Family Visits

You might be wondering where the "usual" title picture is on this post. Well, we've taken so many lately, that in order to clear space on the laptop, all of our pictures have been transferred to an external hard drive. So, you'll have to check out Facebook for all of our recent photos!

..Where to begin...this summer has treated us extremely well, and we hope the same for all of you. The heat hasn't been too unbearable (again, the lack of humidity makes 97 degrees feel like 95) and things are really starting to cool down. The weather has been beautiful, and I know I personally have not missed the 105 + heat index that we've seen far too often on the east coast. Speaking of east coast, this summer has been FULL of visitors from there!! We've done the usual summer activities, including baseball games, movies, eating out/grilling, etc, but the highlight has been the plethora of family and friends that have sacrificed their time and money to fly out and visit us. God has shown us great love and support through everyone who has come to visit...thank you everyone!

The benefit of having people come visit during the summer is that Cari is finished with teaching for a couple months and is not working, therefore allowing her to be around to entertain guests while I slave away at work! ;) Our first guest over the summer was my sister, Katie and our future niece (yet to be named). She came the second week of July and was a GREAT sport, despite her pregnancy. Unfortunately, her connection flight from Dallas to Albuquerque was canceled, so it took her until the next morning to get out here...but, she was able to push her departure back a day, so no time was lost! We went to Old Town in Albuquerque on Friday afternoon and the girls did some jewelry shopping. On Saturday, we drove up to Santa Fe, walked around, and ate at our favorite restaurant, Tomasitas. The rest of the weekend was spent driving around, eating out (Chama Brewing Co.), stealing lavender, and watching bad movies (Brooklyn's Finest). We had a great time and it was excellent to see my sister!

The day after Katie left, Cari's best friend Amanda came to visit. Since she was here during the week, she and Cari were able to spend a lot of "girl" time together during the day. They went to Acoma (Sky City), which is one of the oldest inhabited communities in New Mexico, built on top of a 370 ft mesa. The pictures look incredible, so I'll have to visit someday. They also went shopping and out to eat quite a bit. I cooked one night and we went to an Isotopes (AAA baseball team) game another night. Overall, it was a great time!

We had a few days and a weekend in between Amanda's departure and our next visitors, my best friend Jon and his wife Megan. They came on Wednesday and left the following Monday (if I recall correctly). We had a great time with them, which included an AMAZING Carbon Leaf concert in Santa Fe the night they arrived. Carbon Leaf is our favorite band to see live (from VA!!!), and after seeing them 2-3 times a year in N.C., this was the first time they had come anywhere close to us out here. As always, they didn't fail to put on a great show at the Santa Fe Brewery (the beer was pretty good too!). The rest of the weekend was full of great food (we went out almost every meal, and they went out for breakfast everyday), fun board games (Taboo and Quelf), enjoying wine at the Gruet winery (2 miles from our apartment), and even a soccer game on Sunday. We definitely miss having close married couple friends out here, so it was a blessing that Jon and Megan were able to come and hang out.

Not a week after Jon and Megan left, our VACATION began!! Cari and I flew back to Raleigh, NC to spend time with my family and go to the beach with Cari's family. Despite leaving at 6 a.m., the traveling was pretty problem-free. We spent the first weekend with my parents in Chapel Hill, enjoying great food (including a middle of nowhere BBQ restaurant covered in UNC paraphernalia with great sweet tea), reading on the screened porch, seeing my sister and brother-in-law, and playing games. It was relaxing and enjoyable! On Monday, we got our rental car and drove to our old stomping grounds, Raleigh, to pick up a bunch of BBQ to take the to beach. We drove around for a while and took in the city that we miss daily. We drove to the beach after taking a few pictures...our destination? Ocean Isle Beach, NC. The week we spent with Cari's family was great! We hung out on the beach, celebrated Cari's grandparents' 50th anniversary, went crabbing, read a ton, played games, went golfing (well, the other guys went golfing...I pretended like I knew how to hit a ball), and ate some great food. It was a fantastic week on the beach -- we definitely miss being 2 hrs from the ocean. We drove back and spent the rest of the weekend with my parents in Chapel Hill before flying home Sunday.

And thus, the summer "ends." Cari started back at work the very next day. She's still working for Head Start, but she's with a new school starting this year. It seems that God has placed her in a new location that will allow her to use her skills and assist kids in a way that she was unable to do last year due to the environment in which she was placed. It's taking a while to get back into the swing of things, as she's remembering that a lot of the children don't know what it's like to be in school. So the next few weeks will be a challenge until everyone gets situated. My job is going well...we've hired some new analysts, so on-the-job training for them has been one of our tasks lately. God is definitely still working in our lives to show us the beauty of this place and bless us with a great church and friends that we can spend time with.

We have some fun things coming up this fall: continuing our indoor rec soccer league, going to Breckenridge, CO over Labor Day weekend, hopefully hiking La Luz to the top of Sandia Mountains, and maybe another weekend trip or two (Chaco Canyon, White Sands, camping in Red River this fall). My parents are also coming for the Balloon Fiesta in October, which will be a GREAT time! We're excited about where God has us right now and are looking forward to experiencing more of what New Mexico has to offer. Keep checking back, and make sure to check out pictures on Facebook. Love you guys!!