Home Sweet Home

Carnivale

I love our new home in Las Cruces, but Columbia Illinois is still our primary home right now so it has been good to get back here for a few weeks.  The past few weeks have been a whirlwind.  A few days after I returned from New Mexico we drove to Chicago to see one of my good friends's son get married.  He was also one of my former piano students when he was growing up.  We visited with my brother and sister in law on Saturday and then headed into the city on Sunday.  We met my daughter, Lauren, who happened to be there for a bachelorette party, for lunch, then we checked into the Westin.  The wedding was at Carnivale, a very colorful, fun restaurant.  We had a great time.  We drove home on Monday, July 4th in time to put together a BBQ for some friends and watch the fireworks at the American Legion which is just down the hill from our home.  Our house is on a hill that is actually a bluff along the Mississippi River bottom so we can see all of the fireworks going on in the St. Louis metro area in the distance.  We will definitely miss that when we move to Las Cruces.

The next weekend we went to Lake Shelbyville to go boating and hang out with our good friends Brad and Belinda.  We always look so forward to being with them and we had a blast as usual and we caught up on everything going on in our lives.

I spent the next week cleaning out my office at the college from which I just retired so I can make room for the person replacing my position.  I will still be teaching three classes next year since my husband is not retiring until 2012.  This past weekend was my son's fiance's bridal shower so I had several family and friends in town.  On Saturday night my daughter, son, his fiance and my husband all went to the Central West End in St. Louis to Pi for dinner.  It is one of our favorite places to go.  They have great pizza, salads, and drinks!  I made a big brunch on Sunday with Carmelized Onion Quiche, Peach Stuffed French Toast, and bacon.

Today I have been packing since I am leaving again tomorrow and I won't be back until August 20th.  I am going to visit my girlfriend in California for a week and then she and I are flying to Las Cruces so she can visit me there for a week.  Then I will continue to stay there until my husband Rick comes out around August 10th.
I am going to miss being in Columbia since I haven't gotten to spend much time with any friends here all summer but I am looking forward to seeing my friend Kathy in California and getting to spend time out west again.  The humidity here is awful!

While I have been home, we had all of our dead plants replaced at our Las Cruces home so I am looking forward to seeing how pretty things look when I get back.  The Southwest is now in monsoon season so there has been some rain and there are usually chances of scattered thunderstorms everyday.  The skies are especially amazing to watch during this time of year.  I hope to have to great pictures and tales to tell when I return to Columbia and I can post from my iMac again.  While I am away, I will only be able to post from my iPad so I won't be able to add any pictures for a while.

For now, I will add a few pictures of our living room in the Las Cruces house since we got our new furniture.  It is really nice to have a place to sit in there and fill up the huge space! More later and hopefully I will be a better blogger!