We're Back!

We're back from our trip to Tucson and our first Turkey day in the US. We had an awesome time catching up with Pete, Maree & Brendan as well as Rachel and Tony who flew in from Washington DC. Maree cooked a fantastic turkey dinner with all the trimmings (I'll be paying for it at the gym this week).

While we were in Tucson we spent some time in the great outdoors and visited Sabino Canyon and the Sonora Desert Museum. The trip was topped off with a visit to Pinnacle Peak for a drink in the saloon and a great steak dinner. The drive was quicker than last time due to the short cut between Hatch and Demming so the trip only took about 6 1/2 hours. It was still plenty of time for knitting and I managed to finish a scarf and a pair of mittens (photos to follow). I guess the only downside to the trip was the car starting to fall apart! We noticed a grinding sound on our way into Tucson and when we stopped to investigate, found that the plastic guard under the bumper was dragging along the ground. We taped it up with packing tape for the trip home and it survived. Poor little car!

Our First Thanksgiving

So tomorrow will be our first Thanksgiving. It's a pretty crazy time of year. I heard a report this morning saying that today is the most travelled day in the year - something like 37 million people. That's almost twice the population of Australia!

We're preparing for our 7-8 hour drive to Tucson tomorrow. It will be a good opportunity to get some knitting done. Hopefully I can finish the mittens and scarf I am working on and make a start on my first pair of socks. Yay!

Can't wait to catch up with Pete & Marre (and Brendan) as well as Rachel and Tony this weekend. Pete and Maree recently bought a car so I think they have a few trips planned for us around the Tucson area. I'll make sure we take plenty of photos.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Festivus for the Rest of Us...

Stumbled onto this blog and thought it was pretty funny. I wonder what the book would be like? Speaking of the festive season, I don't think I can delay the Christmas card writing much longer, particularly when it will take about a week for them to arrive in Oz. The cards have already been sitting, gathering dust for about 2 weeks. I just haven't been able to bring myself to put pen to paper.

Not looking forward to the gym tonight either. I'm still feeling it from Saturday morning! I guess that shows how out of shape I am. Lost out in this weeks weigh in (we have our own version of "The Biggest Loser" going since we would both like to lose a few pounds). I guess Thanksgiving this week won't really help the situation. Oh well, there's always next week...

Hooray! A Completed Project!

I've finally finished my bramble stitch scarf. At times I never thought I'd get there but I couldn't be happier with the way it has turned out. Here's a couple of photos to prove it.



My next project is going to be some wrist warmers since I always have cold hands during winter.

Much of this weekend was spent organising what we'll be getting people back home for Christmas. I've successfully crossed another three off the list today. Maybe next year I''ll be more organised and knit some gifts (watch out everyone)!

Tonight we are going to Frontier Restaurant to get burgers for dinner. They have the best "Fiesta Burgers" with green chille. Yum! What I'm really hanging out for though is fish and chips. Mmmm, I can't wait to have some when we visit Oz next year.

Speaking of good Aussie stuff, we've fallen in love with Shannon Noll's song Shine" (pretty sad aren't we).

Well, that's about it for now, but as promised here are the photos from last weeks adventure along the Rio Grande.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie - Oi, Oi, Oi

Go Aussies! I guess everyone back home was pretty excited that the Aussies have qualified for the world cup. For me (a sport non-enthusiast), I think the best part of the Aussies winning the soccer was the aftermatch celebration with John Travolta!

Temperature Update: Freezing (and I'm not kidding). The last two nights have been below zero and I think we've only reached a maximum of about 12 degrees during the day. We're in the desert for crying out loud! The worst part is that it's not even winter yet.

Well the house thing is definite. It looks like we will be moving at the end of the year. Below are a couple of photos of the new house.

So, the landlord is in the process of showing people through our current house. We're not too impressed that he's bringing people through while we're not home but what can you do? Should I be making an extra effort to clean the house? I mean it's not as if we're leaving a sink full of dirty dishes but I wouldn't call the place exactly spotless...

Isn't it Ironic

Well, so much for getting the heater fixed. It turns out that we're going to be moving sometime next month anyway!

Our landlord called us on Friday to ask if we would be interested in moving to another house because he plans to sell our current one. So we took a look on Saturday morning. It is a nice house (2 bedroom, 1 bathroom) though it doesn't have a carport. After checking out the new place, he told us that he would call us to finalise the plans. Guess what happened??? He didn't bother to call and instead drove past some time Saturday afternoon and stuck a "For Sale" sign on our front lawn! Needless to say we weren't impressed. We're hoping we can move the week after Christmas seeing as though Brad has the week off work.

Other than that, we had a nice weekend. On Saturday night we went out for dinner at a great Italian restaurant called Scalo. Then on Sunday we went for a walk down by the Rio Grande River at the Rio Grande Nature Center. It was really pretty since all the trees are in the process of changing colour. I promise to post some photos during the week.

Ciao for now!

We Have Heat!

Finally.... Our heater is fixed! And just in time too - A storm front is expected to blow through tomorrow.

Brad has been sick this week and had to take a day off work on Tuesday. I guess I wasn't a very caring wife - I left him at home while I went to Knit Night! There were a lot of girls there this week. It's amazing how the knitters come out when the weather gets colder. I have almost finished my scarf and have another to knit for Kyan's fiance when she arrives from Brazil in January. It is in a novelty type yarn in a really pretty pink colour (rose quartz).

Only two weeks until we head to Tucson for Thanksgiving. It will be great to see Pete, Maree and Bredan and also Rachel and Tony who will be flying in from Washington DC. I'm not sure if we'll do the traditional Thanksgiving dinner with Roast Turkey and Pumpkin Pie, maybe we'll have to do it Aussie style instead.

Still Waiting...

A very quiet weekend here in Albuquerque.

Yesterday afternoon was spent waiting for a guy to come and fix our heating and a leaking pipe on our hot water system. You guessed it - we're still waiting! Why can't these guys call to say they can't make it?

We waited until almost 6pm then decided to get Taco Bell for dinner and watched one of B's top ten movies which was on tv last night (Catch Me if You Can).

Spent this morning looking for an electric blanket and ended up coming home with a pair of jeans. Not that I can complain about that, though the bed will get a bit chilly later in the week when the temperature is supposed to drop to about 2 degrees!

We're still eating lollies that were left from our lack of trick or treaters last Monday night. A little disappointing for our first Halloween in the U.S. A lot of build up and not a lot of action. Probably only about 8 groups of kids for the entire night. This was our contribution for the evening.



Still knitting my bramble stitch scarf - will it never end?!?!?

Yikes! Seven Weeks to Go...

Wow, I can't believe it's only seven weeks until Christmas and we've only bought two presents so far. I think I'm going to follow the "Knit Night" trend and start knitting some floras. The girls at "Knit Night" have been working on them and they seem to knit up pretty quickly.

I'm also trying to work on my Kris Kringle list at the moment with limited success. Here's what I've got so far:

• Jamie Oliver Cookbook (Jamies' Dinners)
• Sports bag/back pack to carry my stuff to the gym
• Body Shop Products (Oatmeal Face Mask and Mango Body Butter)

Pretty poor effort I know. I'll have to rack my brain this week - maybe a cd or dvd???

The cool weather is really starting to kick in here. It got down to about 3 degrees C the night before last while back in Melbourne it was 30! We're having problems with the heater too though the landlord doesn't seem to want to know about it. Let's hope it's fixed before it starts snowing!