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Finally home!
Dec. 20th, 2006 02:40 pmAnd thanks for all the birthday wishes, friends!
We went to Phoenix for my birthday, left Cloudcroft Friday AM. Saturday we had dinner with my bestest childhood friend (BCF) Audrey who was also my best man at my wedding. Old Spaghetti Factory is really no big shakes, but we don't have even semi-decent Italian in the Alamogordo area, so it was nice. But the company, stories, jokes, etcetera made it a marvelous meal. We then went and saw Happy Feet, highly recommended, but be advised that it gets kinda preachy.
Sunday was the "official" birthday. We were supposed to go to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
joecthulhu's graduation party Saturday night, but his wife's grandmother passed away and it was canceled at the last minute. Having been anticipating Joe's party, we decided to get together Sunday with my parent's and sister's clan at Lone Star Steak House. Much jocularity. No presents per se, but still lots of fun.
My parents had decided to give me a set of tires for my Matrix for my birthday! Unfortunately I didn't have the Matrix with me, so that didn't really work, wonderful thought though it was. So they gave me a wad of cash instead and I'll do some shopping here once I get my car back (more on that later).
Monday we went for sushi and linked up with yet another friend.
Tuesday we slept in. Russet keeps a very close eye on the weather and saw a huge storm moving in to our part of NM, it was expected to drop a foot of snow. So we decided to spend the night in Las Cruces rather than crossing the San Augustine Pass at night during a snow storm, then having to drive up our mountain, again, at night during a snow storm. My aunt had no prob putting us up, so we had a decent night's sleep.
Driving home today was interesting. It had snowed all over the place, I've never seen the mountains around Las Cruces with snow on them, at least not that I remember. The Pass was totally clear, and we had no problems at all with the drive. Once we started heading up the mountain towards Cloudcroft, you could see that it had snowed everywhere, especially on the cars coming down the mountain. ;-) Initially it didn't look like much snow, but when we started the final ascent to our house, that's when it looked like a minimum of 6" of accumulation, it might be closer to 8".
We got the car unloaded, me in a t-shirt with a long-sleeve shirt over it in 20 degree weather. Fortunately I cleared enough stuff to eventually get my buried coat out. Russet started getting ready for sleep (she works tonight), I got ready for work and headed back down the mountain.
So let's see: birthday take = money from parents, Aunt Maude's Story Book (a great present if you're familiar with the Wallace & Ladmo Show), Alton Brown's Cookbook (version 2.0, complete with refrigerator magnets), a pillow that will provide solace for my sore butt bone, two Tom Tom Club CDs, a DVD of Hell Boy, and an extremely cool music set -- the complete Tom Lehrer! It's a three-disc Rhino edition with a small hardback book featuring an introduction from Doctor Demento!
I'm a happy camper.
And now, the "more on that later" on the Matrix.
When we last left my poor Matrix, the transmission required replacement. Toyota wants $3200ish for a new one. Insurance agreed that it had to be replaced, but they found a rebuilt with 17k miles on it for $2500 less. The dealership doing the repair called today and got my authorization to order it. There's no telling how long it will take to get here, and it is a two-day procedure to replace a transmission.
I probably won't have my Matrix back until after New Years.
*sigh*
We went to Phoenix for my birthday, left Cloudcroft Friday AM. Saturday we had dinner with my bestest childhood friend (BCF) Audrey who was also my best man at my wedding. Old Spaghetti Factory is really no big shakes, but we don't have even semi-decent Italian in the Alamogordo area, so it was nice. But the company, stories, jokes, etcetera made it a marvelous meal. We then went and saw Happy Feet, highly recommended, but be advised that it gets kinda preachy.
Sunday was the "official" birthday. We were supposed to go to
joecthulhu's graduation party Saturday night, but his wife's grandmother passed away and it was canceled at the last minute. Having been anticipating Joe's party, we decided to get together Sunday with my parent's and sister's clan at Lone Star Steak House. Much jocularity. No presents per se, but still lots of fun.My parents had decided to give me a set of tires for my Matrix for my birthday! Unfortunately I didn't have the Matrix with me, so that didn't really work, wonderful thought though it was. So they gave me a wad of cash instead and I'll do some shopping here once I get my car back (more on that later).
Monday we went for sushi and linked up with yet another friend.
Tuesday we slept in. Russet keeps a very close eye on the weather and saw a huge storm moving in to our part of NM, it was expected to drop a foot of snow. So we decided to spend the night in Las Cruces rather than crossing the San Augustine Pass at night during a snow storm, then having to drive up our mountain, again, at night during a snow storm. My aunt had no prob putting us up, so we had a decent night's sleep.
Driving home today was interesting. It had snowed all over the place, I've never seen the mountains around Las Cruces with snow on them, at least not that I remember. The Pass was totally clear, and we had no problems at all with the drive. Once we started heading up the mountain towards Cloudcroft, you could see that it had snowed everywhere, especially on the cars coming down the mountain. ;-) Initially it didn't look like much snow, but when we started the final ascent to our house, that's when it looked like a minimum of 6" of accumulation, it might be closer to 8".
We got the car unloaded, me in a t-shirt with a long-sleeve shirt over it in 20 degree weather. Fortunately I cleared enough stuff to eventually get my buried coat out. Russet started getting ready for sleep (she works tonight), I got ready for work and headed back down the mountain.
So let's see: birthday take = money from parents, Aunt Maude's Story Book (a great present if you're familiar with the Wallace & Ladmo Show), Alton Brown's Cookbook (version 2.0, complete with refrigerator magnets), a pillow that will provide solace for my sore butt bone, two Tom Tom Club CDs, a DVD of Hell Boy, and an extremely cool music set -- the complete Tom Lehrer! It's a three-disc Rhino edition with a small hardback book featuring an introduction from Doctor Demento!
I'm a happy camper.
And now, the "more on that later" on the Matrix.
When we last left my poor Matrix, the transmission required replacement. Toyota wants $3200ish for a new one. Insurance agreed that it had to be replaced, but they found a rebuilt with 17k miles on it for $2500 less. The dealership doing the repair called today and got my authorization to order it. There's no telling how long it will take to get here, and it is a two-day procedure to replace a transmission.
I probably won't have my Matrix back until after New Years.
*sigh*
