Season's Heatings

It happened again...I haven't posted in a month!
I always mean to, but it is difficult when I am rarely home to do so!

Over the last week in July, I went camping with the Pueblo crew. Normally they don't camp, but this project would have made for a long commute so camping just made sense!
It was interesting teaching a group how to camp (according to MHYC policies and practices). Some of the crew members had never even been camping before!
We worked for the little town of Williamsburg. We built the city park a nice little loop trail and helped revamp and set up the new playground areas.

section of trail and stairs in progress

Putting up hoops was much more difficult than we anticipated!

Awesome steps the team built!

We worked 4 10-hour days, which were very hot and long! After that, I said farewell to the Pueblo crew. They only had one more week left, and I was about to head out on a 10 day trip!

My next hitch was with the saw crew. We worked in a state wildlife area near Raton, New Mexico. We were working inside the Colorado border, but just barely! The park was very beautiful- we first did a fencing project on top of a huge mesa, and the rest of the hitch we were deep in the woods building a new trail!

View from our camp site- New Mexico starts at the lake!

Fencing project

View from fencing site

Elk herd on our morning drive

Starting the trail

Huge rock wall/walkway we built!

There were some great views at our work sites. We could see for miles from atop the mesa! One day we also drove alongside a huge herd of elk! The area we built the trail in was also very pretty. There was only a small burned section from a fire about a year ago. Most of the forest was green and untouched- it was a nice change of scenery from the barren burned woods we've been used to working in!
The work was also different from what the saw crew was used to. It was the last hitch of the summer, and the first time they had ever worked on building a trail. There was a lot of learning as we went, but everyone got the hang of it pretty quickly.

On Friday, August 10th after we got back from our hitch, it was the last day of the summer season and the corps olympics! All of the Denver and Co Springs MHYC crews came together for a big and fun day in the park! We played lots of field games, reflected on the summer, and had a big cookout! It was a good way to end the summer, but it was a sad day too- there were lots of people to say bye to!

I love these people

As if camping for almost 2 weeks and ending my summer work season wasn't tiring enough, that Friday night Ben and I took off on our road trip adventure! I had a week off between our summer and fall seasons and Ben took a week off so we could go adventuring! Ben's boss was very generous and gave him permission to drive his work truck- which comes with free gas! We drove all through the night and arrived in Steuben, Wi (by Prairie du Chien) on Saturday morning! We were pretty exhausted (mostly me) but it was totally worth it! We were having our annual "crash at Kamerons' parent's place for a few days to hang with lots of college freinds" weekend! We met up with Kameron, Harris (Sarah Jean) and her boyfriend Brynte, Colton, Steph, Meghan, Nick, and Matt! We had a great time catching up, hiking, watching meteors, and having campfires! I miss all those guys so much- it is hard living so far away from such great friends.

On Monday we headed out to Cedarburg! We got to see my family, all the pets, and all of the other craziness that goes on there (daycare kids, tenants, pet guests, cousins)! And, I got to see my lovely wifey friend Amanda! It was quite the change of pace for us! It was so wonderful to see my family, I miss them a lot too!
Thursday we went to Northfield, Mn to see Ben's family! We saw lots of relatives and ate lots of great food! Somehow, we also ended up with a lot of gifts and other items to take home with us- including beautiful woodcraft made by Ben's grandpa, a camera, Ben's drum set, and an adorable kitten! We have thought of hundreds of names so far. As of now, her name is Nymeria! We think she is about 7 or 8 weeks old.

Thanks for the picture, Tonyia!

We left on Sunday morning and headed back west! Now we are all home, safe and sound, with over 2500 miles behind us! We unloaded the truck, went to bed, and now have been at work ever since (is how it feels, anyway).  Although, it can't all be bad, Ben got a raise and I got a new position and a little raise too!
For the fall crew (only 1 crew in our Co Springs office) I'm going to be the mentor. It is similar to what I did over the summer, but I get to assist the crew leader more and provide education for the crew each week. This means I am going to be even more busy and away from home more than usual! Eep!

I have to go now, kitten snuggles are calling....

Turkey Day and Beyond

So you know that breakfast we had planned? Well, it happened...at 1 pm. We may have stayed up til 3 and gotten up and noon. Maybe. The omelettes were indeed awesome, as were the cinnamon rolls. The rolls didn't rise (as I was expecting- I had suspicions about the yeast) but they still tasted good! All 40+ of them. That's right, half of the recipe made over 3 dozen rolls! We have a rather large container of them in the fridge yet. Come over and help us eat them please! The frosting I made is quite delicious as well. I didn't make maple icing and the recipe called for but I did concoct my own cinnamon cream cheese frosting. YUM.
After recovering from breakfast we started making dinner. I had us all sign up for things to make. Ben made the ham and the sweet potato-marshmallow bake. Bill made the red-wine mushrooms (these were incredibly delicious and the recipe came right from the mushroom package, who knew!?) and the cheesy potatoes. I made the pie (with homemade crust too!), salad, and baked rolls. I also was going to make a cucumber salad, but we all decided against it after we saw how many armies we were prepared to feed.
In all, everything was quite delicious! It was a little weird not being with a big family group, but it ended up going well. Talking to family members over the phone and skype was really nice, though. As it turns out we are all not so bad at cooking. What we are bad at is cooking for the correct number of people. Ben and I were just barely starting to get the hang of cooking for 2 people. Bill and I are used to cooking for our big family. Cooking for 3 is a bigger adjustment than we would have expected! Ah well, the leftovers are all delicious! Eating ham sandwiches for the next month may get a little old, though!

Today was finally Ben's first payday! There was much rejoicing! Well, after all of the confusion, anyway. Apparently something was wrong with the address on the check so we ended up making phone calls and then going to the fedex building to pick it up in person. Otherwise we would have had to wait until Monday. Once we picked up the check, we went to the bank to open an account. Not having a bank account is an odd situation to be in. I don't recommend it. It took a while to do all the paperwork, but everyone at the bank was very nice and it was overall a pleasant experience. Now we have a checking account, savings account, and a credit card too! We've never had a credit card before, so this will be somewhat of a new experience for us. (Meanwhile, the rest of America is wondering how it was possible for us to not have one and moving on to bigger and better things.)
Once the account was opened and we lined our pockets a bit, we headed home. Ben's pocket soon started on fire. As in, that 30 minutes was too long to have the money burning a hole in his pocket and we had to go shopping for a new video game. While I am a bit worried about having funds for bills and Christmas shopping, I can't get annoyed about the purchase, really. He did earn all of that money himself (and knows that after this all the rest of the check is going towards bills!). It was our first purchase made with our own money that has happened in a while. It felt a bit odd.
Our money errands took up most of the day, so we didn't get much else done. Hopefully tomorrow we can go shopping, out to dinner, or at least do some more exploring.