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Casa Belisle - picture walkthrough...

Enjoy this, it'll never be this clean again...

For the full size pictures - go here: Casa Belisle

Dirt walls of doom...and other exciting adventures from the road.

Driving back from Abilene today (we had to go pick up Josh's car) we drove behind a giant storm formation. It was amazing - black black sky on one side of the road, puffy white cotton ball clouds on the other. This lasted from Abilene to just past Sweetwater.

Past Sweetwater things turned nasty. Walls of dust were being whipped up, and some pretty strong gale force winds had a lot to say about where your car should be on the road. We pulled over at one point and Josh shot a video. I know, crazy to just stand there shooting video but that's my husband. I have never seen walls of dirt like that before in my life. This electronic adventure ended when I stuck my head out the window and hollered: "Josh. Do you NOT remember I have reoccuring nightmares about tornadoes?!?" in a verge-of-panic sort of voice. (Well, I do have nightmares about tornadoes. All the time.)

If anything I have to say that this trip did NOTHING to help dispel those nightmares, because then, we drove THROUGH the wall of dirt. Visibility, nada. Wind, ridiculous. Steer into the wind, like paddling a canoe on a bad day...never thought I'd need that trick with a car. Anyways, came through the wall of dirt but it just kept coming. At one point I looked down a gully I was driving over and saw this rolling angry looking ball of dirt (think indiana jones, but less solid) coming right at my car. Blasted past Josh's mustang at this point, doing 85 on a speed limit 70 road. Both hands on the wheel and gas pedal on the floor. The little red car can move when she has to.

After this point, there was a bit of a lull. Imagine being on a giant open field - nothing around anywhere (really, there's nothing out there, huge flat fields, that's it) and on this huge flat field you're also inside a big hollow column of dirt. You're IN the middle with dirt all around you in a giant circle reaching up to the sky. Where do you go? What do you do?

You drive like crazy until you get out the other side. That's what you do.

Totally weird experience. Never EVER want to do it again. EVER. When we cleared the second wall, as we were pulling into Snyder I called Josh and shakily asked "Did we just drive through, like, a giant tornado of dirt?" We both didn't know. It wasn't a dust devil. I've seen those. If it was, it was like the great grandfather of all dust devils ever spawned since the dawn of creation.

Anyway, then we pulled into Rip Griffin's to catch our breath and check out the dopplar...to make sure we were through the worst of it. Pulling up, we were not particularly comforted by seeing two vans of insane tornado chasers from California. Josh talked to one of the guys in the gas station, they'd been up in Kansas this morning, but headed down our way JUST to chase this storm. (Something's wrong with their brains, that's what I think.)

Turns out that was the worst of it. We had some huge hard rain as we came into Lubbock, but nothing like the dirt wall of doom. Rain I can handle. Dirt wall...no thanks.

Anyway, that was our far too eventful drive back to Lubbock. I'll post Josh's video tomorrow so you can all see the start of the mayhem....before things really got going. (Oh, and Fat Boo, who went with us...he slept through the whole thing. He's getting to be quite a pro at playing Car Cat.)

Safe and Sound,
Love from Lubbock,
Allie

p.s. Just got a call from my friend Juston, who drives a UPS route to Snyder every day. We passed him just outside of Snyder and he was headed into the dirt wall as we were just escaping it. Anyway, he called to let me know that when he drove by, it was wind, dirt and rain all going at once. He was driving 30 mph and couldn't see much. Also, further on, near Trent, there was a flipped semi truck and a bunch of snapped telephone poles and mangled street signs. Enough with the scary already eh? *big sigh of relief* Anyways, I have to say that we're all very thankful to be home safe tonight, that's what.

A moving experience. Literally.

As a quick recap this past weekend we moved from Abilene to Lubbock.

And before I get going....first things first. Many many thanks to Mark who spent hours helping Josh haul all of our heavy furniture down the stairs and into the truck, and to Keith and Amy who unexpectedly showed up with dinner Saturday night and helped us with the last of the stuff. You are all wonderful people and we really REALLY couldn't have done it without you.

I mean that. Moving, our first major move was a grueling experience. I didn't even think we had THAT much stuff. Turns out tho, I was wrong. We do have "that much stuff". We got the truck early on Saturday morning, about nine or so, it was a 26 footer which we both thought would be excessive. See previous comment about "not that much stuff". By the time we got it home, Josh said "I learned to drive on a dump truck and it's all coming back to me." Josh spent the first few hours hauling the boxes I'd packed over the past couple of weeks while I continued packing. After that Mark and Josh took down all the heavy stuff and packed boxes around it. We finished off the day throwing whatever we had left into whatever containers we could find and packing it in the back of the truck. And tho we didn't pack it very high, we definitely used all of those 26 feet.

That night we slept (like dead men) on an air mattress and then Sunday we headed out in the direction of Lubbock. Josh in the truck, Fat Boo and I following behind in the little red car.

Let me just say here that Boo has been a trooper through the whole thing. From Saturday when we kept moving all his stuff he likes to sit under, to Sunday when he endured a 3 hour car ride followed by a 2 hour unpacking the truck adventure at our storage place. He's been great. However now I think he's going through some sort of post moving experience stress - and he's hiding here between the dresser and the bed and refuses, for most of the day, to come out from under the bedskirt. Poor Fat Boo. He's eating again today tho, so that's an improvement.

Anyways, the drive was uneventful and despite the 14 hours it took to load the truck - we managed to unload it in just two and get it all into the storage unit. Then we headed back to the store, had some dinner and called the guy we were subleasing a room from for the next month. We couldn't get a hold of him, which was strange...so we just hung out at Xanadoo for a while and sat. And man did it feel good to just SIT.

At this point the adventure gets more adventuresome. The guy we were leasing the room from called to inform us that he was, in fact, not going to sublease to us. This was problematic as we were already in town, now with no place to go.

In the all's well that ends well file, Josh found us an extended stay hotel that takes animals...and now we're here for a couple of weeks. And we're okay. Or rather, I am okay, Boo is under the bed and Josh is running a 100 degree fever (that he's insisting is going away).

That being the state of affairs, we're going to hole up here tonight, watch old movies (or, at the moment, the Speed channel because there are fast cars on) and take it easy. Stay tuned for more adventures and give us a shout on our cell phones if you want an up-to-the-minute update!

Love,
Allie

Premonition, fluke, or self fullfilling prophesy?

30 minutes outside of Lubbock, after passing a plethora of people on the side of the road.

Allie: Man, everyone is breaking down tonight.
Josh: I have a bad feeling about this trip.

About an hour later...

Josh: What are you thinking Bella?
Allie: Actually, weirdly, I was thinking about changing a tire.
Josh: Quit thinking about that! (pause) Actually I was thinking about changing a tire earlier.
Allie: Yeah, that's probably not good huh?

Of course you know how this ends right? Just outside Merkle our back right tire blew out. Shredded. No warning...other than the weird premonitions we both had earlier in the day.

Josh of course, got out, pulled off the tire, which looked like it had an unfortunate run in with Shredder (TMNT FTW), and put the donut on. I stood helpfully by and handed him things and scouted for drunk drivers that might careen off the road and hit us. (And twittered.) 20 minutes later we drove the last few miles into town on the donut...singing made up songs about the experience.

So hey yeah, life is an adventure. Upside: did fingerprints for USCIS and got back to Abilene safely. Downside: am down one tire. Super huge bonus: Josh is big and manly and can change a tire so I don't have to.

Moving to Lubbock is shaping up to be a tonne of fun! Stay tuned...

Love,
Allie

Oh, and there was also this final dig as we cruised back into Abilene from Tye:

Allie: I've lived here four years and I have never seen this road.
Josh: You don't drive tho. And you're not really known for your sense of direction...well, no, you are. But your sense of direction isn't really known for its accuracy.

Go West Young Man

Yeah, I stole that title from a Michael W. Smith song - but hey, I was a CoC kid in the nineties...'nuff said. *grin*

So if you've been trying to get a hold of us the past couple weeks and have noticed a distinct lack of web presence or availability ... I'm sorry by the way... it's because we're moving next week to Lubbock, TX. (Here's some info on Lubbock for those of you who aren't familiar with Texas.)

I know, this is exactly the sort of information this blog is FOR and I shamefully neglected putting it on here because there were people we wanted to tell first. And then everyone more or less knew, so it seemed redundant.

But I'm not letting that redundancy factor stop me now! So, for those who don't know we're moving because Josh got a promotion/transfer. Instead of being the area sales manager here in Abilene; he'll be district manager over Abilene, Lubbock, Wichita Falls (Texas) and Lawton (Oklahoma). I'm proud of him! It's a lot of added responsibility! He's already started that job - traveling once a week (sometimes twice) to check in at the other stores. As far as I can tell, its been a fairly smooth transition for him so far. But those of you who know Josh know that he's good at anything he makes his mind up to do.

We don't have an address yet - we've been trying to buy a house but have had some difficulty with it. In a nutshell: all the houses we like, OTHER people like as well. I guess that proves we have good taste in houses, but it really isn't so helpful as far as actually purchasing a house goes. Anyway, as soon as I have an address it'll be posted here. We may end up renting for a few months and then buying. That said, our phone number will stay the same, since we have Vonage and can just take it with us when we leave.

Needless to say we're excited - and swamped, trying to wrap things up here. (Prayers definitely appreciated!)

And stay tuned! I'm sure there will be lots of information and adventures to tell about as we transition to a new place and a new part of our lives!

Westward bound,
Allie

Shaman confessions: #1

Confession: In WoW when you hit "lifeblood" flowers pop out of the ground. Sometimes I cast it just to look at the flowers. 'Sometimes' translates to about 60% of the time.

Seriously now...

Allie: So what are the symptoms of swine flu?
Josh: Oinking.
Allie: Rolling around in the mud?
Josh: I don't think you're taking this seriously.

Follow up conversations....

While walking back from the laundry room:

Allie: Man, I have a big pain in my side.
Josh: Are you suddenly thirsty for blood
Allie: No
Josh: Is the sun burning your skin
Allie: Kind of.
Josh: Hrm.

Josh: Just so you know, I think that the the zombie clause applies to vampires as well.
Allie: No way. Totally not the same class of monster. The zombie clause completely isn't prepared to deal with vampires.
Josh: I'm just saying, if I can take you out, I'm gonna.
Allie: Well, since you have a shortage of wooden stakes in the house, I can't say as I'm particularly worried.
Josh: I wouldn't say "shortage" exactly....

One sentence story submission

Just submitted this to One Sentence Story

"After I closed the window and heard a 'crunch' noise, I didn't expect to spend the next ten minutes scraping the mangled body of a now dead bat out of the window with a kitchen knife."

In good news, hey Xanadoo, figured out how the bat got in our house a couple weeks ago!

In bad news, that was really REALLY gross.

Always,
Allie

p.s. Josh says "Hey, one of us actually could have had the chance to become a vampire."

Thanks Josh.

The stars at night, are big and bright...

Yay for adventures, chasing armadillos, flying kites, playing frisbee and having an all around grand time under a Texas sky with Josh!