Vacation therapy

After surviving 5 brutal days in a row at work, it's finally time for some vacation! No more babies falling out in triage, running to the OR multiple times in an hour, or pregnant Swine flu hysteria. I'm finished with all of that.... at least for 11 glorious days. Paul & I are headed to Hot Springs, Arkansas with our best friends--

Casey & Krista.

The boys will be mountain biking.....
....while Krista & I enjoy a little spa rejuvenation.


It should be a therapeutic vacation for all!

Birthday weiner

Our little weiner is 5 years old today! --and still remains a constant source of good times & cheap entertainment for us! Stretch is the best little lap-snuggler, chair-stealer, trail-running, beer-loving little weiner dog you could ever hope for! He celebrated his b-day with his dad today since I had to work, then enjoyed a family happy hour-- complete with beer-dipped chewie & a thorough beer bottle licking. Happy Birthday, Stretcher!

Good times in April!

April has been a great month so far! We started off the month celebrating Randy's 30th birthday-bash-weekend at Falcon Point Lodge in Seadrift. It was a fabulous weekend of family bonding/drinking/lounging/fishing/drinking/lounging....you get the picture. Lots of fun! This last weekend I had a blast at my "11 year" high school class reunion in Austin.... (we just couldn't get our act together to actually have a 10 year reunion;) Paul couldn't make it to the festivities so I loaded Stretch up and we headed towards Austin, where we finally floated into Oma's house much later than anticipated (thanks to the monsoon that blew through on Friday). It was great seeing all of my old friends and catching up with everyone!

Happy hour in the hot tub at Falcon Point

Ben loving his Aunt Kara

Chillin' with little Logan

Dad & Paul with their impressively big Reds.

Randy's even more impressive catch: a 28 inch Red on Ben's 30 inch Zebco fishing pole!


Paul & I sporting a new kind of tandem....without wheels.

And here's some of my high school peeps that I loved getting to see again (& then realized just how much I missed them!)
Eric, Aaron, me, Christina, & Derrick
The last time we were all together was our unforgetable Cape Cod vacation the summer of '98!

Weekend with the Fords

Paul's parents came to the island this weekend for a visit. Unlike last weekend, the weather was perfect! Paul & his dad enjoyed some mountain biking while Mona & I lounged around with good wine & conversation. It was a great weekend for all!

And here are some pictures of the informal photo shoot at the park this afternoon....

sweet kisses

Mona & Stan with the weenie

Once everyone left we got to work making some delicious strawberry preserves.... and mojitos :)

mmm....

Mission accomplished!

After much anticipation and waiting.... we finally have electricity in our gazebo!! Yaaaay! This is something I have wanted ever since we bought our house almost 2 years ago. And since our backyard "face lift" is just about complete, I begged & begged my dad to come down for a work weekend and get me hooked up. Despite some really nasty weather on the island, the mission was accomplished!

It rained ALL day on Saturday so we had to play a little Wii....

STRIKE!!

My dad workin' hard....

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And here's some pictures of what's blooming around our yard now :)
Paul & I are so pleased with the transformation!

daisies

red hibiscus

I've had this Bird of Paradise plant for several years in a huge pot & he would never bloom. He somehow survived Ike & a good bit of neglect since then, and now-- 6 months after the storm he's blooming for the 1st time! Go figure... if I only would've known it takes a hurricane for these plants to bloom ;)
the back patio area

yellow hibiscus -- my favorite!

Our new grapefruit tree is blooming & it smells sooo delicious.
Mmm, I can taste those Salty Dogs already :)

And here's Stretch after a long afternoon of roastin'.
...nothing like a good, hot weiner ;)

Progress!

When Ike came to visit this past September he was not a very welcomed guest. He successfully trashed our garage with 6 feet of storm surge water, ruining most everything down there including the 1/2 bathroom. Items we did salvage now have a lovely coating of rust or a "not-so-fresh" look about them. But most disappointing was the destroyed backyard. We lost all landscaping, flower beds, two large shade trees, and had some fence damage. Amazingly though, the gazebo was still standing! The trees somehow fell around the gazebo. And the yard was littered with millions of pieces of roof shingles (thankfully not ours!) among other debris. After several months of picking up shingles and random pieces of debris in the yard, Paul and I grew more and more apathetic towards the whole backyard restoration. I would cringe when I looked outside in the yard and felt so sorry for Stretch when I would see him walking around in "his" backyard. We knew this was a job way too big for us to complete. And Paul Ford is soooo not a "yard man";) So that's where Martin our new Yard Guy comes into the picture. He and his amazing crew of men have totally transformed our backyard into a wonderful little oasis once again! The landscaping is almost finished at this point. Here are some pictures of the progress being made-- more pictures of the landscaping and new walkway will come on a later posting....

before work had begun...

It took 5 men to roll that stump out to the alley!

trenches for the sprinkler system

the grass getting delivered!

where our new flagstone walkway will be :)

Stretch likes to check out the progress in his backyard every day.

This is the front gated garden that once had all of our herbs in it. It had to be raised up because of being sunken down from the water. We've decided to make it our herb and vegetable garden this year. Mmm, I can't wait!

"Like a virgin..."

So as I'm trying to figure out all of this blogging business I have the words of one of Madonna's famous songs "Like a virgin" running through my head, because --- yes, I am a virgin today. A blogger virgin, that is. This is my very first time and I am so frustrated (& a bit disappointed too) because it's definitely not like what I had hoped it would be. All of the talk about how great it is once you finally start doing it, and how much fun it is, and blah, blah, blah..... I'm thinking it's all a little over rated personally. I guess it takes a while to finally get the hang of it in order to actually enjoy it. Blogging, that is. I'm talking about blogging, in case I lost you back there at "virgin". So until I figure out how to add pictures, and freaking format stuff, and add a birthday ticker for my weiner dog like a proud mommy does-- I will remain skeptically "like a virgin." ;)