Don't Cry for Me Argentina

I had to go to Buenos Aires for a week long business trip. My father and his wife decided to join me since we would be so close. We enjoyed the weekends together and got to do a lot of exploring after work. Buenos Aires is a beautiful city full of monuments, parks and classic architecture buildings.

Americans have the White House and Argentinians have the Pink House - Casa Rosada - where the president works. The building is pink because of their national stone Rodocrosita.
Argentina has recently elected its first female president.

Here is a shot of me, Cassia (Dad's wife) and Kevin (co-worker) in the L'open Tour bus.Here is my Dad at Evita Peron's Grave.Dad wanted to show Kevin a good Brazilian style meal, so we found an excellent Brazilian Rodizio house. We were really surprised at how affordable good food is in the city.We also had an opportunity to watch a professional Tango Show.

On our last day, just before we had to catch our flights back, we decided to explore a place north of the city of Buenos Aires called Tigre. We had a great time exploring all the shops, but didn't have enough time to try the amusement park, casino and boat tours up the river Plata.
Oh well .... I sure didn't mind all the shopping. Just my style with lots of stalls selling local goods and a great atmosphere to watch people. I am thankful for all the wonderful opportunities my job has given us.

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.