Al's Boo-boo

I just got home from picking up Al at the vet. He had surgery yesterday to correct his left knee that was suffering from a luxating patella. This is when the knee pops out constantly, and in his case, is rarely in the correct "socket". He's doing great, and these pictures are just too much.

In the last photo, I took it upon myself to "dress up" his "cast" a bit.

Pre-Birthday Festivities

Chris and I spent this past weekend at Disney's Beach Club at Walt Disney World, and enjoyed Epcot... two nights in a row! He had a great time... or so he's told. Here is some proof:

One:


Two:


Three:


SNORE!!

Happy Birthday, Grammie Scrammie!

Grandma turned 88 years young today!!

Ew

I think I have a blister UNDER my toenail on my right pinky toe. I think that is why it is so angry and hurting.... I will "investigate" this later when I get home tonight.

Shoe Shopping Frustration

So I went to the Premium Outlet mall that is nearby my office after I left work yesterday. I went into FIVE shoe stores, and didn't buy ANY SHOES! So, my feet again hurt today :( I'm wearing a more comfortable pair of shoes that have a lower heel and a more roomy toe, so I'm ok for the time being (meaning, until I leave work), but I'm still going to want to look later on. Maybe our local TJ Maxx or Ross stores have some ballet flats or something? Ones that are COMFORTABLE...

OWIE!!!!

Please help! My pinky toe is really not happy... I need some comfy work shoes that I can do at LEAST 8 hours in (plus a 45 mintue drive each way), and possibly be still OK if I want to take a quick jaunt to the mall or something after work without having to remember to bring a pair of slip-on tennies with me in the morning.

I need to commit myself...

...to updating this more often.

It's been a while...

Things are kinda quiet right now. Not much new, so not much to write. My parents came down to visit in late May. That was a lot of fun. We saw the new Pirates movie... LOVED it. But, I've loved them all :) We also went to the Epcot Flower and Garden show with my folks and enjoyed a "Behind the Seeds" tour of the Land Pavilion. That was pretty fun. We also went on an airboat ride where we saw oodles of gators, cows and even a bald eagle!

Up next is Lauren and her family. We'll be spending time with them this coming weekend. I'm really looking forward to that!

Oh, and another thing I'm REALLY looking forward to is my parents and brother are coming to FL for Christmas this year... YEAHOOO!!!! I can't tell you how happy I am about that. Last year was the first Christmas that I didn't see them. It was a nice, quiet Christmas, but it will be great to have them all with us this year.

Hula Dogs!

We are bored people... 'nuff said! :)

I got lei'd... twice!

Aloha, people!

Since I can still hear the ukuleles playing Aloha 'Oe in the back of my mind, I can't help wanting to share this with anyone who is reading my blog. I wrote this to post elsewhere with our photos, but it is appropriate for my blog as well. I apologize for no pictures yet, I'm still working on going through all of the ones we took, taking out bad ones, duplicates and changing the orientation of the portrait photos from landscape. I'll post again with a few photos when they're ready.

We started out at the Mauna Lani Bay resort on the Big Island near Kona for five nights of our trip. We did a "bed and breakfast" deal that gave us a full breakfast each morning, omelets to order, etc.

Big Island - Day 1 - We arrived after 8PM HI time. Upon check-in they gave us beautiful orchid leis. I was quite impressed, but at the same time a little sad at the orchid "carnage". I mean, they can be testy buggers to get going, and to think that there were probably upwards of 50 blooms on my lei, made me feel a little bad - that is, until we went to the gardens around the resort and saw that these suckers grow like crazy in HI. :) We went to our room and it was beautiful. There were deep dark wood sliding doors over the closet, bathroom area and over our sliding glass door that opened to our balcony overlooking the Pacific.

Big Island - Day 2 - Resort and Pool. We woke up to the sun pouring into our room and the blue water lapping about 50 yards our room. We weren't able to see much the night before, so to wake up to a breathtaking view of the ocean in front and Mauna Kea rising up to the right. Very beautiful resort. They had all kinds of natural ponds all around the resort that they would open these "gates" that would let in life from the seas. Then, they would shut the gate and "lock" the fish in. The first floor of the resort had small sea turtles and just outside and below our balcony was a pond with sharks! I would watch them flip their tails back and forth through the water as I sat on our balcony.

Big Island - Day 3 - Resort and Golf. I don't golf, but Chris does. So, he brought his clubs and got a tee time. I decided to ride along with him in the cart. A first for me. He's been telling me how good he is and it was really fun to finally watch him (I really have absolutely no interest in golf). The course was beautiful and it was really lovely driving around in the fresh air along the coastline. Before the tee time Chris and I walked around the resort and took some pictures. Oh, which reminds me. BUY A TRIPOD! It was great having it. We didn't have to stop every other person to take pictures for us. We just set up the tripod and got some great shots (we think ;)

Big Island - Day 4 - We drove to Kilauea, the island's active volcano. We left early in the morning and made a number of stops. We overlooked at Waipio Valley (which is in the opening shot of Jurassic Park), then stopped at Akaka Falls (waterfall drops 420 ft), then stopped at the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden which was breathtaking. They had a whole section dedicated to orchids! We finally made our way to the Volcano National Park to see how Pele (the volcano goddess) was feeling. We drove the Chain of Craters Road to the lava flows. It was surreal. So much dried lava! We stopped before the flows and parked our car and walked to the point where sometime I think in 2002 (?) the lava flowed over the road. So, we have pictures of the road covered by lava. Pele was feeling good, so we were able to see three glowing flows coming down the mountain. Good thing we decided to go in the evening when you could actually see the flows glowing!

Big Island - Day 5 - Resort, swimming and snorkeling. We hung out at the resort, snorkeled, did some shopping. There wasn't a whole lot to see when we snorkled, but we went out to the closest reef and did see some tropical fish. My favorite was the state fish, the Humuhumunukunukuapua'a (I spelled that without Googling! In Hawaii, you pronounce EVERY letter in a word, this makes spelling quite easy :) We also had our best meal on the Big Island at Brown's at the Orchid Hotel - next to our hotel. If you ever go to Hawaii, you HAVE to try the poke. If you are not familiar, it is like sushi salad! Yum!

Big Island to Maui - Day 6 - We hopped over to Maui to the Whaler Condos in Lahaina. Chris's parents have a condo there. Other than the almost rollercoaster of a puddle jumper plane ride to Maui, the day was pretty lazy. We hung out at the condo, got settled in, and went grocery shopping for the week. Word to the wise... Chicago style pizza on Maui isn't very good ;)

Maui - Day 7 - We had rented a Jeep first day we drove to the top of Haleakala with Chris' parents which was beautiful. Afterwards we went to dinner with Chris, his parents, his sister and her husband on the beach watching a breathtaking sunset.

Maui - Day 8 - We went snorkeling at Molokini Crater and another reef just off of Maui and saw sea turtles and other great ocean life. On the way back, we were treated to an impromptu whale watching site. We saw a mamma whale and her baby just off the Maui shore. In the evening we had a family dinner at the condo. Very relaxing!

Maui - Day 9 - Golf and Girl time. Chris, his dad and Chris’s brother-in-law all went golfing while the girls hung out at the condo. His sister Melissa and I did some shopping and I got my nails done. That evening Chris and I went on a "date" to dinner. We ate at a restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton Maui, near the condo. The restaurant was on a terrace facing the ocean. It was lovely!

Maui - Day 10 - Road to Hana. Chris, myself, Chris’s sister and her husband all road in the Jeep on the road to Hana. A twisting and turning 63 mile white knuckle ride with some 300+ turns with breathtaking scenery. It truly was amazing. We stopped a few places along the way. Hana itself isn’t much, but a few miles past there is the Oheo Gulch with the seven sacred pools of water. They’re basically waterfalls that empty into cascading pools which all eventually ends up in the Pacific. Staggering beauty for sure! We also became more familiar with the local rodent, the Muskrat. That evening, Chris’s brother, his wife and two kids made it to town (Chris’s parents were staying an extra week after we left). The next day was sure to be action packed family fun (and it was!).

Maui - Day 11 - Golf, pool and luau. The guys (Chris, his dad, bother and brother-in-law) went out for another round of golf. Us ladies hung back at the condo where we had some good pool time (you’ll notice my quite rosy cheeks - the only time I came close to a sunburn the entire trip, thanks to the continuous spray sunscreen, SPF 50 we bought!). Chris’s mom and I went to a local needle craft shop where I bought some local cross stitch designs and when everyone came back to the condo we all got ready for our big luau. We went to the Old Lahaina Luau, we saw it on the Travel Channel as a feature before we left, and as luck may have it, Chris’s mom booked that as our luau experience. It was said on the Travel Channel to be the most authentic luau on the Islands. When we arrived, we were greated by the staff with flowers for all the ladies for their hair and another orchid lei. I felt a pang of guilt again for the orchid carnage, but that was quickly alleviated by the open bar and all you could eat pork, fish, veggies and poi. We had a great time. What a way to put an exclamation point on an already wonderful vacation!

Maui - Day 12 - Return home. Funny thing, on our way back home, we had a flight from Maui to Kona back on the Big Island (that’s where our round trip ticket to the mainland was). When we checked our bags all the way to Orlando in Maui but when we returned home, we found out that our bags weren’t quite ready to leave the Islands yet. In fact, two of them found their way to Honolulu on Oahu. I’m very jealous. I would have loved to go to Oahu if we had the time this vacation (we’ll just have to go back someday!). Not fair that my shoes were able to be there without me! We got all of our bags back within a few hours of returning home, so no harm, no foul.

My volunteer/charity thought

Ok, so my thought is, but blogging about this and putting it out there, maybe I’ll actually do something about it. Here it goes.

So, as I’ve posted before, I’m somewhat of a crochet enthusiast. I love it. Seriously. It is kinda scary. So, I’m thinking of how to use my powers for good. I mean, I guess it is usually good. I’d say about 90% of the things I make, I make as gifts for others. I think there are only a few scarves and maybe three small cross-stitch items that I’ve kept for myself. But, I think there is more than giving this stuff to friends/family. I mean, I’d still like to continue with that. My baby afghans always go over really well with people. But I still think there is more.

There are a NUMBER of local and national charities out there that will accept hand made crochet items (FYI, anything crocheted is only ever hand made… they haven’t been able to come up with a machine to do the crochet stitching as they have for knitting).

Here is a list of charity projects and usages:

• “Lapgans” for the elderly that are taken to nursing homes and given to the residents
• Small, medium and large pet blankets that are donated to animal shelters. These are given to the animals in their crates and then the animals are able to take these to their new home with them when they are adopted; it is nice because then they have something familiar in their new home. These are great because they can be made out of hodgepodge scrap yarn.
• Preemie caps babies – sometimes warmth is what is needed most.
• Chemo caps – for children and adults.
• Afghans, mittens, socks, scarves and hats for the homeless
  

So here is my thought. Working for a large company, I’m wondering if I could start in our IT department and host some “stitch and bitch” sessions. These sessions could be for new or experienced stitchers. Hopefully I can find a knitter to pair up with too. At these sessions we could bring our projects to work on and chat, or start new projects. If you are a beginner or don’t know how to crochet/knit, you could learn from the experienced folks. A progression I would see would be starting with a pet blanket to donate, moving up to making a chemo or preemie cap.

Wish me luck!!

Take the world in a love embrace...

Getcher motor runnin'.... head out on the highway! Lookin' for adventure... in whatever comes our way!

He's born to be wild, this one. Christopher bought a motorcycle. We don't have it in our posession yet, but we've won the eBay auction and have contacted the owner. We'll likely take posession of it by mid week.

We are now the proud owners of a 2005 Kawasaki Vulcan Mean Streak 1600. Here's a picture of the new toy. I'll update again with a picture of Chris on it once we have it. I'm sure he'll be more than happy to ham it up in his new helmet, gloves and jacket :) I'll also be sure to post a picture of the bada$$ Vermont Teddy Bear Chris gave me for Valentine's Day. All in the spirit of his new passion!

Now, the big question is, should I get a PINK helmet for myself??



Funny, I just noticed that my 'do rag (with skull and cross bones) in my profile pic looks pretty sweet next to the new bike! :)

I'm a yarn whore...

Oops, I did it again! No, I didn't shave my head ;) I bought more yarn! OMG, I have such an obsession with it! This past winter, I started branching out from my afghans and bought some books on how to make crochet scarves. I've now made maybe 8-10 of them, and they were (if I do say so myself) kind of a hit! I gave a few to my mom while we were in Europe (where else would someone from FL use a scarf??) and I wore a few there myself. We both got loads of compliments on them... Mom told me that she got more compliments when she got back to PA, so now my head has swelled :) Anyway, what I did AGAIN was to buy up yarn at Big Lots. Yes, I said BIG LOTS! Chris and I were there a few months ago (before Christmas) and they had all kinds of yarn that they had bought up from some distributor and were selling it (name brand stuff like Lion Brand, Bernat, Patons, etc) for $1-$2. I bought it up like crazy. Well, yesterday we were out and near the Big Lots so after we ran some other errands I requested a Big Lots stop, hoping that maybe they would have more/different yarn, but thinking that the chances were slim. After all, Big Lots is a close-out store, and they get what they get and usually you don't find the same thing there twice. Well, I got to the area (near the greeting cards) where I found yarn before, and they still had some. I assumed that it was the same kind that I bought up on before, but went to check to be sure. I was wrong! Yes, there were some that I had seen before, but there were LOADS of new kinds too! So, I showed them to Chris, and he agreed that I should buy up on this too. The same yarn I found there is sold in JoAnns and Michaels for anywhere between $5 and $8 a skein, depending on what brand and type.

Here is a few scarves that I made before... I really should take pictures of the others that I made that I still have.

I'm getting a free haircut!

As I write this, I'm "fighting" with my bird because he is wanting to give me a free haircut. He loves to preen my hair. He nibbles off the ends when I'm not paying attention and when I finally catch on to what he's doing and pull him away, he lunges at me and grabs another clump of hair in his beak and trims away. Normally I wouldn't mind a free haircut, but in my opinion, Franco is only concerned with the clump he is currently working on, and does not have a vision of what the final cut will look like. I've now put him on the desk, and he's working on shreading up some travel notes that I took for an upcoming trip. He's such a busy bird!

Nothing else is really new, that's why you're hearing the tales of Franco ;) Have a good week!

I’m old and out of shape!

Yes, I have discussed getting older this year. Yes, I know it is lame to complain again. But, here I sit, two days after working in our garden and I’m sore. Seriously. My arms, my quads, my hammies, my abs. I’m sore. I’m out of shape and it is sad.

Saturday I took on a “chore” that I actually enjoy. We bought new rose bushes and hibiscus plants to put in our flower beds around our house. There were some failed attempts at starting up some hibiscus from a mail order company, but those little guys weren’t very mature, and I think our dry winter did them in. So, I dug them up (that wasn’t hard, they were pretty small) and replaced them with more mature plants that we bought on sale at Lowe’s. Good deal! I also weeded the beds and pulled up some other plants from the previous owners that either irritated me (some things grow like crazy here and are impossible to control) and others weren’t doing so well. The up and down was a good bit of work, but I felt good.

Then, I had a great idea. I saved one hibiscus (a larger one) to put in our back yard along with the new rose bushes. We had 10 small rose bushes to plant, and I decided that I would finally uproot these monster plants in our back yard. I have no clue what these things are called. They’re gynormous green plants that sprout clusters of tiny purple flowers that the bumble bees (those big fuzzy guys) seem to looooove. Eventually, these plants have orange-y berries on them too. Oh, they’re awful. I hacked them back in the summer this past year, and when I waged war on them again this past weekend, they were thick and as tall as the gutter on our garage (in some places). I should say first that I uprooted two of these buggers in our front yard. They were on either side of our steps to our porch. They weren’t quite monsters… I’ve hacked those down a number of times and the other bushes have engulfed them, so they were (relatively) easy to uproot. The ones in the back? Not so much. It took me forever to get them up. There were a total of four plants. Two HUGE ones and two medium size ones. I first chopped them down from their tall height to about two foot tall, so there was less to deal with. The pile of cuttings took over about a 6’ x 6’ area of our yard! I was able to get the first of the huge ones up and out of the ground after I removed a smaller one first. Even the smaller one was pain. I used a shovel to dig it up and then used a pruning tool to cut the thick roots so at least I could get up the main root ball. Ugh. Did the same thing with the first big one but it was nowhere near as easy. Pulling and shoving and everything else. Oh my! Finally I got it up with most of the roots after about an hour. I then ripped up the smaller of the two remaining and rested for a bit. I puttered with getting the roses ready to be planted and cleaned up some of my other mess, repotted some violets and the such until Chris returned from running some errands.

Chris has a lot of experience with doing lawn type stuff. His dad owns his own landscaping company and Chris used to help out when he was a kid/teen. He was a maniac. Within about 10 minutes he had the final massive root ball up. Then, he showed me how to swing a pick axe correctly to break up the remaining roots and till the soil. Wow, I’m so out of shape. I went gang busting on the little garden! Now I’m paying for it. I should have stretched first or something. Anyway, in the end I have a pretty little 10’ x 4’ (or so) rose garden. I’m hoping to plant some bulbs this coming weekend to finish it off. We already put down the mesh and mulch, so I’ll just cut through the mesh to plant a few bulbs. Too pretty, but wow, I’m sore!

Not much new...

I was waiting until something interesting would happen this week to write about and share on my blog, but nothing has happened that is blog-worthy. Hmph.

In my boring news, this should be a relaxing weekend... I'm looking forward to some outdoor fun tomorrow. I bought some new roses and hibiscus for our gardens and a bunch of new violets for inside the house (I have a "mild" obsession...). Hopefully I'll finally get to going through boxes of old decorations and getting rid of what I haven't unpacked since I left Seattle and reuniting myself with some things that I've long since forgotten about. I'm sure I'll find a treasure or two that I'll want to hold on to ;)

I'll write again when there is something a little more interesting to write about...

Another Year Passes...

This past Saturday night I coughed, sneezed and sniffled my way into starting my 32nd year on this planet. I celebrated my 31st birthday.

Actually, it wasn't as bad as that. To be honest, it was really pretty great. Chris really made me feel so special this past weekend. He's such a great guy! :)

After a hair appointment (ha - got my "hair did"), Chris and I checked into Coronado Springs at Disney. There, he asked if I wanted a "January 27th present" (being that my birthday is actually the 28th). I said yes, as long as I would still have something to open (even if it was the card) the next day. He said he had a few things for me, so I opened gift #1, large garnet earrings - YAY! I had told him I wanted garnets (my birthstone) for a while.

We then went to Victoria and Albert's (Disney's highest of the high end restaurants) for dinner. The meal was amazing. Really. 6 courses and they printed menus specially for us with our names as keepsakes of our special evening. Mine even said "Happy 31st Birthday!" We had all kinds of interesting food from buffalo to elk to quail. YUM!

After dinner, we headed back to our hotel room for a quick change and friends of ours (Anna and Dimitri) met up with us for some fun at Pleasure Island. Nothing too crazy, just a couple of beers, live band and some snarky comments between us girls as we marvled at the clothes that "young girls wear these days", reminiscing about our younger days and going to clubs and parties. I would put on a pair of BAGGY jeans, my cleanest white t-shirt and my BEST flannel shirt... add a pair of Doc Martins, and I was good to go! The girls we saw were all wearing backless, deep v shirts with boobage overflow, miniskirts, THIGH high spike heel boots and flat-ironed hair. Ew.

Sunday was fun as well. Chris gave me my other presents of cushy crochet hooks, knitting looms, a super large pen (was cute) and my ultimate gift, a new Michael Kors hobo bag - yay! We spent the day at Magic Kingdom, with me wearing a button that they gave me for my birthday. All day long people were saying "Happy Birthday" to me. It was fun.

Here are some photos to compare.

This is what 30 looks like:

This is 31:


I don't see much of a difference, do you?

Despite all the fun, I'm still battling a cold. Not sure what's up with it... runny nose, headache, sore throat and cough. I'm also losing my voice (I hope Chris isn't too happy about that! :)

I have a new friend - a dolphin named Lester!

Chris and I FINALLY redeemed the gift card that he gave me for my 30th birthday last year. Just in time, right? I mean, it isn't like my bday is now less than a week away! ;) Anyway, he bought me a gift card to go to Discovery Cove (http://www.discoverycove.com) here in Orlando. Discovery Cove is a small park owned by the Sea World folks (or maybe just affiliated with Sea World...) where you can have interactions with many different kinds of marine and bird life. The focus point of the day was our swim with a dolphin. When you arrive, you are assigned your dolphin swim time for the day and you end up breaking up into groups of about 8 for a dolphin interaction. Lester was a thirtysomething dolphin (kind of an old guy by dolphin standards) and was short and stocky. WOW, it was like I was meant to be his friend! :) He did a few tricks for us, "talking" on command, waving to us with his flippers and tail, letting us give him a "dolphin carwash" (where he swims by you and you get to rub him down). He posed with us for still photos as well as photos with us kissing him on his bumpy snout. The best part of the visit was him allowing us to swim with him. One hand on his dorsal fin, and one hand on his flipper and he swam us about 100 or so yards. It was way too cool.



Above: Me and Lester taking a swim

Below: All of the dolphins in our session... Lester is on the far right.




Also at the park we swam with and fed stingrays. Their barbs are cut so there is no risk of injury to the human visitors (it isn't painful, kinda like cutting your fingernails). They also had a coral reef where we got to swim around and see all kinds of fish and more rays (devil rays that weren't with the stingrays). They had a resort pool that was 85 degrees (which was great because it didn't quite reach 70 on Saturday when we were there - we were wearing full wetsuits, but it was still a bit chilly) and a warm lazy river to enjoy. The final part that they had was a bird interaction area where you could feed all kinds of interesting birds, big and small. We went in twice, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Some of the birds were really huge, but I think my favorite was the small bird area. A little "mouse bird" from South Africa stole my heart. His name was Captain Jack and was the sweetest little thing. I fed him and he curled up in my hand and took a nap. Too cute! I just hope Franco isn't jealous :)

Yesterday (Sunday) we went to Sea World for a day. It was great. I have to say I was very impressed. I'm usually quite a Disney snob, but Sea World really exceeded my expectations. So much so that we upgraded our day pass to an annual pass! I can't wait to go back!

First post on Google Blogger

Ok, so I guess I'm about to finally admit that I am a "thirtysomething". Wow, that sounds old for some reason, but in just over a week I'll be 31. No longer a magical 30 or "in my twenties". 31. Blech. Ah well. Moving on.

I'm home from work today. Not really by choice. Well, I guess by choice. I mean, I could have gone to work in what I would term "agony" for the day. I have (yet another) UTI. Ick. Ouch. I'm finally able to sit comfortably for a little while this afternoon. I'm on the mend though. One round of daily antibiotics in me already and pizza tonight for dinner and I should be fine to go to work tomorrow :) Moving on again...

Chris and I are back and adjusted again to life in Florida after our amazing trip to London and Paris with Adventures By Disney - Land of Eternal Knights trip. If you ever have the opportunity, I HIGHLY recommend it. The trip was wonderful. From the time we were wisked away from the Gatwick airport by a guy in a $500 suit driving a Mercedes S class private car, we knew we were in for a trip of a lifetime! We got to see all of the great sites of each city... Westminster Abby, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Harod's Department Store, Mary Poppins at the Prince Edward Theatre, The London Eye, the Tower of London (and my favorite, the crown jewels!), Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, the Champs-Elysees, Disneyland Paris, Chateau de Versailles, dinner AT the Eiffle Tower and the Louve! We've finally gotten all of our photos up on Kodak Gallery. Now to decide which to print for albums.