What a beautiful way to wake up on my first married Valentine's Day! (Which also happens to be the 1-year anniversary of our engagement):

A white wonderland world, silent with drifting flakes, and my breakfast already laid out for me.

Yesterday I told Adam he couldn't come upstairs this morning until I came and got him from our room, as I am working on some surprises of my own, but he still managed to surprise me by setting out my Valentine's breakfast last night while I was getting ready for bed. (If it looks low maintenance, it's because that's just what I eat every morning. ^_^)

In this house, one gets used to being surprised - will there be hot water today? Will there be enough solar power to wash clothes? Will we be able to get down the mountain/driveway safely? - but this surprise was sweet and unexpected!

Thank you, most loveable of husbands!

Taking the good with the bad

The BAD news: Yesterday, somewhere between the Wal-mart in Evergreen, CO and the Safeway grocery store in Idaho Springs, CO I lost my cell phone. And while it may be true that I was planning on ending my service before Korea anyway, losing it completely was NOT the plan. And I realize that this shouldn't be a big deal, since I will be able to get a nice, swanky one in Korea, and anyone who wants or needs to contact me has my email address, but for some reason it feels like a very big deal. Probably because I have no idea how I lost it, and I am usually very good about keeping track of my stuff (and Adam's stuff!). Even when I lose something, I usually know when and where it happened.

So: I. Am. Frustrated.

AARRRRRG.

The angst carried over into my dreams last night: I was carrying a big white coat on a hanger as I walked through some stores, and then suddenly it just wasn't there. I kept saying to the store clerks, "this doesn't make any sense! Maybe someone stole the coat from me! It can't have just disappeared! That doesn't make any sense!" I don't know why my subconscious traded my cell phone for a white coat, but there you have it. :)

The GOOD news: Up until the cell phone fiasco, Adam and I had a g l o r i o u s day yesterday! My eyes have been determinedly scouring the mountainous countryside every time we go anywhere hoping to catch a glimpse of some elk. Last time I was in CO, there was a small herd climbing a mountain right beside the highway, so I have been very hopeful. And unsuccessful until yesterday: After stuffing ourselves with some fabulous pizza at Beaujo's, we went for a walk through Elk Meadow Park (which seemed like a good idea for someone desperate to see some elk), and VOILA!

ELK!:




ADAM WITH ELK!:



BIG OL' ELK PRINT!:



On the walk back from our dee-lightful elk encounter, I was so jubilant, I had to make a snow angel:






Not bad, eh?


All in all, a very good day. ...Just don't try calling me any time soon!

Foxy loxy

I've been hearing tales ever since I arrived in CO of a sneaky fox that lures all the dogs away from the house, then trots back to eat their food. I was beginning to think it was either fiction, or he was the Fantastic Mr. Fox himself. But today: Fox sighting!
I feel intensely gratified.
There's something very magical about seeing animals in the wild, going about their natural business. I'm not sure why it thrills me so much, but it does. And now I have a huge doofy grin on my face, watching that fox trot daintily off into the forest, oblivious to my watching eyes.
Here he/she is:

Ok, so ignore that last post.

Nothing ever goes quite as planned, right? Very, very right.

The long story: We were originally supposed to start work in Korea on Feb 8th, so we planned to arrive on the 4th and have a couple days to adjust and settle in. We booked a flight on the 30th from ATL to Denver, to spend a couple days with Adam's mom in the Colorado mountains before heading out on the 3rd for Korea. By January 29th we still hadn't received our visa numbers. There is no Korean Consulate in Denver, so we decided to delay our flight several days and skip Denver altogether, hoping that our visas would arrive in ATL before we were supposed to start work. So on the 29th, we called Delta and cancelled our plane tickets to Denver. Sadly, I know nothing about travel insurance (scratch that: KNEW nothing...) and we were informed that we couldn't get any of our money back for the tix. Oh well, right? Except that within 4 hours, we received a phone call from our future employers in Korea, telling us that the visa paperwork was more complicated than they had anticipated and they regretted to inform us that we wouldn't receive the visas until somewhere around Feb 17th. I began to feel pressure building in my head at this point. We played it cool, but felt somewhat flabbergasted. So now we had 3 weeks to kill, and we had to be out of our apartment the next day. We still wanted to visit Adam's mom in CO, so decided to take a chance that Delta would be generous enough to reinstate the tickets we had cancelled only hours before. Miracle of miracles, that was the easiest part of this whole crazy journey - tickets were reinstated, and suddenly we were on a very very very very very tight schedule! 2 hours before, we thought we'd have 3 more days to wrap up loose ends in ATL - now we had a mere 21 hours in which to pack up ALLLLLLLL our worldly belongings, give everything else to Goodwill, empty our apartment, get rid of our 2 automobiles, sleep a little, say goodbye to friends/family and hop on a plane the next day! It was about this time that I felt like my head was exploding, and Adam had to slap my cheeks a couple times to keep me from hyperventilating. We slept very little that night. :) However, things went almost smoothly, if you discount my car not starting and the tow truck people getting lost on the way to pick it up, and my parents having to swap cars to take us to the airport so my mother could rest before a night's shift of work, and my aunt not having the key to unlock my car for the tow truck when it arrived 20 mins after we left... In the end, though, everything and everyone ended up where they were supposed to be. Adam and I are currently cooling our heels (literally) in a sunny and spacious mountain house in Idaho Springs, CO, trying to recover from lingering colds and waiting as patiently as possible to get those bleep visas. The game plan at this point is to spend an extended layover of 4 days in San Francisco (already a layover on our itinerary), and annoy the heck out of the SF Korean Consulate until they put visas in our passports. We should leave Denver on Feb 16, and leave San Fran for Korea on Feb 19th. ...God willing and the creek don't rise.

The short story: Due to complications beyond our control, all our former travel plans had to be canned, we left ATL earlier than expected and are now enjoying sun and snow in CO until Feb 16, when we will fly to San Francisco to get our visas, then fly to Korea on the 19th.

...God willing and the creek don't rise.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh, That felt nice. It's been a crazy crazy past 4 days, and I definitely needed that long-winded rant.