Still loving El Paso!  Its fun to find various events that are happening.  We had ventured downtown with some friends to see what it had to offer and grabbed this MONSTER of a burrito (only $4.50).  And behind us is the Alligator statue that should be sprouting water I think, but looks like all the water dried up. 

August was fun for the Kartchner family as we had 6 out of the 8 siblings gather at my parents house.  It made for good times.  Unfortunately our camera died (with charger accidentally left behind) so we didn't get too many pictures but here's a few (and somehow I only got pictures of the two girls when there were 11 nieces/nephews around)...

 Talli is a snuggler and I think Jordan was more than okay with that.  :)

 Each summer my family goes on a 3-day cousin hike.  This picture sport the group that went this year, one of our smallest turnouts yet but it was still fun! 

 The landscape wasn't so pleasant, pretty much prickly bushes everywhere, but I still loved it.  Funny how you can love something that is insane and crazy (camping among thorns in triple digit weather and always potential rain) but its all because of the people you're with.  I love the excuse to get together with family and since this is another excuse, I love the cousin campout! 

So August was fun, mostly spent hanging out with the Kartchner's, Jordan starting school, and finding more and more fun activities in El Paso.  But hopefully in September we'll see some Salmon's and my job will pick up (a wonderful blessing, was offered a job at Texas Tech).  Wish Jordan good luck on his first exam in September! 

So we've been in El Paso for a little over a month now.  Besides the heat we love it! (Thank goodness for fudge-sicles).  Here's Jordan in front of our apartment complex. 

As part of entering the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center Paul L. Foster School of Medicine (name couldn't get much longer), they had an initiation (for lack of a better word) with a white coat ceremony.  All medical students are presented with a doctor's white coat, symbolic that they're entering the medical profession.  So here's some pics from that, twas a good ceremony.  Also we were grateful to have Jordan's parents in attendance along with his sister Tara and her family.  Thanks to you all for coming!

(P.S. Before attending the white coat ceremony, we decided to try some authentic Mexican burritos with the Salmon clan.  You can't beat 17-inch burritos for $4.50, so that's the winner of the best burrito contest thus far.  However, take note to NEVER try Chicharron.  Just trust us.  Even Tara wouldn't take a bite.)

 Here's some 4th of July goodness.  We attended the parade with new found medical student friends.  We showed up 5 minutes before the parade started and got front row seats (anyone in Provo jealous?).  Then we had a BBQ dinner with our medical student friends and attended the fireworks.  Here's all we got for pics, just us watching fireworks.  I gotta make better mention at taking more pictures...

Our ward had a temple trip to the Juarez temple so we decided to go (obviously with those who know what they're doing).  So we're very grateful to the couple that drove us there.  We learned a lot from them, how when going to the Juarez temple you simply go straight there and straight back.  No stopping anywhere in Juarez, period.  Unfortunately its a place that isn't safe anymore so no one goes anyway.  There's a lot of people who aren't allowed to go (military or law enformcement) and a lot of people who just refuse to go.  So while there's a ward temple trip each month down there, there's only a small number of people going.  But we loved the experience.  Its just different to have a temple gated with a security guard to let you know.  Definitely not like that in Utah or Arizona.  We got out of the temple late so it was already dark and starting to rain but we thought we'd take a quick picture. 

And we had a fun trip back up to Albuquerque to go camping with Gary, Tara and the boys.  And we forgot our camera...major party foul.  So unfortunately no pics from that trip, but it was super fun!  We are grateful to have family within a 4 hour drive.  :)

And speaking of that, I'll be heading over to the Arizona direction next week.  My sister Cami and her family will be in town, all the way from New Jersey.  We're going to go party hard.  So give me another month (cause realistically that's probably how often I'll post) and we'll have more adventures posted! 

It's official, we're in El Paso! 

It feels a bit surreal to say that or to even be here.  It seemed like it was just something we'd always talk about but I never imaged it would actually come.  We're here for two reasons: so Jordan can attend medical school and so we can find a killer tasting burrito.  Or at least I'm hoping for the later during our 4 year venture here.  So far we're doing awesome.  We hit a small stumbling block on our drive down when Jordan was battling a 2 day headache that wouldn't go away with headache medicine.  After a few phone calls to the good ole Kartchner family doctors we finally concluded he had a sinus infection.  So thanks to those who helped out so Jordan could get relief from his headache and we could get back on the road to finish the drive.  But despite that we're doing fabulous.  The people down here are the most friendly I've come across, makes me feel like I need to take lessons from the Latino community in being outgoing and welcoming.   They trump Americans in their friendliness, hands down.  So perhaps lesson #1 from El Paso would be to becoming more friendly and welcoming to newcomers.  There's always lessons to be learned, right? 

No pictures yet, but I'll change that soon.  Just for now I wanted to give our El Paso shout out.  So far we're very happy at our new home.  :)

We Found the Camera!

We had lost our camera before Thanksgiving, needless to say, our frequency of posting is directly proportional to the number of new pictures we have available to us.  When we moved at the beginning of the year to our current home (Aunt Joyce and Uncle Durrell's home while they are on a mission) we thought one of our cameras would turn up... nope.  Anyway, we didn't have any pictures and no one wants to read my rantings, rumblings and grumblings.  We recently found the camera and now have plenty to post about... at least plenty of pictures to post.  Here's the years synopsis, visually.

Before moving back to Provo, we explored the American Fork area and ended up loving the canyon.  

It was an awesome Sunday drive in the fall time.

This is Annie's garden, she is going to put Cindy to shame when she reaps a great harvest that will be comparable to biblical times.  

This is my pride and joy, took me all of conference weekend to prune these puppies. 

Here's the new home we moved to, would have been a better picture if we still had Jimmer's poster on the front door.

And we finally got the sprinklers working.

This was the beginning of our Vegas trip, we got to fly down there in a private jet.  It was pretty expensive, but well worth it cause it cut off like two hours off the trip.

The pilot was super cool guy, he let us take pictures in the cockpit and even let Annie try steering part way through the flight.

And we made it... 

VEGAS!!!

Can you guess how late we took this picture?  You know what they say, you'll have the best luck gambling when you can no longer think or keep your eyes open.  At least that's what Annie taught me.

A Vacation isn't a vacation unless there is lots of water.

This enormous fish tank was awesome, someone said that they feed little children who don't behave to the sting rays, I'd bet my life savings on red that its true.

Annie was teaching this guy how to do a really cool magic trick, I didn't even know she knew how to do magic.

Annie digs my Juancito look.

That's where were at so far.  I should be studying for the MCAT right now.  Can't burn out yet, I take it on Thursday.