Archaeology - Part 2

For my work sometimes we get to walk around in the desert and look for sites. I have been doing this for most of last week and here are some of the beautiful pictures I have. It was cloudy and rainy on Monday when I took this picture. This is my favorite picture. They have a dam on the Agua Fria river and the water backs up into these little streams. I think it is so pretty. It almost looks like fall with some of the colors.

We were climbing on a pretty steep slope and saw these kayakers and canoers below. I though it would be fun if I could find one of them who took a picture of us. The guy I was working with twisted his knee (he might have torn his MCL) shortly after this picture and we had to get one of the fishing boats to take us out of there so we could get him to the hospital. Lots of adventure.
We hiked up to this ruin to see what it looked like. There were probably 10 structures on the top of a mesa. It was so pretty. Me in all my field gear (i set my backpack down before here).
You can see the view of the Agua Fria river and the ruins from the top.

Two wild burros who thought we were going to eat them.

These are from another project I went on where we were working near an old movie set. The two guys are people I work with. I think they missed their calling as actors, don't you?

A moonrise over the Sonoran Desert.

As much as I get frustrated with my job sometimes, I really am lucky to be able to enjoy what I do most of the time. Who else gets paid to walk around the desert and explore.

GRE Day

Josh took his GRE (the entrance exam for graduate school, similar to the ACT or SAT) yesterday and he was so nervous this morning. It was really cute to see him worry so much. You get two of the three scores right after you finish so there isn't that much time to worry about it. He got a 580 on the verbal portion which is pretty good. On the quantitative portion (i.e., math and reasoning) he got a 730 which is pretty much amazing. He is on par with straight A engineering students. Hopefully his writing part will come back with a good score too. I don't really know how long it takes to get it back. Hopefully such great scores will help him get into grad school. Please vote in our poll to tell him where he should go! (I am rooting for U of U!)

Yummy Minestrone

A friend at work gave me this recipe for minestrone soup and it is delicious. Ours turned out more like a stew than a soup so you may want to add more water, but it was so yummy and really easy to make.
Easy Minestrone
In a large nonstick pan cook over medium high heat
1 cup chopped onion
3 garlic cloves (pressed)
2 Tbsp olive oil
until onions are tender but not browned. Add
2 cans chicken broth (or 2 bouillon cubes in water)
1 jar of marinara sauce (16 oz)
1 can of kidney beans (drained and rinsed)
1 can of garbanzo beans (drained and rinsed)
10 oz of frozen vegetables
Bring to a boil. Add 1 cup of small pasta and cook covered (with lid slightly ajar) for 10 min, stirring occasionally. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese.

8 days and counting

Josh has eight days of school let this semester and he is done. Only one more semester until he is an official geologist. He does, however, want to go to graduate school and so we will see if he can get in otherwise it is job hunting for us! It would be nice to have two full incomes for awhile, but we may not have that luxury. I think we will have to start looking for an internship for the summer soon. We tried to do so last year but got too late of a start on them. Anyone know of anything?
I babysat 3 of my nephews all day today and I am exhausted. I don't know if I would be able to handle having kids of my own yet. I only had them for about 9 hours and I think I might go to bed soon, even though it is only 9. I really admire moms, especially those with a lot of kids. I could barely handle three!
I still don't feel like Christmas is so close. I guess I am kind of feeling Bah Humbug-ish this year. It doesn't help that it is still 75+ degrees everyday and you barely need anything more than a light sweater in the mornings. It just doesn't feel like it should be Christmas unless it is actually cold. Josh keeps laughing at me because usually I want to start listening to Christmas music in October, but this year I have only listened to it once and he turned it on for me. I am such an old scrooge this year.