Update

Things are going well in the Stuffel household. Jessie has been back from training for two weeks now, and has continued working her previous job in the squadron. And after not having a kitchen for six long weeks, she's been backing up a storm (which has made her husband quite happy)! We even harvested all of our garden carrots, and made some delicious from-scratch carrot cake cupcakes. =)

Fresh Carrots!

Work is going well for me. We are getting ready to transfer the program I have been working on to our Brazilian facility, so there has been a whole slew of different Brazilians coming and going over the past few weeks. I finally got my passport and visa back from the Brazilian Consulate, so it looks like I will be heading down there sometime in March. It will only be for a week, so I am looking forward to a experience since it won't be a overly-long journey.

The Rodeo project is coming along quite nicely too. I've been spending nearly all my free time in the garage lately, trying to get our new vehicle all back together. I'm nearly done with phase 1 of the project, which was repairing the top-end of the motor. Sometime this week, I should be able to start the second major phase, which will be replacing an oil pressure valve in the bottom of the motor, as well as pulling apart the front suspension and drive train. After that it should be as good as new (I hope)!

And the most exciting news as of late, if you haven't heard already, is that we will be coming home to visit soon! Jessie and I booked some tickets from April 8-16, so if you are free that week let us know. We'd love to visit with as many of you as we can while we're in town for the week. See you soon!

Finally!

Jessie finally comes home tomorrow! Looking forward to taking Monday off and enjoying a long-awaited weekend together. =)

All Wet

Well tonight was sort of exciting. Somehow I managed to simultaneously flood both the kitchen and the laundry room while I was in the middle of making dinner. I guess that's what happens when you are running the washer, dishwasher, and sink all at the same time and the main drain backs up. After a good bit of mopping, and helping the repair man climb up on the roof to snake the drain, everything is back to normal. =)

The weather has been great, and I've had the past two weekends off, so I finally have been getting some work done on the Rodeo. This will be our only vehicle once we turn in the Saturn, so I want to make sure that it'll be running like a top until we have to move again. I finally got down to the valve train today, and am going to start rebuilding the top end of the motor. Hopefully I can get it all back together over the next few weeks!

Body work out of the way

Lots of work to get to this point!

And the best news yet, is that Jessie will be home in less than a week! Needless to say, she is very ready to come home, and I have missed her dearly. It's been a long six weeks, but it's nearly over. =)

7 months later....

Man, it's hard to believe that we've been in California for nearly seven months now. How time files! Anyway, I guess that I don't really have any exciting news to report, just wanted to say hello. Jessie is still in Alabama, and I am still keeping myself busy with working and little projects around the house.

I got my passport stolen last week, which was pretty exciting. I was going through the process of obtaining a visa, because my employer wants to send me to Brazil for a while. Turns out my passport and other information was swiped right off the desk of the person who takes care of setting up all of the travel arrangements for C&D. So, I had to spend several hours on the phone filling out police reports, talking to various government agencies, and all of our financial institutions trying to safeguard against identity theft. Woohoo.

The weather has finally let up a bit here, which has been nice. The past three weeks of constant rain, flooding, and mudslides were starting to get a bit old. If you've been watching the news, you'll know that Alabama, Arkansas, and Tennessee were hit with some pretty nasty tornadoes. Well, Jessie is safe and sound, and luckily was much further south than all of the damage.

That's all for now....!

Rain Rain Rain Rain Rain

So it's been raining non-stop for about a week here, and it looks as if it isn't going to be letting up anytime soon. I was driving home from work last night, and I saw a city dump-truck with a snow plow on the front of it. I thought to myself, "that's odd, I never expected to see that on the California coast." Well, it took me a second to realized that he was, in fact, plowing MUD off of the road.....on account that it's been raining so much that there were mudslides all over the highway! I'm really starting to think that we don't belong on the west coast...... =)

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.....