Starting the year with a bang!

About 2 weeks after Christmas, while helping a friend move, Raquel twisted her ankle. That was painful enough but nothing like what was coming.

One week later, while touring some old churches in San Antonio to get the blog started again, she threw out her back and was confined to bed for one week. I got the chance to be the best husband ever and worked from home that week to be able to take care of her. By the following week, Raquel was able to be alone and I returned to work. Thanks to a great boss, Raquel was able to work from home for three weeks and work 1/2 time in the office and 1/2 time at home on the fourth week.

This was a good wake-up call for us. We are getting old! X-rays found that Raquel has compression and degeneration of 3 disks on the lower section of her spine. There is nothing she can do to help it, but she needs to be very careful lifting things since the nerves are being squeezed and any muscle inflammation can trigger the problem again. But, all the recovery time and trips to doctor and chiropractor paid off and she was able to go on a business trip to Argentina on the 5th week.

Check out her trip pictures.

Snowboarding in Seattle

Neil got to go to Seattle last weekend to go snowboarding with John. While there he got to catch up with family, seeing Mom and Dad and Grandma, as well as meeting Grace for the first time. You can see some more pictures from this on John and Amy' s blog.

Here's a shot from the parking lot of the Mount Baker ski area. This sure doesn't look like Houston.

Here's John and Neil in the car afterward, sore but happy after a day on the mountain.

Here's a shot from the visit with Grandma Hanson on the way back down from the mountain.

Here's Grace having fun with Neil and her new duckie.Thanks for the great weekend John, Amy and Grace! It was a lot of fun.

Transition

Since it has been so long since we posted anything ... we thought that if we posted February pictures it would be too much of a jolt forward in time.

Here's a shot of Raquel (when she still could stand) enjoying her Christmas gift from Dad. I think this was her favorite gift last year.

Here's a shot of Neil enjoying Christmas breakfast. Blueberry pancakes (Rebecca's muffin mix trick) and LOTS of whipped cream. Mmmmmmm . . . Goooooood.

Christmas Eve

Here's a shot of the house lit up for Christmas. We had our Santa Claus out front with a spotlight on him, but unfortunately the wind busted him right off the post that held him up. If you look closely, you can see him imprisoned behind the front gate. Its Christmas Eve and we're all set for the big day tomorrow. Sleep tight and dream of many gifts.

Thanksgiving in Chicago

Finally sitting down to catch up on the blog, we should start with our trip to Chicago for Thanksgiving. We went to visit Neil's Aunt Jeannette and Uncle Dave. Grandma flew out for the holiday as well, so we had a good group for Thanksgiving dinner and football. Between the turkey and pumpkin pie, we had a good time catching up with each other and taking it easy. The day after Thanksgiving we went downtown to walk around in the park and on the "Miracle Mile" a little bit (although I'm guessing we didn't burn off all of the pie, we certainly didn't walk a mile).

Here is a shot of part of downtown behind "the bean". The bean was cool. It was fun walking around looking at the reflection of everything.

Here's Dave giving Neil some instructions on where to go to see some cool stuff around downtown.

Raquel and Grandma in front of the bean again on the way back to the car.

Dave is thinking hard about whether to break out the pumpkin pie again while we watch the University of Montana game on the internet.

Here is the whole crew at dinner the evening before taking us to the airport to come home. It was a great trip. Thanks Dave, Jeannette, and Grandma!

Anniversary

Last Sunday was our 12th anniversary. Yep, I finally broke down and bought a dozen roses . . .

The plan was to pick-up Raquel from the airport Friday afternoon (she was coming back from Kuwait) and spend the weekend camping. We had a great weekend .... we had clear days with great cool weather, she slept a lot because of jet-lag and I read a lot as she slept .... very romantic.

Thank God for my wonderful wife of 12 years.

Kuwait

Raquel just came back from a week and a half in Kuwait. The arrow by the coast shows where the hotel was. The arrow close to the Saudi border shows one of the oil fields she worked on. Yup, its pretty close to Iraq and Iran. Exciting stuff.

On the way to the office everyday . . . driving 140 kilometers per hour on these long straight highways through the middle of the desert . . . she got to see all kinds of fun stuff.

Raquel arrived the first day of spring, where the cool breezes start blowing from the ocean into the desert. That starts the camping season for Kuwaitis. They leave their homes in the city and pitch white tents in the desert and live in the tents for extended periods of time. She tried to take some pictures while driving in the car, but they didn't turn out very well, but she says that by the time she left, large sections of the desert had turned into small cities of white tents.

At Chevron they work hard, but they make sure you're comfortable too. She stayed in a hotel/resort by the Persian Gulf and really lived it up. Can you see her by the sign?Here she is in the hotel courtyard (that's not courtyard by Marriott either :-)

Here she is at her favorite dinner restaurant at the hotel (it had two restaurants).Here is a shot from her balcony. The hotel was pretty empty during the week, but on the weekend it was packed with Kuwaitis enjoying the nice spring weather. Despite being the desert, it wasn't hot. It was actually cold in the mornings and late evening. It got kind of loud and roudy over the weekend, all she could do is think, "Goodness gracious! I can't imagine if they were allowed to have alcohol." Here's a bit of culture for you. The hotel had 3 outdoor pools, and one indoor women's pool, so they can swim without their burkas. Because she was there over the weekend, she got to go check out Kuwait City and practice her favorite sport - shopping. Here is a shot of the Kuwaiti towers, you might remember these from TV coverage of the first Persian Gulf war. While they were visiting Kuwait City, they came across a mosque at the time for prayers. You can hear two other mosques also calling at the same time.

She had a great time and brought some cool stuff home. She even got offered a job, but I don't think I'm up for that. I think it would be too much action for me!