February

February has been an extremely fun and busy month for us.  This morning was the first time in at least a month that I have been able to really take advantage of sleeping in (granted I only slept until 8:30 but it felt awesome!).  I am not complaining, though, as we have been having a lot of fun with new activities and hanging out with friends - both new and old.

The first weekend of February we went ice climbing in Ouray, CO.  Micah has every other Friday off which is great, but it also means he wants to do fun things on those Fridays so I have been taking days off of work as well (I'm hoping to get on the same schedule in April but we'll see).  We left Thursday evening after work and drove 3 hours to Durango, CO to spend the night.  On Friday morning we drove about 1.5 hours into the mountains to Ouray for our first day of ice climbing.  Although Micah ice climbed years ago, he had never been to Ouray.  We spent Friday and Saturday in the ice park (in the area called the School Room which is great for beginners).  I'm not sure I was completely sold on the sport, but we had a fun weekend nevertheless.

Here I am on the ice

The next Saturday we went to a rock climbing area called the Enchanted Tower, which is about 2.5 hours southwest of ABQ, with our friends Dan and Val and their two young sons.  We had a great day of climbing on the Mother Goose wall as there were at least 15 "easier" climbs close together and between the four of us we did every climb.  I have been leading in the gym since December, but this was the first time I actually led outside!

Getting ready to climb.  Auggie, Val, me and Micah with Eland.

On Sunday of that same weekend our friends Katie and Ryan came for a short visit.  They arrived Sunday evening, I took Monday off to hang out with them and show them ABQ, and they left early Tuesday morning.  Although I had seen them during my visit to MI in January, Micah had not seen them since we were in Calcutta, India in October!  It was so great to see Katie and Ryan again.  I really miss living close to them in CO!

We didn't take any pictures during the weekend, but this is the four of us at our favorite restaurant in Varanasi, India.

The following weekend we decided to head back to the Enchanted Tower climbing area as there are many more walls to explore in that area.  Micah and I drove down by ourselves Saturday morning and met up with Dan and Val and their boys.  Although the weather was not as great as the weekend before since it was colder and much windier, we still managed to get in some great climbs.

Dan took some great photos of us climbing! Here is an action shot of Micah going for his next clip.

Saturday evening our friends Travis and Amy and their 7 week old son Wyatt arrived for a short visit.  Travis competed in a race on Mt. Taylor Saturday morning, which is about 1.5 hours west of ABQ.  We were thrilled to see them and meet their new baby - so small and precious!  On Sunday we went out to breakfast at the Flying Star in Nob Hill and then went for a two hour hike in the Sandias.  Amazingly, Wyatt slept the whole hike!  After grabbing a late lunch, Travis, Amy and Wyatt left for Taos so they did not have to do the whole drive in one day.  It was so great to see them again!

Amy, Travis and Wyatt during the hike.

And now it is the last weekend of February and I have decided to take it easy.  Although the month has been full of fun, the laundry needs to be done, the house needs to be cleaned, the taxes need to be completed and I should really get a haircut as it has been six months since my last cut!  Micah is climbing with a new climbing partner today (they met through a mutual friend) and I am enjoying a quiet house to myself.  I think Sienna, our cat, is enjoying my being home today too as she has not seen us much this month!

The Church Search

For the last four months Micah and I have been on a wild church search in ABQ.  Admittedly, we have not  gone to church every week since it has proved to be a daunting and exhausting task, but regardless we have been to many, many churches in ABQ.  I hesitated about writing this post as I did not want to offend anyone and I fully understand that different denominations and worship styles exist to fit a variety of people.  I will not go into detail of every church we went to, but here are some highlights:

• Micah and I are accustomed to large churches since the church our parents attend is quite big, but we tried out one church that actually had a campus!  There were different buildings and a stretch golf cart to pick you up from your car and bring you to the building.  That was just too big... 

• We decided to try a mid-sized, more established church.  At one time this church was probably thriving but we quickly realized that the church had not had any new members in years!  We were the youngest people at the service by at least 20 years, the sanctuary was mostly empty and we stuck out like a sore thumb.  On top of that, there was a male soloist that had a very different singing style than we are used to.  Luckily, Micah and I did not realize during the song that we were both trying to hold back the giggles because otherwise I'm sure we would have both lost it right then and there...

• I am a Starbucks addict, so one week we stopped for a grande chai on our way to church as it was on the other side of town.  On our way into the sanctuary I noticed the church had its own coffee shop so I was completely caught off guard when an usher stopped me on the way in and told me I could not take my chai into the sanctuary.  She said security might "tackle me" if I brought it in there.  What?!?  I was so taken aback, and pretty upset that I would have to toss my drink, that I tried to convince Micah that we should just leave.  He wanted to stay since we drove all the way there so we chugged the chai and went inside.  Needless to say, we did not feel very welcome at that church....

• We did a lot of online research before going to any of these churches so when we went to a church where people were literally dancing down the aisles and twirling flags during the worship I was pretty surprised.  About 5 minutes into the worship I turned to Micah and said, "I don't feel very comfortable here" and he responded with, "Really, why?"  I thought I must be going crazy!  I guess he appreciated the open worship style, but really, we would NEVER fit in!  That is just not us...

• We heard that Fernando Ortega was the worship leader at a local Anglican church so we decided to give that a try.  I guess we didn't realize how different Anglican is from Reformed or Presbyterian (the denominations we are accustomed to) as we were surprised to see white robes and the lengthy bulletin with directions of what to say when, and when to sit and stand.  We stayed through the sermon but we definitely snuck out early as this was not the church for us...

Luckily, we have not had bad experiences at all of the churches and we have now narrowed our search down to our top two choices.   Surprisingly, these two churches are very different from each other as one has about 80 people attending each week and the other has thousands, but we will attend both over the next few months to decide which one is better for us right now.  We are both glad that this church search is coming to an end, although we will miss getting free coffee mugs, bread and other random gifts every week :).

Renting is Amazing

Exactly four years ago Micah and I were putting an offer on our first house.  Since I had been working a whole six months I thought we were in a great position to buy a house, so I convinced Micah that life would be so much better once we were homeowners.  I will never forget Valentine's Day in 2007 as that is the day we had our home inspection.  There was virtually nothing wrong with the house since it had been built in 2005, which was a relief to us as buyers.  And best of all, the home inspector had a gift card to Pappadeaux's restaurant that he planned to give to one of his client's that day since it was Valentine's, and he chose us!  We did not have Valentine's Day plans since we felt broke as we were buying a house, plus I was in the midst of my first busy season as an auditor and wouldn't be home until at least 10:00 pm, so we were excited for the gift!  Although we mostly feel that buying the house was the right decision as we enjoyed being homeowners and we felt really comfortable in our house, we also think back to what we should have done differently as we bought right before the housing market tanked and we did 100% financing (probably not the best decision!).  We were VERY fortunate to sell our house this summer right before we moved to ABQ, and thankfully we didn't lose too much money.

Ironically, four years later we are glad to be renters again.  It is nice to not feel tied down to one spot with a house.  We are really taking our time figuring out where we want to live, how much we want to put down and how much we want to borrow. Recently we have been listening to the Dave Ramsey series and he is changing our perspective on our financial priorities.  It is crazy how most of us fall into the trap in our early 20's, when we have our first full-time jobs, that we have to buy a house.  We feel like everyone else is taking out a huge mortgage and not worrying about the payments they will be making for the next 30 years so why should we give it a second thought?  With selling our house and being renters again, we feel we have been given a second chance and we are really enjoying it.

Not only is it liberating to not have a mortgage, but this house we are currently renting is quite old (built in the 40's I think), and there have been quite a few problems.  For example, I cannot have the hairdryer on if the kitchen and hallway lights are on or the fuse will blow.  Micah cannot print from his computer while I am vacuuming or the fuse will blow.  While we were gone last weekend the water meter froze so none of the faucets worked.  Most recently, the heater in the back of the house went out and it is currently pretty cold in the house.

Here is a pic of our heater.  Most of you have probably never seen anything like this as I know I didn't until we moved here!  There is one in the hallway and one in the living room.  Not the best for heating the bedrooms!

These are all pretty major problems, but let me tell you, we are not one bit stressed over them as they are not our problem!  We can deal with the inconveniences just fine, we just don't want to pay for them and we don't have to :).  Luckily, our landlord is very responsive and he is currently working on the electrical and heat.  He lives across the street so he checked on the house this weekend and determined the water meter was frozen, and he took care of it.  Lovely - no worries for us!

Of course, we will buy again someday as it is a great investment if one is smart about it.  But in the meantime, renting is amazing!

This is different...

As everyone is aware, a good portion of the US just got dumped on with snow, and ABQ was not left out of this storm.  In fact, it was so bad here that UNM was closed yesterday and today which meant I was not expected to go to work.  I guess they were afraid of people driving in these treacherous conditions.  Here is a pic of our cars buried by the snow yesterday and a pic of our front yard this morning.

I know, how could I even think about driving my 2 mile commute in these conditions?!  Right.

I am still in shock that UNM was not only closed yesterday, but today too!  Granted, it is FREEZING cold - it is currently -18 with the windchill, but the roads are totally CLEAR.  I actually just went to work thinking all of my co-workers probably went in since we all have work to do and it is dry and sunny outside.  Nope.  I am now back home because all of the lights were out in my building and I didn't want to sit in a building by myself all day - too creepy!  Honestly, I just feel guilty right now.  It's like calling in sick when you're not.  Maybe the mentality in ABQ is just different than CO and MI.  Maybe everyone is just looking for an excuse for a day off, so when the opportunity arises it is taken full advantage of.  If so, I can adjust to this - I will just have to start embracing it :).