Big Hole in the Ground

News from Texas:

~Maintenance decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and replace our drywall, respackle (sp?) the wall and ceiling and give everything a poor paint job. I don't know why they thought they should do this BEFORE ascertaining the chimney was fixed. It POURED yesterday while I was at the library and I came home to find a puddle in my fireplace. How do you make an eyes-rolling emoticon?

~You know you're in Texas when you see a hearse made out of a pick-up truck.

~You know you're in the Bible Belt when Harry Potter comes out, your local library only purchases 10 copies, and no one comes to pick them up the day they're released! (Mike and I bought one copy and are reading it aloud to each other. While this is great fun, it makes it rather slow-going, so don't anyone spoil it for us!)

~We FINALLY found a gym. We were going running at our duck pond but it's turning into a horribly muggy Texas summer. We thought we'd try the local YMCA, figuring it would be cheap. Unfortunately, it was ridiculously expensive, rather Stepford Wives-ish, gave the decided feeling of a cult, AND we were already asked to join someone's church--just because we were getting a tour of the facility. So we checked out another gym, only to discover that the only plan we could afford put limits on when and how many days you could go to the gym. But hurrah, we persevered, and found a gym just down the street. Now we can run in comfort!

~And last but not least, our trip to Arizona! Our friends Emily



and Tim (he's saying the word "blog")



are working at Northern Arizona U--Emily is the flute professor, and Tim is heading up the music preparatory department. They invited us out to give a masterclass/coaching at the summer music festival held at NAU, thereby making a tax-deductible trip to the Grand Canyon!

We had a great weekend with Em and Tim--playing with their puppies, playing duets without warming up (!), visiting Sedona, meeting a bunch of their colleagues, and walking part of the rim trail at the GC. Texas is not as interesting as Arizona!



Church in Sedona built right out of the rocks. The view is spectacular. How you'd ever pay attention to a sermon I cannot say!



The Big Hole in the Ground. It really is quite grand!



Proof we were there :)



The trail that leads to the bottom of the canyon. (There's just a few switchbacks...) Now that we've found a gym, maybe someday we'll be well-trained enough to hike that!



The World's Largest Kokopelli, in Cottonwood, AZ. How could I not get a picture with this guy??

6 months

Hi everybody!
Today is our 6th month anniversary. I was just in Portland this past week, and when I left, my mom requested that I take our piece of cake that we'd saved from the wedding. Laura told me that if we kept it to a full year, it would be throroughly disgusting, so we decided to put this cake out of its misery tonight.
Of course, this is cake that was in my mom's freezer for the past 6 months, then was placed in my backpack, handled through airport security, tossed in an overhead bin and then squished in our overflowing freezer...This is the result of its journey:








It actually didn't taste as bad as it looks. The frosting was a little pasty but the cake itself was still very tasty.


And just to report in on our marriage--we both seem pretty pleased with the first 6 months. We'll give it another 6 and see how things go :-)

~Ruth Ann