My Favorite Time of Day

I love sunset. It is just magical time of day when the world just seems to stop for a few minutes to admire the show. I grew up in CA, and the sunsets there are breathtaking thanks to all the pollution. I love sunset! This is taken in Kuwait City over looking the Persian Gulf

This was at Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait on my way back home in December

This was taken looking up a street in down town Kuwait City

Taken looking out of my guard tower at the desolate landscape.

My back yard

Something I Love...

I know...It's cliche...but I do. Tonight I spent the evening with my family. We went to my cousin's JV basketball game and the we all went out for dinner...my uncle is in town for a big wedding reception party we're having for my mom tomorrow. Anyway, It was a nice night. It was cold and snowing and as we walked out of the school building the flag was flappin ligthed against the night sky with the snow slowly drifting down. It was lovely.

Something On My Wall...

I think my little sister is a great artist. She is creative and has a good eye. I on the other, can not draw or paint to save my life. Anyway, here is a painting that she made that hangs on my bedroom wall and I love it!

Snow Day

Well, today was a snow day. School was cancelled this am, and it only stopped snowing at about 4:30pm. it is absolutely beautiful outside! I love the snow. I grew up in Southern CA, so even now that it is a pain to drive in it, I still LOVE the snow. I also love my new camera. :-) It only arrived a little bit ago, but I had to run outside and get some nice snow pictures before it got too dark. So here you go...Two great things wrapped into one...Snow with my new camera! Yeah!!! By the way, all ofthese were taken in my yard.

What I WAS Working On

It is 12:20 Wednesday morning and I am torn between wanting to triumphally celebrate the completion of my class and wanting to pass out since I am meeting a friend at the gym in the am and haven't slept well the last two nights. All bow down and hail the QUEEN OF PROCRASTINATION. That's right, in the last 36 hours I have written a 16 page research paper, and smaller discussion paper and a proctored final exam for my graduate class on Middle Eastern Culture. Do they really work us that hard? No, I'm just a but of a masochist I guess.

I had the best of intentions to get it done on time...and I did great in Kuwait when I had nothing but sand to distract me. But here there are sooooooo many other things to do and they are all so much more fun than homework. I mean, season 5 of LOST started last week, and I just HAD to watch all of season 4 before then so I could catch up before it started. I mean, research paper...Jack Shepherd...tuff choice. Anyway, I am done now. Submitting my paper with literally one minute to go before the deadline, which was cutting it a bit close even for me. Whoo. Thank you LORD!

Something in my Town

Well, I've been swamped with school work this week and unable to get a new pic, but here is one of mt favorite pics of my "town" in Kuwait, Camp Buehring. I was so thrilled to leave it and now that I'm home I get to look back on it with some nostalgia.

Things That Make Me Smile...

Jenny is heading up a photo project this week that I'm going to participate in. Today: Things that make me smile.

Today a bunch of us went sledding and it was a lot of fun. At the end we were going back to the car to load the sleds in and I had put down a sled while I was digging for my camera to take a group picture. So along comes Allison and instead of walking around it, she decides to to step on the little disk sled. WHOOSH! Out go her feet and she lands squarely on her toockus! It was hysterical! My sister falling on her butt...that makes me smile!!!

Catch up.

I went to Nebraska and it was a blast!

Me and the mascot Durango at a hockey game

Me and Darrin at the hockey game

Me with Jenny's kids Mackenzie and Ben

Me, Jenny, and Trevor. :-)

It was a great trip and awesome to get to spend so much time catching up and hanging out with friends!

Reconnecting...

One of the nice opportunities that I have right now is to reconnect with some old friends that I haven't seen in a while. I took off on Friday morning (after considerable airline headaches) for Memphis to see my friend Justin and get my truck that was down with him. I had a great time. We got to go to some of my favorite places in Memphis, and we visited the National Civil Rights Museum. I had always wanted to, and it was awesome! It is in the motel where MLK was assassinated.




We also spent a lot of time just driving around. :-) I also had some stuff I had to get for my truck and all that to make sure it would do OK on a long road trip.

Saturday night we went downtown to see this AWESOME local band called The Dempseys that I LOVE!!! Turns out that they had the schedule wrong on the website and we missed it, which was a major bummer. I did get to visit the famous Beale St though. It is a shameless tourist trap, but worth at least seeing. I embarrassed the heck out of Justin wanting to take a picture. :-)

About 9:30pm on Sunday I hit the road for Nebraska. I had been planning to leave earlier, but wanted to have dinner with Justin and his new girlfriend that I hadn't met yet. It was well worth it, she's a total sweetie. And a skydiving instructor. How cool is that?

I drove mostly straight through, all except for a brief nap somewhere in MO. I arived in time to see Trevor before he took off for his new home in Baltimore, which was the goal. Yeah!

Kooky Christmas

This year we had a really kooky Christmas! On Christmas Eve we had our big family party at my cousin's house. After that we came home and did presents. YEAH!!!

We got up Christmas morning and made a stocking for Mom. (she was working) We took that to her at the hospital and then on the way home we drove by the cemetary where my great-grandma is burried. So I said, "hey, we should go get a picture taken...Grandma would love that!" So we stopped in and took a pic with Grandma Nonnie's grave marker.

On the way in we spotted this huge Allison marker. Cole thought we were being irreverent, but I didn't think they would mind. :-)
After that we went to the theater and saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Very cute. Sad, but good. Plus, Brad Pitt is absolutely beautiful! Then we went home and Nick and Andrew cam over and we played cards, then headed to the Waffel House at about 1130pm for Christmas dinner. Oh yeah, and our heat went out Christmas afternoon. BRRRR!

Starting again...

Well, since coming home I figured that no one would really care what I'm up to... Well, Trevor got crabby about it. :-) So, I'll start back up again. So, like it or not...here we go. :-)