Rocky mountain high.

The day after rock and brian's wedding I flew straight to Denver to attend and present at the modflow and more conference in golden co. I lucked out and got a room at the last minute at the table mountain inn in downtown which is walking distance to everything. The weather was perfect. I have missed the mountains since I lived in Montana and it is always nice to get some fresh mountain air.



My talk was first thing on Monday morning. It went well although I went over (as always) and I got lots of great feedback. http://igwmc.mines.edu/conference/MODFLOWandMore2011_Program.pdf

The conference was great. The talks were informative. The discussions were interesting and I made some new friends. I also got to hang out with these crazy, fun, smart guys: chris (my previous mentor who brought me on to the survey who moved last year up to headquarters in Reston. Joe would say to this "he is all fancy now"), Joe (who I currently work with at the usgs and is one of the funniest people I have ever met) and frans schaars (a member of what we call the Dutch mafia-- a bunch of crazy funny smart dutch guys in our field). The week was full of crude jokes and lots of laughs. Maybe it was the high altitude. Here we are at the coors factory.


The last night of the conference a couple of people from the survey hosted a house party at the bed and breakfast they were staying at, pansy's parlor. John Doherty was there (another genius who has an incredible sense of humor. His stories and lectures are normally peppered with various colorful phrases and "bad words" as Maia would say). I also got to spend a lot of time with Eve who is our technical advisor for the southeast region). She likes to drink beer and shoot guns and is always entertaining, as well as extremely nice and helpful.


Here she is (along with Keith halford of the Nevada office) telling a funny story.

All in all a great week! But I was glad to get home.

Trip to Tejas

Last month we traveled to Texas for a few days for Rachel and Brian's wedding. For those who don't know Rachel ( or Rock ) is adam's sister and Brian is her new hubby although they have been together for years so it's not really new. Rachel just finished dental school and recently took a job back in Austin.

Maia Adam and I all flew out together. The trip was fun as Maia was well behaved.






Adam's best friend Christian and his fiancé Allison picked us up and we got a quick tour of the fire station where C works. Maia got to sit on the fire truck here with Allison and would have jumped down the pole if Christian had not been there to stop her.


Maia was quite the trooper all weekend for all the festivities and danced the night away at the rehearsal dinner with aunt Cheryl.






She was the hit of the party pretty much every night.

The hotel had an awesome pool where everyone hung out during the day. It was a blast getting to know all of brian's friends who I had not met before and were all really nice. And of course the lovely Georgia girls were there. I also got to meet some of Rachel and adams friends from Austin.






The bar trip to Bar 96 on Thursday night included Adam and I being forced to endure the taunts from the mavs fans there as the heat lost. Needless to say there aren't many heat fans in Austin.



Here are some pics from the wedding which was beautiful although it was hot as hell outside.



Here is me with my fake eyelashes and my hair did. PURTY as Laura would say.





All in all it was a fabulous weekend and we were a bit sad to leave but ready to get home.

I left the day after for a conference in Denver and Adam flew back with Maia to laudy. More on my conference later.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Life lately...

I cannot believe I did not manage to find any time to post last month but I'm back. One thing we have been loving... Excuse me...were loving is going to marlins games. I think these pics were taken on mothers day. I say were because it has been raining lately and the marlins have been really sucky lately so we have been into other things. The all-star game is this week though so we may try to go!! Maia loves baseball, all sports actually but is known to get a bit confused at times and scream go heat while watching a marlins game or vice versa.








Speaking of the heat. I don't want to talk about it.

Another thing we love to do is hit up the local swap shop. It is like a huge farmers market + flea market + carnival and they also have south american restaurants which are yummy.

The above video is of Maia riding this ride there. The video speaks for itself.

She was also mesmerized my this Latin lady singing at one of the restaurants.



We also love love to cook (I will post more about our mango harvest later) and I have been letting Maia help more and more lately.






- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Sick baby and hurt babe

You know what makes me sad? Maia being sick and Adam being injured. :(



Maia woke up sick with a dry cough and fever this morning so stayed home. She sounds like a croaky little frog when she talks.



Adam got hurt playing ultimate about a month ago and found out he tore his ATF ligament sprained some other ligaments and bruised his talus bone. So he is on crutches (or crunches as Maia calls them) for a couple more weeks and then starts physical therapy. He had to delay his trip to Mexico and missed a few days of work but otherwise is doing great except for a little pain and swelling every so often. But it really hasn't stopped him much. We have still been doing major house projects as I will post about later.

I can't wait until they are both better.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone