Colorful Fall 2009!!

Many have requested and their finally here......Fall Foliage Pics!

One of the things we love the most about Vermont is how beautiful it is here in the fall! Of course the fall is virtually over here now, but for about 1 or 1.5 months there are so many different shades of colors everywhere. It's like living in a box of crayons, kinda. It's difficult to really do it justice in the form of pics because it all depends on the weather that day, the time of day and where the sun is. Some of the trees that are really pretty have traffic signs next to them or telephone lines running through the branches, etc. Many of the trees are not just one color, either. They'll be red on the tips, then orange, then a little yellow and still green in the middle of the tree. Or many of them are half and half depending on where they get most of the sun. Half of the tree will be bright orange and the other half green as can be.

The following pic was taken at the beginning of the fall season from the top of the building Greg works from. The university campus is right in the middle between the building Greg works at and the main hospital buildings that Tyra works at. It's a really beautiful campus. The main hospital is comprised of many big buildings you can see some of them in the pic. They're the big buildings in the back to the left of the pic behind the tall bell tower.

The picture below is the building that Greg works at. Even the ivy gets color!

We went on a small drive, as we try to do every year, to see the foliage. The hills/mountains have so many colors. There are some Evergreens mixed in here and there, and some trees have already lost their leaves.

This is a road really close to our house that leads to the beach where you can have a picnic or there are baseball fields and an enclosed ice rink for year-long ice skating/hockey.

Phillips Training in Seattle - Sept. 09

A week or so after our trip home in September, I was one of two in the ultrasound department selected to attend extra training on the Philips IU22 ultrasound machine. We have 2 in the department and that entitles 2 to get trained on the in's and out's of the machine. So Philips flew me and a co-worker to Washington state for a 2 day training seminar. They provided everything from the hotel room, to transportation ,to meals. It was a quick trip and a little hard to get used to the 3 hour time difference but we ate a ton and learned a ton and had a good time. We were pretty dead the first day with the jet-lag, but after the 1st day's class, we went with 4 or 5 others on a quick bus ride to Seattle.

Views of the city from the car ride from airport to hotel.
Two large stadiums.

A large market. Unfortunately, we arrived after most things were closed and put away. We were able to see some of it and could image how it would be in the main hustle and bustle.

Small fruit stand.

When someone buys a fish they toss the fish over the ice to the other workers so they could package it up.

Huge fish!

I wasn't able to get a great pic of the space needle, this was the best one. When I did get a good view, I was in the car and kept getting other cars in the way or a tree would come into view just as I pushed the button. It was a little frustrating. So this was taken from the city side so I could only see the top. It's not as big as I thought it would be, with all the huge buildings around it.

Pretty a dusk.

For you Twilight lovers out there!

If I had a rental car I might have driven up to Forks for some pics. I'm sure they get that a lot.

We watched the sunset. So pretty!

It was a nice quick trip and we learned so much. We couldn't wait to get back and try out all the cool things we learned.

The Ultrasound Department recently bought 10 new GE E9 machines so ten of us will be going to a similar training session on those new machines over the next year. I'm on the list to get to go, so I'll post some pics when that happens. It will be in Milwaukee. Never been there before, so hopefully I can find something fun to do or see while I'm there.

Roastin' them up!

We made sure to get as much green chile as we could in our suit cases to bring back to Vermont! You just can't get great Mexican food here and most people don't even know what green chile is. So every year both of our wonderful parents ship as much as they can over to us to fill our freezer for the year. We really have appreciate it!

Greg roasting it on the grill. It smelled soooooo good!

Here they are all roasted up.

We let them cool and froze them for later. Now we can enjoy them all year long!

September Trip Back Home!

We recently got to take a trip back home for about a week. We won't be able to go home for Christmas this year, since Tyra has to work and the flights are so much cheaper at off-seasons, that we decided it was a good time.

We'd really been wanting to make the trip to meet our new niece. Greg's brother, Jason, recently had a beautiful little girl, Melanie Lane at the end of July. We have lots of pics of the sweetie and her older sister Kaori below.

We were able to spend some time with most people while we were there, but some not enough, and some not at all! =( The trips always seem to fly by too quickly!

It was weird being home and not getting to see the Mullins clan (Tyra's sister and fam). We missed them moving to AZ by just a few weeks!

We did manage to have a little bit of the same on our trip home. We can't (or rather Tyra can't) go to El Paso and not eat at Chico's Tacos!!

She must have been having some sweeeeeeet dreams! Or just gas!!!! Either way still cute

She may appear to be crashed out, but any little noise or sometimes nothing seemed to wake her up.

There's Kaori in the middle of a dance routine!

There's a pretty little girl!! Look at all that beautiful hair!!

For Tyra's birthday, some of both families took the drive past El Paso to Cattlemen's Steakhouse in Fabens, TX. We saw a show on the travel channel that was highlighting the steakhouse and neither of us had ever been there. So we had to try it! It's a working ranch with a petting/feeding zoo, a rattlesnake pit, and a couple of old movie sets from movies that were filmed there.


As you can see below, Janet, Kaori, and Rick are all too eager to go check out the animals in the petting zoo!

It was really wonderful to have my Grandma in town for the birthday celebrations. The timing was too perfect!

There's a couple of cuties!

And there we are! Bring on the delicious steaks!!!

Funny lookin' llama! We only got close enough to take the picture. Too afraid it'd spit! No petting that thing!

Nice Texas rattlesnake

The ranch and patio's had some beautiful scenery!!

We highly recommend trying the steakhouse out if you haven't already. It's a little pricey but meals could easily be split between 2 or more people because they served huge portions!

_________________________________________________________ We stopped by to visit my Aunt Lisa and Uncle Jason in Deming, NM one day. They moved out there a couple of years ago and completely renovated an abandoned home. It's really beautiful now, and we're amazed at what they've done out there! The pics below are of the giant greenhouse they've set up where they grow the most delicious tomatos on vines without soil! Jason sells at the Farmer's Market most weekends in Las Cruces as well as other various places.

Of course, we couldn't leave the southwest and not take back some chile with us!! We were running dangerously low, and I mean dangerous! I was scared!

Aren't they pretty! I'll bet they'll taste awesome.

August 2009 Weekend Trip to Boston

We decided to take a quick trip to Boston one weekend in August. We left early Saturday and headed to Boston. It's about a 3 1/2 hour drive but it's pretty along the way so, felt like shorter.

We started out walking the Freedom Trail. It's a 2.5 mile red-brick lined walkway, though it felt like a lot longer! The trail starts out at the Boston Common park and leads you through the city of Boston by a red-brick line on the sidewalk. Along the way are various historical landmarks, buildings, monuments, etc.

Here's the line we followed through the city, neighborhoods, the market, up hills, over bridges, etc.

This is a really old and small cemetary in the middle of the city with all sorts of big modern-day buildings all around it. That's something I thought was unique about Boston; the city kind of grew around the cemetary and old buildings.

There were numerous famous and historical gravesites here. This one is Paul Revere's Memorial and the one below is his actual gravestone which is right next to the other.

Other gravestones include: Boston Massacre victims, Sam Adams, Ben Franklin's parents and John Hancock.

Most of the gravestones were illegible and slanted 1 way or the other.


This is the Old State house. It was the capitol building and the site to many historical speeches and events that lead to the revolution including the Boston Massacre, which began just on the other side of the building.


Here's the intersection where the Boston Massacre began.

This is Paul Revere's home. We took a tour through it but they didn't allow photography so, can't show you that. Sorry!

This is the Old North Church and the statue is Paul Revere. The 2 shuttered windows are the two windows that Paul Revere hung the 2 lanterns to alert the patriots that the British were coming! (by sea)

Up a steep and long hill and over a bridge, then up another steep hill and we came to the Bunker Hill monument. For those who don't know, Bunker Hill was the site of the 1st major battle of the Revolutionary war.

One of Boston's pretty harbor's with the city behind. Believe it or not, the trail started way over there!

This is where we ate dinner that night. It was pretty good seafood, but we thought it was a bit over-priced. After dinner we went to a comedy club. There were 4 or 5 different comedians. We didn't know any of them but they were all pretty hilarious!

This is outside the Aquarium. We stopped by here Sunday morning. They have a huge 3 story salt water tank, with stairs that wind up around it. The tank had all kinds of fish as well as sea turtles and sharks. There were a couple of feedings while we were there by some scuba divers. There were also 2 huge open peguin habitat areas and a smaller one. Each had a different type of penguin in it. It was all pretty cool!

Greg made several attempts to get that perfect Jellyfish picture. The one where there is no doubt of what that thing in the picture is. Finally, here it is!

This funny dude held out his wing the whole time we were watching him.

There were tons of them! It was really fun to watch them interact with eachother and with the workers cleaning and feeding them.

Here's us at Boston harbor by the Aquarium.

After we went through the Aquarium we drove through some of the neighborhoods and then around the Harvard University area. We didn't see much of the University because it's surrounded by a tall brick wall with various arched gates. Fancy!

We headed back to Burlington and got back in time to make dinner and start the week again. It was nice to get away for a quick trip.