Random thoughts at work

Ok, this is Andrew speaking; this is officially my first contribution to our blog. It is my first attempt at blogging period. Annalise has been after me for awhile now asking me when I am going to contribute to our blog, well today is that day. Look out world. I am now joining the high-tech world of blogging. Which means anyone who reads our blog will now be subjected to my rambling, high speed, often hard to follow thought process. This gets worse when I am forced to endure long periods of intense boredom, when I talk about something I really enjoy, or when my blood sugar spikes for a variety of reasons. I just drank about a liter of Pepsi by-the-way. This is more soda than I normally drink in 2 weeks. Why you might ask, did I do such a thing? Let me tell you.

Once every week we have what is called Post Academy day. This is a day where we are stuck in a tiny overcrowded computer room that does not have a sufficient enough air conditioning to keep one from suffering from heat exhaustion. We are there for 8 hours. It is supposed to be a continuation of our training from the academy but it is all online. I usually finish my classes within the 1st hour, leaving me 7 hours of agonizing boredom. You might not think it is that bad of a situation, let me quickly relieve you of such an erroneous assumption. First off, we have to be prepared to go out to the field at any time. That means wearing our duty belt with full gear. However, the genius involved in outfitting the classroom with chairs was never informed of this fact, or he gets a kick out of knowing that the chairs he put in there are too tiny to sit in with your duty belt on. This causes one to sit at a somewhat sideways position with your back twisted, trying to fit your feet under the desk. Every now and then you must change which way you are twisted or run the risk of serious injury and embarrassment when you try to get out of your seat 8 hours later.

The wonderful electrician who wired the room never thought that you would want the computers, lights, and ceiling fans on all at the same time. You can't have them all on and the air-conditioning too apparently. So since we are in full gear, this includes body armor, and there are around 10-20 of us in the room, all using computers which put out more heat than my space heater at home, it gets a little toasty at times. They do give us internet access, kind of. About 80% of anything you would want to look at is blocked, like say....news, sports, social networking sites, games etc. Hence why I am writing this at the moment, it’s not blocked. I have had the opportunity to read plenty of interesting things on a variety of sites though. Did you know that the Snow Leopard can leap over 6 times its body length? Man, if I could do that I would be leaping like 37 feet. That would be awesome. I haven't measured my leaping ability recently but I am pretty sure it’s not even close to that. Did you also know that sharks have special cells in their brains that are sensitive to the electrical fields other creatures generate. This ability is so refined in some sharks that they can find fish hiding under sand by the weak electric signals their twitching muscles emit. Dang, I would like to see tonks get away from me then. Go ahead hide, I will find you, then jump attack you from over 30 feet away.

Sorry, I got off topic. Wait a minute, I don't think I had a topic. Um, guess I could come up with one real quick though. It would have to be how much I love my wife. She is truly great to me. I am so glad I have her in my life. I can't imagine being without her, well, yes I can. I was without her for 3 months while at the academy and it was terrible. Am so glad to be back with her and going through this adventurous trail we are on. It has been so very hard at times, very stressful and demanding on us both. But well worth it. If you never leave your comfort zone how do you expect to grow? I can say with everything happening in the move and change of jobs that we have both been way outside our comfort zone. We have grown so much together though. I love my little family. My wife and my dog. I also love the rest of my family, my brothers and sisters, my in-laws (who have supported me and helped me so much, thank you,) my father. . . family is so important, it's hard being far away from them all. I hope you all keep in touch.

Alright, I know a lot of you have questions on what my job entails. Actually I don't know that, but I am guessing you might wonder. Maybe. In the middle of the night when you can't sleep. You think to yourself, "Remember Andrew? The guy who joined the Border Patrol. I wonder what exactly it is that he does." Well tune in next time to find out. I might even post a video of Border Patrol work. If I can figure out how to post it that is.

In 'N Out

Sundays are the one day a week that Andrew and I get to spend together so we thought we'd have an adventure and go to Tucson! There happens to be an In 'N Out Burger in Tucson so we thought we'd stop for lunch before heading over to Costco. This is the only In 'N Out in Tucson and we got there right around 12:30 so needless to say, the place was PACKED! The line to order was literally out the door! There was even a line to fill your drinks. So we had a little bit of a wait for our food. Any of you who know Andrew know that when he gets hungry and his blood sugar level drops, he can get a little....interesting. When we finally did get our food I saw him sipping out of his ketchup cup and then putting the fries in his mouth to eat them together. He caught me watching him and he explained that the fries were just too little to dip in the ketchup cup, it got his fingers messy. So he'd pour the ketchup into his mouth! GENIUS! Why aren't we all doing this? LOL! There is a video clip of him actually eatting his fries this way. It's so classically Andrew. The video is down at the bottom. I couldn't figure out how to upload only the one video, so you get to see all my YouTube videos. There's some of the house before we moved in, actually I took it for Andrew to try to show him what he was buying. The narration is BAD. Sorry. :)

Also, I am putting up some pictures of the new house. I know several people have been curious to see so I stopped procrastinating and here they are! I have no idea how to shrink these photos so if they are huge, I apologize. :)

Finally Getting Settled In

I can't believe that we've been in Arizona for almost two months now! In some ways it feels so much longer and in others, the time has just flown by. Either way, we are definitely feeling more settled and we are beginning to understand the appeal of Arizona winters. The weather has been consistently BEAUTIFUL for the last several weeks. In fact, I can't remember the last icky day that we've had. It's usually 70 degrees or warmer every day, sunny and cloudless skies. I have a feeling I won't be loving the desert weather in just a few months, but I am definitely loving it right now.

I took the last couple of days off of work to try to get a few things done around the house. And as life goes, I only got a few of the projects I had in mind accomplished. I'll admit it, I'm a bit of a procrastinator. But I did manage to get my kitchen and laundry room organized, the house cleaned top to bottom, all the laundry and ironing done, the bills paid and even found time to make lunches for Andrew to take to work. Andrew also helped me move my grandparents' China Hutch into the dining room. I am so happy to finally have this particular piece of furniture in because this is my little piece of Garth and Lorraine Empey in my home. I lost my grandpa in November and grandma back in May of 2007 so to have something of theirs in our home means a lot to me. It's absolutely beautiful and I am so glad that it didn't get damaged in the move.

Andrew is excited to get started on the back yard. He has so many good ideas for what to do with our plot of dirt. I am so excited to see what he does with it! He is so creative and will make it beautiful. He has managed to recruit a couple of the other agents to help him til the ground, which I understand is mostly clay and very hard. So I say Good Luck to them. I'll be inside. I'm sure Baxter will be out there trying to help. He's pretty curious about the projects that go on here at home, and is always trying to stick his nose in. He's such a good helper! We'll keep you all updated on the progress of the backyard. Don't hold your breath though, I have a feeling it will take a while.

We have managed to find a few friends who like to play board games with us. Sunday evenings are usually spent with Paul and Melissa and their baby girl Ryann, playing Ticket to Ride, Carcassone and Rhinelander. We are so glad that they will play with us! We have missed playing with my brothers, Erik and David, sister Krista and her husband Steve so much! So it's been very nice to have people down here to do that with. This last Sunday we invited one of Andrew's buddies from work to come and play and he brought his girlfriend along. It was fantastic! They had a great time and I'm sure they will be back.

I managed to find a new background...you like? I just need help with a new template and fancy accessories. So here is my plea to everyone to help me! Thanks to Katey for her help with the background! Let me know what help anyone can offer!

Lots of love to you all! Miss you and there is an open invitation to everyone to come and visit! It's the best time of the year to be here!

It's 10:30 at night and I'm waiting for Andrew to come home. He won't be home for a few hours still but I'm excited to see him. The roughest part about our new life here in AZ is how little time we actually spend together right now. Andrew works from around 3:00 pm til around midnight and I'm at work from 8:15 am til around 8:30 pm. We don't see each other unless I wake him up in the mornings. (Which he HATES because he's tired. He even wears his shooting range ear protector thingies while I'm using the hair dryer in the morning so it drowns out the noise. It's pretty funny. Will have to take a picture of it.) I'm grateful that we have one day a week, Sundays, to spend together. We usually spend it with Baxter, or going for a drive. It's the one day of the week that I look forward to most. It kind of makes the rest of the week worth it. Plus, I know that this isn't a permanent thing. We are making temporary sacrifices for the things that we want long term. Andrew is working hard now so that he can provide a great life for our family later on down the road. And I am so grateful to him for doing that. He's pretty awesome!

So Baxter has this new thing where he torments the dogs next door to us. They have a boxer that is out in their backyard pretty much all the time and loves to bark at Baxter. Our little dog has some mad hops and can almost jump over the cinder block fence (it's probably almost 5 feet tall. I don't know, I'm horrible at guessing.) and that makes the other dog absolutely CRAZY! So here's this little mini schnauzer jumping over the fence and the boxer on the other side is jumping too. But they don't jump at the same time! One is down while the other is up and they are both barking at each other! It's pretty humorous to watch. Guess it's one of those things that you just have to see for yourself. Or maybe that it's 10:45 at night and I have a fever. :)

It's been a while.....

Andrew has been after me to get on here and update what's going on. I am finally doing it but hoping that someone will help me out and tell me how to get the super cute backgrounds that everyone besides me has! (a step by step email to annaliselange@hotmail.com would be much appreciated!)

Anyways, we got moved to Arizona from Utah in mid-November with little to no trouble. I was surprised, I had anticipated a much more stressful move. Although my family, and poor husband, can testify that I was pretty stressed out anyways. But really, the purchase of the house, the boxing up, the actual 17 hour drive down, it all went pretty well. I am just so very glad that it's over and that we are in the new house! And did I mention that Andrew didn't even get to see the house til the day we signed the closing documents???? This poor man had to trust my judgement when it came to buying our first house! I'm so lucky that he loves it as much as I do and that he trusts me enough to handle it on my own. We are here now and working on making it "home."

I'm still working for US Bank but I drive a little over an hour each way to work everyday. I have to say it's getting a little bit old. I love what I do but being away from home (most importantly my husband and dog) for almost 55 hours a week isn't working out too well. Andrew puts in about 50 hours a week at his job and right now we are on opposite shifts. So we don't see each other except for when he stumbles in at around 1:00 am and right before I leave. We are hoping that this doesn't last too long!

Andrew is loving his new job and is learning a lot. He gets to play with some cool "toys" and is doing something different almost everyday. He is feeling a bit frustrated that he's at the bottom of the food chain but I have no doubt that it won't be long before he's the one hazing the new guys. :) I am really so proud of him! He works so hard and went through so much to get this new job. I can't believe what an incredible man he is. We are lucky to have him.

Baxter, the dog, is adjusting well to Arizona. He loves the sunshine (which shines daily) and has discovered that having a backyard that is all dirt is the best! He wasn't too sure about all the tile floors in the house, but he's learned not to slide into all the furniture. Baxter loves to tease the dogs next door by jumping up on the fence. He and the dog next door have it timed just right so that one will be jumping up while the other is on the ground. So there is always one of the dogs bouncing up over the fence! It's pretty funny, but I guess you'd have to see it for yourself.

Anyways, I'm going to try to upload a few more pictures here. I've been meaning to take a few more of the house but we haven't painted or anything yet so its' pretty boring. Guess I'll snap a few tomorrow and put them up.

Oh yeah, the holidays were great! It was a little weird, a Christmas with no snow but we loved it anyways. I made Christmas dinner and Andrew ate it. Guess you'll have to ask him how it was. He's a good husband and tells me it was good. :)