newgrass, something, and rock" we were waiting to see just what we'd been missing out on our entire lives!! just what is newgrass anyway? ha... so the guy with the mic says they're going to play such and such song, then one that "you would all recognize".... good one... : ) naturally, we didn't recognize either song... and we had a little bit of trouble trying to tell if we had switched songs yet or not... after about 2.5 songs we decided we were done and headed home, but it was a good culturing experience. moral of the story: check out your local free summer concert series... you don't know what you're missing! there are plenty more this summer that sound like they might be a bit more promising for our tastes... we'll have to check them out....
and if you don't believe that we really went.... we have t-shirts to prove it... free from the sponsor: our local del norte credit union. they say: "the waybacks", the date (may 29, 2009), and los alamos, nm.... there is also a shameless advertisement from del norte on the back.. : )

will enjoyed himself so much he's already wearing his shirt : )

Monday, May 25, 2009

will's birthday and our engagement anniversary!! : )

today is our engagement anniversary!! yay!! : ) what a happy and exciting day it was... i was a little sad when will had to go back to los alamos, but i knew it would only be 3 months until we got married! this summer we don't have to be apart, and we could enjoy our whole memorial day weekend together!
friday was will's birthday! and he didn't have to work.. : ) we didn't get to go camping the night before like we wanted because of the rain, but we'll just try again another time...we still had our foil dinners - cooked in the oven.. : ) so on friday we had a fun day going to the science museum, relaxing and other fun things. i only had to work a little so we had a good, fun birthday party for will's 24th! this was his last year he could have just one pack of candles... next year we'll have to get a nice pink one to put with all his blue ones... : ) a triple chocolate fudge cake with brownie ice cream.... mmm.... so much chocolate!!! it was super fun : )
saturday we went to albuquerque... remember that song from 1st grade? albuquerque he's my turkey.... will's only ever heard it from me.. : ) it's only about an hour and forty? minutes away... we drove through what seemed like cats and dogs rain for a little while, but we were able to go to the temple in the morning which was nice : ) then we went to what felt like a billion other places... a good, long day : ) among other things, we went to redeem will's birthday coupons.. we ate just about as much as we could at red robin... we'd been looking forward to it for a while : ) it was one of those times (like thanksgiving) where you tell yourself you're never going to eat again! and then you always break that promise later.. : ) we also got baskin robbins and cold stone ice cream : ) between the red robin and ice cream we went and found my parents' old apt complex from when they used to live in albequerque, right after they left byu... just for a little while. that was pretty neat! we also went to check out the unm campus (univ of new mexico)... we still needed to walk around some to ease our poor little tummies... : ) on the way home we went on a wild walmart chase in bernalillo... just for a few items... could they make it any harder to find?! if they would have put it where they said it was, it wouldn't have been so bad, but we drove to the end of don tomas one way, then the other way and never found it... with some other roundabout getting lostings... finally, by a stroke of luck, just beyond some casino (who was housing a sold out WWF match that night) we found it! then they couldn't even fix the battery in will's watch... good thing we got our bread and stir fry sauce we can't get here in los alamos... : ) when we were coming out of walmart the rain was really coming down... we thought it was cats and dogs before, but this was seriously cats and dogs this time... maybe even... cheetahs and wolves! as we drove up to temple it must have really just been gerbils and... lab rats... (that's what will said in the car... imagine if it was really raining lab rats... sick!) anyway... in the 20-25 seconds it took us to *run* to our car, we got super duper wet! big chunky rain, flashes of lightning in the sky, thunder, the parking lot was looking kinda floody... in albuquerque they have signs various places saying not to drive there if it's flooded... but we saw no such signs in bernalillo.. : ) so we drove home, enjoying the pretty clouds, views, etc... we've enjoyed our long weekend... : )
ps... i very much love and appreciate skype... that was my little plug/advertisement
psagain... i even more love and appreciate will.... : )

this is us at the bradbury science museum... about nuclear warfare, the manhattan project, and current lab research... hours of fun... : )
will just opened one of his birthday presents... apple cinnamon cheerios... his favorite!!! : ) can you see the grocery ads i wrapped them in?... : )
will getting ready to blow out his candles!!! don't worry... he got them all...
enjoying my raspberry limeade at red robin... mmmmm..... : )

out the car window as we drove home... it wasn't raining at this point, but the clouds looked so cool!!
sitting down to our memorial day "picnic"... : ) chicken salad sandwiches, potato salad, chips, strawberry kiwi juice.... delicious : )
this is camel rock... looks just like one! and whether it's man made or not... they've banked off of it by building, yes, camel rock casino... : ) a joy to see each time we drive to santa fe or albuquerque... : )

Thursday, May 21, 2009

monopoly... 5 days later...

so... we started our monopoly game last saturday. with only 2 of us it went fairly quickly to get several properties bought. (growing up my family always played you had to go around the board once before you could buy, but will and i decided to have everything fair game from the beginning) so we went on our spending spree for several turns each, hoping for "good" properties... i don't know how it happened, i suppose i was a little wiser with my money : ), but will was hurting... so i let him catch up (winning a truck load of money from free parking - which evidently the rules state that that space is not for winning money, but for "resting"... boring... : ) so of course that was the "traditional" jackpot spot) well, i soon wished i hadn't played so easy on him because before too long he had tons of money! thousands more than me!
now, this game went on for 5 days... we'd play a little each evening (most evenings... not all) and it sat out on the coffee table each day for us to think and strategize.. : ) sometimes we'd just have discussions about what deals we might make with each other... it all hinged on st. charles place! that was the last property to be bought... it took until last night! each time one of us would come up on it we'd count how many we'd need to roll to land on it... either that, or free parking, which we knew had not a truck load this time, but a boat load... more like an ocean liner load... well, i ended up getting st. charles place, and by that time, neither of us cared so much about the "deals" we could do... (because at that point none were in will's favor.. : ) and much to my sadness... will soon after got free parking... it ended up being 1999... that's nearly 2000 dollars!!! and he took forever counting it... : ) haha well, at this point, never mind the fact that i had 3 monopolies, all with houses... they were the wimpy ones (light blue, pink, and red - red's not too bad).... with a house on a light blue all you get is 30... lame... by this time will had the corner by "go to jail." whatever those colors are... yellow and green. so he had a death row corner for me (which he had 2-3 houses on everything over there!) that i luckily kept missing... : ) (even jail was better than paying 800-1000!) well.. eventually i landed on him and owed him 900 or so... i had to clear all my houses from two of my monopolies! not long after, i owed 800some, so i cleared the other houses... : ) next time i had to start mortgaging things... and on my last turn i believe i owed 1000 and i had to mortgage everything else i had!! i was only able to offer 852, a get out of jail free, and my humble little iron piece... : ) will won.... there's always next time... : )
we had tons of fun and love monopoly!! probably the play by play of our game wasn't very exciting... but we're having such a fun summer! we're not necessarily in the butchart gardens, but it's fun to be in a new place having new experiences. there are plenty of neat things down here and we should enjoy them while we're here... and best of all, we just work during the day, and have fun and relax in the evenings and on weekends! no homework for us : ) it's a little harder to relax when our smoke alarm is going off... but we'll hopefully get all that figured out eventually.. : ) if nothing else, it is just for the summer... : )
we have tons of fun plans for the weekend and it's will's birthday tomorrow! : )

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Happy Sunday!


Happy Sunday everyone! This is our first blog post, if you didn't notice... After creating it, we decided to change the layout. We have searched high and low for a good choice... and we'll continue our search. We even looked through all 77 pages of one site - we did find a good one, but it was all in Spanish... After much too much time we chose this flowery one for now.

We've been in Los Alamos for about 2 weeks now. We are enjoying our relaxing time away from school and homework, but with each other. Just yesterday we went to the kite festival in White Rock - good times. There were tons of fun kites to watch - little kids running around with their little kites they made at the kids' workshop (we would have, but we weren't sure they'd let us...) and other "for fun" kite flyers. There were a couple who seemed more experienced, or wanted to be... there was one lonely kite up on the "stunt kite" field, who wasn't there very long, a man with a humongous octopus kite (which never made it very far up, but it was a fun one to watch), and a man with what looked like a homemade box kite... he gave up after about 5 minutes... muttering to himself... : ) It was pretty windy. We also watched as several people untangled their kites from each other. They had some overpriced food booths, a kite vendor, and a 4-H club selling soda, etc.... Oh! and a "kite hospital" to mend kites that faced the "inevitable" (the ad said it : ) bonks and breaks. It was fun to be out in the sun and see the local festival. Sorry, we forgot the camera... But we'll be sure to post other pictures...

We're new to this... give us some time... : ) We almost had a sad ending to this blog and our computer.... Will was tickling me and the computer almost tumbled to the floor! Luckily we're all ok... : )

Monopoly update: although I had to play easy on him for a while until he won about $840 from Free Parking, I believe Will is several thousand dollars richer than I am... he owns 3 of the 4 railroads which is what's draining my funds! But I do have the only monopoly so far...