That doesn't happen every day.....

So today began with an interesting start. On my way to work today, I helped pull a woman out of an overturned Suburban in the middle of the highway. Thank God that she was okay (albeit a little shook up), but it was still a pretty adrenaline-pumping experience nonetheless! I didn't actually witness the accident happen, but the best I can piece together is that she was traveling in the opposite lane as myself, got cut off and was forced into the sandy median. When she tried to correct herself, the tires dug into the soft soil and the car rolled. I happened upon her as soon as she came to rest on her roof, and stopped along with 4-5 other good Samaritans to help pull her out. What really irked me is how many people are perfectly willing to drive on by even after witnessing something like that happen. I hear the lines at Starbucks are terrible, though, if you don't get there early enough in the morning.

All ended well though, and I suppose it could have turned out much much worse. She didn't have so much as a scratch, although her Suburban was a little worse for the wear. All I have to say is that Someone was looking out for her today..............

Welcome to 2008!

Well, it's been a while since my last blog post so I thought that I would give y'all an update.

The turn of the year saw Jessie being sent off to ASBC training at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. She will be there for five more long weeks, learning whatever it is new lieutenants in the Air Force learn. Jessie was selected as the leader of her Flight (about 14 people), and is already enjoying long hours of studying in her room everyday. When they're not studying, they are running! So, if you have a few moments of free time, give her a call....I am sure she would love to hear from all of you. For the mean time I am all by myself, but keeping occupied nonetheless. I have lots of little projects around the house, not to mention fixing up the Rodeo a bit. Also, my job is really taking off, and I have been working a lot of overtime lately. It's not too bad though, as I am starting to find my niche at C&D and am really starting to enjoy what I am doing. It looks like they will be sending me to Brazil sometime in the near future to work with our customer Embraer. We haven't worked out all the detail yet, so more on that later....

It's January and our garden is alive and well (sorry to all of you who are suffering through the Ohio snow)! We've already harvested some zucchini, and we have some broccoli and carrots that are about ready to eat as well. Our orange tree is blossoming too, although I think that it is a bit confused since it's not really supposed to do that until the spring.

We finally found our answer to the awful California-stale bread in the supermarkets. A few weeks ago we discovered a little local bakery after church called the House of Bread. They make dozens of types of fresh bread every day, and they are quite delicious. And since the crappy bread is $3-4 a loaf anyway, paying for bakery bread isn't really any more expensive! It's our new favorite place. =)

On a more serious note....
For those of you who are they praying type, please include Jessie's uncle Jim and his family in your prayers. Jim was hospitalized last week suffering a near-total memory loss. He has made some improvements, but doctors are still unsure of what has caused this strange occurrence. Please pray for Jim and his family, as I am sure they will need all the help they can get in the coming days.

Well, I believe that is all for now. I hope that 2008 has found you happy and healthy, and that it will bring much to look forward to for you all. Until next time.....

Merry Christmas!!!

We just wanted to say hello to everyone and wish you a Merry Christmas! Sorry that we couldn't be home this year, but we are still thinking of you. Christmas is a bit strange without snow, but we tried to make the best of it today.....so we went to the beach and made ourselves a "snowman." Don't get too jealous, though. What the picture doesn't show is that the wind was blowing so hard it was difficult to stand, and Jessie's feet turned blue because they were so cold!

Merry Christmas!

Update...

Well, not too much going on in the Stuffel house these days.....but here's a little update nonetheless:

So the Rodeo that we bought nearly a month ago still doesn't have a title. Oh how I love the DMV. One small benefit of the military is that you get to declare a "permanent state of residence," ours of which is Ohio. Now, the nice thing about this is that it allows you to conduct all sorts of legal paperwork through your home state, even though you are not currently living there. So for an Ohioan living in California, this is good, because everything in California is ridiculously expensive.....and this allows us to retain ownership of vehicles, pay insurance, etc. all through Ohio. Which brings us to our current situation. The idea when we bought the Rodeo was to obtain a title transfer and register the vehicle through the state of Ohio, which would save us a butt-load of money and allow us to become exempt from all of the emissions BS that California mandates. Now take into account that I bought the vehicle in California, the previous owner had titled it in Alaska, I am trying to complete and out of state title transfer to Ohio, AND the average DMV worker has the IQ of Forrest Gump.......and you will begin to appreciate how difficult this has become. =) I finally sent off all of the forms that I was instucted to a few days ago, so wish me luck!

Unfortunately, it looks like we will not be home for Christmas this year. =( We really had all intentions of trying to make it, but the Air Force keeps messing around with Jessie's training dates, so we were unable to book any flights. Now that we've waited so long, prices are a bit high. Better luck next time......

And speaking of Christmas, we finally got some decorations up this weekend! There will be no live tree for us this year, as they have to truck them in from Oregon and are all $100+. So our little $15.99 Wal-Mart tree will have to do the job this year.

Merry Christmas, and we are thinking about all of you!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving this past weekend! Jessie and I spent the holiday with my grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins in Las Vegas this year. We had a great time, as it was nice to see family that we don't get to visit too often. The food was great....Grandma won a free turkey dinner (with all the fixins) from a casino drawing, and my Aunt Polly's husband Randal whipped up a ham along with a whole mess of other delicious food. We missed all of you back in Ohio, sorry we couldn't be there too!


For the remainder of the weekend, we mostly hung out with my Grandma and Grandpa. They took us to play bingo a few times, but unfortunately no one was having any luck so we all went home empty handed. Friday night, Jessie and I went out to the Venetian to see the Blue Man Group. If you're ever in Vegas, I would HIGHLY reccomend going to one of their shows....it was amazing! The Venetian itself was pretty impressive as well. It is done up inside to look like Venice, complete with all the shops, canals, and street performers.

The drive home was a bit of a drag....we hit the typical Sunday exodus from Vegas as all of the Californians return home from the weekend. That, coupled with an accident or two, made for nearly a 10 hour journey home. =( Maybe next time we'll just fly.....

New car! (sort of)....

So....today we bought a vehicle. It's a 1995 Isuzu Rodeo, 3.2L V6, and 4wd. It may come as a bit of a surprise (even to us!), seeing as how we weren't even planning on buying a vehicle anytime soon. But, one of the advantages to living on a military base is that people are moving all the time, often overseas, so there is always an abundance of second-hand goods for cheap because people are just trying to get rid of stuff. And that's how we came across this. A fellow a few blocks down the road is moving to some small island off the coast of Portugal, and was auctioning off a bunch of stuff so he didn't have to hassle with putting it back in storage. For now, we'll probably park it and keep driving the Saturn.....but once we have to turn the Vue in this spring, hopefully the Isuzu will be a much cheaper alternative than buying the Saturn after it's lease.

Other than that, there really isn't much new news to report. Jessie is doing well, and I am starting to get accustomed to working at C&D. It looks like we will be spending Thanksgiving with some of my family in Las Vegas this year, and we are still looking for flights back to Ohio for around Chirstmas. We'll keep you all posted once we figure it out!

Got Fog?

This has been what it has looked like at Vandenberg for the past week. Fog from sun up to sun down.....oh what fun. You actually get wet from just standing outside. I actually snapped this picture on the highway, during my morning commute to work today. Hopefully it will clear up before too long, because I'm not sure how much longer I can take of this stuff! Remind me to never complain again when it is overcast in Ohio...... =)