The Whole Green Family

So many pictures were taken over the last week, but I think I'll start with one of the whole Green family (the immediate family). Ain't we a good looking group?

Home for the Holidays

Hi all. Just a quick hello from family Christmas central. Mom and Dad's house is quite full with everyone home, but Christmas was great fun and we've been able to visit with most of the family. The Cypher's Christmas Eve was at Aunt Becky and Uncle Jeff's and Mom and Dad hosted the Green's Christmas here last night. I hope you are having a wonderful time where ever this Christmas has taken you.

Tomorrow, tomorrow...

...I fly home, tomorrow. It's only a day away! Well, most of the laundry is done and I'm frantically trying to finish my 2005 scrapbook to bring home, so just need to pack tonight. Say a prayer that the Denver storm isn't sitting over Chicago tomorrow evening. Chicago is crappy enough to fly through, I don't need to be delayed.

I joined St. Teresa of Avila catholic church here in Carson City back in October. Last weekend I bought a nativity set from a gentleman after church. He said they were hand-crafted by Nicaraguans...I told him about my cousin, Manon, who worked for 2 years down there. Turns out he knows Manon and even worked with her while in Nicaragua. Crazy. Anyway, here's a shot of the Nativity and my small, yet surprisingly cheery, Christmas tree.

I won't be at a computer tomorrow, so this may be the last post for a few days...probably until after Christmas, so to all my loyal blog readers...I wish a truly Merry Christmas and the warmest wishes of holiday love.

Two...and speaking of reindeer

...days till I fly home. Well, I had to tell Justin goodbye this morning before work because he is leaving to drive down to Vegas to spend Christmas with his family. It was not easy to say goodbye...actually it was downright hard. Next year he's just gonna have to come with me. Maybe have a part Vegas and part Butler Christmas....anyway I didn't like having to say goodbye.

On a happier note, I found a reindeer the other night. Check him out!

Three...

...days till I fly fly away. As I was driving back to my townhouse yesterday morning to meet the plumber (my water pipes froze Monday night...not hot shower for me), I heard this Christmas song on the radio that was so funny that I found it hard to keep Libby on the road. Now I know that it won't be nearly as funny just reading the lyrics, but you'll have to sing it to yourself. Just remember to sing it with a southern drawl...I was listening to the country radio station.

Leroy the Redneck Reindeer

Well you've all heard the story

About Rudolph and his nose

Well I'll tell you a Christmas tell

That never has been told

Well you may think you've heard it all

But you ain't heard nothin' yet

About that crazy Christmas

That the North Pole can't forget

Rudolph was under the weather

And had to call in sick

So he got on the horn

To his cousin Leroy

Who lived out in the sticks

He said Santa's really counting on me

And I hate to pass the buck

Leroy said Hey I'm on my way

And he jumped in his pick-up truck

When Leroy got to the North Pole

All the reindeer snickered and laughed

They never seen a deer in overalls

And a John Deer tractor hat

Well Santa stepped in

And said just calm down

Cuz we all got a job to do

Like it or not Leroy's in charge

And he's gonna be leading you

(Refrain) And it was ~Leroy The Redneck Reindeer

Hooked to the front of the sleigh

Delivering toys to all the good ol' boys

And girls along the way

He's just a down home party animal

Two Steppin all across the sky

He makes jingle bells with the rebel yell

(Last refrain line) And made history that night

Before that night was over

Leroy had changed there tune

He had them scootin a holf

On every single roof

By the light of a neon moon

Santa wrapped his bag with the dixie flag

He as having the time of his life

You could here him call Merry Christmas Ya'll

And all of ya'll a goodnight

Refrain repeat

Four...

...days till Christmas travelings begin. Rob and Luke get there today!

Here's a shot of Justin and Willy from Saturday when we were out sampling up at Tahoe.

Five...

...days till I leave for Christmas

Yesterday's events have left me more sore than I have been in many many moons. My wrists, my for-arms, my quads, my stomach muscles and most of all my butt. That's right, my butt. It's rather uncomfortable sitting at my desk today. What, you ask, is the reason for my discomfort? Well I'll tell you....my first day of snowboarding. Justin has worked hard getting me ready for this day and equipped with a season pass to Mt. Rose, new snowboard boots and a Burton board, I set off up the lift for the first time yesterday. My first run down the bunny slopes (and I don't know why they call them bunny slopes....it didn't feel like a warm fuzzy bunny to me!) was filled with many falls, the first of which came as I attempted to get off the chair lift. BAM! Ouch. Justin taught me the basics of attempting to always stay on an edge and keeping your weight balanced over the board...it's just those little kids that are flying around everywhere I don't know what to do other than bail in order to not hit them! After the first run, I went on a first-timers 1.5 hour lesson. Good move. With only one other person in the lesson, it was very helpful to get some close attention and recommendations. By the end of the lesson, I was able to get back up on the board after falling on my butt (which is extremely difficult, hence my stomach muscles hurt) and go down the hill and stop, for the most part, without falling. Not bad for the first day. Very very tiring though.

Justin took a few videos of me, but I don't know how to post them, so all you get are still images.

If you can't tell, I'm the one with the long hair and khaki snow pants.

Focus, focus, focus!

Justin took the other higher lift up and skied to one of his sampling sites while I was in my lesson. The right picture shows the view from the top.

Eight...and one fun Christmas party

...days until I take flight toward the east!

Last night's USGS Christmas party was pretty fun. I was thoroughly impressed at the number of people who chose to dress up. A few people said they thought I was kinda ballys to send out the e-mail to a strong "jeans and t-shirts" kinda establishment, but thought the way I worded the e-mail was done in such a way that it did not seem I was requiring a dress code, but still left them with the feeling that they just might dress up. Mission accomplished! It was fun to see all the people I work with all dressed up.

Left: Justin and I(with the tie I bought him!) Right: Me, Lynn (USGS guy and the MC for the night) and Justin

Me and my good friend, Teresa

We did a white elephant gift exchange too. Basically we were supposed to bring a wrapped gift of something around the house that we was not needed, but did not know what to do with. The origin is from somewhere in India, I think...the white elephants were revered animals so killing them was a great sin. So the king used to give them as gifts to his enemies. Because they could not be killed and costed so much to care, for their enemies basically turned to financial ruin because they were stuck with with big elephant. Interesting tid-bit. I had a whole stack of postcards I didn't know what to do with and was gonna get something funny to go with it...it ended up being 4 pairs of crazy teeth and a pair of handcuffs! Pretty funny to see people fight over who got them!

Nine...

...bottles of beer on the wall. Doh! I mean days till I go home for Christmas!

Tonight is the USGS Christmas party at the lavish (ha!) Pinon Plaza. Good food, but it's still a casino. We convinced some people that this should be a dress-up event. Time to pull that little black dress out of the closet! I helped Justin pick out his suit last night. No dancing that I know of, although we were tearing it up swing dancing in Justin's kitchen last night! The community college is offering a spring semester class to learn 3 different types of swing dancing. Pretty sure we're gonna sign up. 12 weeks (2 hours per week) of fun dancing? How can a class get better than that??? And the homework will be done at a night club!

Ten...

...days till I go home for Christmas.

This week seems to be going quickly...that's good. Work has been busy; I'm doing a switch back-and-forth from two projects. One is basically a big literature research project on 5 different valleys in Nevada. People from CA, NM, AZ and of course NV are doing this in their states too. The goal is to compare the water-development history between already urbanized valleys to see if we can make some sort of prediction on what may happen if a relatively un-inhabited valley starts to be developed. There's a lot of that going out out west. I've already complete Eagle Valley (valley where Carson City resides) and now I'm working on Carson Valley (just to the south). I still have Truckee Meadows Valley(Reno-Sparks area), Spanish Springs Valley(to the north of Reno) and the Las Vegas Valley. It's kinda neat because I'm learning a lot about the area and the history too. I have to do a cultural history of each valley.

My other project, which is what I'm working on this week, is a numerical ground water model of a small area in South Lake Tahoe, CA. For those of you who know the area, it's in Stateline...where Heavenly ski resort is. I have a model from the mountain front down to Lake Tahoe and about 2.5 km wide. I'm constructing the model from scratch straight from the MODFLOW manual, so it's been challenging. Hopefully it pays off because now that I know all the input files pretty well I'll be able to trouble shoot the problems. We're trying to model the transport of urban runoff and the nutrients from it so we know how much and where it discharges to Lake Tahoe. Keep Tahoe Blue!

Eleven...

...days till I fly home for Christmas!

Oh and notice my addition to the blog site just below my picture. I had it at the bottom of the entries for a while, but I decided it didn't get enough attention.

12 days of Christmas countdown

I know, I know there're actually 14 days till Christmas, but it's only 12 until I get to fly home! I'm really looking forward to being home at Christmas time and getting to see everyone...Even Rob, Melissa and Luke. (Maybe even Sidney, I haven't heard the final word yet).

How many days till you get to start celebrating Christmas?

Heading south

Heading down to Lost Wages, NV this evening in preperation for a 2 day local grid refinement ground-water modeling training class. Should be good and I'm gonna hang out with a fellow UNR/USGS hydro grad that got placed in the Henderson office. See ya on the other side!

Just a cool shot of a stormy sky moving in across from my office.

All in the name of holiday cheerfulness

This year I decided to put up Christmas lights on the front of my townhouse. The idea of using your porch light to plug in the strings of lights is awesome, so I can turn them on and off from inside. Anyway, I don't own a ladder tall enough to reach above the door of my place, so I had to improvise with Dad's famous little red cooler on the top of my two-step step stool. In sock-feet to avoid more unstableness, I finally got the lights up. Nothing too crazy, just something to show my Christmas spirit! :o)