6 Years Later...

...I still have the best husband for me and we're still falling deeper and deeper in love. We have our ups and downs but it just makes us stronger. Everyday I see things and do things that I know if I were with anyone else it wouldn't be the same. I am more myself than ever and it's because of Brad and his endless faith and acceptance. Our anniversary this year is a little on the strange side. It was yesterday, but we only saw each other for a little while in the morning before heading off to work. We celebrated on Thursday by going out to dinner at Old Fisherman's Grotto. It was delicious. The night ended with the waiter giving me a rose, which I thought was so sweet. Since it was a work night we just went home after dinner and watched our usual Thursday night TV. Very low-key but that's how we roll. Today I'm headed to the East Coast with my mom. Brad is up in Mendocino at a spear diving competition. I'm excited to explore New England and hopefully the weather holds out for us and we don't get too much rain. I hope Brad has good weather this weekend, it's no fun to dive in huge swells. He really loves free diving, and he is so good at spear fishing it's scary. I think if we ever had to "live off the land" we would be fine, Brad would be able to get fish for us to eat any time. Now, I just need to "acquire" the taste for lingcod...then we'll be set for life. I'm so impressed with his skills. He continues to amaze me all the time with his ability to learn anything and excel at it. The past 6 years have flown by, and I'm eager and excited for the future!

Gardening

I've known for a long time I DO NOT have a green thumb. But that didn't stop Brad from trying his luck and he's done pretty well for himself and his first garden. I'm proud. And I especially enjoy reaping the benefits.

We started in January with a bunch of seeds and a lot of enthusiasm


After they started growing indoors we transplanted them outside in our very small patch of dirt that we can call our own. One area runs along the side of our home and the other area is right in front of our front door.




We planted a variety of lettuce, spinach, strawberries, green beans, broccoli, zucchini, yellow crookneck squash, basil, tomatoes, peppers, and probably a few other things that I'm forgetting. I loved the spinach, we picked it as it grew and sauteed it in olive oil and garlic, it was so delicious. It's amazing how much flavor home grown spinach has compared to store bought! The broccoli was also really scrumptious. Our basil never thrived, it's still living, but not really thriving. The green beans on the other hand, are going crazy. We thought they had died for a while since we transplanted them and they never shot up the poles, but it started to get a bit warmer here and they went gang busters. We have a lot of green beans! It makes me happy!





We've had a few strawberries, but we haven't been able to eat any of them. But maybe soon.




We've had our share of problems, the worst are the snails, caterpillars, and lack of sunshine. Because of the lack of sunshine/warmth our tomato plants seem to be stunted. We have exactly one bloom and one small tomato. Maybe once our Indian summer arrives we will have more luck...
However, the lack of sunshine has not stunted our zucchini. Check out this monster!



Now my favorite part of my garden was our flowers! Lilies are my favorite!

travel...so much fun...if you enjoy headaches

I HATE FLYING!

I'm pretty sure you already know that, but today just solidified my opinion.

I was supposed to fly with AA from San Diego to Monterey. But at around 3:00 today they called to let me know my flight was cancelled and they wanted to reschedule me to tomorrow at 2 pm. WHAT!?!? You mean I can't get out of this place for practically 24 hours!?! Not okay!!! Especially since I have tickets for the Harry Potter movie tonight and a wonderful husband patiently (or not) awaiting my return after being gone for a week. Apparently AA has had a lot of cancellations today....

So I frantically call the travel agency for work and try to find anything to get me home tonight. Best they could find: Southwest leaving at 7:05 and flying to San Jose. Oh well, better than nothing. So here I am, waiting in the most crowded and chaotic terminal at the airport. Not a happy traveller!

To make matters worse I hate southwest. I hate the way they don't let you have reserved seats and I hate that to just get on a standby list for a earlier flight you have to pay $95. WTF?!

So, in summary, I have blazing headache, I'm angry as a wet hornet and you can bet both these airlines will be hearing from me via an angry yet articulate email. And if you have to interact with me in the next 24 hours, I apologize because I still won't be over it.

Good Times

It's been a while, but no excuses, I just haven't been into the blogging. I haven't even been reading other blogs. But I figured I would give a quick run down of what we've been up to.

Monday, was the 4th of July, as you all know. Brad and I couldn't find really much of anything happening in Monterey. Come to find out the Monterey area really sucks when it comes to celebrating 4th of July, so don't come, it's not worth it. We ended up in Spreckles, which is a super cute small town and they had a festival and parade in the morning. It was fun, it kept us busy in the morning.


Monterey is also probably one of the only places on the continental US that you can wear jeans and a sweatshirt all day on the 4th of July. So, I guess if you want a break from the hot places you live, then it's a good place to vacation in the summer. After the parade, we went a saw Green Lantern. I enjoyed it. It kept me entertained and I pretty much love Ryan Reynolds, so extra plus for me. Oh, and if you haven't seen the movie yet, you should stay after for the first credits because it sets up the sequel, but once the rolling credits start you can leave, nothing else comes up after that.

Last weekend was also the first weekend of our new hobby. If you haven't figured out by now, Brad and I are pretty much adrenaline junkies, if we can't die doing it then it's not really something we want to do (just kidding mom...kind of...). So, our latest interest, breathing under water.

Yep, we are taking scuba diving lessons to be open water certified for up to 60 feet! We have two more weekends worth of classes then we have our first official ocean dive, which I am both excited for and scared out of my mind for! It's hard to take pictures since we're in the water together, but I managed to get a few from last weekend.


Saturday after our first lesson we headed to a Soccer game in San Jose for the Earthquakes. They had fireworks after the game which is good since we didn't get to see fireworks at any other point that weekend. It was interesting. I was very educated about Soccer, since this was my first ever game, professional or otherwise.


The month of June was full too, we had a friend's wedding, followed by Rodeo weekend, then Father's day which Brad and I were separated. Brad was running the Wasatch Ragnar with family and friends. I was celebrating my niece and nephew's birthdays and Father's day with my family. We then went to see a performance by Brian Regan which was fun. And that pretty much brings us up to date.

This weekend we are headed to Santa Cruz tonight for the free music and to hopefully pick up our scuba equipment for our class. Saturday we will be at Laguna Seca for a race. Then Sunday I leave for training for a week. Good times!

Happy Easter!

Yes, I know that Easter is tomorrow, but I felt like wishing you a Happy Easter a day early. I hope everyone has a fabulous holiday weekend!

I'm a little sad this year, my favorite Easter candy was all sold out when I went to the store last night. It sucks when your favorite candy is only made once a year, but I guess it serves me right for procrastinating. So if any of you get some of these, maybe you could share a couple??? Haha! Well, Happy Easter anyway! :)

Needles and Surgery and Stitches...Oh My!

How did I make it 25 years without any stitches? Well, not counting the dissolving stitches I got when I had my wisdom teeth removed, today was my first time having stitches and I have 4 of them.

Have you ever had a numb ear? I have to admit it is probably the weirdest feeling I've ever experienced. I had surgery on my ear today. I'm still waiting to get the feeling completely back in my ear.

The doctor numbed my ear with a massive needle and an obscene amount of numbing liquid. For those of you who know me, you know that I hate, Hate, HATE needles! So I stared at Brad for that part of the procedure, it hurt more than I thought it would, but I was okay, until I felt some of the liquid drip down the back of my neck. Ugh! I thought it was blood and it was just the most awful feeling, and it was at that point that I really wanted to faint and vomit all at the same time, but I kept it together. The doctor asked if i was doing okay. I really wanted to say I'm awful, I want to throw up and I want to go home, but what came out of my mouth was "uhh-huh, I'm fine" but I was shaking and sweaty and still freaked out from the feeling of something dripping down my neck. So I closed my eyes and tried to think of anything other than what was happening. It didn't help that I could hear what he was doing and I could feel him tugging on my ear.

Brad tried to talk and keep me distracted. I had my eyes closed still and the doctor asked "Are you okay" and I totally thought he was talking to me so I answered, keeping my eyes closed, that I was fine, but then the doctor said "no, not you" at which point I opened my eyes and saw Brad, pale as an egg and trying not to heave. Which in turn freaked me out that something really awful must be happening. But we all made it through. Now I just have to wait a week to get my stitches out and hopefully I never have to go through that ever again!

Mushroom Hunting

It all started because I wanted to go for a hike. We drove to a local "park" and as we were driving we saw a few people outside the park boundaries with wicker baskets...hmmm, are they going on a picnic? No, they're mushroom hunting...very interesting. We keep driving, enter the park, park the car and start our hike, where we quickly find mushrooms of all shapes, sizes and colors. About 30 minutes into our nature walk/hike Brad can't stand it anymore, he has to talk to someone about the mushrooms. He finds another couple and proceeds to talk to them for probably an hour or so, following them around as they find mushrooms and they tell him tidbits of information. Meanwhile I continue wandering on the path, trying to keep an eye on him while taking pictures of all sorts of interesting mushrooms. Lo and behold! I found a mushroom that is safe to eat before I even knew it was a safe one. So after Brad's educational interview with these people I show him my picture and he promptly asks where I took that picture...hmmm, think really hard, in the last 20 pictures you just took, where was this particular one, retrace all steps...ah-ha! I think I remember! We found my mushroom and harvested it. Brad actually found a lot of mushrooms and we dug some of them up, some of them were already past their prime, and some of them we just skipped over on the face that we had no where to put all these mushrooms and we still had to hike back to the car.


I don't particularly like mushrooms, but they were pretty tasty. I really enjoy looking at the poisonous ones, they're so much prettier than the edible ones! This one was my favorite, and the last one I saw on our hike:


The red ones remind me of Smurfs and Mario.


We encountered multiple varieties of mushrooms and since I don't know anything about mushrooms or what they're really called I made up my own names based on what they made me think of.


Overall is was a very fun and educational trip and I at least got my hike out of the deal and Brad has added yet another hobby to his long list of things to do for fun.

Lilies

My favorite flower is the Tiger Lily, but for the most part I love all lilies! The apartment where Brad was staying had these gorgeous Calla Lilies right out the front door and I just loved them so much I had to take some pictures. So here they are for you enjoyement.

Eclipse!

NO, not the book, the literal happening of an eclipse. If you missed the one that happened on December 20th, then you're in luck because Brad got some pretty amazing shots of this pretty spectacular phenomenon! He is just so handy and talented when it comes to taking pictures! I feel so blessed to have him in my life that I get to benefit from his talents!




It truly was an amazing experience! I'm glad I stayed up to witness it first hand. We thought the cloud cover was going to be too dense to see the eclipse but we kept getting little clearings in the fog and clouds and were able to get these amazing shots!

My Grandma

In December my Grandma turned 80! My aunt planned a surprise party in her honor and it was a very nice event. I personally love to see pictures of all my grandparents as they were growing up. It's so neat to see who they were as children and young adults. I took pictures of some of the pictures at the party and it is so neat to look at them and imagine or hear stories about life during that time!


It was also nice to be able to see my dad's side of the family and meet some of my Grandma's friends that I hear about but had never put a face to the name. She really is a loved and appreciated person in her community and her family. I loved the poem that her friends wrote for her, someday I'll have to see if I can get my hands on a copy. I really love and appreciate my Grandma. She is so talented in multiple trades. And I love how dedicated she is to finding out about our family history. She has so many stories and so much knowledge. I think she should write a book! I hope someday to grow into as talented of a woman as she.


The party was held at the church my Grandma attends. I was really excited while roaming the halls to find little pieces of my Grandpa's handiwork. Both my Grandma and my Grandpa are and were extremely gifted in the arts. My Grandpa was an excellent wood-worker and my Grandma is an excellent painter (among other things), which both go hand in hand. I never knew that they had made items for the church and I was really touched and excited to see pieces of their legacy that will last and have lasted many many years.



On a side note, this picture of me and my mom was taken at the party and I just really love it!

Where Does the Time Go???

It must be time to play catch up. I feel bad because I have not updated for over a month. So, I'm going to try to do a quick all-in-one update and not get too detailed.

We had a great Christmas with the family this year. And we got some pretty awesome gifts too! We are so blessed to have such amazing family and friends!

New Years we spent down at Brad's apartment (weird to say, I know, husband and wife having separate living quarters a hundred miles apart...). We were going to do the Polar Bear Plunge on New Year's day, but there was a health warning about the bacteria levels in the water, so we decided not to do that this year. We did go out to dinner with friends and then to a movie. We saw the latest Chronicles of Narnia, then retired to our friend's home to play Dance Party 2 and Mario Party until 1:00 a.m. Overall it was a perfect way to spend a New Year's with people we love and doing things we love to do!

January has been a pretty hectic month. Brad has been submitting applications to find a job up here. He had an interview with the first company he applied with and they hired him. Yay! He starts this coming Monday. So, needless to say, I am thrilled that he is moving in with me this weekend. Although, I'm a little bummed to have to be sharing the bathroom full time again. It's so small! But we will make it work, I will probably try to "persuade" him to take showers at night and then he won't be in my way when I get ready in the morning. And I'm sure he won't have to be at work by 7, so I should be able to finish before he even wakes up.

We had a really fun game night with some friends of mine from work. We played Cranium and Gestures. It was a lot of fun to be interacting with people again. It feels like it's been forever since we had a game night! We also decided to go exploring around Monterey. I wanted to go hiking a few weekends ago and so I picked out a place really close by. As we were hiking our hike rapidly turned into another activity...hunting for and harvesting mushrooms! We found another couple doing it and they educated Brad with all the basics we needed to make sure we didn't pick the poisonous ones. It was fun. We gained knowledge, got our exercise for the day, and came home with a large bag of Porcini mushrooms.

The following weekend we had our first visitors since we moved to this new apartment. Brad's parent's came to stay with us for a few days for Brad's birthday. Brad took them to our mushroom spot for one day while I was working. On Friday we went to the Aquarium. Saturday we woke up early and drove to San Francisco where we took the boat to Alcatraz. The tour was pretty awesome, mainly because there was a former prisoner there sharing his story. Then when we got back to the mainland we encountered a large gathering of people crowding the streets (of course that's a pretty normal sight in San Francisco) this weekend's topic was abortion. We walked around and ate lunch at Boudin, and walked around some more. For Brad's birthday dinner we stopped at a little Italian restaurant in Burlingame. I think our raviolis were pretty awesome. Brad was less than thrilled with the drink selection. The waiter didn't know what Mountain Dew was and said he would ask...clearly they didn't have any soda. And then the chocolate cake after was pretty yummy too! Sunday we went to church and then back home to hang out. My parents came up to visit for the afternoon and we all played some card games and ate dinner.

This week has just been a week of working. Brad comes home tomorrow night. I'm glad this is the last week we have to spend apart for a while.

That's all for now. I will try to post pictures soon. Hope everyone has a great last weekend of January! I can't believe it's already February!