This little Piggy…

Got totally smashed!!!

Doug was out of town this weekend, so I spent it organizing our house and getting ready for a baby shower I am helping host in the next few weeks.  I had some shower stuff stored in the garage, and because I just couldn’t wait on Doug to come home and get it down for me, I pulled the ladder down and proceeded to get what I needed down by myself.  (Side note…Doug says that he sees a lot of injuries caused by people that fall off ladders and for me not to get on one when he is not around…well my trouble started before I even stepped foot on the ladder)

This is the ladder that we have…

I was trying to figure out how it worked by pulling all the knobs every which way and all of a sudden the tall part of the ladder slammed down right on my toe!  I was jumping and hopping all around because my toe was in so much pain.  Of course something like this would happen when my orthopaedic surgery husband is out of town.

As soon as Doug came home on Sunday we went to the hospital for an xray just to see what damage I had done.

Doug is pointing in the last picture where the tip of the bone is broken off.  There is nothing that he can do to fix it, we just have to wait for the little bone to fuse back into place.  The throbbing pain is gone, but I can’t really bend my toe.  No more running for me for a little while…the elliptical trainer is my new best friend.

Favorite Things Party…

I came across this party idea last week while I was in Colorado.  It sounds like such a great way to get girl friends together just because.  Thanks The Vaught Blog for sharing this.  I can’t wait to host this party!

A Favorite Things Party- Here's how it works: Each person brings their favorite thing (anything you like.. your favorite lip gloss, favorite kitchen tool, favorite gift wrapping supply, a gift card for your favorite frozen yogurt, etc.). It can't cost more than $6, and each person brings five of the same thing. When you arrive at the party, you write your name on five slips of paper and throw them in a big bowl. The bowl is passed around, and each person takes five names (making sure you don't pick your own.. or two of the same name). One at a time each person introduces their favorite thing and then reads the five names they picked from the bowl, passing out their gift to those five guests. After everyone at the party has presented their favorite thing, each person should end up with five gifts to take home. It's always interesting to see what people choose, and some guests have started to bring a notepad and pen to jot down what people love.

One other thing that I found on her blog was something that she liked on pinterest…..too funny!

Colorful Colorado

Last week Doug attended The American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society annual conference  in Keystone, Colorado.  I decided to tag along since I have never been to Colorado.  I knew that I would be spending a lot of time alone while he was at all the lectures, but it was great to not have to worry about making sure this and that was done around the house.  I sat in the condo and caught up on the many blogs that I follow and also caught up on matching my credit card receipts to the statements.  This takes me forever and I don’t know when I will realize that I should just do it when the statement arrives and not put it off.  I had a huge zip lock bag full of receipts that needed to be attached to statements from the beginning of the year.  Can you say procrastinator????

I planned on working out everyday of the trip because for the last month I have been avoiding the gym like the plaque and everything is starting to jiggle.  The first day I decided I would go down to the fitness room and workout while watching The View.  I was on the elliptical for 10 minutes and the room was burning up.  I guess Colorado is like the Pacific Northwest when it comes to air conditioning…when it is only hot enough to have one one week out of the year, it is not necessary to have one at all.  I left the gym and thought that I would just jog outside because it was a beautiful day.  I only ran about 500 yards before I realized why it was so hard and why I was already so out of breath.  The elevation is a killer.  I walked by they river for about 6 miles instead and it was some gorgeous scenery.  I forgot my camera ( so no breathtaking pictures of my scenery), sunglasses, and most important sunscreen!  I guess with higher elevation that means your are closer to the sun (DUH)…so sunscreen was greatly missed.  My shoulders and nose are still recovering…all gross and flaky.

The only super exciting thing that happened on our trip was white water rafting down Clear Creek.  Doug had a half day of classes on Friday and we took advantage of his free time.  This winter there was record setting snowfall in the Rockies and only recently has it been hot enough there to melt.  Not only was the melting snow causing the creek to rise, a bunch of thunderstorms had been passing through as well.  The creek was the highest it has ever been on that particular day of the year.   The rapids were awesome.  Here are a few pics…

 

Our river guide was a Georgia boy named Bryan from Marietta that goes all around the country being a river guide in the summer and a ski instructor in the winter.  I asked Doug what he thought his degree was in and he said, “Fun.”  Wish I had a degree in fun!  Doug and Bryan got to talking and discovered that they played against each other in high school football.  It is such a small world! 

The Cutest Pup on the Block

I took Wrecks to the dog park this weekend and it was packed.  The sun was actually out in the Pacific Northwest, but I still needed a light sweater.    Wrecks was running around everywhere and of course he found the only mud puddle in the whole park to roll around in.  Good thing we were headed to Dirty Paws (self service dog bath) afterwards.  While we were at the dog park a little girl started cracking up when she saw Wrecks.  She told me that he looked like a man in a poodle suit!  Hahaha 

I love this little guy!!!! (Well, if you consider 65lbs little)

Huge Riu Fans

After Doug and I made our long list of places to go and things we wanted to do before we leave the Pacific Northwest, he realized that he could probably get the last week in June off.  Do we decide to do anything on our list….no.  I hope we get around to the list sooner rather than later, but I am so excited to say that we are going to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic the last week in June. 

How we decided on DR, I really have no idea, but once we decided on our destination we needed to pick a hotel.  We love doing all inclusive so we knew we wanted to go that route.  I wanted to switch up our all inclusive resort since the last 3 all inclusive that we have done have been Rius.

May, 2009 Puerto Vallarta Hotel Riu Palace Pacifico

September, 2009 Cabo San Lucas Hotel Riu Palace Cabo San Lucas

May, 2010 Mazatlan Hotel Riu Emerald Bay

After reading review after review I just couldn’t decide on a hotel.  I would read two good reviews and then two bad reviews.  Travel agents say not to read reviews, but how can you not when there are so many of them.  I was looking on Bookit.com and saw that they had a 4.5 star mystery hotel that was in our price range.  Doug said to book it since I was having such a hard time picking one and I was really nervous when I did.  So it turns out that no matter how we book our hotel, The Riu is where we are meant to be.  The Mystery Hotel is…

Hotel Riu Palace Punta Cana

Funny huh?

All the Places to Go…

A few weeks ago at dinner Doug and I made a list of all the places and things that we need to do during the next 2 years that we will be living in WA.  I love going to Mexico, but I feel that since we are on the West coast we should try and see everything we can before we go back east. The only thing that we have done that was on my travel list was an Alaskan cruise last August.

Here is our list and I will keep you posted as we get to mark things off…

1. Go to a Mariners Game (baseball)
2. Go to a Seahawks Game (football)
3. Go to a Sounders Game (and why not a soccer game)
4. San Juan Islands (off the coast of WA)
5. Leavenworth at Christmas
6. Tulip festival in Mt. Vernon
7. Hike in the Olympic Peninsula
8. Canyon Beach in Oregon
9. San Francisco
10. Napa Valley
11. Disneyland/LA
12. Hawaii
13. Mexico with Charlie and Julie for their 30th bdays (and Doug’s too)
14. Halibut Fishing
15. Shooting an Elk (this one is for Doug)
16. California Beach
17. Redwood Forest
18. Catalina
19. Portland
20. Crater Lake

Hopefully we can accomplish all of this in 2 years!

3 Years Ago Today…

I married my best friend.  This has probably been the hardest year on us because we have been apart for most of if.  I am so glad that Doug’s third year of residency is almost over and our life can go back to normal.  I am so looking forward to falling asleep every night  next to the man of my dreams.   Happy Anniversary Doug!

Westport, WA

This weekend Doug and I went to a little coastal town here in Washington to go Halibut fishing.  Doug was so excited, but the Wednesday before we left the Charter Boat company called to tell us that the Halibut limit had been reached for the season and that we could go bottom fishing instead.  We were sad that we couldn’t fish for halibut, but we were still excited to go! 

We arrived in Westport on Saturday and explored the town in all of 20 minutes.  There really wasn’t too much to see in the little old fishing town, so we headed back to the hotel bar.  Doug was pumped to find out that they were serving $1 16oz bud lights for Military.  I was glad too because then I could order more fruity drinks!  We ate dinner at a little fish shack.  It was good, but after too many fruity drinks I gave most of my cod to Doug. 

The one good thing about not going Halibut fishing was not having to get up at 3am to make it to the boat on time.  The boat left at 6:30am and for the first time I took Dramamine before getting on board.  The last few times that we have gone deep sea fishing I have felt a little woozy.  So I decided that I would pre medicate before this trip.  The water was super choppy and the boat was rocking all around.  For the first time in my life I got motion sick/seasick and was throwing up over the side of the boat.  I was one of two girls on the boat and Doug me that about a third of the guys were doing the same as  I was.  My sweet husband went back to the cabin to get me a water, he come back with the water in one hand and him a beer in the other.  I was like REALLY!  I am super sick and here you are drinking a BEER!  Gotta love him!

We finally made it to where we were going to fish for sea bass.  The sea bass were biting and we caught our boat limit of 220 in no time.  Even as we were fishing I was still getting sick off the side of the boat.  Doug and I caught a few lingcod, but only one was a keeper.  We came home with two big bags of codfish.  It was an awesome trip, but it will be a while before I go on my next deep sea fishing trip.  I will need to forget about being sea sick before returning to the sea again.