Do you smell smoke?

If you do its probably me!  It is hard to get rid of that smell...and it makes you hungry. :)  We had a great time this weekend at the 5th annual Smokin' on the Beaver BBQ Contest!  My dad won 3rd place for his home brew!  His team name is the "beefy boyz".  He also made some FABULOUS brisket and ribs, and baby-back ribs, and brats.  We spent most of Saturday hanging out at the competition eating, checking out other smokers, eating, listening to the K-State game, eating, playing cards, eating, and eating.  My mom made some great snacks to compliment all that bbq!

 

This is the set up!

This is brisket and ribs!

And the home brew was very popular!

mmmmmm!

smokin'

This weekend you will find us in A-town for the 5th Annual Smokin' on the Beaver BBQ Competition.  My dad is entering home brew, brisket, ribs...and I think that is all.  Plus cooking some just good stuff for us to snack on.  My cousin Andra and her husband Jake, came from the Denver area and Andy is back from Oregon so he will also be partaking.  Perhaps we will get some action shots uploaded tomorrow!

On the road again...

Andy is one the road again!  They left Oregon this afternoon and started heading for Estes Park.  Hopefully they will arrive sometime on Friday then have Sat., Sun., and Mon. off....but we'll see...nothing is ever official until the last minute.  This week has flown by crazy fast....I can't even think of what has happened over the past two days....I've been working alot...8 to 11pm last night and 8 to 4 today...so basically I am averaging more hours than I can get paid for in a week....and cramming my classes into work.  We have a deadline on Monday though and after that it should be much better!

By the way..after reading the below ad for spam, I think Andy and I should start speaking to each other in rhyme.

red letter days for everyone!

Yay! My first test as a graduate is over!  I think I did a good job, I feel like I studied the right amount, and was prepared!  So hopefully it will come back with a "super" sticker on it! :)  

Andrew had a fab day yesterday...not only did he get to be the sawyer, but he also got rid of the "can of spam".  Apparently there is a can of spam being passed around....it can enter your pack if you aren't keeping an eye on it and then you have to get rid of it...aka sneak it into someone else's pack!  And dear Andrew succeeded in ridding himself of the spam after 3 days of carrying the extra 3 oz. around!  Good job Andrew! Maybe he deserves a super sticker.  So that is what firefighters do all day....play hot potato/old maid with a can of spam......I always wondered...these are your federal tax dollars at work!

Bet you can't wait to come over for dinner!

Suprisingly productive!

That is how I would describe this Saturday.  I have been studying or working on school work most of the day! With a super short nap in there (but I was up at 6:30, so that's okay!) and a two hour break to go watch K-State Volleyball beat Colorado in 3!  And I may just top the day out with some root beer!  

Yay for productivity and Go Cats!!!

Hard workin' man?

Uhhhh....not so much! Andy said they laid hose for 45 minutes this morning and the rest of the time they have just been hanging out. All this talk about how he is a firefighter...I swear most days they are just hanging out. :) He said its great weather for doing nothing, it never made it above 59 there today. They are sleeping up where they are working, which is apparently higher up on a mountain so it should be good sleeping weather. He has woken up with a frosty face a couple of times. I think Wednesday will be day 14 on this fire...but not completely sure. I haven't actually talked to him today, but we've been texting....so I think that is all accurate information.

More is less...I hope.

So I have done some rearranging in my classes! I dropped one!  yay!!!  I dropped my grant writing class, partially because I didn't like it, and mostly because it didn't show any promise of being useful, and a little because it was all irrelevant busy work.  So I have replaced those 2 credits, with a "problems course" through ag ed, which is kind of like an independent study...where you and your professor come up with a plan of what you will study and what the guidelines will be, etc.  So I am taking that for 3 credits and working with him and people from my office to write a grant that my office is working on.  So, I'm hoping that even though it is more credits it will be less busy/pointless work, and more meaningful.....and less overall misery.

Of course if I wanted less overall misery I could have just skipped the K-State football game tonight.....

In case you didn't know..

You can comment on my insightful posts about dirty towels, exciting grad classes, what Andrew is up to, etc.  Just click on the comments link at the bottom by the time posted and you can add your thoughts to whatever exciting thing Andy or I wrote about that day!  

Also in case you didn't know...it is officially less than 100 days until Christmas!!!  Yay! Only 99 days left!  Yes, I have already walked through the Christmas aisle at Hobby Lobby, and David, who I work with, also is slight obsessed with Christmas and played us a Christmas tune in the office earlier this week!  I am getting so excited!  We get to have Christmas in Washington D.C., in Kansas, AND in Minnesota! YAY! Enjoy this photo of Andy showing off his Christmas spirit.  (he would hate this by the way....he is very touchy about Halloween and Thanksgiving feeling left out! he he..oh well...what he doesn't know.....)

death by chocolate...

...I should be so lucky! For me its death by 2.5 straight hours of research methods!  Its actually not so bad, I have a good instructor...but 2.5 straight hours in any class is a little much.  

It sounds like Andy was working hard today, putting in some line and did some hiking.  They got to have lunch by a little lake, after which he and another guy jumped in for a short 30 second swim.  Nothing else to report.

Guilty of Neglect

Our poor towels, they are always the last priority when it comes to laundry.  We have so many nice towels, and only me to use them...so they usually have to wait quite a long time before being washed.  They look so sad all...poor things, having to wash all the clothes get washed week after week....and here they lay...neglected.  I even piled them in the middle of the living room today, in hopes that I would get them washed today...but it looks like another week of waiting for them.   

sad really that this is the most exciting thing to write about today....

We should all be so lucky...

So K-State football had the weekend off.  We should all be so lucky....  I was up early (okay, well relatively early) to go into work for a meeting, then have been studying the rest of the day. blah.  That is what I get though for not making time to study during the week.  I talked to Andy a couple of times today...he had a delicious meal of MRE chicken....he sounded slightly less than pleased about it.  He got to swamp yesterday (which means help the guy with the chainsaw, so assist in the felling of trees, and cutting up of other fuels).  He was hoping to get to run the chainsaw today, so we'll see if that happens.  But either way, I think that beats digging line.   And at this point I think any of that beats studying all day...but I may have a different opinion if I actually had to do that all day.  

not so bad after all???

I have recently found myself reading what I previously considered to be...well pointless. (bloggs)  But as it turns out, blogging is an effective way to see what is going on in the lives of those who are in some way relevant to you. who knew?  As much as we believe that people should call, write, and visit to keep up with each other, we are going to try this blogging thing out to see if we can't do a better job of letting everyone know what is going on!  So welcome to our blog!