Rich people live here.

We're in Scottsdale. It's a ritzy suburb of Phoenix that seems to exist solely for the purpose of helping people consume. The road our hotel is located on is lined with countless restaurants, hotels, coffee shops and shopping centers. And if you don't like the Crate & Barrel across the street, you hop on the shopping trolly and ride 8 miles south to the next one. Awesome! Today I bought cute dessert plates at Anthropologie, a lemon juicer, and espresso cups -- all things that are very hard to find in rural NE, but easy enough to take back as a carry on.

We have four days of Continuing Medical Education (CME) conferences here, and four days of consumption. Kat and Jeffrey were kind enough to drive out here and entertain us for the weekend. We did lots of cool stuff including a nice hike and a visit to Frank Lloyd Wright's winter home (see this blog for professional style description of events).

When we come back we will be smarter, tanner and better dressed. Very successful CME week indeed.

A good rule of thumb: Any time you go to observe nature, bring binoculars

Did you know we have a national insect? (I know Keith and Jeffrey probably did, but other people with normal sized brains?) Well, I didn't. I have no idea why we need one, but I guess if we're going to have one, the monarch is a worthy recipient of the title. Monarchs may not seem real sexy to the casual observer, but I'm here to tell you that they're hot! Monarchs have a pretty amazing life cycle. For example, Monarchs from the Northern Rocky mountains migrate south to Mexico each year where they inhabit no more than a 70 square mile area for the winter. The migration cycle is longer than the butterflies life span, so somehow their tiny little bug brains have to hold the navigation information in such a way that it can be passed on to future generations so they can complete the round trip.

This winter Christa and I decided to escape our respective tundras and travel down to Mexico to observe the hibernating butterflies in the Michoacan state. Neither of us are really butterfly buffs or naturalists of any sort, but we were both incredibly impressed with the experience. It was definitely worth the three and a half day trip it took us to get there (no joke!). When we were there we met a guy who loves Monarchs so much, he got his PhD in Monarch life cycles. He now works at the Smithsonian, but he comes back to Mexico each winter to lead nature tours of the Monarch sanctuaries. How cool are you sir?

This picture shows the butterflies all clumped onto tree branches where they are hibernating. (If one did not bring binoculars one might have missed this). Monarch watching wasn't all we did though. During our week long hiatus from our husbands, we also managed to hike a volcano, visit a colonial city, and sip pina coladas poolside before heading out to the sand for some volleyball. (Another rule of thumb: when hiking volcanoes in Mexico, don't tell your guide you're pregnant unless you really want to freak him out.) Mom and baby did great, and we're already planning our next sunny vacation.

Bad Ass Mountain Biking Chicks

These are old pics (obviously), but with the freezing cold weather and flat landscape here in B-squared, there has been a paucity of outdoor activity ops and therefore related photo ops. I miss the Rockies, but I am doing my best to transition to small town plain type activities. We've cross country skied a few times. Last week I played basketball with Keith and other large, hairy people. I am not in good shape. Running up and down the court for two hours straight without a break nearly killed me. I am not exaggerating. My VO2 max is probably a negative value at this point in the winter. Also at multiple points I was literally writhing around on the court when my calves cramped up. I could barely walk for two days after that. Also I am tiny compared to men. I don't know how to do anything except post up and rebound, and when I'm in the key I get batted around like rag doll. It doesn't help that when I finally had an open shot, a certain loving husband (whom I will not name) reached out with his infinitely extensible mitt and swatted the ball back at me. Isn't there some sort of unspoken rule against that? There should be. I'm going back tonight, but this time I'm going to rig it so that said husband is on my team.

Winter is Here

There's a bit of a snow storm across Nebraska today. Keith is on call in the ER waiting for the ambulance to bring him his next crash victim. Not wanting to be one of those victims, I canceled the shopping trip I had planned to the metropolis of Grand Island. This has had two effects, the first is that people I love will be getting a lot of stuff from Amazon this year, and the second is that I have time to blog. Unfortunately I don't have much to blog about, so instead I will post pics.




It's funny looking at these pics. I think they convey a lot, but without some text, I think they are probably totally misleading. Like if I didn't tell you so, you may never guess that the telescope Keith seems to be expertly gazing through has actually been collecting dust since our first Christmas together when I bought it for him. It is only now, two years later, that it has finally had its debut. I would have been wise to listen to his mother who suggested buying the least expensive model out there, since Keith actually likes lying on his back to gaze at the stars much more than he likes fiddling to focus a high powered telescope on distant planetary features. Still, the moon did look really cool that night.


I think these pictures capture the joy of playing in the snow with the puppies and maybe even the relaxed warmth of the fire. What they can never convey is the stench that exudes from those cute pups' coats as the snow melts away from their filthy puppy skin.


Even though I have been yet unsuccessful in getting tall pictures to come into my blog upright, I still wanted to put in our "Christmas photo". What you are missing here, but could easily guess if you ever met our dogs, is that it took us about 15 harried minutes of corralling our indoor livestock to get this perfectly posed pic. And if Keith smile looks strained, I think it probably is.

Hope everyone is having a good holiday. We certainly are.

Catolog Shopping

Whenever people want to commiserate with me about moving to a small town, it's always the shopping that they bring up. "Oh, don't you miss the mall?" This is a surprisingly big factor in people's choice of local. People need their Wal-Mart, JC Penney, and Target. This I don't get. To me the mall is a fairly undesirable place you endure only to get cool stuff. With all the great delivery options out there, it seems to me that online shopping is the way to go. They'll even send you catalogs just in case you forgot about all the neat things you didn't know you needed. This is the major downside of online shopping. As you buy, the catalogs start multiplying in your mailbox. Today, I got this bizarro catalog in the mail called Free People.

I've never even heard of this place, but perusing the catalog taught me a lot about what I can only assume is Tibet. Like, it's warm enough to sit in your tent fashioned from designer sheets and quilts wearing your underwear, but not quite warm enough to do it without a hat.

Also, the hip thing is to wear your child's winter mitten/hat ensemble over your disco minidress when you're off to do heavy manual labor in your work boots. Tibet must be a fascinating place. (Okay, I do realize that it's run by the same people that run my beloved Anthro, but I can still make fun).

Uberinformed husband of mine found this service you can supposedly use to stop the mailings. So far we've requested to stop Anthropologie, Athleta, Sundance, Garnet Hill and many, many more. In actuality I'm not sure we've stopped anything. We still get like 6 Victoria Secret catalogs weekly (two copies of each issue). The problem is that they're smarter than we are. The other day I returned an ill-fitting pair of shorts to Athleta only to have the replacement pair come with two more catalogs from that company. Also, even iron-willed Keith is not strong enough to overcome the temptation of the beautiful catalogs. As I opened the browser to start this blog, this is what I saw. What can you do?

Yard Beautification

This week our lives focused on our yard. First these guys (and their monster crane) were kind enough to hall away the infamous Scheffler stone that has marked this yard for so long. Now we have a gigantic crater in its place.

When it comes to yard work, Keith may be a little out of his element, but Lucy turned out to be a decent hauler awayer of branches (of course she takes as many out of the pile as she brings to it -- we're working on it).

Unfortunately our compost pile was quickly overrun with what can only be termed a shit ton of leaves. And you don't even see the huge piles that were hauled off to the dump.

You'll have to trust me that our yard was pristine, because here's what our yard looked like the very next day. As you can see that tree is magic and produces an endless supply of fresh autumn leaves daily!

Keith's dad was kind enough to contribute to the beautification with some flowers. Is it just me or are these guys looking a little tired? Especially that little blob up front. I'm not even sure you can recognize it as a living plant in this pic. I'm sure T.G. knows what he's doing.

Happy Halloween.

Super Sized

We officially started work last week. Keith has been toiling with the new electronic medical record and working up an appetite.

I'm not sure the photo does justice to the sheer mass of spaghetti on that plate, but believe me, it's impressive.

And half a loaf of bread too.




Look at him go!





The puppies are enjoying making a mockery of our pricey new fence by ramming it with all their body weight until the slats pop out allowing them their freedom. Such ingenious puppies!