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One happy year

Monday, September 7th, 2009

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary for Mike and I. It was a good year. Some good races, fun travels, and starting to build our own life. We started his business, and we really started to get to know the Redlands community we now live in. So it was time to celebrate, and although both of us had a lot of work to do we took the day to ourselves. Well, somewhat 😉

We started the day with a family run

Anniversary run

Yes, wearing matching Muskoka 70.3 finisher shirts (from our honeymoon race) and our “Just married” visors. And red shorts, me because it was one of the first gifts Mike gave me, and him because it was one of the first pairs of runners he got with me. Yes, we are dorks. But happy ones!

After that we relaxed at home for a bit and then went for an easy ride together. And then… the pet shop!

New baby girl

And now Gracie has a little sister! She is so cute, and curious. And it was just meant to be. We had talked about a playmate for Gracie, often debating waiting until she is much older, so we always have a dog in running years around, and getting one sooner so that she has a playmate. Well after her recent visit to Walter and Misty May’s house it felt like she missed the company of dogs. And I’ve never done the puppy training part of the dog experience, and am a bit sad that I never got to see Gracie as a tiny curious large-pawed baby. So this time, it was a baby we chose. She was born July 5th this year (a day off from my birthday) and was found just like Gracie: the first dog to catch my eye on Petfinder. We went to the pet shop, and we looked at the dogs there for an adoption day. And none stole my heart. But then we bumped into a lady from the Redlands Humane Society, and she said she had some puppies that would grow to be G’s size. And it was the two I had looked at online. So she called their foster home, and they were free and brought the puppies right down. Online it was Beauty who’s picture and description really caught my eye, but at the store it was the other girl. Then we figured out the names were switched online, and the one that caught my eye in both places was in fact the same little girl. And since Mike said I had to pick one, she said in my arms the rest of the shopping trip. And we added another crate, and some littlier toys, and a purple blanket (since G’s color is pink). And now the new baby is sleeping beside me, and in need of a name. We are playing with a couple and should decide soonish 🙂

Life is definitely good!

Posted in donutdogg, Life Outside of Tris, mike | 4 Comments »

365 days

Friday, March 20th, 2009

One year… and so much can change. Ok so it’s not near a new year, but I was just reflecting today… Over the last year I:

Lost my grandpa
Moved to Redlands and got rid of commuting
Became the puppy-mommy to amazing Gracie
Got married
Opened a business (I’m listed as owner for Redlands Spine and Sport on the paperwork :))
Lost my miniature horse
Lost my grandmother

And looking outside the big, chronologically ordered events above:

Ran faster than I have before
Enjoyed swimming more than I have before
Found that amazing connection with a running partner (Gracie)
Started learning to train a dog and find pride in the development of my little Gracie
Really got to become a part of the Exceeding Expectations team
Figured out a really cool project to use to complete my Masters in GIS (geographic information systems – ie computer mapping and analysis)

A lot to a year! A lot of change, both good and sad. A lot of growth! And that is good.

Posted in donutdogg, Life Outside of Tris | 2 Comments »

Taking care of it

Monday, March 16th, 2009

My title is inspired today by my strength in the face of fear. Not one, but TWO bees have made their way into my house. They freak me out. I remember a sting as a little kid at the Nut Tree while I was sitting in a play airplane with my brother. Right over my eye! And another sting in a foot or hand playing in a park some years after that one — which I remember as just no hurting that badly. And one on my hand on a bike ride, that made my hand all puffy. So I know the stings are not the end of the world, but for some reasons bees still just scare me! Sorry Gracie, but the door is going to stay mostly closed for a while.

I’m fighting off the last (hopefully) of a cold that I’ve had on and off for a while. The crazybusy weeks just haven’t given me time to really recover. So after sleeping in, and taking an easy day yesterday, I took a sick day today in hopes of really kicking it. Then of course stupid Kylie took over and I did homework until 2 in the morning last night… and I just realized I don’t think I’ve drank anything yet today… but I’ll go grab a water bottle now, and I do have a nap planned for after I get some more of a paper done. Stupid paper should be easy cut and paste but I just can’t figure out exactly what from my last paper fits where in this one.

In other news, Gracie is doing awesome with her puppy training! She now heels, and if doing so will sit every time I stop. She also knows “down”, and this week we are working on “come”. She is still a little princess though. She will ignore “down”, or look at you like you can’t really mean it, if on wet grass. Really, we can’t get puppy guts wet just for training’s sake! So then she gets corrected, but she still waits as long as she can the next time. A step onto cement and she lies down right away. The mind of the nutdog!

I was just reading some posts to get caught up, and one in particular by Tamara made me think of my own grandmother who just passed at the end of February. It took me a long time to really realize that she is gone – it was sudden, and she was ready, but still. That might need to be “is still taking me a long time”. I still don’t picture the house empty. She was a bonus grandma (as my mom’s stepmother) but I rarely ever remember that — she was just grandma. Well, grandma with a boob job, which provided many oneliners. And she had the clementine tree (as I now know them to be). A huge bag each Thanksgiving I was home, and once they even asked how hard it would be to mail! I’ve eatten pounds in a sitting — like over 10 of them, easily. And that was just without having to go dump peels and reload my bowl 😉 Good mememories, and a strong woman. And the last of my grandparents has passed. I’m jealous of my nephews since they got to meet them, something my futuresomedaychildren will never have the privilege of doing. Instead they’ll just hear all the stories — well, once they are old enough.

I think that’s all I’ve got today, and it is quite a mixup, but I am working on posting more! Or I’ll just have to leave Gracie logged in for a while.

Posted in donutdogg, Life Outside of Tris | 1 Comment »

almost Halloween

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

It is that time of year — tomorrow we’ll get to meet the kids in the neighborhood as they are out decked out and looking for candy! To make sure they knock Mike and I carved a couple pumpkins this evening. We are pleased with how it turned out! Here are Jack and Pupkin 😉

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he’s going to be ok

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

I have a super-tall uncle. He was the uncle we used to argue over who got to ride on his shoulders: at 6’8″ish it was fun to try not to get knocked off at doorways. He always tried to duck 🙂 He is also super-active, and always has been: baseball, basketball, all of those team sports. He’s now in his 50s but still active.

The day after my wedding, my uncle had a stroke. His 10 year old daughter was smart and called her mom, and then 911, and he was taken to the hospital. He was in ICU for a while, but was eventually moved, and soon ended up in the ARU (acute rehabilitation unit, I think). Since he lives in Orange County, Mike and I are the (geographically) closest family outside his immediate family, and so when my mom came into town to see him and we went took her. And we were amazed: we were ready for the worst, but he actually was looking pretty good. He was talking, swallowing, feeding himself, and just looked so much better than we had feared. I kept waiting for him to get up, as I’d forget there was anything wrong. It was just my uncle, and I was so relieved to see that.

This last weekend we saw him again. Since he won’t be able to live on his own any more, he is moving in with his fiancee. Mike and I were hoping to help him get moved, but his friends had it all done before we arrived. And we were given a couch and some coffee tables. So we now have a “grownup” living room, as I call it. So thanks Uncle Kelly.

He is doing so well that each time they evaluate him, they move up his release date. He surprised everyone in each therapy session and with each of their markers of progress. And now it is set for tomorrow. He will get to go home tomorrow. I’m so glad my uncle is ok!

While we have both lived in southern California for years, I haven’t seen him or the kids as often as I would like. I think this was a reminder: don’t take advantage of being so close that you can see them whenever. Each day can bring a surprise. I’m glad I will get to visit him another time, and I am going to try to not wait so long this time!

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Honeymoon

Monday, September 29th, 2008

The wedding finally done with, and the site cleaned up, Mike and I got the car packed up again. In between our packing my mom did some more decorating.

Finally ready, we headed back down the coast toward Montery (much later than we had hoped to be leaving) for 2 nights before finishing our drive back. We arrived at our hotel about 11:30 at night. We came in, and the night desk staff told us they had no rooms, and no record of our reservation (and no computer access). Not what we wanted to hear, and he had to call in a manager. When he arrived, he did find our reservation — it was only in their online reservation system and somehow they didn’t get it into their main system. To make up for it, we were upgraded to an ocean view room and given the first night free. This view was pretty relaxing:

The first day we de-stressed: we were in bed until about 4:30pm! Ok, we were up for a bit at 9 when they brought us breakfast 😉 Once up, we went for a walk on the beach and then out to dinner.

The next day we kayaked for a bit before driving home.

Back in LA, we had one day to get our bikes packed and our bags for our trip to Canada for our reception and honeymoon race.

In Canada we took some more wedding pictures in the Gut (a conservation area by where Mike grew up):

And more at his dad’s house (yup, that shirt I have on was a surprise from me to him as we got ready to leave my mom’s after the wedding – he got the I <3 KY one when we did IMLou last year):

Then it was off to his brother’s house and to register for the race (but all the race stuff will be in a later post). To get there we drove through Algonquin Park… this is how close we got to a moose!

And then back to his dad’s for our Canadian reception. It was more friends and family, chat, and good food. I finally got to meet a bunch of his college buddies, too.

The reception done, it was back to his brother’s house and to race the next day!

After the race, we spent a night in Toronto seeing some sights (like the CN Tower) and going for a walk. And then it was time to head home and get back to regular life.

Posted in Life Outside of Tris, mike, pics | 1 Comment »

Wedding day!

Saturday, September 27th, 2008

I woke up, relaxed, and got out for a run. Yes, a run. About 8 miles on trails all around my mom’s house. Trails where Mike and I spent many hours of each visit to my mom’s, and where we have a number of pictures. Some of the bends, where I could remember the pictures we took (like this one and this one) made me tear up. I was getting married in a couple hours!

I’d of course dreamed of a pretty wedding, a perfect wedding, when growing up. And mine was. Seriously, nothing could have been better. I never actually went up ahead of time and met any of the caterers, florist, cake people, etc. but I trust my mom and she helped us make great decisions.

The site for the wedding, which then also had the reception, and the photo shoots, was gorgeous — a wonderful beach park right on the San Francisco bay, and another place that Mike and I have ran when visiting my mom.

I had a beautiful dress (and my cousin’s son was sooo excited to get to “meet a princess”).

and the bridesmaids looked amazing

the flower/ring dudes were too cute

and the groom — took my breath away! (here he’s in the tree, and with his brother, the best man)

The flowers were exactly what I’d pictured.

The ceremony was perfect: our words, and read by my big brother.

And it was a wonderful kiss!

The food was delicious

And so many friends and family were there to share the day with us.

I danced in his arms

The cake was the perfect ice cream cake (with a layer of strawberry and angel food, a layer of mint chip and chocolate cake, and a saved top layer of cookies and cream and choc cake).

After a quick change in the park

we left in just the style we were hoping to have.

Some happy tears, and so many hugs. Definitely a day filled with love.

If you want to see more pictures, there are more 🙂

I posted some (ok many), as did Mike. My sister and maid of honor, Becca, did, too.

Posted in biking, Life Outside of Tris, mike, pics | 9 Comments »

Trip to the alter

Friday, September 26th, 2008

Mike’s mom Shirley, brother Rich, and Rich’s girlfriend Maria flew into LA the Tuesday before the wedding and then made the trip to the Bay Area for the wedding with us. They landed at LAX, and we picked them up and did a whirlwind single day tour of LA. We saw Santa Monica, and Venice beach. A close up look at the ocean in Venice…

So it was a long, and fairly sandy and wet, drive home. But it was some good body surfing 🙂
We left at 4 am the next day to drive up north (it was 7am for them since they were still on Toronto time) – with no rear visibility in the car thanks to the massive amount of material in my wedding dress. We had a full day planned: not only the 10 hours of travel time (too extra long since we went the coastal route), but also stopping to see Elephant seals, trees in Big Sur, Monterey and the aquarium there.

While in Monterey we got a call from our dog sitter, who was picking up Gracie that afternoon. “Everything is fine…” Uh oh… good conversations never start that way… “… but she ate your couch.” I told her not to worry, that it was already ripped, but “no… there was fluff EVERYWHERE!!”. Guess the little girl knew we weren’t coming home so soon.

We reached our destination around 10pm, exhausted. Off to bed, ready to get up and have another big day: this time touring part of Sonoma (where I grew up).

And then off to the east bay for dinner with my dad and my brother’s family. We saw a metal gorilla on the side of the road on the way.

Friday we went over to San Francisco, and for that trip Mike’s dad Bert and stepmom Gisela joined us (for part).

After that it was the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, and then Mike left to the hotel with his mom and it was the final night single! It would be wedding day when we woke up.

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Alive and married

Friday, September 26th, 2008

I’m alive and married 🙂 Just haven’t posted in a while. But going to try to get a bit caught up now. So a number of posts are coming… stay tuned for

Posted in donutdogg, Life Outside of Tris, mike | 1 Comment »

mom was right

Thursday, July 24th, 2008

When I was little I was given the impression that if I ever got near superglue my fingers would end up glued together. And to never pick my nose because if I did they’d get stuck there, but that is another story.

Anyways, we needed some glue to fix a couple wood chips on a dresser. We headed over to trusty Home Depot (the first place in this new town where we are known by name) and hit the glue section. Mike grabs the superglue, and I balk. Hey this one says for wood, so let’s go with it! Plus it had a gorilla on it.

Convinced, we take it home. Only to head back to Home Depot later to get some glue for plastics (BBQs do not land softly in the night). Again Mike grabs those scary little tubes. After reading the packages, I agree it is our best bet, and let him know we can’t glue our fingers together! We take home the innocent little tubes, and the package gets placed on the counter.

The next morning I see both glue packages are open. I’m not really sure why, since the BBQ handle still hangs and the dresser is still missing a tooth. But they are. And then I see it: the CAPS ARE NEXT TO THE SUPERGLUE! Horrified, I touch the tubes. It moves, and I end up picking them up. I notice there seems to be a seal on it, and relieved I put the tops on them, put them down, and finish getting ready for work. The gorilla was of course behaving himself and I left him alone.

Lunch time I come home so the donut dog can play for a bit (yay for 7 minute walking commutes!). And as I do so, I see it. The internet box that Mike was supposed to return is still on the counter. Damn it Mike! Grumpy about not having internet at the new place yet doesn’t make me feel better about still paying for it at the old place, and I move the box to the side. And see the superglue. And it appears the tubes are not full. And I touch the list of important wedding addresses that they are on. And nope, it won’t move. They are strongly glued to the paper. And each other. And the counter. Damn it Mike!! And then I remember — that must have been what those tops did. It was my fault. Well, at least I could still blame the internet on him.

I peel them off each other, try to tighten the tops, and place them more completely on a corner of the paper they can glue as much as they want. A wet drop got on my finger. Panic set in, but I kept my fingers spread wide, ran to the sink, and managed to take care of it, avoiding attaching any of my fingers to the infested one.

Crisis avoided, and I called Mike to let him know. I am no longer allowed to help with the supergluing. But he better remember to return that internet box!

Posted in Life Outside of Tris, mike | 8 Comments »