Monday January Fourth

Well, today Ruth and I started our new jobs. I worked at The Retreat at Austin Bluffs as a MIT (manager in training) and Ruth started orientation at La Petite Academy. She is going to run an after school program for kids starting at 1 year old to fifth graders. She even has her own classroom. It is part-time work for now but it could become a full-time position very soon. It works out great since she is still writing curriculum for the Malawi program for Ball State as a graduate assistant. She is also working on her masters degree in education online through Ball State.

Our friend Josh is here now. He is doing some graduate work for the University of Colorado in Denver and is staying with us while he looks for apartments. We really enjoy having him here. He cooks on Monday and Friday and so far we have played card games, done yoga, and played racquetball together. He really enjoys our dogs as well so when we have free time we try to frequent the 34-acre Bear Creek Park off-leash dog park (which was ranked one of the top 10 in the country). It is an awesome place with a giant hill and a creek. Unfortunately, we have to check Oscar's feet for needles from the indigenous cacti. We also live across the street from Ute Valley park which has great trails and hills. We even took the dogs to the Garden of the Gods and hiked for two hours on the trails and sidewalks around the giant rocks and big-horn sheep preserves.

The altitude may be taking a minor toll on our bodies. Ruth had a migraine over the weekend (first one in years) and I came down with a slight head cold. We've started drinking lots of water in order to subdue these new symptoms and so far it's working.

Tonight, however, we have home-made ice cream and brownies. :)