Front Yard

The house next door to us is unfortunately a rental house and they drive me slightly crazy. The parents are fine, but they have kids that are around my age that are pieces of crap... The other day I came home to a ton of cigarette butts on the ground in front of my house, complements of their son. They also have a large gate with a paved area in the back yard. The son has been moving cars in and out and you can see tire tracks and the weed barrier fabric is getting shredded in their yard. The little brat was also cutting the corner and driving though our yard, so I did a little passive aggressive xeriscaping. I moved some of the rocks from the back yard to the front the make it so they can't easily cut the corner.

I bought pumpkins, but I'm still on the fence on whether I'm going to hand out candy to the little brats this year. Some stupid kid/parent stole one of my lights last year.

I saw a version of this online with stickers and loved it. For a while it seemed like people were always coming around wanting to sell us junk. I found the sign hilarious, but I don't think Brice is amused by it :-) I just printed it and stuck it in an old picture frame.

My mums I planted a few weeks ago are getting bigger. We had a windy day shortly after I planted them and I thought one of them wasn't going to survive, but they seem to be doing well.

Air Show at Kirtland Air Force Base

To continue the eventful weekend with my parents we went up to Bernalillo for one of my soccer games. After the game and lunch we headed out to the air force base for an air show. We parked near our offices and then were bused over to the runway. Just as we were getting off the bus they had a B-2 stealth bomber fly over us. After walking around and looking at some of the planes they had out the Thunderbirds started flying. I didn't take my camera, so here are a few pictures stolen from Dad.

Four Thunderbirds doing a loop in formation

Blackhawk

Bernalillo County Sheriff's Helicopter

Thunderbirds on the runway

Balloon Fiesta

My parents came out for the last weekend of the balloon festival. We got up at 4am and headed to a park and ride location to take a bus to the park. It rained quite a bit on Friday afternoon and late into the evening, so the park was really wet. The winds weren't quite right, so there was a delay in the balloons taking off too. They were supposed to take off around 7am, but it was closer to 8:30 or 9 when they actually starting going up. While we were waiting we talked to a pilot and the crew of the ladybug shaped balloon. It turns out they were in Amarillo this week for the Amarillo festival.

Here are a few pictures from the morning

One of the bumble bees

One of the special shapes. His glasses have the reflection of other balloons

Butterfly and basketball. The butterfly was one of my favorites

Just a few of the balloons in the air

This cow was huge!

Mom and Dad

Cat...another one of my favorites, because he's giving the stink eye

Not much going on

Not much has been going on since I got back from California. We had about ten of my friends from soccer, volleyball, and work come over the weekend before my birthday for a cookout. My indoor soccer team won our division championship game a few weeks ago. I went to Missouri Aug 24-29 and I forgot to bring my camera, so I didn't get any pictures. Jason and I spent a few days in Shelbyville and also made a quick trip to Hermann too. Other than that nothing really has been going on.

San Jose Japanese Garden

Here are a few pictures from the Japanese Garden. It was nice and cool, only 70, so I walked around for about an hour before I headed to dinner.

Waterfall

Weird way to prune a tree

These are everywhere out here. They are planted in the medians and in front of lots of business. There are some mature plants that are pretty big

Looking out over a section of the garden

One of the ponds....with lots of algae growing in it

Santa Clara di Asis Mission

I had some time on Friday evening, so I did a little running around. I heard a lady on the trip out here telling someone to check out the missions, so I figured it may be worth checking out.

More pictures and history can be found on the mission website.

Entrance to a side courtyard

My pictures of the inside didn't turn out very well. I was taking them without a flash, because there was a wedding rehearsal going on. It was pretty neat

San Jose Rose Garden

I got to San Jose, CA this afternoon and had some extra time to burn. I'm here for a rheology workshop that starts tomorrow and runs through Friday. I stopped by the San Jose Rose Garden and walked around for a while. There were acres of roses of all different varieties. They had lots of varieties that I hadn't seen before. Here are some pictures of my favorites.