And The Winner Is

It was the soon to be annual ugly Christmas sweater party this weekend! The winner of a extra special prize pack was Ryan Crater and his lovely ensemble of quality embroidery and feather light collar embellishments.



In at a close second was Clint, with an epic Armani sweater featuring Santa himself hand sewn to the deep V.


Other than that, it was a good evening with around 25 revelers. Some bonus shots follow

Enter Winter

 

Well it’s been quite a while since I posted last, but Aprill has been on me to catch up; so here we go….

The Remainder of Summer

 

Summer went quick.  It was definitely hot and dry up here in the desert.  We settled in at the house and mostly stuck around town.  Aprill started training for a half-marathon she is running in February… and she has drug me along for the ride.  We’re just getting to the long stuff… right when it is turning winter, but more on that later!

 

I made it up to the mountains a couple times for some fishing.  I have a friend over in the Seattle area, so we get to meet up in the middle.  We hiked in for a few miles to a backwoods lake back in August, then did a dump camp/ kayak trip a few weeks ago.  Our success with the trout was questionable, but fun nevertheless!

 

We had a little yard sale too, to get rid of some our our extra stuff. Our friend Ashley got in on the foray as well.  We had a good turnout and made about $300 among us, so no too bad.

 

Aprill and I took dueling vacations, her to Virginia for a friend’s wedding, me to Louisiana for football.  Both good trips (minus a heartbreaking loss to LSU)

The Present

That pretty much brings us to this week.  It was Aprill’s favorite holiday, Thanksgiving!  We had a small crowd, there were 5 of us total.  But we made a huge meal of all the classics.  I got to roast my first full turkey, and we all ate ourselves retarded. 

As a Thanksgiving miracle, it’s been snowing for almost a week straight.  And been darn cold!  It’s early in the year for the weather… and it’ll be mighty old in a few months if it holds up, but it’s pretty nice for now!  The worst part though, we’ve been seasoned for decades to believe that when it snows, you get snow days.  Well, that’s not exactly how they do things here.  The pictures above are from our big 1.5 hour delay from the start of the work day! 

We rounded out the weekend with some decorating, and some hot chocolate.  Even some shopping (we have done all we can to single handedly stimulate the economy!).

So that’s it.  You are now up to date on the epic journey of the Jivelekas family.  We hope you had a great Thanksgiving, and that you have a great next round of holidays!

-Adam & Aprill

We're In!

So after a very long weekend of sorting and sifting, it's finally time to relax. We got darn near every box unpacked and every thing in a place to call it's own. We still need to lay a few gallons of paint to cut through the beige... and get some wall art in place... so let's call it all the wall stuff... but we have at least got passed the tape and cardboard and have graduated to project space.

Go check out all the pictures if you're interested... http://picasaweb.google.com/adamjive/WeReIn#

All the best--

Adam

Summer Camping

Well, we closed on our new house last Friday. Spent the weekend moving a few things over, but the movers don't show up till tomorrow....




So we're camping out on the first day of summer! No tv, no Internet ( except the phone that is), just the gentle sound of sprinklers raining down life into the wild fields of desert fescue.




So let's raise our margarita glass and celebrate the simple things in life, like wishing there was a couch to sit on!

-- Adam

Location:Richland, WA

Update From the Desert

So if you look way back to my first post (Eric), I warned you upfront that I could not be relied upon for regular updates to the blog... but finally, without further ado I give you... a new post---





Well, it's been a very quick month trying to get settled in, so I'll do this thing by topic so I don't get wordy on you.

WORK




The least fun of the topics, but the reason we are here. Aprill is off and running at the office since she is really doing the same thing as before. As for me, I'm heavy in the learning curve... still trying to find my place in the office and doing more than my fair share of reading and training.



Don't want to bore you with the mundane regarding day to day stuff... but I will tell you about what this place is all about (cause it's pretty nuts). We're working as part of a DOE project to clean up the area where the first plutonium (and a lot more after that) was made for use in atomic bombs. The reservation is about 2/3 the size of Rhode Island and has 6 or 7 reactors along with dozens of support buildings.





So yadda yadda... all of the production has stopped, and there isn't much left here but a mess. Making this stuff created thousands of tons of radioactive waste and all the buildings are teeming with contamination... not to mention some of the stuff the buried in steel drums and tanks is leaking towards the river. So the goal here is to take all this stuff down and get everything contained and into long term storage (like 1000 year storage).

So we work as part of the support folks to make sure it all gets done safely. And that's like 75% of the work here, safety... like the plant I am working at literally shut down for the last two weeks because of some small(ish) injuries (ok, one was kind of major). So we probably waste some of your tax dollars here (and thank you for that), but at least we make sure your tax dollars don't kill anyone (glass half full?).


Chillin'
So while work is all well and good, fun always seems to be better. Between happy hours on our three day weekends, an extra long kayak trip, and even a batch of margaritas in a coffee pot we've managed to stay pretty entertained.




This weekend, we actually had a full 4 days off... so I figured, why not spend a day on the water? Well I suckered Aprill into a 4 hour, 14 mile kayak trip down the Columbia river. It was relitivley scenic (don't mind the power lines in the picture :/), and the river was cruising for the first 10 miles... then it widened up, and the last four miles took an hour. About 24hrs later, Aprill can't bend her arms!



So I guess other than that, the only really noteworthy weekend was the local brew jam. It was the most expensive beer fest ever... but all this Northwest beer is something special (no offense, South)


Living


Well, we're gluttons for punishment and just couldn't take apartment living much longer.... so we're in the process of closing on a new house (and in case you're wondering, no our other still hasn't sold). Hope to have that wrapped up mid-month... so you'll probably hear from us again around then!

--Adam

Wine Country

So this is my first post as a resident of south eastern Washington. Out first weekend was pretty good, my photo collection isn't really up to par, but I can at least tell you 'bout it.

Aprill and I kicked off our weekend with a 10k walk for the march of dimes. We did this with a few of her friends she has made in her time here over the last couple of months. The town we are in runs along the Columbia river, and for the most part, there is a long park that runs the length of the town next to the river... And thus, the walk made a loop around a portion of this park.




But as for more entertaining info: we apperently live in the Napa equivelent of the Northwest (i.e. Mom, whenever you come to visit, better make enough time for 2 weekends!). So the remainder of the weekend was filled with wine tasting and enjoying the good weather before the real hot stuff kicks in.





This is a portion of the new crew.... (L to R) Adrianne (local), me, Aprill, Darren (southerner), and Ashley (local). Really, it's just a good thing Aprill had roped in some good folks... after landing in town, for a couple days I think it's safe to say I felt a long way from home! But nothing like a weekend of wineries and views to settle down the nerves.

Tomorrow makes me officially a member of the workforce again. So wish me luck, and have a great week!!

-- Adam

Location:George Washington Way,Richland,United States

Made It

After a slight delay in order to get some much needed rest, I am now following directions from my facebook hecklers and providing an official "we're here" post.
How about some driving stats?

Miles: 2900 (even, wow)
Gas Mileage: 25.2 (we had a rooftop box that put a hurtin on our little car)
Gas Used: 115 gallons
Time on the road: 43.5 hours
Traveling Days: 6
Carsick dogs: 0 !!
Bugs Splattered: ~35,000
# of times I plan on making this drive again: ~0





So we made it shortly after my last post and got settled into our new temporary home. It's a pretty nice little apartment all furnished up. Hopefully we can strike a deal to stay here after the company stops paying for it while we wait for the house to sell (which at this rate will be sometime in 2015).



So here we are in the Tri Cities in south central Washington. So far, I really like the town(s). Aprill had made it out to be pretty much like Hickory, but it's far from it. Population is probably ~ 200k in a pretty tight area. So it really feels like a large suburb (really reminds me of Richmond). It's strange though, because it's a suburb without a city... it's more of a suburb in the middle of farm land. As far as we know, the main industry is the DOE work (which is what we are both working on), so thank you for your patronage to the IRS!

The pictures above are from a hike we took to the top of the local hill (and it was pretty tough, poor carter isn't moving much today!). There was one other picture that I couldn't get because it was a bit to hazy, but you can see Mt Rainer from here... and wow it's big. We are probably 150 miles away and it's still the tallest peak on the horizon. So if she blows... well, lets hope she doesn't!

Well, I'll add to this every now and again to keep you up to date. Hopefully I can post some pictures of some monster trout sometime soon!

All the best,
Adam