Evans Family Pictures!

My Mom, also thinking this was a great opportunity for a photo op, arranged for us to take family photos as the Evans family! Each of the kids got a color:

Kiora and her family was blue,

Iwalani and her family was red,

Mark and I were green,

and Mom dad and the goose were purple!

I am sporting a lovely pregnancy shirt I purchased that afternoon-I was so happy that me and Mark could find green shirts that matched. :-) Yay!

We took these pictures by the side of the Rio Grande, and I love that we can see the Sandia Mountains in the background on some of them. My mom took the pictures, and for the group shots, we used the timer. It was some pretty funny times. In fact, trying to get my dad smile for pictures is one of the more hilarious events of the evening.

It was also funny having to time the pictures so that the kids would be clean through the important ones. They really liked playing in the sand.

I love the sister shots :-)

I love the dooth! :-D

And this is one of my particular favorites! Mark was the photographer :-)

The next day, we went down to visit with my Aunt Cathy and Uncle Devin, Trish, Brendon, and Grandma Pauline! We took pictures then too, and since we were already color coordinates, we just wore the same things :-)

I love this close up with Grandma!

And this was just a funny photo. Do you think curly hair runs in my family? Hmmm...

And Brendon (the blonde on the far left)...needs a hair cut. End of story.

Balloon Fiesta!

There may not be colored leaves, there may not be painted bushes...but man does NM know how to have vibrant fall skies.

Fall, in NM, means balloon fiesta.

:-D

We were so happy to get to spend a week with my parents. And! My sister Kiora, her husband, and their kids were able to come so we had a little family reunion of our own! Yay! There is nothing so wonderful as getting together with family.

My mom was able to get tickets for us to go help crew a Wells Fargo balloon from her friend Andrea. I think that is by far the best way to experience the balloon fiesta. You get to:

- wake up super early (ok...that part is not so fun)

- drive down to the field using the alternate, secret, balloon crew entrance that avoids all the traffic

-park really close using the parking permit

-go to the balloon crew tent and eat DELICIOUS, NM food for breakfast in a festive warm tent and drink hot chocolate and chocolate milk (mmmmm).

-walk down with the crew people to the field as the sun comes up

-roll out the balloons

-and the best part! (besides breakfast)...watching in wonder as magic fills the air :-)

Special shapes day is my particular favorite.

You wait your turn as volley after volley of balloons lift off and float away. There are officials dressed up as zebras (really, the clothes people wear are intsense. I saw one lady who was so decked out, she was even wearing zebra stripped contact lenses. It was really freaky to look her in the eyes) who notify people when it is their turn to fill up and lift off. Once the crew head gets the OK to start filling, everything gets super exciting!

A couple of times, I was volunteered to be the person that holds the cords of the mouth open so that they don't burn off when the fire is blowing. It is a pretty intense job, the fire is so hot! But it is really fun to watch the balloon grow. Here is what it looks like from the inside!

And here she is all blown up and beautiful! :-D It is a good day when she gets to lift off. Sometimes when it is too windy, it is not safe to take her up in the air, so we just get to inflate and then deflate right on the field.

Bye-bye and good luck, stage coach-1 :-D We will see you on the other side!

Once your balloon is in the air, you jump in the van and race away to chase it! (hopefully you remembered to go to the bathroom by this point, especially if you drank lots of chocolate milk, because chase crews reeeeeally don't like to stop for potty breaks)

Its fun to listen to the people who know their way around ABQ discuss the best way to chase the balloon. My mom is really good at this since she knows the back roads and how to avoid the high traffic areas. Once you get to where you balloon is going to land, you get out, lay down the tarp, take your shoes off, and take the balloon down.

And, let me tell you. As fun as it is to put up a balloon, taking it down is 10 times funner. Here's why! :-D YOU GET TO ROLL AROUND AND SQUISH OUT ALL THE AIR! :-D They have you find a partner, grab hands, and line up. Then you lay down in a long line at the top of the balloon, and then as one, everyone rolls down the balloon very slowly until you get to the front and all the air is squished out!

Super awesome.

And then, after that, everyone does assembly line hefting to carry the balloon and pack it into the basket, then people jump on top and trod out the air, wine press style. It is a lot of fun.

Then! After the balloon is packed up all safe and sound, you head back to the field for some more delicious food.

*sigh* yes, this truly is the best way to go to the balloon fiesta :-)

Thanks Mom for getting us tickets and setting everything up! It was a blast!

Pfeil Family Photos

Since all of the Pfeil kids were together, Mark's mom took full advantage of the situation: photo op!

Her good friend came over, we spread out sheets, and had a picture session.

Here are some of my favorites!

The whole family!
I love this shot of Mark's parents :-)


Kisses! :-D
Sandy was happy to see Martin too! :-D
And here is us with our little baby in my tummy! I think this is my favorite picture of us :-)

But! I like this one too :-) What can I say, I married a handsome man and it makes it hard to choose a favorite picture.

It was so wonderful to spend time with Mark's family, and I was so glad that Martin was able to make it. We love you guys!

Christmas at the Pfeils

Michael and Lindsey came back to IN for Christmas! :-D And (obviously) they brought Noelle with them :-) And Becky came home from her first semester at college. Aaaaaaand!...MARTIN CAME!! :-D and what made it even better....it was a SURPRISE! :-D He didn't tell anyone except Mark's Mom and Dad who were in on the plan :-)

Apparently everyone guessed before he came (well, except me). He came up to the house and rang the doorbell, and they made Becky answer the door. She was so excited to see him :-) There was a hug-festival for a good half hour or so. And then! All of the Pfeil siblings were there for the holidays :-) Yaaaay!

It was really fun. We spent about a week all together before people had to go their separate ways and return to the real world. We played lots and lots of games, cooked lots and lots of food, and had a wonderful time.

It was also fun to swap pregnancy stories with Lindsey, since we were both pregnant at the same time! (She with their second and me with our first). It was a joy to stand around in the kitchen and talk with her and Becky and Mark's mom about girl things while the boys played games. *sigh* good times.

And Noelle was such a gem. She would let me read to her and carry her around and she called me "T" :-) It was adorable.

Here are some pictures that Lindsey took! (I forgot my camera...no shock there) :-(

The siblings all together again! Becky was tickled for a while before and after this shot. I am amazed it turned out this normal looking ;-) It looks like Mark and Martin are giving her a hug? Don't be fooled...they were restraining her for further tickle torture after the shot.

Here is Grandma Pfeil playing with Noelle! Noelle really liked playing with Grandma, and there were lots and lots of toys that marks mom had amassed for her granddaughter! This picture was taken at Great Grandma Pfeils house (Marks grandma) when we had a post-christmas family reunion with some of Mark's dad's siblings.

Noelle stuck on Grandpa Pfeils work boots. She looooved wearing around people shoes, so we generally stuck them in the utility room to minimize the temptation...I think she looks stinkin cute though :-)

Here is Grandma Pfeil playing the piano with Noelle! Noelle really liked it. Grandma played her primary songs, and would noelle keep saying "more, more" when she stopped :-) I think Mark's mom was in a little slice of heaven :-)

Another thing Noelle liked to do with her grandma pfeil is sit on the chair in their bedroom and have grandma read to her. When she would stop, or sometimes even before it the book was over, Noelle would say "more! more" or "moh! moh!"

Thanks for coming everyone! We were so glad to see you all and hope that we will not have to wait 3 years for the next reunion!

The Kitchen

I love the kitchen. Wonderful things happen there. Food. Warm. Dancing. Mac and Cheese. Music. Dinner. Family. Cookies. Messes.

The kitchen, plain and simple, is a wonderful place to be. :-)

However, there is one thing you should know about our kitchen that I do not like before we go any further:

We have no dish washer.

*moment of silence*

Oh, how I long for the day to once again have a dish washer! It will be 7 years we are married before we get a dish washer (that's ok though. This must be payback for all the years I complained to my mom for how stupid it was to wash hand dishes since "everyone" has a dish washer. Ah, karma).

Anyway! Here are some views of our kitchen/dinning area, courtesy of my cell phone:

I decided to go with a deep blue for the kitchen. Blue and white. In the day time when the sun is out, I will raise the blinds and put down the curtains, it gives off a lot of diffuse light and makes the kitchen seem brighter while still having privacy (people walk around a lot in front of out house and it freaks me out a little to have people looking in the kitchen when I'm home alone).

Mark's Parents gave us this corner cabinet and I put my grandmothers china in it.

I love my grandmothers china. The pussy willow pattern on it reminds me of her. She used to have a floral arrangement or something with pussy willows in it, and I remember running my fingers over them. I cant remember if we were allowed to touch them or not... Well, if we were or we weren't, I did, and I loved them. When I look at these dishes, I think of my grandma Norma.

This is the painting that my mom's friend Elena made and it hangs above our freezer. Elena is from argentina. My mom would teach her english, and she would teach me art. It was super fun to learn drawing from her. She would explain things to me in spanish, and I would do what I thought she said, and we would iterate back and forth. She was an extremely loving and patient mentor and I learned a lot from her (despite, or because of, the language barrier, I can't decide). She had a wonderfully talented eye. When she left to return to Argentina, she gave this to my mom as a keep sake, and when I moved away, my mom was gracious enough to let me have it so I could keep a little of the desert I love with me always. I love, love, love this painting and all the things it represents to me.

I also love this tile that my institute director, Brother Schapp gave to me and mark as a wedding gift. The quote from President Hinkley on it says: "In all of living have much fun and laughter; life is to be enjoyed, not just endure". I keep it on my kitchen counter and it helps me remember what is really important.

I am so grateful for the chance I have to be married with Mark and build a life with him. It is such an adventure. At times I feel so blessed and happy, I think my heart will explode. And all the little things that seem like such a big deal (like, for example, not having a dishwasher) really pale in comparison. Nothing bad that could ever happen to me and mark could ever outweigh the joy that we feel at being companions and trucking through life, side by side.

Wonderful things come from the kitchen, but I think what really makes it such a great place are the people and traditions that fill it. Thanks to all of you who have made the kitchen magical for me :-)

The Feast

After Thanksgiving, Mark's parents let me take their folding tables, their folding chairs, and their turkey roasting pan back to our house in preparation for...THE FEAST! :-D

You see. It all started by the magazine my mom gave me. The food network magazine, Thanksgiving edition. A glorious, wonderful, food network magazine with tried and true thanksgiving favorites. I kept drooling over it and drooling over it, and I talked Mark into letting me invite my research group over to our house for a holiday feast. YAY! :-D Thanks Mark! :-D

We did it after Thanksgiving, but before Christmas break, during the end of finals week. A lot of the group was already gone for the holiday, but we had about 20 people in our home, eating and visiting, and it was a lot of fun!

I learned a lot of things. First, it is good to pick sides that you can make a head of time that only need to be warmed after the turkey comes out, so that things are not so hectic the day of. Second, a turkey can cook in 2.5 hours, and it turns out AMAZING! :-D Third...brinning a turkey = turkey love. Thank you, Alton Brown.

The Menu:

Main dish:

Brinned Turkey and Gravy

Sides:

9 Cheese, roasted garlic, and Bacon Mac and Cheese

Sausage, sour-dough/corn bread stuffing

Cranberry sauce

2 kinds of sweet potatoes (savory and sweet)

green beans

rolls

cauliflower gratin

mashed potatoes

Desserts:

Apple/cranberry/cherry pie

Pumpkin bread pudding

Maple-pumpkin pie

It was a blast to make, and a blast to eat! Just about every recipe we made came from the magazine. Some of them were from Throw-down episodes of Bobby Flay (which I like to watch on hulu when I need a break from homework).

When the guests arrived, we had the tables all set up formal (sporting festive clear plastic ware), and people took their plates and got their food buffet style from the serving table. It was a lot of fun. People ate, and stayed, and visited, and then we packed up a lot of the left overs for people to take with them. We still had a lot of food left over. That is one thing that I need to work on still. Cooking self control. I will let you know how that turns out. ;-)

Thanksgiving with the Pfeils!

The Holidays area wonderful time to spend with family, and we are so blessed to have so many people that live close to use to share it with.

Like the last few years, we spent Thanksgiving with Mark's family, and most of Mark's dad's siblings gathered there. A special treat was having Bob and Rema there with the girls! :-D It was super fun to get to spend more time with them. Aunt Laren, Uncle Ken, and their two boys Trevor and Sam were there also, as well as Blaine and Brenda and their daughter Sara, and Roxanne and baby Justin! Grandma Pfeil also came and brought Rachel. It was a really nice time to get to spend with them. I particularly remember that Uncle Blaine had surgery on his thyroid, and he was probably not going to be able to come, but at the last, he was! Yay! :-) His voice was still scratchy and raspy from the surgery, but he said that it was feeling a lot better and that the procedure had went really well, and for that we are all glad!

In fact, one of my favorite activities that occurred over Thanksgiving (besides the cooking and the eating) was made all that much better because Uncle Blaine was there, and his voice was raspy. :-) He is such a jokester. He thought it would be perfect if we played Mafia and he was "The Voice". Since he sounded so scratchy, it was pretty awesome. I should say that most of the "cousins" played Mafia, I mostly watched. I tried to play a few rounds, but I was pitifully awful at it. Everyone thought it was hilarious after the first round and I was teased mercilessly. In my defense, I told everyone that I am not good at that game and it would be better if I watched, but they insisted that I play. My first round went something like this:

"Teandra, did you kill so-and-so?"

* awkward pause while violently blushing* "uhhhhhhhhh.....no?" *giggle, cover face with hand* "I DON'T KNOW! NEXT QUESTION! NEXT QUESTION!"

*sigh*

After everyone stopped laughing, Emily turned to me and said, "Wow! you really are that awful!"

Yes, its true, I really am that awful at keeping secrets. Its made more difficult by the fact that everyone knows you have a secret since that is the point of the game.

Anyway! We played other games as well, including Swashbuckled, a game that was giving to us by my parents, and which I love playing. And, as per tradition, Trevor and Sam challenged Mark to a game of Risk...and both boys were summarily squashed by my handsome husband. Its pretty funny to watch. Trevor and Sam both say they are going to gang up on Mark, and then inevitably turn on each other, and Mark just mops up and takes over the world. Mark loves playing strategy games over Thanksgiving with his family :-)

Anyway! It was a lovely holiday. We had lots of food, lots of fun, and lots of family!

The front room

I have discovered that I am much more motivated to clean a room if it is decorated than if it is not decorated. I am not sure why this is, but it is a fact. So really, decorating the house is kinda like cleaning the house.... (I'm still trying to sell Mark on this) point

Anyway, after I graduated, I was on a mission: must. decorate. house.

I kept coming up with excuses to start though. To tell the truth, I felt really inadequate and was plagued with doubts: What if it looks bad?What if Mark doesn't like it? Or worse, what if mark doesn't like it but never says anything for 20 years and then it all comes out at a family reunion?!

I blame it on college. I went to school for something decidedly NOT decorating related so I spent most of my time thinking about things like leakage and absorption and criticality. I felt like my creativity had expired or something. I bet my sister The Goose can relate to these sentiments. It's like, you think you used to be really good at making things, but it got squashed out of you by studying all the time and being holed up in a basement lab that has no windows staring at a computer screen building models all day.

The point is, I knew I really wanted things to be nice for Mark when he came home, and I wanted whatever was in our home to be ours and to feel like us.

The furniture we got from family or from friends who were moving after they graduated and got real jobs. The majority of the decorations we have are wedding gifts, or presents from my mom (THANKS MOM!) :-D . I wanted the room to feel more...cohesive. Like it was intended to look this way, and not that it was a moge-poge of possessions we threw together since that's where they fit best. I also wanted to have a place for things to belong, so that I could actually put things away, and not just out-of-the-way.

So, like any good engineer...I did some research. And you know what!? It really helped! There is a lot of advise on the internet on how to get started organizing and decorating your home. It was awesome. For the most part, I stuck to things that resonated with me.

ANYWAY! Back to the front room design challenge. I learned that I needed to set a budget and some goals to make this happen. 1st, budget: try not to spend money. 2nd, goals: we needed a place for mark to take off his shoes, storage spaces for our blankets, throws, church books, hats and gloves, and toys, and we needed to be able to cover the windows to keep the heat in and the cold out.

I decided to limit the colors we used in the room, since there were so many different types of woods in their already, to make it look more cohesive.

Aaaaand! Since I don't have any before pictures really, here is the after!

The cubby holes have the storage space (One of the black baskets is the gloves, the other is the toys, and the empty ones are where the blankets go when they are not on the couch) Behind the fabric covers: one has church books, one has our games, one has family picture albums, and the other some cook books :-)

To make the fabric covers, I took some cardboard, some burlap that I had left over from Trek, and some spray glue. I sprayed the cardboard all over with glue, then stretched the fabric over it and folded the edges back. Viola! A canvas! Then I painted them in all the colors of the room, black, silver, and burgundy. So! I didn't have to buy anything for the fabric covers, yay!

The curtains I made from a sheet I found at goodwill. I washed it, ironed it, cut off a strip from one of the sides to make into tabs, re-hemmed it, then sewed the little tabs into place. The sheet cost about $5.

Mark hung up the curtain rod we got from wall mart, and then we hung the drapes!

Here is a better look at what we have on the coffee table.

The scraps from the curtain I used to make a table runner, and the little rossets that match. The coasters I made by covering coasters I got from Purdue with some fabric (They were given to me for being a speaker for a Women in Engineering outreach seminar..I thought it was quite poetic ;-) )

We found this little sitting thing from goodwill also, and I recovered it with the same fabric I used for the coasters (coincidentally, fabric I had leftover from the computer bag I made for my mom). When I saw it, I thought it would be great in the front room. We take our shoes off when we come into the house, and Mark likes to sit down when he takes his shoes off, so this is his official shoe removing bench :-). It is right by the front door. Eventually, I want to put something beneath it to keep the shoes in, but we are taking baby steps.

Yay! And there you have it! This is our front room, and making it look pretty has dramatically increased my motivation to tidy it up. Its not tidy all the time yet, but I am taking baby steps to get there too.

Fair Oaks Dairy Adventures!

Janene had a wonderful idea...a day trip to the Fair Oaks Dairy! :-D

And believe me, if Janene ever invites you to go on an adventure with her, say yes! It will always turn out wonderfully :-)

She is like Marry Poppins.

This Dairy is pretty fascinating for a lot of reasons. But, the number one reason why I think its fascinating? It's powered...by cow poop.

How amazing is that?!

You see, this is how it works. They have the cows allowed to move around where ever they want in these long stall building. The cows can leave the building, but there is nice shade and sprayers inside the stalls, so I didn't see any cows out in the pasture place. Anyway, while the cows are getting milked big trucks come and fill up the stalls with clean sand a few times a day so the cows have something nice and soft and clean to lay in. Before they put down the fresh sand, a different kind of truck with these big sprayers go through and they spray all the waste from the stalls. The waste goes into this pond that slopes down to the silo, where all the poop is collected.

There is the poop pond! I couldn't get a good picture of the poop tower/silo.

Anyway, inside the poop tower, the poop is collected and bacteria is used to break down the poop and produce (get this)...methane gas! And then the methane gas is used to power the plants! :-D

One cows poop is another cows...well never mind.

And guess what else?! It cuts down on stinky emissions by 90% !! The dairy barely smelled at all.

Wow.

I was totally impressed.

But, I love diaries. We used to have a dairy by our house in Rio Rancho (sadly, now it is a walmart) and when we would drive by I would wave to the cows and say, "There are our cow friends who give us milk!"

*sigh* I love things that come from milk. Its too bad we currently have a love hate relationship :-(

Anyway, I was so happy to go on a tour of this dairy! It totally made my week, and I keep telling my mom and my sister how I need to take them to this dairy. It's awesome.

It is also pretty cool how they milk the cows.

They have this rotary stall set up, and the cows just walk in and get milked. They said that they liked to be milked, and they don't have to make the cows get onto the milker thing (I am inclined to believe it. When your milk comes in, and there is no way to get rid of it...oww).

If you look in the back of this image, you see there are no people back there putting the cows in to be milked, they are just walking in, and then walking out! It was pretty interesting to watch. The cows were just waiting in line, and one would back out of the stall, and then the rotary table would move over, and another cow would walk into the stall, and then the process would repeat! And while the stall table turned, people would clean the teats and then put the milker things on, and then they would get milked most of the way around the table until they got to the next person that would take the milker things off, and put on moisturizer.

The amount of milk the cows give and the amount of steps the cows take every day is monitored by this amazing collar thing they have hanging around their necks. Its like a glorified cow pedometer. This allowed them to look after the cows health, and tell if the cow is sick, or going to give birth soon, and stuff like that. When the cows are going to have a baby, they take them away to a special barn to watch over them better and help them along. It was really cool.

There are also lots of other fun attractions at the Dairy. There are outside attractions for the kids, including a bouncy-jump place called "Dairy-Air" and a giant bottle of milk fitted with rock climbing holds.

It was kind of cold when we got there, so we didn't participate. There was also a little mini-tractor area for little kids to drive around these tiny tractors. I was pretty jealous.

There is a lot of fun things to do inside also, including trivia games about milk, a milk awareness tour, and a 4-D movie about cows. It was definitely geared towards small children, and very fun. When I left, I had been bombarded by so much milk propaganda I was convinced it was the wonder food and I needed to consume some asap. Clever, clever marketing.

and clever cow illustrations...

Here were are in our cool 3-D glasses, getting ready to watch the movie!

And! there is a birthing barn where you get to watch a baby cow be born. (poor mama cow, that giant baby was inside of her, with hooves! I don't even want to imagine what hooves feel like)

It was amazing to see how quickly the baby cow would get up to walk around after it was born.

You can do it little man!

Quite impressive.

There is also a cafe that serves delicious food, and gives cheese samples. Its a good thing that we are poor college kids right now, or I could probably have purchased my weight in cheese, and that would have ended very, very badly.

I. Love. Cheese.

We had lunch (I had an amazing grilled cheese sandwich), and then (yay!) we had ice cream!

Thanks David and Janene for such a wonderful (and tasty) adventure! :-D It was lots and lots of fun! If anyone is on their way to Chicago and would like to make a really fun pit stop, I highly recommend this dairy. Overall, super fun.

And its not every day you get to support an establishment that is powered by cow poop.