Uncle Max's Hospitality

Grandma's house. That statement probably makes you think of apple pie, right? Sure, apple pies are good, but that's not all my grandma makes! We stayed at my Grami and Grandpa Tom's for seven weeks this summer at their house south of Springfield, MO. I joked that she probably made me gain 5 pounds while we were there. She made us all kinds of big breakfasts, lunches, and dinners all the time. One of my favorite breakfasts that is a classic at her house now, is homemade monkey bread.

I almost forgot to mention my Uncle Max. He still lives with my grandma and grandpa, and doesn't like to do anything but eat and sleep. He's kind of plump, and has a little bald spot. Oh, did I mention he's a dog! Yeah, maybe I should've mentioned that first. Well, anyways, we decided that Max was our uncle a few years ago when we noticed that my grandma was treating him like a son. (ha ha) He was sleeping on the end of their bed, eating left-over pancakes and sausage, and going to Wal-Mart with her. So, my Mom said he was being treated like a son, thus her brother, and our uncle.

I had a few knife orders that I needed to complete while we were there, and I had all the tools that I'd gotten in Arizona at Christmas. Tom was nice enough to let me use one of his three work benches to set my tools up on and make the knives. He does stone work, and makes fire places, fountains, benches, arches, entrances, etc. out of marble or limestone. After getting the blades softened by my knifemaking teacher, Tom McGinnis, I was able to get all the orders completed in time.

We went kayaking on Flat Creek a few times with Tom and his fishing buddies, while we were there, too. We cooked out and stopped at some awesome swimming holes. It was a lot of fun every time and we saw a lot of really cool stuff and had a great time. We also went kayaking and swimming on Table Rock Lake a few times with my cousins Cole and Ella. It was so hot while we were there that it was nice having the lake and river close by.

My other cousins Juli and Sean came down a couple times while we were there. Sean, my uncle, Cole, Dad, and me threw tomahawks for a few hours one day. Sean ended up being pretty good, even though he'd never done it before. He tried throwing under handed, then double, then under handed double, and he got them all.

My grandma has a golf cart that she got for hauling stuff around the garden and house. It's got flame stickers painted on it and a little bed on the back of it for carrying bags, boxes, or plants. She lets us ride it all around their property. We even made some trails back in the woods for it, so she could get to the big blackberry bushes. My cousin, Cole, and I made a kind of "rally" race course that we'd ride around over and over again 'til we had it down to every bump and curve.

I really enjoyed our time at my grandma, grandpa, and Uncle Max's house. I can't wait to go back really soon!

Santa Fe, Cochiti Lake, Los Alamos Nuclear Site, and Tent Rocks State Park

Did you know that Santa Fe, NM is the highest capitol in the US? Yeah, it sits at about 7100 ft above sea level, making it the "mile and a half high capitol". (ha ha) We actually didn't stay in Santa Fe, but about 30 minutes away at Cochiti Lake Rec Area, a Corp of Engineers managed lake and campground. The lake is very pretty, but not good for swimming. Even if you wanted to, there are signs posted against swimming in any part of the lake. The reason being is that the Rio Grande dumps into the lake, bringing all the logs and debris it's picked up into the lake. The "camp hosts" when we were there were really friendly and helpful, and they enjoyed
hearing about the owl, and our kayaking adventures (read below).


The kayaking is great! We kayaked from the Rec Area and around into a little cove that was lined by incredible quartz and other chunks of pretty rocks. We didn't even get out of the kayaks and just looked at the rock from in our kayaks. I saw a particularely interesting looking bank that I thought had the potential to hold some fossils. I pulled my kayak onto shore and climbed up the steep, slippery slope 20 or 30 feet until I got to the bank. Suddenly something big flew out of a crevice right at my feet! I soon realized it was an owl after it landed on a knarled pine tree across the cove. Out of instinct I looked into the crevice and saw something I've wanted to see for years but haven't, a baby owl. It pretty much looked like a ball of feathers with two little eyes on the front. The only way to tell that this bowling ball sized baby was alive was because it was heaving out and in like a ball inflating and deflating every few seconds. Laying right in front of it was the product of it's mother's hard work and honed hunting skills, a large rabbit. By now the mother owl was hooting at me every 10 or 15 seconds, obviously irritated. I didn't want to scare her off so I slipped (literally) back down the slope and into my kayak again.

Another day we also kayaked across the lake to Tetilla Peak campround straight across from where we were. The wind started blowing hard on the way back. The front of my kayak scooped up the water, as I went through the waves, like a shovel. Once we finally got back to our side of the lake we faced another challenge, climb up a really steep gravel bank for 40 or 50 feet to get to the road at the top. Dad and I each grabbed the front of our kayak and drug them behind us. I didn't really want to slip because of the large rocks and logs at the bottom of the bank, but unfortunately I was wearing sandals so it was hard to keep my footing. At long last we made it to the top and looked back down the slope and waves we had just conquered. We had fun... and it gave me a great story to tell ya'll.

Santa Fe is awesome! We went there four times, I think, and every time we'd find something else cool.
There are some amazing churches, some that look like cathedrals, and others that look like spanish missions. Somewhere I'd definitely recommend going is the Palace of the Governors. The Palace of the Govorners is the oldest government headquarters in the US. It was actually the seat of Hispanic govornment since the 1600's until it came into the hands of the US. All the doorways are very short to help keep heat from transfering from one room to the next and for defensive purposes. Someone coming through the door would have to duck down when walking through, giving the person inside the room an advantage if there were ever an attack. The "palace" covered several blocks, most of which was a large courtyard in the center, so that the entire city's population could stay inside during a raid on the town outside. There is also a very nice city park which the kids really enjoyed. It has some very unique "toys" that the kids played on. Next to it is a really long walkway with a wooden arch over it. When we were there, vines were just starting to grow around the edges of it. It should be really pretty once it's covered over completely.

My Aunt Mary and Uncle Dave came down and stayed at an inn near the big town square. We went to some of the churches with them and a interesting market being held next to one. At the market there was a man selling fossils from the area. I got talking to him and found out really how many fossils are around the Santa Fe region, a lot! I was really interested, becuase I enjoy fossils and fossil hunting. He gave me some tips and gave the kids each a shark tooth, then we moved on. There are a couple fossil shops in town, each of which is definitely somewhere I'd stop if you like that kind of stuff. The one was more like a store, and the other more like a museum. We also ate at an authentic New Mexican style resturant that was really good, although I'm sure the "authentic New Mexicans" didn't eat like that every day... (ha ha)

We also went to the Los Alamos museum on the history of nuclear research and atomic bombs.  It was incredible!  There was so much stuff to read and look at that we didn't even get to see it all!  I learned some things on some of the displays and short-films that I had never even heard of before or thought was possible.  Something I particularly enjoyed was a little screen with a small wheel in front of it.  First you select which type of atomic bomb test you'd like to watch, then start spinning the wheel.  The faster or slower you spin it controls the speed that the clips of the nuclear warheads exploding plays!  I slowed it down a couple times until it was frame-by-frame so that I could see how certain things (like water, or a house) reacted when it exploded.  It was amazing!

Another cool place we went was Tent Rocks near Cochiti Lake.  It is almost like an alien landscape,
with it's wierd pointed dirt domes, and narrow canyons.  We went out there a few times, and each time we noticed new things.  The wierd "tents" were formed by steam vents from underground lava tubes.  Wherever there's a "tent" is where a steam vent was, although some smaller ones have been formed by erosion.  One of the times we went, we hiked up a slot canyon trail.  It was awesome!  The canyon narrowed until it was no more than a couple feet wide and 50 or 60 feet tall.  It kept opening up into little ampitheatre type areas that had really wierd formations.  Once we got up on top of the ridge, the view was incredible.  We could see Cochiti Lake and everything else for mile and miles around.  We also found lots of Apache Tears up on top of the canyon.  Apache Tears are formed when Obsidian starts to melt into another rock.  They are about pea sized and jet black.  They are also illegal to take, but they're amazing to look at.  Tent Rocks is a must see, I'd say, if you're ever in the area.

We did a lot of stuff and had a lot of fun at Santa Fe and Cochiti Lake. I really look forward to going back!

My New Netbook!

The past few months we've really been working hard on "advertising" our family.  Between all of us we've got eight blogs, three websites, four Facebooks, one Twitter and numerous other projects we're working on all the time.  All this stuff is a great way to get our family and what we're doing out there, but we've had a problem.  All of us had to share one laptop. 

Mom told Hanna and I recently she thought we should really consider getting our own laptops so we won't keep her from working on her laptop.  I had enough money so I started looking into it.  I quickly realized how expensive laptops are.  The cheapest one I could find was about $330 but it didn't have a battery to power it once it was unplugged.  The average laptop I could find ran about $450.  Then I found something I'd never even heard of before, netbooks.  Netbooks are small, portable laptops that are designed for internet use.  They don't have disk drives, which is something I don't need.

I researched netbooks and found the Asus Eee line.  Asus has been a computer parts manufacturer for years, but recently they decided to combine all their great parts into computers of their own.  Asus is now known for their top-of-the-line computers and netbooks.  Asus actually came up with the idea of a netbook and was the first company to make one.


After looking up the specifications of all the different Eee netbooks and comparing prices, reliability, functionality, and performance I decided the Asus Eee PC 1005PEB looked like the best one for me.  It was $330 at Best Buy.  Wal-Mart had the same computer, but with the old Intel Atom N270 processor, for $280.  I then compared the N270 against the N450 processor in the the new one at Best Buy.

I finally decided to go with the one at Best Buy because of the N450 processor.  There were some complaints with the N270 being slow.  I also found I wanted 250 GB of hard drive instead of the 160 GB.  The 1005PEB at Best Buy had that, too

I was still open to a different computer, if there was a better one.  So we went to Best Buy and I messed around with a couple different ones and talked to a guy for a while about how the different netbooks would handle the things I wanted to do with them.

I left Best Buy last Friday with my new Asus Eee PC 1005PEB.  After letting it charge over night like recommended, I fired it up.  From the moment I turned it on I liked it! It is very similar to my Mom's larger Asus laptop so it was easy to learn how to use.

It has Windows 7 Starter which is just a simplified version of Windows 7.  Don't listen to some of the rumors I heard and read online about the Starter version not being able to "multi-task".  I personally have had email, and two blog managers open while doing Windows and Trend Micro downloads.  The computer works very fast while online or running a program.  It also has good graphics and a nice webcam.


Another great feature is the battery.  With the screen on full brightness and while working on it all day, with the engine on "super performance" mode (see below), the battery powered the computer for over seven hours!  I then tried it with the engine on "power save" mode, and the screen on low brightness, although while still working on it all day, and clocked the battery in at about 10 hours!  The engine that I mentioned above is technically called the Super Hybrid Engine.  It has three modes: power save, high performance, and super performance.  Power save mode makes the computer run as efficiantly as possible, high performance runs about average, and super performance makes it run as quickly as possible even though it uses a lot more power.  When I'm plugged in I always keep it on "super performance".

The computer also has three USB ports, an MMC-SD port, and a port so the computer can be plugged into a larger screen or a projector.

All in all, I would strongly recommend the Asus Eee PC 1005PEB to anyone who wants a small, affordable computer that will do just about anything you want it to.  I've really enjoyed this one so far and I know you will too.

The Amazon link on the left will take you to the exact computer I bought, red and all.