A great Thanksgiving

We made it through our first Thanksgiving in our home. We were joined by Nick's parents, Barb and Mike, from Fresno and Josh and Erin from here in Riverside. The actual meal was really good and we had a really nice time with everyone.
The early part of the week was a bit more trying. The whole preceding weekend, I was baking, cooking and cleaning, which gave the week a slow start. Then, I worked Monday through Wednesday 8-7, though a bit unecessarily. After coming home from work and eating, I proceeded to cook and clean more. Oh yeah-and on top of all of this, Sierra had massive diarhea making us get up numerous time in the night for checks and bathroom breaks, and clean-up, if needed. So, by the time Thursday got here, we both were dead tired. Sierra is doing much better now. We think she picked something up the weekend before at the clinic when she was spayed.
Friday I picked up a new Christmas tree at Lowe's and made a trip to Michael's with Barb. We also went downtown Riverside and walked around the Mission Inn and downtown area. We also had a tour of Nick's work. Saturday we did more of the same and went out to eat at BJs. Today, I have been taking it easy and putting up some Christmas decorations.
I can't believe it's only 3.5 weeks until Christmas! I have done zero gift shopping, so I have a feeling everyone will be getting gift certificates and/or online gifts! I also will be doing some Christmas baking, but not as much as usual, as we are going to be in Fresno.
I hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving!

New projects, fires, and extra hours

Sorry about the lack of blogging lately, but I have been working a lot of extra hours and haven't been too motivated to do much on the weekends. Nick has done a number of projects including installing a new faucet, putting together a kitchen cart and tiling our master bathroom. Both have turned out very nice (see pictures).
The fires came fairly close to us the past weekend, about 30 minutes away. I didn't even know there was a third fire until I was driving down the hill from our house and looked toward LA and saw a huge orange blaze. We didn't have any smoke because of the Santa Anas, which is one good thing. A few of my patients had to evacuate their homes, but they were able to return last night. Hopefully, things will calm down. We really need some cooler weather and some rain.
We are really getting excited about Thanksgiving. We will be having it at our house with Nick's parents and friends Josh and Erin. I am so excited to eat some turkey!!!

Ending October

Sorry I've been bad at blogging lately, but here is my last post for October.
Two weekends ago, Nick put up our new light fixture in the eating area in the kitchen. I think it turned out really nice. Now, the kitchen project is done until we decide to tackle the flooring.


This past weekend, we decided to take Sierra up to Big Bear Lake in the mountains to see the fall leaves and get out of town. With temperatures still in the 90s, it was nice to get into some cooler weather. Sierra had a good time at the lake, but did have some difficulty with the drive up (she lost her lunch with all the switch backs).





Everything continues to be more of the same here. We're fairly busy at work and we have had some challenges dealing with new employees. Hopefully, the kinks will be worked out as quickly as possible, so we can get things running efficiently once again.
Nick is off this week and is tiling our master bathroom. We are also trying to get Sierra spayed this week and get the rest of her shots. We think we will do early voting this weekend at the registrar's office to avoid super long lines next Tuesday. I will enjoy watching the results coming in at home vs. standing in line!

Two years down...

Today Nick and I celebrated our second anniversary. I took today and yesterday off from work and we've been doing some work around the house and enjoying our new baby girl, Sierra. The largest conquest of the weekend was that we repainted the kitchen (see photos). It went surprisingly well. The colors are really bright, but we are ready for some it. I also bought a new light fixture for the dining area. I saw it at Lowe's for $110, but got it at the Habitat for Humanity Store for a steal. The price said $30, but they were having a 50% off sale, so I got it for $15! Can you believe it?!?!? We will get that up next weekend, and I'll be very happy. Nick took the last week off in October to tile the bathroom in our master. I will then have my to-do list for the year done. We are also going to be tiling the entire downstairs, but we're not setting any time frames on that! We had a nice day today, had lunch at BJs, which was really good. Enjoy the photos!

Sierra photos!

Sierra has really come alive in the last two days. She is feeling much better, but still has a pretty nasty cough. She is getting sick of being sick as well. She loves to run up and down the stairs and the yard, but has to completely stop to get her breath after about 5 seconds. We still are not able to take her on walks, but we're excited to start that and playing more with her. She has had no accidents in the house and is spending her time in the laundry room while we're at work. All in all, we're very pleased with our little puppy. Enjoy the photos...what do you think she is mixed with? (please comment)

We are happy to announce...

a new member of our family! We welcomed Sierra, a one-year-old (we think) golden retriever mix into our home this weekend. She is still a very sick girl from the shelter, but we are giving her medication to treat kennel cough. Hopefully, we will be able to see her true personality a little clearer when she is feeling better. Right now, she is doing a lot of sleeping. She does like her bed! I am sure I will be posting more pictures this week as we get to know each other better!

Sorry it's been so long...

since I posted last, but it has simply just been too hot! I don't think we have had one significant accomplishment this whole month! It has been steamy pretty much the whole month. In fact, today, the last day of September, our thermometer read 105 degrees. The largest thing we finished this month was our bathroom. I dare say, it turned out pretty nice.


This last weekend, I traveled up to Oakland via good old Southwest Airlines, which still gives you peanuts! At the airport, I took Air BART to the BART station and took BART to downtown Oakland. I found my hotel, checked in, and then found some pizza for supper. All this was quite an experience, as you may imagine, at this time of night (my flight got in at 7:30 pm). I slept pretty poorly, but got up early at 6AM, grabbed a Starbucks breakfast (HELLO Pumpkin Spice Latte!) and registered for my course at the Marriott across the street from my hotel. The class was on vertigo and cervicogenic dizziness. The instructor is on faculty at USC and was a very good teacher. So, a very good course and definitely will be using the skills back at home. After the class, I reversed my route back to the airport, except one tiny problem-the Oakland Raiders. You see, the BART station that I get off to take the bus to the airport is one and the same as the station people use to access the Oakland Raider's game at the Collesium. AND-since the Oakland Raiders who used to be the LA Raiders have a fairly close proximity to LA-guess who was all in line to get to the airport? So, after a VERY rowdy plane ride home, I was very happy to get to bed that night. You wouldn't know that we're having economic difficulties in this country if you account for the at least 6 planeloads of Raiders fans from the LA area at the game. Pretty crazy!
Now, we are hopefully going to be getting some cooler air. Someone told me Saturday is to bring a high of 67 degrees. I won't believe it until I see it! I promise to be a better blogger in October!

Photos

I thought I would post some of our photos from our beautiful weekend in the Sierras over Labor Day weekend.
We drove up on Saturday morning and met Nick's parents in Bishop, California. We got an early start on Sunday morning and drove up to Bodie State Park, which is an actual ghost town. This is not the type that is commercialized (hence the State Park Status); it truly is a ghost town. Unfortunately, it was super windy on Sunday, so we battled with that and dust, but it was very cool thanks to the high elevation.




We then made our way back down a bit to Mono Lake, a saltwater lake. The photos are deceiving, but we couldn't see much due to the spray and mist from the lake thanks to the wind.


We then headed to Mammoth Country and made the June Lake loop (gorgeous) and the Mammoth Lakes loop. In the town of Mammoth Lakes, we jumped a bus (mandatory) to take us to Devil's Pile National Monument. The trip to the monument was gorgeous and it was beautiful once we got there. It truly was one of the most beautiful places I have seen in California, and that's saying a lot. We definitely will be returning there to do some camping and hiking at some point. This is a portion that used to a part of Yosemite (it is on the border of the park) and it is an absolute "must see."





Sunday, we stopped at Eric Schatt's German bakery and loaded up on yummy bread, baked goods and gelato (yes, at 9am), we headed toward home, but stopped in Lone Pine to take the Mt. Whitney Portal (Mt. Whitney is the tallest peak in the lower 48). This really was beautiful and we hope to return there sometime (maybe not to go to the top, but at least stay up there). I did feel the altitude and took a while to get used to it. I can see if you are going to climb to the top, why you would want to acclimate first.





Since that beautiful weekend, we have been recovering. We (Nick) grouted the bathroom this past weekend, which was very easy and now looks very nice. Now we have to do some touch up painting, install baseboards and reset the toilet. I can't wait until it's done!

Busy Week, Long Weekend

This week has been a whirlwind of busy-ness at work (as well as business=)). I didn't count the number of patients I had this week, but it was a lot. There were only a few points where it was extremely crazy, so that is always a good thing. This next week is going to be busy, but I only have one person per line (every 15 minutes on the schedule) vs. 2 and 3 that I had this week. The boss says that this next week is going to be worse than this week, but I think she has given me the support to keep it fairly sane. I have no evals on the schedule for the next week, as we are just needing the wo-man power to treat patients.
The best part of this week was that I got to come home each night to watch the Democratic Convention. Now, those of you who know me well, know that I was loving every minute of it. It was a really fun convention to watch with a lot of enthusiasm. I always think back to Barack Obama's (or as Desi said back then-Brocko Bama-hehe-I still think that is so cute) convention speech in 2004, when I was in PT school, and being so impressed by him. He was unknown to most at the time, but I had actually read some about him before that time. It was at that moment that I told myself that I would vote for him if he ever ran for president. I just didn't think it would be 4 years later! So, much to my mother's dismay, I voted for him and not Hilary in the primary and will do so in the fall. Of course, we loved his speech but a lot of the other addresses were great too. Almost equally exciting as the actual speeches was the analysis on my favorite channel, MSNBC =).
This weekend (tomorrow, Saturday) we are heading up north to Mammoth Country. We will be visiting several mountain sights, waterfalls, lakes and a ghost town. We are meeting Nick's parents there and we should have a good time. We may post some photos from the road!
Have a good and safe Labor Day weekend!

What have we been up to?

TILING!
That has consumed our weekends for the past two weekends and we still are not done! We would have been a little further along last weekend, but we got a "truckie call" just as we were about to lay the backer board last Saturday. Josh and Erin had bought a new mattress at Costco and wanted us to pick it up and bring it to their place with the truck. We were happy to do it, as they have always helped us moving and with the house. So-we didn't get the board down until Sunday, and of course it has to dry!
We had the best intentions to start laying the tile one day after work, but that didn't happen...
So-yesterday (Saturday) we put down the whole pieces and took the others to Lowe's to have them cut. Today, after everything was dried, we put the rest of it down. It does look nice and not too shabby for our first job (we think). Now we have to determine when to start the grouting! This is ending up to be a month long project!
So-Things I have learned about tiling:
1) You will break or waste tiles. This is why they tell you to add 10%.
2) Tile cutters suck. Don't buy one. Don't use one.
3) The cuts from the wet saw will not always be perfect. This is, oh, so frustrating.
4) Speaking of wet saws, maybe buy one off of Craig's List instead of going to Lowe's for 25 cents a cut. We are looking into this...
5) Two people will not fit in a 30 square foot bathroom no matter how hard you try.
6) Do not ask your husband to explain something to you while you trying to help with the project. Simply be Ms. Vanna White and hand him things he needs. Ahhh, maybe next time.
We are anticipating a busy week ahead at work. I am scheulded 5-6 people deep an hour again, but the boss has cut my evals down from about 19 to 5! That will be nice for the Labor Day weekend. If I can just make it to Friday at 4!!! For the big weekend, we are heading up to Bishop, CA (in the middle of nowhere) to take in some of the sights of the area. It should be really fun-it is east of Yosemite and west of Death Valley. We will be visiting a lot of mountain scenery and a ghost town. Oh yeah-did I mention we're meeting Nick's parents? We should have a good time, but it will be a lot of driving! As I remind Nick, let's do it while we can!
Have a good week everybody and enjoy the photos!