My V.B.B. behavior

That is, my very bad blogging behavior. I have no excuses for my lack of blogging over the past month. We have have not been busy, in fact, it has been quite the opposite.
We have had a series of significant rainstorms that have given us more than a season's worth of rain, so we have been truly enjoying a California winter. Things are now beautiful: sunny, clear skies with great distance views of mountains, green on all of the mountains, and warm temperatures well into the 70s. This is why we stay in southern California. For all the millions of other negatives in Southern California life, days like these make all the other headaches melt away.
We have had three guests stop by in the past week alone, which is highly unusual for us. Last Sunday, Nick's mom stopped by, then on Friday Nick's uncle and cousin drove out for lunch. Since I was working, I missed their visit, but we are really happy that we have had so many visitors!
Sierra continues to be a good sport about the weather. She pretty much knows if it is cloudy and wet, she will be stuck inside all day with no walk. She is content to be near Nick and me with occasional Kong treats of baby carrots.
Work continues to go well for me. We have many new faces at the clinic to be "trying out" part-time positions. Friday, we had a "senior meeting" which consisted of lunch at El Torrito and a reflexology massage for an hour. I think I can handle that!
We continue to play softball every Friday night, weather permitting. We won our first game this week and we were so pumped up, we even one the second game of the night. It is fun to get out and play each week and even more fun to win!
I have no new pictures to share, but will post some if we do anything exciting!

Back by popular demand...

and several inquiries, I have reluctantly started to blog once again...I thought my Facebook account would cover just about everything, but I am told that my posts are missed. It is nice to know that I am not just writing to cyberspace =). I hope everyone is enjoying the new look of the page.
January is my favorite month in southern California, mainly because the weather is so beautiful, and this year has been no exception. We have had mostly sunny days, clear and clean air, and temperatures in the 70s. It doesn't get much better than this.
Nick and I have started a co-ed slow pitch softball league. We play Friday evenings. It is fun to return to a game we played in our youth, but our bodies sure do complain louder than we remember. We both have purchased new cleats (matching in fact), a bat to share and I have purchased a new glove. We have enjoyed just "practicing" with the two of us by playing catch, hitting grounders and pop-ups to each other and hitting soft toss.
Sierra is continuing to be a great pet. She is so sweet and has the best temper. She is quite a lazy dog in the morning if you let her. The other morning, we got up at 6:30 but she didn't get up until 9:30! She continues to love to go for walks and hikes and spend time at the dog park.
This weekend has been busy, but a fun one. Friday night we had our first softball game, which was actually a make-up game from the previous season. The other team refused to really hit the ball and got a lot of walks, which doesn't make for an exciting game. Saturday we took advantage of the beautiful weather and took a hike with Sierra in the Cleveland National Forest. Sunday I am going to go to a bridal expo with our friend Erin in Ontario, as she and Josh finally got engaged! Congratulations you two!
Here are some pictures of our hike this weekend in the San Mateo Canyon Wilderness area in the Cleveland National forest.

Quick Pics!

I just thought I would post some pictures of Laurel's wedding last weekend in Minnesota. I had a great trip and enjoyed some wonderful Minnesota weather. We just returned from Fresno for the long weekend and had a great time enjoying some nice California weather. Sierra always enjoys going to the Peterson's with their large house and yard. She slept the whole way home! Another busy week this week and then jury duty (yes, again) next Monday!

Nothing much to say...

I thought I'd write a quick post to tell everyone we are alive. We have been working hard during the week and Nick has been working hard on the tiling project on the weekends. We are so close to done with laying of the tile, I can smell it. All that is left is a large amount of grouting and installing the baseboards. What, oh what, will we do with the weekends when this project is done?
The last few weeks have gone by fairly quickly. My intern is with me from Fresno State. He is doing a great job and keeping up with the fast pace of our clinic nicely. His midterm is already next week, which is hard to believe since he is with us for nine weeks! I spent one week at our smaller office, but was pretty bored. It's hard to believe how fast you get used to running around like a chicken with its head cut off. That same Friday, I met Heather in San Diego and had a really nice morning and lunch catching up. It was a nice girls' morning. It helps that the weather was absolutely breathtaking in San Diego.
My birthday came and went. I'm another year older...times are going fast. We had a nice dinner out as well as a lunch out at work and another dinner out the following weekend with Josh and Erin.
Sierra continues to be a fun and mischievous pet, but I wouldn't trade her for the world. I just love coming home at the end of the day to a cute little smile and a tail wagging wildly. She is an awesome stress reliever.
Next week, I head to Minnesota on the red eye (I know-I said I was never doing it again, and here I am) on Wednesday night to see friends and family and attend Laurel's wedding. I am hoping that the weather is nice and maybe to catch a thunderstorm.
The weather here has not been too horrible. It's in the mid to high 90s in the day with a fair amount of humidity, but it is cooling off very well at night, which is all I can ask. It's still hard to believe that we likely will have two more months of summer. Kind of like Groundhog's Day in the winter. I wonder what the summer groundhog would be?
That's about it for this week. I will post again with something more to say and pictures to boot! Enjoy the rest of summer! College football season is SO CLOSE!

We are back!

We've had an eventful couple of weeks surrounding our wonderful vacation. The week before we left, Sierra had to add to the drama by getting a fox tail (grass seed) embedded into her foot requiring surgery the day before we left. We felt terrible leaving her in that condition, but she received great care at the Ruff House. She wasn't able to play with the other dogs as she was bandaged up and had to wear her beautiful e-collar. The stitches were taken out this last Thursday and things are looking good, although she still is wearing the collar when we're not around so she can't lick her foot.

Our trip was wonderful. We had good weather pretty much at all of our stops. Zion was a little hot, but we adjusted, and just enjoyed being on vacation. The hiking was fun, but we definitely aren't used to hiking that much that many days in a row. By Wednesday, I had a huge blister on my foot, so we changed into relaxed mode. We also did some other things such as kayaking at Jenny Lake in the Grand Tetons. Camping went well and the dehydrated food we ate went well, actually tasting really well. We only had one "emergency" when the car got a flat tire. We changed the tire and went to the nearest shop and got it patched. A razor, of all things, was the culprit and we were on our way. We have a lot of pictures that are on Facebook. If you are unable to access them, let me know and I will email you the link.
The return to work was fine, but the hardest return was to the heat. The beginning of last week was well over 100 every day, but now it's more in the high 90s. We have been in air conditioning and have done pretty well. Then again...it's only July. Talk to me again in October. This next week, I have a student starting at work. I can't remember where he's from, but he will be with us for 6 weeks and it is his last rotation. It should work out pretty well. Because of the pace of our clinic, we interview all interns, so that is reassuring. It can be a pretty intimidating place to do one of your rotations, but will be great experience for transitioning into practice.
That's all for now...my birthday is Saturday and I have no idea what I want or even what I want to do. No biggie...just go with the flow. Have a good week!

Independence and Kayaking

Happy Independence Day everyone! Greetings from southern California, where it has been hot, true to form for July. That hasn't stopped us from continuing our tile project, where we are inching along, and doing a lot of other fun activities. We both had Friday off, which was a nice break. The Fridays off are becoming more and more familiar to Nick, as he now has three furlough Fridays each month. It would be nice if there was not a 20 percent pay cut that came with that. Regardless, this weekend, we took some time out to have fun.
Friday we headed down to La Jolla for some kayaking. This was our first tandem kayak experience, which, I am happy to report, did not end up in any major fights. We had a really good time exploring the cliffs and caves in La Jolla and enjoyed the surf a bit more than we had in our past kayaking experience.





Saturday we ran some errands for our upcoming trip and caught a matinee of "The Hangover." We both thought it was absolutely hilarious. It's hard to imagine a funnier film will come out this year. We then headed down to Nick's work, which happens to have a prime seat for the fireworks that they shoot off at the top of Mt. Rubidoux. The show was great and we enjoyed having a lot of space to ourselves within the gates of his office and surrounding wildlife education area. Sierra was not quite as excited about the show, but made it through all the less.
We are getting quite excited about our trip to Zion, Bryce, Yellowstone, and Grand Teton national parks. We leave on Friday and will be gone for 10 days. We will be tenting and doing a lot of hiking. Sierra will be at the Ruff House Pet Resort while we're gone. You can check to see if she's behaving herself on their web cam (http://www.ruffhousepetresort.com/outdoor-play-yard.html). Nap time is from 12-2, so you won't be able to see her between those times. For Nick and myself, we will be virtually unplugged and I am actually looking forward to it.
Hope everyone had a great fourth of July and is enjoying the second part of summer. More blogging after our trip!

What we've been up to....

is a good question. It seems like most of June has flown by, but we have kept ourselves busy. For the most part, we have been continuing the tile project...now almost completing the kitchen. We have a fair amount of grouting to do as well as tiling behind the appliances. Then we will have the laundry room, entry way and half bath to finish. An end is in sight...



We also have been enjoying our contribution to aide the struggling California economy, which is a 42 inch plasma television. We have been long overdue for a new set and we went all out for this one. It is a far cry back from our 20 inch that I bought from my Hy-Vee money when working in Ankeny the summer before PT school. We're not sure what we are going to do with the old set, but we will figure something out. We still like Nick's 13 inch from college in our bedroom, so that will stay put.

In other activities, I cleaned out our backyard flower beds as they were pretty hideous. I probably won't be planting much of anything in there, as it will be getting way too hot for anything to survive. I may plant a few succulents and a few other drought resistant ground cover plants. The yard still needs a lot of work on our hill and it the front yard. More hot weekends ahead too!
Nick had some fun over the weekend with some PVC pipe. He built Sierra a stand for her food and water dish in order to help decrease the amount of food, water and slobber on the floor. We are ever so conscious of this since we installed the new floor. She's still a pretty messy eater, but this helps at least a little.

That's all for now...vacation is so close!