Happy Birthday Ken!

Friday, July 22 was Ken's 30th birthday! Thank you to everyone who called or sent a text or posted on Facebook. We had a great time celebrating and I wanted to share some of the birthday festivities with you.

I took most of the day off and we celebrated Ken's birthday by having dinner with some Tucson friends at a really cool place in downtown Tucson , called the HUB. We also had a relaxing evening just hanging out and playing card games. Today, we continued spoiling Ken by going to Kitt Peak National Observatory (about 75 minutes away from Tucson) and taking a tour of the world's largest solar telescope. Ken had been wanting to take a tour for several months and this was the last weekend we would be able to. We had a really good time!

A 2 meter telescope
View from Kitt Peak

From inside the solar telescope
The world's largest solar telescope (and the world's largest sun dial).

As most of you know, Ken and I will be moving to the Austin area in August. Ken will keep running his business and is also hoping to get involved with new work activities, such as game development. Austin Texas is a great area for the types of work Ken would like to do. So, as one way to show my support for his pursuit of these new opportunities, I decided to have a custom business card designed for Ken by our good friend, Mike:

As you can see, the card has a similar theme to Ken's website: http://www.kenpruiksma.com/

Below is a link to the video of Ken receiving his gift. As you will see in the video, Ken was very pleased! Thanks Mike!!!!

Here's how it went down: I pulled up the design on Ken's computer and opened a video chat from his computer to the laptop in the dining room (just around the corner). Then, I turned off his monitors and spied on him from the laptop. I also placed our camera, that has a record function, non-chalantly on his desk and turned it to record before he came downstairs. As you will see in the video, he was a bit confused by my set-up and he noticed some things (like his monitors being turned off) that I thought "Morning Ken" surely would not notice (those of you who have seen Ken in the morning surely know what I am talking about...perhaps the cinnamon rolls that I made him stimulated his brain enough to make him a bit more observant than usual). The video here is a compilation of the views I got from the camera sitting on his desk and the video I took on my phone. Enjoy!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYLBlL4NCzo

Biosphere 2

Jace and Jan stopped by for a visit on there way driving back from meeting baby Vernon during Spring Break. On this visit, we decided to take Ken to the Biosphere II. The Ensor family had visited this strange place about 18 years ago. At that time, there were several scientists actually living in the facility while it was sealed off from outside resources. Here's a link if you want more info-http://www.b2science.org/. I remember seeing the people in there so it was really creepy when they let us go inside this time. It was a lovely visit with Jace and Jan. We will miss living so near to them!

Hmmm so there are 50 gallon tanks on BOTH sides of the Biosphere.....

Gem and Mineral Show

Ok, this post is LONG overdue, but here we go-

back in February, we went to the Gem and Mineral Show here in Tucson. This is the largest Gem show in the WORLD! People from all over the world were there and booths were set up all over town. It was really fascinating and a dream come true for Ken's inner child :-)

I got this beautiful bracelet- the flowers are carved Jade.
Ken successfully bargained with a vendor and we purchased this piece of Picture Jasper for our home.
I'm telling ya, the stuff here was just crazy huge!
Yes, those are coffee tables made from huge geodes. These things were selling for a few thousand dollars each!
If we were going to be staying in Tucson, we definitely would have made some people come visit to go to the show again. It was really cool!

Aspenfest 2010

The weekend of October 2, Ken and I went to Ruidoso for the annual Aspenfest Parade to enjoy the festivities, visiting with lots of family, and nice mountain air. It was a fast weekend, but was a great time!

On our way to get breakfast before the parade. Nat could contain herself!

Like mother like daughter

The whole crew in the Aspenfest bus....as you can see it was still too early for Ken. I had to hold his head up.Baby Micah and his cute self warmed up the crowd before the parade starts. He takes after his uncle Micah and his Papaw:

Gathering the candy in their festive little tutus:


The chair kept folding up on Katie. She thought it was funny:






At the house enjoying time with Mammaw:





PRECIOUS!!!

Jace and Jan Visit Tucson

We have had a relaxing and adventurous weekend with Jace and Jan. Jace and Ken got to be as science nerdy as can be with a visit to Kitt Peak which has the largest group of large telescopes in the world and to the Pima County Air and Space Museum that has over 300 air planes. All within just a few miles of Tucson! Unfortunately, we didn't make it to the Biosphere this time ;-) Thanks for visiting us, Mom and Dad!!!