Tuesday, May 21, 2013

First Impressions Have Been Sticky....it's hot here y'all!

We have had a great first week here in our new city for the summer. Both of us have felt like we were on vacation with all of the running  around and eating out we have done.  Wednesday we took things slow sleeping in and heading to the bike store to pick up my new bike that CJ had called to order the week before. I love it, it is the perfect city bike for doing errands and running around.  As soon as we got home CJ put the panniers(bags you put on your bike to carry stuff)on my bike that I had purchased a year ago. I am so excited to finally have a bike they will fit on, they are perfect for errands. With the bikes all set to go we headed off to go grocery shopping! We rode our bikes to the store and filled up our bags and backpacks with groceries for the week and rode home. It was pretty cool. It is one of my goals while we are here to ride our bikes as much as possible for errands close to home. I felt very self-sufficient toting my groceries home with my own woman power(also some of CJ’s man power since he carried a backpack).
 
Later in the afternoon we decided to go for another ride and try to find our way to the city’s network for bike trails along the Akansas river. We finally found them and enjoyed riding unhindered by traffic for an hour or so before deciding to head back home. CJ was excited to see some guys bow fishing for gat from a pedestrian bridge along the trail and intends to try it himself soon. On the way back we got caught in a rainstorm and rode about 1.5 miles soaking wet, but it was a good adventure.
Thursday Annie invited us out to the ranch where she boards her horse to meet her farrier since her horse, Ibby a white Arabian, was getting reshod that day. CJ spent a good hour talking with the farrier asking questions and watching him shoe the horse while Annie and I sat back and watched and chatted and got to know each other a little bit. CJ plans to attend a two week course at a school while we are here to learn to shoe horses. After Ibby had on his new shoes Annie showed us some of his tricks. He is such a well behave horse, very calm and responsive to what Annie asks him to do. Ibby  will follow commands to back up and come forward without a halter or a lead, just with Annie on the ground in front of him giving commands. He also gives a high-five , can do the grapevine and even jumps when asked to. It was a lot of fun playing with him and getting him to perform for treats. He loves peppermints!
 After we left we went over to CJ’s new workplace to meet him boss and see the land he will be working on.  The ranch he is working on is called Bonnesboro after the family The Boones who live there and now employ CJ, yes they are related to Daniel Boone. Compared to the busyness of Tulsa the morning and afternoon out in the country was a little slice of home we were missing. CJ says he gets to “work out in the Boonies” haha, since he works for the Boones. Anyway when we arrived CJ’s new boss, Bill, welcomed us right into his home and offered us something to drink and asked us about ourselves and we all got to know each other a little bit. Their house is beautiful and they are very eclectic collectors, it kind of reminded me of that movie Jumanji.  Bill showed us around each room in the house and was especially excited to share his “man room” with CJ. It was full of guns and mounts and other man periphinalia. They had a great time talking about all of the things Bill has collected. After the house tour we loaded up the Mule and the 4 wheeler to tour the ranch. CJ rode the 4 wheeler and I rode with Bill in the Mule. I was the designated gate opener and managed to step in a huge pile of what I thought was cow poop at my  first gate, it turned out to be just mud.  Bill has about 10 cows that he has always kept just as a hobby.  He says they never eat them, but he did say one was named Chill because she was born on a chilly morning and she would be Chili one day. The cows are of varying breeds, some are long horns and some are a shaggier looking medium horned breed that Bill said they fell in love with when they visited Scotland. Bill showed us around and shared with CJ some of the jobs he had for him to do. The whole time we were riding around I was asking Bill about the wildlife, the flowers , the trees, the little cacti that were growing in the tall grass but he said I would have to ask his wife since she is the Okie and he grew up north of Chicago. I will have CJ take some pictures out at the ranch of the land and the cattle and we will post them later on.
Friday morning CJ went out to ride his mountain bike at a group of trails called Turkey Mountain and in the afternoon we headed downtown Tulsa to an art fair they were having and had dinner at the Spaghetti Warehouse. These are some Art Cars that were driving around town this weekend.
 In the evening we took a walk through our neighborhood and found a nice route to the grocery store. The state fairgrounds are about a block over and they are sparsely populated for most of the year but have nice sidewalks and paved parking lots that we will be able to ride our bikes on. In the evening we wandered over to Bass Pro to get CJ a fishing license and ran across The Robertsons.
Saturday CJ took a ride on his road bike to the river parks and I went to the local farmers market to look around. I came home with a whole bunch of good stuff. 
In the afternoon CJ and I rode to the fairgrounds again to the weekly flea market. We browsed around and then continued on down the road to Whataburger for lunch. It was delicious and new and we enjoyed it. After that we went the the grocery store and bought some food for us to pack in our lunches. I can fit all of this into the bags on my bike!
 
That evening we went and made use of CJ's fishing license at a city park. He only caught one small fish but got the low down from the locals about how to catch more. I enjoyed just sitting in the shade and reading my book.  
 Sunday we went to church at an EFCA church in north Tulsa. Everyone was very welcoming but we definitely missed the familiar faces at Trinity! On the way home from church we stopped at another local farmer’s market and looked around. When we got home the weather was supposed to be getting bad so we sat out on our porch and read books and CJ worked on his bike a little. Sunday evening we spent watching the news closely as the first set of bad storms came through Oklahoma. Annie popped in to say that she was also watching the weather and she would let us know if we all needed to head down the block to the neighbors basement. CJ and I sat glued to the television trying to learn a little Oklahoma geography so we would know what was going on. All of the storms passed around Tulsa and we didn’t even get a drop of rain! We now have a much better perspective on the weather and the layout of the state so when Monday's storms came through we were much more relaxed. I will try to post a bit on the severe weather later.  Thanks for all of the concern and checking in with us since Oklahoma weather has been big news across the country all week.
 
That was our first week here. We feel settled in and comfortable at our house and we are looking forward to a great summer here and looking back and missing all of our friends and family at home.
Love,
CJ and Adrian
 
Here is a teaser for my post about our first week of work, can anyone say tarantula?

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