Late Pass Wednesday

With all the blog slacking that I've been doing since we've been back in Oregon, I'm sure you can imagine that I'm starting to accumulate some really great Late Pass Wednesday materials. This one goes all the way back to Bozeman; its a cute little prank that my former Grad Students at MSU pulled on me during the last week at work. Over the course of the year they had become known for various ambush office decorations, mostly commemorating the various staff members birthdays. Since my birthday fell over the winter break when they were all gone I had slipped through the cracks, and bragged about this fact to great lengths. The Monday of my last week at MSU I arrived at work to find two of our Grad Students sitting outside of my office. This was odd since they usually didn't get there that early in the morning. So I was immediatly suspicious. Well, this is what I found:

My office filled up with 300 (give or take a few that popped) orange balloons. They had actually taken the time to write on each balloon a reason that I should stay or a funny inside joke or saying among the staff.
Naturally since one of the Grad Students was a big "The Office" fan, a few nods to the show were involved.
Well, I carefully read each one and popped them all that morning. I think the girls were a little bit disappointed that i popped them so quickly, because they felt it necessary to provide an encore performance the next morning.
So on Tuesday I decided to give them a little bit of satisfaction (I really didn't want to have an office filled with balloons for the third day running) So I ended up leaving the balloons as long as I could tolerate them. The rule was, if a balloon made its way out of the office it had to be popped, they ones that stayed in could live. I packed up my book shelves and most of my desk all the time working around the balloons. The girls accused me of trying to kick balloons out of the office so that they could be popped. I made it until just after lunch time when I started feeling a little chlostrophobic and staticy and popped them all and went on with my day.

As much as I complained to the girls about and and acted like I hated it, it was a really cute prank, and it did make me feel like I would be missed. It will definitely be something that I won't forget soon.

Late Pass Wednesday: Air Show

Wow. I can't really even remember when we went to this air show. I think it was in July, but I know that it was during one of the hottest streaks of the summer. The Air Show is held out at the Airport and it got pretty miserable standing around on the blacktop with the sun beating down. We ended up leaving after only a few hours, but I would say that we definitely got our fill of planes.

The Blue Angels

We liked this plane because it was Beaver Colors.

Once again, as is often the case at public events in Bozeman, just a little too much patriotism here.

That Magic Moment....

Okay, so someone tell me if I'm crazy, or if other people notice this too? It seems like every year, at some point in the spring there is that one day, that one moment, when you realize that you've made it through the winter and the summer is on it's way. Its a really good feeling. At least I think so.

In Oregon it would usually happen in March. You wake up one day to the sun shining through your window instead of just the alarm blaring in the darkness. The days are starting to get longer, you can smell the freshly mowed lawns, baseball season is finally getting going. I always just kind of take a deep breath and it's just the feeling that life is actually pretty damn good.

There are several variations on this moment: it could be driving in your car one afternoon, and it's usually one of those first spring days when its actually warm enough to have your windows down; preferably sun roof open ('89 Mazda 626 styles!) its warm out, but still just a little bit crisp; no humidity so you're having a good hair day; your favorite song comes on the radio; again the smell a freshly mowed grass is key (moment made even better if coincidentally driving by a baseball field and you hear the crack of a hit ball) Que sigh.

Another excellent one is that first evening in the spring when you leave work and it's actually still light outside! This benchmark is by itself worthy of that warm fuzzy feeling, but as always, freshly mowed grass and the crack of a bat enhance the experience.

I had been waiting to have my first Montana spring "moment", and I think a couple of times I had tried to force it, but oddly enough rolling up on June 1, it still had not hit me. I woke up on Tuesday morning and we actually had about an inch of snow on the ground. Me to myself: "You've GOT to be SHITTING me!!" But today I got it. 9:00 PM, June 1, 2007, 68 degrees (high of 83) sun is just now starting to set. And it reminds me why I really do like Bozeman. Hot days with the perfect amount of breeze that picks up in the evening and starts to cool everything off just a little bit around 5:00 PM, postcard worthy sunsets almost every night, and the light over the mountains is just somehow different in the summer. Hmmm. Life really is pretty damn good. Go figure?

Am I really the only one that knows about this? Post up with your "life really is pretty damn good moments!

My First Go 'Round

The rodeo was definitely a first for me, and generally it consisted of everything that I typically try to avoid on a daily basis. Blaring country music, people in tight pants and cowboy hats, derogatory comments made by the rodeo clown (yeah, i said it), the smell of cow poop. I had to fight the urge to turn around and walk out the second that we walked in, but once I fought that urge, and putting all those afore mentioned things aside, it was actually pretty fun.

The home team: MSU Bobcat Rodeo

One stuborn bull, this guy didn't want to go back into the coral.
Bucking Bronco
Barrel Racing

Let's see....the highlights...

• Cotton eye joe played over the loud speaker eerily reminds me of sporting events at Sweet Home High School.
• Zeb makes friends with an old guy sitting next to us. This old dude competed here in '56 & '57 - Team Roping. hmm. He had a REALLY big hat also.
• Calf Wraslin' & Goat Tieing- seriously? I felt really sorry for the animals. Can't imagine the poor calf that Perk got ahold of...

Heard that last night they held the "wild cow milking" event. Too bad we missed that. Tomorrow night is the championship round, unfortunatly we will not be in attendance. After that they'll pack up all the dirt and then my office can slowly start to go back to it's normal smell. It was fun, but I definitely don't think I could handle it more than once a year.

Have a great weekend!

Bullriding!!!

Okay...it's pretty grainy, but you get the idea.

Hiking the M

So for anyone who hasn't been through Montana, a lot of the towns have big letters on the hillside...or shall we say MOUNTAINSIDE over looking the town. In Bozeman we have the "M". Now to me it would make more sense to have a B for Bozeman, or an MSU...but no, we have the M. This next picture gives you an idea of what I am talking about.

There is a hiking trail that leads up to the "M" and the big thing to do it go out and hike up to the M. It is a conditioning activity for a lot of our athletic teams, and the scoop is that is also acts like the "class rock" in Sweet Home, and the graduating high school class takes the liberty each spring to go up and paint the rocks that spell the M.



Well, this weekend Zeb and I decided to get out there and see what all this "M" talk is about, since we had been having such nice weather. If I look destroyed in the picture it is because this nice little hike (HA!) showed us just how out of shape we are. Don't worry, I am working on addressing that issue currently. It was a little bit depressing to see that an old man, nearly 3 times our age wearing TIGHT jeans and cowboy boots beat us up the trail. (and when I say beat, i mean DEMOLISHED!) There was also a weiner dog that I suspect could have given us a run for our money. It was fun though!!

Cat on a Leash

Well for those loyal blog readers, here it is: Cat on a Leash. This cat lives in the apartment buildings across the street from our complex. I have never seen such a thing in my life. The people put their cat on this lease tied to a rope, and then they let it roam around the yard of they apartments. Hope this gives you all a laugh.

In other news, we are going to a small halloween party tonight. Should be fun. Zeb is most likely dressing up as Pedro Martinez (again) and I haven't decided yet. Arg! Also, we went and saw the movie The Departed last night. It has Matt Damon in it, talking with that Boston accent. Excellent. It also has Leonardo Dicaprio, Marky Mark, Jack Nicholson, Alec Baldwin, and some others in it too. Its pretty good, we would recommend it, but not if you're squemish.

My mom comes to visit in 6 days! Can't wait!

Snow!

We had our first real deal snow this last week, including my first drive to work on the snowy roads. I saw a VW Bus spin out on the road ahead of me, but in spite of all that, I kept that hatchback on the road, and I made it to work on time. So far it hasn't been too cold, and the snow does make the mountains look beautiful, but.....we'll see what we think about it when it hits 0 degrees.

Yup, this is where we live. On Sunday we took a drive out to Bridger Ski, which is the local mountain where people snowboard. The drive was really beautiful and Zeb got to take some pictures. It was nice getting out of town and seeing some of our surroundings.

Welcome to Bozeman

It has certainly been an eventful month for us, with graduation, the wedding and most recently the big move to Bozeman, MT, life has been pretty hectic. Now that things are finally settling down, we decided to give this blog a try as a way to keep up with friends and family now that we are a little farther away. Zeb and I will both be posting as often as our busy schedules allow. We are going to try to get some more wedding pictures posted, as well as pictures of our new place, and the city of Bozeman. We would love it if you could take the time to leave us messages here and let us know how things are going with all of you. Maybe this way, we can feel a little bit closer to home. Also, there are links to our email addresses in our profiles if you click on our names under "contributors" on the right side of the screen. Feel free to use those to keep in touch also!



So for now, I'll just give a quick update as to what we have been up to since the wedding. We spent 4 days in Sunriver, OR for the honeymoon. We had fun relaxing by the pool, riding bikes around the golf course, and we went horseback riding (Zeb's first time on a horse - hilarious!) It was great to just hang out with nothing specific that we needed to get done. And of course, while on the honeymoon, we got to watch the Oregon State baseball team win the College World Series! Amazing!

Once we got back from the honeymoon, it was full speed ahead planning for the move. Zeb finished up his season as a coach for a Corvallis Boys & Girls club 13/14 year olds baseball team with a couple of big wins (Go Warthogs!!!)



We packed up the U-Haul and headed out to Bozeman in the early morning hours of Monday July 11th. The trip took us just about 14 hours, and I'm pretty sure that Zeb set a new land speed record for 17 foot U-Hauls. I'll let you all know when the final results from the guiness book of world records come in ;) Now we're just in the process of getting the new apartment settled in. Zeb is flying back to Oregon on Saturday to finish up his work with Willamette Dental. He'll be back in Montana by the end of September for sure. I can't wait! I start work here at Montana State University on Monday, as an Assistant Athletic Trainer working with Volleyball and Women's Basketball.

I suppose that's all for now. Hope to hear from you soon. Don't forget to leave lots of messages!Love you all!