The Bus

Nate and I were so excited to write all kinds of stories about our escapade on the Greyhound, but regretfully, the trip was quite uneventful. Other than a woman who, for the first hour of the trip, kept making pig snorting noises, we just sat on the bus and read or talked for eight hours. About the "pig woman", I feel the need to mention she was not asleep, she was talking on the phone for an hour and must have had a severe sinus problem, because every two or three minutes she would give a long snort, exactly like a pig. I hope she gets that looked at.

Our trip to Phoenix was nice, we got to see both friends and family, our cute house that we miss so much, and our old Ward that we loved. Life was good when we lived there, and who knows, we may decide to move back one day.

Noblesse Oblige

I was running errands and starving the other day, so I pulled into the first drive thru I saw......a Wienerschnitzel. (This is cheating, since we're kind of on South Beach, but sauerkraut is a vegetable, right?) I get in line behind a big Animal Control truck, complete with the enclosed cab on the back with a door on it for the animals to hitch a ride. I was in line a VERY long time, and he was the only person in front of me! I had no idea what could be taking so long, but the mystery was solved when I got up to the paying window and the cute little teenage boy refused to take my five dollar bill, because, as he told me, "the guy before you paid for yours." I thought he was joking, then he thought I was joking because he said he was sure I knew the animal control man. I assured him I didn't. Anyway, all the cute little teenage boys in Wienerschnitzel had by this time come over to see what the fuss was about, and they all giggled hysterically. So then the boy at the window said that the animal control man left me a note, and indeed, on the back of a very official-looking "Notice of Violation" pink slip, the mystery man had written "God bless you, and have a great day." It was all very sweet, and I'm considering paying for some stranger's hot dog someday.

Nightmare on Barstow Street

For those interested, here’s how last night went….

1:00 am, roughly---my insomnia finally succumbs and I fall asleep

4:00 am-------Nate wakes up to get ready for work….after “snoozing” since 3:30am

5:00 am-------Nate wakes me up to pray and then leaves for work.

5:30am--------I am still fighting the insomnia monster when I hear a soft ‘ding’

5:45am---------Another ding…..

6:00am--------Ding ding

6:10am----------buzz….ding….buzz

6:25am----Ding…….By now I am coherent enough to realize the ding is the doorbell.

6:30am------Ding Ding Ding……By now I am coherent enough to get scared because the ding is the doorbell. I lay very still.

6:40am--------Ding…..what does one do in this situation?

6:51am------ding (thank my cell phone for the exact timing) I call Nate and tell him the doorbell has been ringing all morning. He suggests maybe it is the computer, so I turn down the volume and go to back to bed.

7:00am--------Ding ding buuuuzzzzzz. It’s not the computer. I call Nate again.

Me: I am going to check the front door but I wanted you to be on the phone in case I get murdered.

Nate: Maybe you should have 9-1-1 on the phone. (He is dead serious).

Me: Thanks, hon, that makes me feel better. (Sarcasm noted).

Nate: I don’t remember what he said, but it must’ve been better than his first comment, cause I proceeded to open the front door.

7:01 am-------Nobody is at the door. I ring the doorbell myself a couple times. The dinging is definitely the doorbell. Nate thinks it’s just jammed so I pull the button out as far as it will go.

7:02am---------As I am hanging up the phone with Nate, I hear ding ding buzzzzzz ding buzz ding ding ding buzzzzzz. I worry I will never sleep again. Now, maybe because it was early, but I really thought there was no solution to this problem. I just kept thinking about living here for the next year, considering how I could handle the constant ringing. I am the stereotype: useless girl, stumped by a doorbell.

7:03am-------I call Nate again. Please tell me how to make it stop so I can sleep. He walks me through finding the box on the wall and tells me to disconnect the wires

Me: What if I get shocked?

Nate: You won’t. Well, it’s low voltage, so it won’t hurt. If it hurts, I’m sorry.

Me: (Nervous laughter ) Thanks a lot. (Sarcasm again)

7:05------With the wires disconnected, I am thrilled to lay in bed.

7:10-----I hear beep beep beep beep beep…..coming from OUTSIDE.

This time, it was the neighborhood garbage truck.

It was at this point that I gave up on sleep entirely.

We've hit a new low.......

Nate doesn't really need a car right now. He carpools with a coworker who lives close to us, and stays in an office all day going over the finances of his multi-million dollar army tank maintenance garage project. So, why, we've been wondering, do we have two cars, one of which we are still paying for? Hence, the idea of selling our Altima is born. Then we worry.....for emergency purposes, we should probably have a cheapo second car. After looking on ebay and craigslist for a couple days, Scott the father-in law comes to the rescue. While Nate is telling him our brilliant plan, he reminds us that DND (the family company) owns a truck that is not being used, it's just sitting in a driveway in Phoenix. All we need to do is get there and drive it home! Hmm........we could drive there, but then we would have to take separate cars back to Barstow. That won't do. The solution? $67.85 worth of Greyhound bus tickets! We leave on Friday! And we thought we would never fit in around here!!

Christmastime in California

We thought about sending a Christmas card with this photo on it, saying something super clever about how we've started our own "California Adventure" this year. (For those of you who are Disney-challenged, the amusement park where we had this picture taken is called Disney's California Adventure). Alas, it is already the week before Christmas and anyone we would send a card to can just look at this blog! So, here goes...

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE KOLBABA FAMILY!!

The Move

Perhaps because we have moved to a different state, we think it's time to catch up on our blog. Life has thrown us a little curve. Nate was laid off by Toll Brothers and found a new job in California. The company that he works for, RQ Construction, builds mostly for the military. Nate never thought he would go into commercial construction, but like our life those thoughts have changed. He is enjoying the company and is learning the very different side of commercial construction. We will end up in Carlsbad, where the company is based out of, but we are going to be living in Barstow for the first 16 months because the project Nate is heading up is on Fort Irwin. Yes, we are going to live in Barstow, the "crossroads" of California. It is going to be an adventure for the next 16 months. Here are a couple of pictures of the home that we are renting while we're there. (Believe it or not, this is one of the nicer homes in Barstow).

Catching Up

Well, we think that the title should be the main theme of the blog. We are not very good at keeping up to date with our lives on the Blog. It is like our journals. Well we try. There has been a lot of things that have happened in our lives since April 1. The first is Dane's Race Day Birthday. For Dane's birthday in November we got him a Richard Petty Drive Along pass. Dane rode in the passenger seat of a real racecar and drove around the track 3 times. So, on a weekend when everyone could come we went to watch Dane go back at about 115 mph on the track. Before Dane got in the car Dane and Nate practiced driving on Nate's Couch. It was really fun to see Dane get into the car and drive. There was someone else that was very entertaining at the track.... and that was Cameron. Before we explain why he was so funny let me explain how we got to the track. We drove to Phoenix International Raceway and then drove into the center of the track. Racecars were flying past us and it was very loud. Cameron was so excited when he saw the cars race by. Cameron's eyes did not leave the track the whole time. Here is a picture of him. Florin loved it as well.

The next big event that happened in our lives was Nate's graduation from the University of Phoenix with an MBA. He started taking classes in November of 2005. He was very excited and could not keep the smile off his face. He felt weird wearing the interesting outfit that he received but he looked really good. Please see the pictures from the link below.

http://picasaweb.google.com/mandykolbaba/GradUOP?authkey=tqKuAiKRa0E

On Memorial Day we went down to Sierra Vista to go camping and hiking with some of Mandy's family. We had a great time! This was the first time we had gone camping since we got married. We went down on Saturday morning and came home on Monday. The camp site we stayed at was an old gold mining camp site. We also went hiking. What an interesting experience! It was, according to Talon, a trail that old people take all the time. So we decided to hike the easy 6 mile hike. As we were hiking we got off the trail by accident and and took a wildlife trail. This is what the trail looked like. It took us about 2 hours to get to the top. We stopped and ate lunch. As we were going down we figured out that we took the wrong trail because it took us about 1/4 of the time. By some miracle, the little ones did a great job hiking.....well, scaling a mountain we should say. The youngest was 2! Check out some of the other pictures we took.

http://picasaweb.google.com/mandykolbaba/CampingOnMemorialDay?authkey=_I_MDy5xrHg