Life in KANSAS!

Today was a big day for us. We said goodbye to my beautiful car. We had decided with the winter coming up and everyone saying how bad the ice is around here that we wanted another 4 wheel drive vehicle. My car was the perfect Florida car, but we didn’t think it’d do too well in the winter here. Also, going to work I have to go over 4 railroad tracks, which, with the rims on my car I had to go over really carefully and the whole way to work there is always a lot of dirt or small rocks on the road which was also bad for my rims. Because of this, I have mostly been driving Chris’ truck to work anyways because a truck can handle all that.

We decided another truck would be better for the living conditions here and began looking for a used truck several weeks ago.  We ended up getting just what we wanted for a good deal. It’s a 2003 Ford F150 Lariat Crew Cab FX4 and has about the same mileage on it as my car did. We did a ton of looking online at used trucks in the area and went to see a bunch of different ones, but we ended getting this one from the local Ford dealership.

Here’s a veiw of the Lariat interior:

We are happy to have our new truck and I think it’s practical for us to have, but we were both sad to leave my car behind… I cried when I pulled my car into the Ford lot and handed the guy my keys. That car has been awesome for us: going to the beach, to and from college, back and forth from internships, and all the way out to Kansas. We will miss it!

Kansas cold fronts come with some awesome clouds. It can be a little scary when you see clouds rushing towards the ground. This picture was taken from our parking lot.

Here is the sky after a Kansas rain shower came through town.

Tonight we inaugurated our grill! We cooked out on it for the first time and Chris made some great hamburgers!

We also used the side burner to make baked beans. It was a little chilly out but not too cold to use our grill. We got to hang out with several of our neighbors while we cooked, so it was a fun time.

At six o’clock in the evening it was 39°. A cold front came in last week a brought these wonderful temperatures with it. Last night on the western side of the state there was snow and it was definitely cold enough to snow here, but it didn’t.

Horray for winter! j/k

Here’s my work life for at least one week a month for the past 3 months… And much more to come. Houston, the fourth largest city in the US with a population of 5.6 million. Here’s a picture of my commute back towards my hotel.

And a picture of the traffic I sit in mornings and evenings. Makes me miss Lawrence, where my commute is 7 minutes when I steal Chris’ truck and take the dirt road…

Can’t wait to be back home with Chris today after work!

Last night I got to go see Allie again! Madelyn, Kurt, and Chris were especially jealous that I got to see her. She is really sweet and even smiled at me a couple times! She has gotten bigger as you can see from the picture, but she’s still littler than Link! I tried to get her to stand up like Link, but she was not interested. She laid perfectly happy in her little bouncy chair while Jessica, John, and I ate dinner at their house.

She is doing well just being a baby and waking her mom and dad up at night.

Here are some great pictures that our families took from this past weekend of our cousin, nephew, and niece dressed up for fall festival. It looks like we have a Tampa Bay Buccaneer, Yoda, and a kitten.

Look at all the candy Allie got! Must be because she’s so cute!

A bunch of people have asked me how Max was doing. Well, he is doing just fine. I am still walking him everyday and he is still very much a puppy. He is a very funny dog sometimes. He has a super short attention span and when you’re walking him he sometimes (and by sometimes I mean always) forgets and lays down no matter where he is. He also loves to eat leaves. I’m not sure if he likes the sound they make or the way they taste. He recently learned how to use the stairs, he can go up and down by himself.

Oh, he got a playpen last week so that he can stretch his little legs whenever he wants. He is a lot more happy now that he doesn’t have to be in his cage all day.

Last week when we got back from Florida we noticed that the leaves were beginning to change around town, so we decided to take some pictures of Fall foliage…

This yellow and orange tree was the best one we’ve seen. It’s color was really breathtaking and vibrant in real life. It is actually in someone’s front yard, but we pulled over for a picture.

Here are some little maple trees with red leaves. We have some just like it in our apartment’s parking lot.

This is not exactly a “Fall” tree, but it’s a neat picture Chris took:

We hope you enjoyed these “views of Kansas Fall.”