Let It Snow!

Hooray!  A little taste of Kansas in the northwest!!

I can't believe that when I called home two days ago it was more than 10 degrees colder in Washington than in Kansas.  I also can't believe that we beat Kansas in first snow this year.  All of Port Orchard started to go snow crazy yesterday.  The lines at the grocery stores were extremely long and people were startled at the 'snow' outside.  Let's be real.  There were only small flurries, hardly anything that counted as snow.

Not today though!  Today we have snow!  Real snow....probably the most we'll have all winter.  Instead of driving on the roads with inexperienced winter weather drivers, I'm choosing to work from home today which has its perks.  It means the dogs can go outside regularly and I can stay in my awesome flannel pajamas until 4pm (which I fully intend to do.) 

This also marks a 'first' for Roger.  Charlie had enough experience with snow back in Kansas over the last 4 years....

but Roger's just a young doggie dude.  I thought I'd document his first day out in the snow.

He's learned that a 'sit' gets him a treat.  What a good boy!

It's never too cold to play frisbee!

It's supposed to keep snowing all day until at least 7pm.  What a wonderful day!

Not that these are related, but I got two doggie devil costumes for $1.50 each. They're set for next year!

Things my husband does well

This is not an all-inclusive list.  It's a recent list of unexpected things that Daniel has done that made me say, "Wow!"

At the Arcade Fire Concert with my awesome husband.

1.  Problem:  our hard drive and RAM seemingly stopped working and our photos, documents and videos from the first year of our marriage disappeared.  This is the reason it's taken me 3 months to blog again!
Daniel's solution: After I took the Macbook to the Apple store and they told me our hard drive was dead, he talked to his brother, Russell and looked into some options for buying a relatively cheap external hard drive and a case for the old drive and retrieved all of our old files!!  I'm not computer savvy in that way.  I would have to watch about 50 Youtube videos on the subject before figuring out how to fix it.
In fact, I would have just sent the darn thing off to a company to work on...PS- our estimates from the hard drive fixer company was $700 to $2300.  I love photos and music, but really?  I'm not sure my photos would have been worth that much.

I just like this photo that Daniel took while we took a 2 mile walk into town during a recent overnight trip to Duvall, WA.

2.  Problem: nothing new to make for dinner
Daniel's solution:  he proposed a "cooking night."  We spent nearly 45 minutes sifting through cookbooks to find 2 new recipes to try. We went to the store and ended up finishing our Chicken Piccatta and Zucchini pancakes around 8:30.
All of it tasted amazing, but funnily enough, Daniel took one bite and then said that he wasn't really hungry any more. We'd be snacking while cooking and then again, it was nearly bedtime!

Mmmm, Zucchini pancakes, chicken piccatta, and asparagus.

These are just two silly examples of ways that Daniel does a wonderful job at being my partner.  I'm amazed at how he can still stay awake after being at work at 6am and working for 12 hours+ each day.  He still tries to live outside of work instead of just coming home and sitting on the couch.  Good job Daniel!

First comes love...

THEN COMES MARRIAGE
Woohoo!  What a fun week it's been.  Daniel and I were able to fly back to Kansas City for our friend's wedding.  Travis, the groom, was one of Daniel's last roommates before we got married and a very special friend.  Daniel was a groomsman so he stayed very busy with wedding duties.  I got to tag along for some, but otherwise spent time running errands, working, and catching up with a few friends!!
A must-do while we were in Kansas City was eating at Oklahoma Joe's BBQ.    If you ever stop by Kansas City...Anthony Bourdain and I both say you MUST eat there before you die.

THEN COMES LIAM IN A BABY CARRIAGE
Next, it was on to Wichita to meet my new nephew.  My parents drove up to KC, dropped Daniel off at the airport and toted me home to meet Liam.  He's still very newborn-babyish.  Small.  Has, as my friend Katy pointed out, a cry like a baby lamb.  I was able to stay over at my older brother's house a couple nights to 'help out.'   I use quotations, because other than babysitting for a friend last Spring, it's been a while since I've 'helped out' with a baby.  Rachel, my awesome sister-in-law, was doing a great job with the baby, taught me some of the basics, and I was able to rock him to sleep a few times.  Doug and Rachel are incredible parents.

Marmot Pass

Ugh.  My muscles are sore today.  Will, one of the other Family Practice residents emailed out a couple weeks ago to join him and his family on an 11-mile hike to Marmot Pass.  I thought, no problem! I can walk on even ground with a few slopes here or there for 5+miles each way.  He labeled the hike as moderately strenuous.

He would be correct.  It was actually up-hill the entire 5 miles.  12 of us initially started out on the Quilcene trail.  Nearly 600 ft. from Marmot Pass, Jon, another resident joined us (late b/c though he had to round at the hospital, he was adamant about going on the hike too!) after running up most of the way catch up.  It took us nearly 3 hours and he made it in 1 1/2. 

My hips hurt so bad once we got to the top that I just wanted to run back down the 5 miles to the car and go home.  A couple hours later we made it back to the car.  It took around 6 hours altogether including a few stops and snack breaks.  What a great day though!

The boy in the picture is Truman, Will's son, an almost-8 year old that hiked up and down the entire way on his own two feet.  What a trooper!  He also has a little brother, 4 yr. old Henry, that spent some time being carried by his parents. I had a hard time lugging my own self up the slopes.  To see his mom and dad add 40 lbs to their back and still keep up with us was amazing!

We ended the day by pigging out at Famous Dave's BBQ.  Not much could make me ignore the constant burning of my muscles, but the BBQ chicken sandwich sure tried. 

By the way, we did see a couple marmots.  It's not just the name of an outdoor apparel and equipment company. They are much larger than I expected.  The one I saw was probably 50 lbs. or more.  My camera ran out of batteries before I could capture one sitting on a rock...but Google can show you what they look like sitting on a rock:

Photo from en.academic.ru

The boy who cried "Woof!"

So we have two dogs, Charlie and Roger.  Roger is the relatively quiet one.  He only barks when normal dogs would...when someone actually comes in our yard, or if he sees someone he doesn't like walking by.  However, he does NOT bark every time someone walks by like Charlie, the Gossipy Dachshund.

Charlie has a huge personality, some would say.  Recently, though, I've figured out that he's a total gossip.  I mean, he's a one-dog rumor mill.  And I'm tired of it.  If our neighbor has someone walk up to her front door he turns to me and "ROO-roo-Roof!" His barks have an unusual intonation and I can clearly understand that he's saying, "what does that man think he's doing in her yard?"  and "what the heck are kids wearing these days?"  "Doesn't he have anything better to do with his time."  He wants to tell me all about what he saw, and any neighbors that are out in the yard.  I hate to think what impression it's making on sweet Roger. 

Charlie is a grumpy old man sitting on his front porch in a rocking chair.  Each "woof" just reeks of disdain and judgment.  Most times his rants finish with a grouchy huff as he turns to walk back toward his perch on our front steps.  Bah-humbug, Charlie.

Eventually I'm going cease paying any attention to him...even when he has something truly valuable to say.

I would be jealous of me if I were you.

I started volunteering because I love animals and wanted to get out a meet other humans after I moved to Washington.  I continued volunteering because I love animals and met some humans.  I got a job because I wanted to meet more humans that also loved animals.  I still work at the humane society because of moments like this:

(Not pictured:  The smell she emitted right before almost pooping on my lap.)

Umm, I'll give this a try

I've really wanted to start a blog for a while.  First I thought I'd start one when I got married.  Next, I'd been married one year and hadn't written anything.  Then we adopted another dog...another great reason to start a blog, right?  Well, I finally decided to get going.  I'm not pleased with the layout or design, but hey, at least you can get a glimpse of what's going on.

May 23, 2009

Yeah, he's dreamy.  Daniel is in his second year of residency which leaves me plenty of time to explore new hobbies, the area, and try to keep up with things around the house.  In the last year I've started making cards.  It all started just before Halloween last year when I thought, "sure, I should send out Halloween cards. Doesn't everybody?"  You can check the Cards page on my blog to see some of the fun creations.

I don't want go get ahead of myself and post too much on the first try.  Check back soon for more posts from the Pacific Northwest!