2005 - Year End Review

As far as years go 2005 just sits as "just another year". Not my favorite year, but not my least favorite either. Though it was far from a bad year.

Some good things:
*Michael finishing his Ph.D

*Shared the joy with Anya Cano's, Nisha Vishag's, Breanna Brinsfield's, Heather Cluckey's and Jacob Syma's parents as they were welcomed into this world.

*Moved to a big fancy grown up house

*Finally able to live comfortably moneywise after about 7 years of struggles and/or just making it by between the two of us.

*Having fantastic health insurance that we are more then taking advantage of

Some bad things:
*Michael loosing his very last summer break to a stupid chip and dissertation

*Michael FINALLY having to ACTUALLY work towards a degree during the spring and summer

*Moving to a city neither of us wanted to come to in the first place and having it not grow on us

*My half siblings step dad (haha, that could be confusing) passed away

*My brother in laws sweet sister, lost her battle with cancer

*And of course the worst thing that happened in the Pate house and hurt us the most was loosing our almost 7 year old doggie, Hendrix.

Ok, well after reading that it sure sounds like 2005 was actually a pretty terrible year!! hahaha
unfortunately when I think about the thing that stands out the most about 2005 two things come to mind. Moving to Dallas and loosing Hendrix.

Tonight to celebrate who else would we be with besides Mary and Jason!?!?! We are going to their place to ring in the new year. We were invited to stay the night but they have two sweet cats that irritate our allergies to no end, so we might physically die if we stay the night there. So, we booked a hotel just down the street so we don't have to drive the hour home at 1:00 am. Normally it would be ok, but Dallas drivers are so horrible on a normal day, we don't want to be on the road with a bunch of Dallas drivers who are dumb enough to get behind the wheel after a New Year's Eve celebration full of drinking.

Anyways, Here's to the end of another year and the hopeful beginning of the next!!

Bonne Annee
Godt Nytar
Feliz Ano Nuevo
C HoBbim Гogom

And Happy New Year!
Cheers.

Back in Allen

We got back last night about 10:15ish. Our plane landed at 7:45. Thats 2.5 hours from landing to walking in our door!! YIKES! There was a bad accident on the way so we were stuck in traffic for a while.

Enough about that.... heres how El Paso was:

Nice and relaxing. We didn't do much of anything but visit with the family. This was the first time I have gone home and not seen ANY of my friends. Well I saw two (Frank and Jeremy) but only cuz they swung by to pick up my brother. Christmas was fun and we got lots of fun loot to play with us! Santa was very good to us this year. We had a very good time and like always, wherever we go, the time passed too quickly.

Michael is at work today and tomorrow then he has a three day weekend. YEA!

Merry Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

We got in yesterday around 10:30 and were absolutly exhausted. I suppose getting up at 5:00am had something to do with it. We got back to the house, ate and tried to stay up as long as we could but by about 1:00 we had no choice but to take a nap. So we did.

We attended Christmas Eve mass which is the childrens mass and is most of the time enjoyable to see all the 'lil ones dressed up oh so cute in their Christmas clothes. Last night however, church was horrible. Babies criing everywhere, people talking. I honestly didn't get one thing out of the mass besides learning that the childrens mass doesn't seem like something I'm so interested in attneding for a while...at least till we have kiddos, then maybe. I guess most parents just think since everyone else has little bitty kids that everyone there understand that they can't keep them quiet. Oh well. What can you do. Afterwards we headed over to my moms friends house for a little christmas party which is always fun.

Joe got to town this morning and we opened presents and he passed out shortly after. It should be a relaxing day.

Anyways, Just wanted to wish everyone a very merry and joyful Christmas. :o)
So MERRY CHRISTMAS!

4 months

I can't believe we have been here 4 months today already! This past month has gone by very quickly. It is probably a mix of that we have been out of town a decent amount and had our anniversary and are getting ready for Christmas. It seems Thanksgiving till Christmas goes by fast every year though. Not much has changed here in the past month. I think we have finally found a routine that fits us. It had been really difficult juggling going to the gym after Michael got off work and then finding time to eat and have a little time to relax in there, but finally we got it all to work. Michael has been going into work later. Usually he gets there at 9ish. When we first got here, he was getting there at about 7. He makes his way home usually between 5-6 and I pick him up from the train station and we head straight to the gym. By the time that is over it is usually about 7:30 -8:30 depending on what our workout is and we come home and eat dinner watch a little TV and hang out a little bit before heading to bed, then we start all over! :) It has made this a little less complicated now that we kind of know what we are doing on a day to day basis.

We are both still annoyed by how big it is here and honestly I doubt that will change at all. I'm annoyed that on an average day to run 2 or 3 errands it will take me usually about 5 hours. That's too much of my life being wasted on stupid things like going to the bank or dry cleaners and grocery shopping. In Lubbock I could have gotten 2 or 3 errands done in about 1.5 hours. Oh well, I'll put up with it for now. I can't even imagine how we would get anything done if we were both working. The house would be a mess cuz neither of us would want to clean it, we would probably not eat as well and healthy as we do now because neither of us would want to spend the time cooking and we'd never get anything done because we wouldn't have time to do our errands, and finally our evenings and weekends would be completely lost because they would be spent doing all the things that we couldn't get done during the week. Just thinking about it gives me a headache.

So anyways, 4 months down...Hopefully only 8 months to go!! Wow, we only have to do what we have already done 2 more times! I think we can survive that! Once the new year starts rolling we will probably start getting some details of our move and we are looking forward to that!

The Doctor is in

I'm sure Michael has had about enough of being called Dr. , then again, maybe not! He earned the title and should be proud to hear it! Honestly though, I think Dr. Pate was the only thing he was called all weekend long. It was very humorous. We had a BLAST in Lubbock. My mom and her best friend came up for graduation and my brother was there, but of course, he lives in Lubbock. Michaels mom, step dad, sister and her boyfriend all came in, as did his dad. We had a wonderful time getting to see everyone, though we didn't get to spend much time with anyone because we were so busy. We spent little bits and pieces with people here and there.

The ceremony was wonderful. Michael looked all grown up and dignified especially when you saw him standing next to someone getting their bachelors degree. He walked and got hooded in the first row of graduates, then we sat through the rest of the ceremony which was less wonderful and much more boring! Everyone was so increadibly proud of Michael. You could see it on everyones faces and in their eyes. His mom definately won the "Michael's biggest fan" award for the day! Which is very impressive because she beat me by a landslide!! She was so cute, everytime Michael would look up into the stands she would jump up as fast as she could and start waving to him. He would give her a simple cute wave back everytime.



We did Christmas with his moms side of the family Saturday and went to Christmas lunch with his dads side of the family on Sunday. It was really nice for us to have both Christmas's in Lubbock this weekend, and to have Chrstmas in El Paso next weekend because we won't have to miss anyones Christmas this year. What makes it super nice, is that we probably won't make it to any Christmas's home next year and doubt anyone will come to visit us for Christmas, but don't feel sorry for us. We are already planning on a "Christmas in Vienna" or "Christmas in Venice" or something to that extent. Check out this Montley Crew!! (This is Michaels mom's side of the family)



We got to the airport about an hour and a half before our flight left and the girl at the counter was able to bump us up onto an earlier flight. As soon as we went though security we walked right onto the plane. I'm glad we were able to catch that flight. It got us home much earlier.

It was a fun weekend, now we are back for the week. Wednesday is Pate/Partney Christmas at our place and then Saturday morning we head to El Paso for actual Christmas. I think the week will go by quickly.

I have all the pictures from graduation up in our photogallery here : Graduation

Heading Home...Again!!!

We had a really nice anniversary. Though it reminded us why we never ever go out to eat.
1. It takes to long to get anywhere. We were in the car to come home for an hour. How ridiculous.
2. It takes to long to get anywhere...haha...

Michael got off work a little early and we headed to P.F. Changs. We had thought about trying something new and different and local that isn't a chain, but since we eat out usually once every month and that's usually with people when we do eat out, we like going back to old favorites. We ate and ordered cheesecake to go and brought that home to eat with champagne. yummy!

Michael sent me 2 red roses for the 2 years we have been married. The company forgot to include the vase with it, so they are resending me 2 more roses with a vase! So the flowers were like a gift that just keeps giving. I got Michael a nice set of PJs and fuzzy socks! :)

tomorrow evening we are heading to Lubbock. Michael is walking at graduation on Saturday where he will be hooded and become officially Dr. Michael Pate. It's already official, but he will get the piece of paper the proves it! WHOO HOO! Then Saturday night we are doing Christmas with his mom's side of the family and then Sunday it's Christmas with his dads side. It's going to be a very very busy weekend. We will come home Sunday night and rest for a week then heading to El Paso for Christmas. Can't believe its just about a week away.

Happy Anniversary to Us!!

Wow, two years already! Time sure does fly by, it seems like just yesterday!

That's all for now!

Jack Frost Comes to Town

It is FREEZING outside. Yesterday some big "artic" (as they are calling it) storm blew through. It blew around sleet on and off all day yesterday and today left the city under a sheet of ice. Most of the school districts around here closed early yesterday and Michael started his little treck home at about 3:00 as did many others. It was the perfect night for chile so I made a big 'ol pot of that and we watched "March of the Penguins" which by the way is FANTASTIC. Today it is noon and Michael is still at home. The roads are a mess even though there is no snow it is just all ice. Most schools got the day off and up at TI, Klaus (A friend from Denmark that works up there) let Michael know there were only about 10 or so people around there. Sure Michael can take the DART (train) to work, but we have to drive 8 miles to get him there. The ice on the house and some outside started to melt earlier, but has since stopped and everything is still frozen solid.

It seems like the city as a whole takes way more precautions and was more prepared then Lubbock ever was. The thing we found funny though is that everyone was basically panicking before anything ever hit where as in Lubbock the city seems to just go on with life and waits for it to hit and then waits about 5 hours after that to do anything about it. The only thing I could come up with for the drastic difference is that there are about a bazillion (yes, a BAZILLION) more people here then in Lubbock so the city HAS to be more prepared to take care of that many more people. The only other option I have is that Dallas is filled with a bunch of pansies that don't know how to handle ice/snow storms!! So you be the judge: Well prepared because of all the people, or big pansies??

Michael may still head to work before too long, but we will have to see what the roads do. Good news is he doesn't have to take a personal day for this and is able to work from home. TI is the company that would rather have an employee working from home then a dead employee.

Drama in the Suburbs

Ah, life in the suburbs. Everyone has nice houses, kids play in the street, people walk their dogs at all hours of the day, most houses have at least one nice car parked outside, and the streets are made of concrete..yup concrete. Stereotypically in most TV shows these are the neighborhoods that have all sorts of things going on behind closed doors. While I can't say all these houses have something going on, I know at least one does. Our garage (along with everyone else's) is located in the back of the house on a shared ally. (very pretty ally might I add) The house directly across from ours in the ally is having issues. One night Michael was taking out the trash and the couple was in their driveway screaming and yelling. Michael said all he heard was the girl saying something about him hitting her. Well that ended quickly, but since, every once and a while they wake us up in the middle of the night or as we are getting ready for bed, screaming and yelling at each other again, sometimes it sounds like a cat fight, other times like kids. Who knows what's going on over there, but obviously they are having problems. So why am I telling you all of this? Well yesterday I got home at about 2:30 pm from running some errands and took some bags into the house, when I came back out to the car in the garage, there was a cop in the driveway of the house across the ally with his gun out and sticking in front of him, he was moving very slowly and never turned around to me though I was making noise. He walked up the driveway and then slipped in between the house and its neighbor. I came right in, shut the garage door and locked all the doors. I have no clue what was going on or even if it had anything to do with the problems that house has been having. I'm going to keep checking the Allen paper online to see the police reports and maybe eventually I can find out what was going on. While I wouldn't wish this upon my worst enemy it would make me personally feel much better if it was a family violence call and not some reported theft or burglary or something of that matter, especially now that I am usually home during the day, alone with no big black guard dog to protect me. Anyways, this is the first time I haven't felt safe by myself in YEARS. I guess I never realized the extent to which having Hendrix around made me more at ease.

90 what degrees?

Yesterday, December 3rd, the high temperature was yup, 90 degrees here in Allen. Now I guess I could understand that if we were in like in South Texas but we are in North Texas and it is 90 degrees in December. That is just insane to both of us. We were in tank tops coming out of the gym and it was still hot. Today is much better. I suppose a cold front came through overnight and we are looking at a high in the 50s todays. Our friends from Dallas weren't kidding when they told us to expect a very mild winter compared to what we are use to up in the panhandle. I guess next year will more then make up for it so we should enjoy the mild winter and next year freeze during the nordic winter. :o)

We are off to get a Christmas tree now!!!

Survived the First Month

Yesterday (November 1st) was the one month mark from the day we had to say goodbye to Hendrix. It's very hard to believe that a month has passed already! It seems like it was yesterday, but at the same time it seems like it has been forever since he was here with us. We still have our bad moments from time to time, but they are becoming further apart. Everyone keeps offering us puppies or dogs or asking if we are getting another one anytime soon.

Our answer: absolutly not!!

Why?
1. For now, we aren't ready to get attached to another dog and get our hearts broken again

2. Life for us currently is going to be much easier without a dog (Don't get me wrong, we were willing to make things difficult if Hendrix had still been with us). Moving Overseas wasn't going to be easy having him, but we wouldn't have had it any other way.

Thats my thought for the day...