Day 299-302: Memorial Weekend

We are in the three hundreds!

This weekend was a nice long Memorial weekend. I went up north Saturday and Sunday. There was a lot of family up north and it was really good to hang out with them. We chopped some trees, drank some booze, picked some ticks, and learned waaaay too much about each other! Which always makes for a fun weekend.

I'm trying to plan a trip up there for a couple days this summer. When I can just take off with my puppy and hang out with her: walk through the woods, swim in the lake, take the boat out. I like me time.

We are 2 steps closer to a house. By the end of this week we will hopefully be working on an official offer. I had the chance to run through the house this morning and am super pumped about it. Finally some good news in life.

Hope everyone has a productive work week!

Day 297 and 298

This is my lap.... well not anymore, cuz now the laptop is there. But this is my favorite view of my lap! My cuddly girls make my day!

We are baby steps closer to a house today! :)

Also I work tomorrow and then I am headed up north for the holiday weekend! I'm super pumped!

And in conclusion to this short post: I love my husband! :D

Peace out!

Day 289-296

Welcome back me!

This last week has been beyond a rollercoaster of stress and self-esteem issues. Not to mention I just got of the WORST 4 day stretch of work ever. It was rough. We lost 5 patients in 12 hours. Some expected, some not.

But after a great mental health day today, I think I'm back in the game. So let's forget the rest of the garbage and talk about today.

I woke up super early to get ready to take the dogs to the vet. While I was in the shower Nova was so excited that I was up early that she jumped in the shower with me! Silly puppy... silly, wet puppy!

Then I was off to the vet with both dogs, which is always an ordeal. But they did amazing. They were both well behaved. The pocket book took quite the hit though.

After the vet I snagged some yummy lunch. Then I spent the afternoon at home... not cleaning, not stressing, not anything. I watched a little TV and then went outside with my girls. I played fetch a bit and then read a book for an hour. I got a bit of a sun burn. Guess that is what happens when you are pasty!

When Josh got home we went to Cora's first soccer game. Unfortunately I don't have any particular soccer action shots, but Kalena was being a ham! So you get pics of her. Then we went and looked at my great uncle's house. This time we went in with buyer's eyes.

And I don't want to jinx things but I think this is it! Meeting to discuss more on Thursday morning. :)

And then came home happy and giddy and relaxed a bit with all of the awesome finales on TV. Tomorrow it is back to work, but only one day at a time for the rest of the week. I can't wait to go up north this weekend! It is bound to be amazing! :)

Day 286-288

I'm taking some "me" time. So I apologize in advance for the emptiness of my blog this week. I hope to have many awesome pictures upon my return!

Day 286

So today was Cam's birthday! It was a nice small party with a really big cake! No joke the cake was like 10lbs! It was nice seeing family again and getting the chance to hang out. He loved all the attention! And he wasn't one of the typical babies who dives into his cake... he was actually pretty clean and reserved. If it weren't for certain people *cough* putting his fingers in his hair and mashing up his cake, he would've never needed a bath!

After the party I took a much needed nap. I was wiped. (Maybe from playing giant Jenga at the bar after work last night! Soooo fun!)

Then tonight was Gamblers playoff hockey- game 2 of the final series. They won last night 3-0. Tonight they weren't quite so lucky and lost 2-1. But it is only game 2 and I know that they are on their way to another Clark Cup championship!

Tomorrow is a day of relaxing. Maybe some house hunting, maybe some grocery shopping. Either way it will be too cold and rainy to do anything fun outside. Hope everyone has a great rest of the weekend!

Day 283-285

Wednesday was Cadence's preschool graduation. They did a little skit and sang some songs and then had ice cream. It was super cute. Then Wednesday night we went and looked at another house... it wasn't that great, and was very over priced for the condition it was in. But our realtor was super awesome and hooked us up with some good tools for house hunting.

Yesterday I had nurse residency.... long day of sitting and listening to lecturers. One good thing that came out of it (besides $$) was finding a resource for Josh to get help with his breathing. Then last night we went and looked at a house we liked over the weekend, but this time we took my parents with us. The only major problem with the house is still its location! The house itself is still awesome but the darn location will move it to the bottom of the list.

We plan on going to look at a few houses this weekend and then we are going to see 8 houses on Thursday! :) Super exciting. We should get some good perspective on what exactly we want.

Today is Friday the 13th... and I work. Normally I'm not too superstitious, but I just hope it is a good night at work. Because after tonight I have a three day weekend! And it's going to be a relaxing and fun filled weekend. Unfortunately.... much like this picture, it is going to be a stormy weekend. This is a picture from the storm rolling in last night. It's going to be a wet, wet weekend.

I hope everyone stays dry and has a good weekend!

Days 274-282

It wouldn't be right to talk about Stitch without our mascot representing: so I present Teaka! She is so freaking cute when she carries things around in her mouth! She even dragged in Anna's gift, but I couldn't get a good picture.

This past week has been a whirlwind! We saw two houses over the weekend... one which we loved! We are going back to see it on Thursday. Then I messaged our realtor about things we want and he sent us a list of properties today. And WHAM! BAM! we are going to see two of them tomorrow! EEK! It's happening so quick! I'm pumped but anxious all at the same time.

Yesterday was Anna's last Stitch. She leaves next Friday to go back to Moldova. So we had cake and gifts. She was really a great addition to the group and something will be missing when she is not there. I hope she comes back to visit soon!

I don't have much time to discuss... I have been working like crazy. And between work and house hunting and trying to hang out with people... SO much craziness!

Upcoming week events:

Wed: Cadence's preschool graduation, 2 houses

Thurs: Nurse Residency and 1 house

Fri: work

Sat: Cam's bday party and Gambler PLAYOFF hockey!!!!!

More to come! Enjoy this gorgeous picture of the gorgeous ladies of Stitch and Bitch:

Day 273

Today my family took Anna to the DeYoung Family Zoo! We have been planning this day for so long, and since Anna is leaving soon we had to get up there!

We were the first to arrive at the zoo about 30 minutes after they opened. As we began our trek around the zoo it was nice and sunny, but a couple hours in it was windy and cloudy. It was sooooo cold! We were all numb by the time we left at 2pm.

Buddy found us back by the hippo house, and since we were the only guests he took us into the hippo house. Wallace the hippo came out of his pond and up to the gate. I told Buddy that Anna was from Moldova and he was fascinated! He was asking her all sorts of questions about culture differences, wildlife in Moldova, etc. Then he handed her a carrot. Wallace has a command to open his mouth and you toss the carrot in. We all had a chance to feed him. And when I asked if he was slimy Buddy told me I could pet him and find out! I will probably never get to pet a hippo again, it was so cool!

Then Buddy told us that he was going to feed the bears. Translation: Anna is going to feed the bears. Since Moldova is by Russia, he thought it would be appropriate for Anna to feed the Russian brown bears! In all the times I have been there, I have NEVER, NEVER EVER seen him bring a guest inside the first gate. He had Anna come inside the gate and feed licorice to the bears. She is so lucky. Then he had her unload celery and melons and toss them over the gate to the bears. At one point he had both gates wide open so we could stand in the doorway and take pictures of the bears without bars in the way. (There was an electric wire between us and the bears, so we had some sort of protection. And they were distracted by food.)

Then it was tiger time... as in baby tiger time. :) They had 3 cubs born on March 21st during the big snow storm. One cub went to another zoo, and then they kept a male and female. They are hand-raising the cubs because they started to lose weight with the horrible shifts in the weather. Carrie brought out the little 6 week old male cub named Khan. He was adorable! And he was very adventurous and enjoyed climbing on everyone. It was far too cold out to bring out any primates or other animals.

Carrie told us that they had 2 wolf pups and 1 fox kit. She said the wolves rarely come out of their den with the weather being so nasty. But she said the little fox was flashing his new teeth over his food this morning and he was acting tough. We went to go find the foxes. We saw three adult foxes and were looking for the little 7 week old one. And then we saw him. He was laying upside-down by the fence, he was dirty and not breathing. :( My mom ran and told Carrie who grabbed keys and came running out. She went right in with the foxes and picked him up. He was dead. She looked him over and searched in the enclosure, but couldn't find out why he had died. She carried him out in her jacket right as a family with small kids came by. I'm glad we found him before the little kids did. Carrie was tearing up. My mom was crying. In general it was just a super sad moment.

Then came time to feed the big cats. We got lots of neat pictures, also in thanks to some of the workers there. The workers will take your cameras and take pictures for you on the inside of the gates so you don't have the bars in your pictures. They are pros! After the cats were done eating, it was time for us to warm up and eat! We said goodbye to Buddy and he told Anna that if she is ever back in the States she should come back and visit.

Now Anna can say she pet a hippo, fed bears, and held a baby tiger! Those will be great memories and pictures she can bring back to Moldova with her. Definitely one of my favorite trips to the zoo! We didn't get to hold as many animals, but it was a very nice and intimate visit to the zoo.