Last week was busy. I started work, we made it to the circus (more on that later), and it was Valentines Day.
Kirk and I started off the Valentines celebration with a date night on Friday. We made it out to the nicest restaurant in Farmington, called The Bluffs, for desert and wine. It was a nice evening. I decided on Saturday morning to participate in a local fun run at the hospital to acknowledge February as the American Heart month. The race was 3 miles and I did well plus came in as the first female across the finish line. I won an iPod Nano which was great and I'll be sending it to my niece in Phoenix.
Work is going well. I forgot what it was like with the cat herding process in the morning with getting out of the house with Sarah. So far I've been getting my feet wet, meeting people and trying to understand the ConocoPhillips way vs. the BP way. I do miss some of the process and procedure from the BP way but am looking forward to the challenges within this business unit. It's like I'm back in the ol'cowboy days and somewhat reminds me of my early years on the platforms in the Cook Inlet.
On Wednesday, we decided to check out the visiting circus in town. The Jordan World Circus...try to google it and it will come up immediately with a complaint from PETA on the animal treatment. Without knowing that in advance we thought it would be a nice change from our daily routine to take Sarah to enjoy the animals, etc. Let's just say it was the JV of all the circuses. Plus the venue was very small town. The show started out with the ring leader coming out with three women dressed for a Vegas show (hot pink head dresses and all) who proceeded to climb up ropes and twirl around. Thank goodness the elephants were still out in the ring when we first arrived before the show to at least capture some sort of interest from our toddler because the Vegas ladies just weren't cutting it. Oh and their routine was done to the High School Musical 3 movie theme. What? Next up was the lion/tiger show. The tamer looked similar to Siegfried and Roy...dark tan with bleach blond hair and quite the outfit to boot. It was neat to see him handle one large lion and 4 other tigers in a small ringed off area. But the funny part of the act was the music. Kirk and I were laughing pretty hard when the show started out to the Beverly Hills Cop movie theme. The next song on tap was the theme from Indiana Jones. Wow. After the lion/tiger show was the magician who was really there to help fill time. His act was very bad. They could have brought out clowns instead in my opinion. Plus toddlers don't understand why there is a man dressed up to look silly who was pretending to put grown men from the audience to sleep as his act. Oh and that was done to the X-files theme...repeated over and over. Then came three young men on motorcycles who drove their bikes into what they called "The Globe of Death". It was a large cage in the shape of a ball. It was a neat act because they were literally riding around in the ball like little mice. The best part was that act was done to Metallica's "Master of Puppets". Now if that doesn't draw in young children, I don't know what will. The motorcycle act was followed by a small car full of poodles painted pink and blue to perform doggie tricks. Sarah seemed bewildered at the color of the dogs. I must admit, I was too. That's a bit cruel to paint a dog blue or pink. But the best part of the entire show was half time. Not only because we made an executive decision to leave early but also because the main attraction was brought out to center ring. That attraction was a live black bear which Kirk estimated weighed at least 1000 lbs. They sat this black bear in center ring and proceeded to place a small wooden bench next to it. In between the bear and the bench was a 1/4" thick piece of pexiglass. And you, as the general public, could pay money to sit on the bench next to the bear for a picture. Now being from Alaska, Kirk and I thought this was plain crazy. Who would let their small child sit next to a live bear, who granted was being distracted by the constant food being shoved down it's mouth, but still could crush your kids head lickety splickety. But the line for pictures was huge!
On the way to the car, Kirk and I were joking about how that could have been a Visa commercial.
1. 3 Tickets to The Jordan World Circus, $26
2. Bag of popcorn for the family to share, $1
3. Picture of your only child sitting next to a live black bear before the black bear snapped and attacked them...not necessarily priceless.
There are some things money can buy, but why spend it if it doesn't make sense?
We are looking forward to this weekend. Kirk's folks are coming down to help take care of Sarah so Kirk and I can escape for an overnight sans child. We are headed to Pagosa Springs to enjoy the hot springs and ski Wolf Creek. We can't wait!
Here are some shots of Sarah from the past couple of weeks.
Sarah in her hutch. She loves to sit in it with her Elmo doll.
Sarah reading to her new Tigger doll from Aunt Deree and Uncle Jim.
Sarah loves to play hide and seek in the curtains.
Modeling her new summer hat and putting her new sunglasses on her panda bear.
We are doing well otherwise. I'm running another 5k race tomorrow in Durango along the Animas River. It should be nice. Kirk hopes to make it flying this weekend possibly with a co-worker who has expressed interest. Next weekend we are hosting a house warming party and the weekend after that we hope to make it up to Delta, CO to see Kirk's parents and cousins.
Sock Moose gets his turn on the ball. 
Next, we received an unexpected call yesterday. The day care spot we've been hoping for since we accepted the job offers with ConocoPhillips in June 2008 was now available for Sarah to occupy. It's a great place that is very similar to the BP Early Learning Center which Sarah attended while we lived in Anchorage. So, she will start out slow the later part of this week and then on a regular basis starting next Monday. I received confirmation from ConocoPhillips that my start date is targeted to be February 9th! I'll be working part time as an operations excellence/continuous improvement engineer. From the tidbits Kirk shares with me, it sounds like one of my first tasks is to help institute an Management of Change process for the San Juan business unit. It should be a great experience and I'm looking forward to working again. But on the flip side, I'm also very sad to not be with Sarah all day like we are now. I don't want to miss a minute of her growing up. It's that constant internal dilemma for a working mom. At this point we will give it a try and hope for the best.