A year ago...

So I have tons of work to do, but I just can't seem to focus! You know how that is!


Instead I looked back at some old emails - like from a year ago! One year ago, Garet and I were planning our trip back to St. John. Seems like forever ago that we even went on that trip! I think we should start planning another trip :)

It really is crazy how fast time flies! Garet was in the process of looking for a job, he had just interviewed with the Fire Department. We were considering moving back to the Caribbean... Isn't it funny how sometimes, at the time, you think "Will this EVER work out?" or "What would happen if we made this decision?" Wouldn't it be nice if you could just hit fast forward just to take a little peek at what the outcome of things would be?? That way you would be okay with the waiting game, or you would know if you made the right decision.

Now looking back that a year ago, I am so thankful that we made all the decisions we did! I think everything worked out just great! Would we ever move back to St. John?? Who knows? Sometimes I think, "Absolutely!" other times I think "maybe".

I love looking back and remembering the things that we have been though!

Now on to more important things....
like Garet's dad is getting married next week - and I have NO idea what to wear!! It is going to be too cold for sandals, and short dresses, but I don't have a long sleeved dress, and I don't want to wear pants... What's a girl to do?

Date Day...

No pictures in this post, sorry - I, unfortunately, haven't used my camera in a while!

Garet and I usually go on date nights but yesterday we had a date day. I have been off from work the past two days, so yesterday Garet finished up his work early so we could hit up the movies! We went out to Bridgestreet and went to a couple stores then went to the movie theater there. It was really nice!

Let me tell you what a goof I am...
So, I was off work on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Well on Tuesday night I have bible study with the girls from church. Tuesday night Garet and I were sitting down for dinner, we were just chatting, then he said, "You have bible study tonight!" Duh - the WHOLE day I thought it was Saturday! I totally missed it! Then yesterday I felt like I was skipping church, because I thought it was Sunday! My mind just can't seem to comprehend a day off in the middle of the week! :)

Today feels like Monday...

Belated Weekend...

My busy work weekend is over!!! Everything went really well - and boy was I tired yesterday when I got home! We were really busy yesterday! Today was like my Friday, I get off the next two days! I am so excited about it!

While we were working the rodeo was going on, right outside the office window. I took pictures - yes I was the crazy girl in the window with the camera. Here are the 3 I took, it is of them setting up, then with all the horses getting ready to go inside to compete.

We had a beautiful weekend, and so far the beginning of the week has been pretty too. It is supposed to rain, but hopefully it will wait until after my "weekend".

And it begins...

work, work, work

We are having our Building, Home & Remodeling Show this weekend, which means that we get to work ALL weekend. I have actually been there setting up for it all week. It is nice to get out of the office, and time sure flies by since we are so busy there - but when I get home I realize how tired I am! And how bad my feet hurt!

Today and tomorrow I get the morning off - I don't have to be there until noon but then I will be working until close. If you plan on coming go here and print out a $1 off coupon :)

So our show is going on at the VBC (Von Braun Center), well guess what else is going on at the VBC??? The RODEO!! Last year Garet and I went - but this year I have to work more, so we won't be able to make it. I love the rodeo! Our show office has two big windows, and guess what they look out on?? The behind the scenes of the rodeo!! When I have some downtime I watch the cowboys set up the rails and get the horses into the arena. I'll have to take some pictures! Here is Garet and I last year

Winter's still here...

When I woke up this morning this is what I saw when I looked outside:
It seemed to be more ice than snow. I was actually surprised that the weatherguys got it right! I tried to get a close up of the actual snow.

It was coming down pretty hard for awhile. After church, pretty much everything was melted, but it stayed COLD!! I am really looking forward to spring!

We ran a few errands today - I got a few frames to hang in the house! I just got finished ordering pictures for them, that's so exciting! :) I also started making some cookies. If I am ever bored that is usually what I do... bake. I found a new recipe for some sugar cookies. I will never use it again. The dough was so super sticky that I couldn't even get it rolled without having it all over the place! No matter how much flour I used! So I got one batch in the oven and decided that I was done wrestling with it. Instead I just put the rest of the batter onto to cookie sheet to make 1 big cookie. I would have posted a picture, but it wasn't very pretty!

Now we are just enjoying our last bit of the weekend before a new crazy work week starts.

Bath time...

Well, today I decided to give the pup a bath...

It was so pretty today! We were "flirting with 70 degrees outside"! (per the weatherguy) Suzi was due for a bath - so I figured today would be a good day. I got everything prepared... soap, towels, water, and... my hairdryer. Suzi LOVES the hairdryer - so after we hand dry her with towels, we use the hairdryer. I have to move my car so that I can use the plug in the garage to dry her.

Things were going well, she was all bathed, and mostly dry. I figured that I'd just put her in the backyard while she finished drying. Then I went to pull my car back into the garage and I hear a crunch... my hairdryer...

Yep, I ran over my hairdryer.

Awesome.

Afternoon hike...

After church this past Sunday, Garet and I went with some friends to hike on Monte Sano Mountain. Here we are on our way :) (notice I was the one taking the picture and not Garet? go me!)

It was such a pretty day! It was just really cold! They brought their dog Ray, he is such a cutie!! People we passed would say "Marley!" Here we are after we made it to the top

Wanna go for a ride...

Usually during work days Suzi is fine at home from the time we leave until the time we get home from work, but if we have to do something after work one of us will swing by on our lunch break to let her outside. Today is one of those days...

So I run home on my lunch break to let the dog out. When she came back inside, she ran and sat by the door to our garage. Strange... I figured, maybe she thinks Garet is out there?? So I open the door to let her see that, in fact, there was no one in our garage. Suzi runs into the garage and proceeds to sit by my car door... I opened the door to see what she would do, and she jumped right in! ...and she would not get out! haha Poor dog is trying to tell me she wants to get out and go for a ride!

Even when I tried to fake her out (by running inside - thinking she would get excited and run after me) she still didn't budge from the backseat! Too funny, I had to snap a picture!

Wonderful weather...

Yay, it's the weekend!! Today was beautiful! I thought we were supposed to get rain today, but boy were the weather people wrong! (not that that is unusual)



Garet had to work this morning, then he had a meeting tonight - so it was just us girls for the most part of today. I started the morning off like any other Saturday... cleaning... Does anyone else do this? It seems to be the only day that I actually have time!



Anyway, then I got Suzi's favorite toy back out. Since she has been sick we have been hiding it from her. I figured it had been long enough so I let her play with it for awhile. When I looked out to the backyard, I say this...

(nose smudges courtesy of Suzi, please excuse them!)

So I grabbed my book and my water and headed out. It was sooo nice! A little windy, but when you are sitting in the sun it wasn't too bad. There wasn't a cloud in the sky! See...

I love days like this! I am so ready for spring!

Holiday...

Isn't today supposed to be a holiday????
It seems like for the rest of the world it is. But here I am at work. Just like a normal Monday.

My sweet hubby had the day off. He went on a hike with a friend and he was nice enough to send me this picture from his phone... I don't think he was trying to rub it in =)
Looks so pretty, wish I was there...

Valentine's Day...

We had a wonderful Valentine's Day yesterday!

That morning we actually slept in! (well if you consider 7:30 sleeping in) We got some fun stuff out of the way too - like straighting the house and going grocery shopping! Garet and I had talked about it and decided that we didn't want to have to get in the crowd of people that were going out for dinner last night, so we went to a nice lunch instead. There is a little cafe down the street, it was good food and no wait!

After lunch I got a crock pot meal cookin' so that would be ready for us to have last night for dinner. I LOVE my crock pot! Then we went to the movies. We saw Slumdog Millionaire. If you haven't seen it, you should! It was really good!!

Our dinner was all ready when we got home, and boy was it good! Oh and Garet got me a gift card to Terrame Spa! I am soo excited! I'll have to figure out what I am going to go get!

Well we are headed out for a walk!

Suzi's new do...

So... good news for Suzi! Seems she has a sort of bronchitis/asthma. We drove to Birmingham and they did another x-ray, then they did an ultrasound (hence the shaved area on her side). He was going to do another procedure on her, but in the end didn't feel it was necessary. We got some pills and are hoping they start kicking in soon!

Now we are all back home, and are all tired. Back to work tomorrow...

Afternoon hike...

Today was another beautiful day! Garet and I decided to go on a hike at the Land Trust. We've done this hike many times - but every time it is so neat to look down and see our neighborhood. We could even see people walking down the street and cars driving around. It's a nice little hike getting to the top! Here we are at one of the overlooks.

Here is Garet walking to another overlook.

There were a lot of people that had the same idea that we did. We passed a lot of people on the way up, and the way down, but at the top we had some peaceful moments where it was just the two of us.

I am still playing around with my photoshop :)

It was good to get out on a hike! Tonight Garet grilled some chicken for us, and it was delicious! Now we are just relaxing before our big day tomorrow...

Suzi is going to the specialist tomorrow. I have to say I am really anxious. I am trying not to worry, I know that God has a plan - I just want her to be fixed. Keep all of us in your prayers tomorrow. She is obviously sick, so I just hope they find out what is wrong with her, and give us some medicine to fix it.

Saturday...

What a beautiful day it was today! After Garet and I woke up this morning we went on a long walk around the neighborhood. Suzi wasn't able to go with us because she was sick... so sad! She LOVES walks! She loves them so much that we can't even say "walk" around her... we have to say "w".

When we got back we sat out in the backyard with her for awhile. We got out her favorite purple ball, so she kicked that around some.



It was so pretty out! I am definitely ready for some warm weather! I even got a little sunburned! That just goes to show how little of the sun I see! It was around 9 in the morning when we were sitting outside! I thought living in the Islands would give me a perma-tan, boy was I wrong!

Now it's off to the grocery store for me!

Update...

I don't have much to talk about, just going to do a short update on things.

On Monday, Garet surprised me and took me out to dinner. There is a new restaurant that opened right down the street from us, it's called Santa Fe - it's a chain so you may have heard of it. The food was really good!

We [well probably more me than G] have been consumed with thinking about Suzi. I am seriously obsessed with that dog! :) The vet called on Tuesday with her test results, and it is NOT the fungal disease like they thought - so they referred us to a specialist in Birmingham. We have an appointment on Monday. We are hoping it is just some type of bacterial infection that just got out of control - that is treatable. Keep praying for her (and us!!)

I went home for lunch today and she is just a ball of energy! We have tried to keep her mellow so she doesn't start coughing. Well, yesterday the vet gave us some meds to help with her cough, and they must be working! She just wanted to RUN!! It was nice to see that spunk back!

Here at work we are gearing up for The Building, Home and Remodeling Show. If you are in Huntsville, you should definitely put that on your calender! (March 6-8) Especially if you have plans to do anything with your home in the near future. We have a lot of neat companies participating this year.

Garet is still enjoying his job. We haven't talked anymore about a move - yet anyway. He is getting to know everyone out in that area.

Guess that's about it for this week. We really don't have plans for the weekend. I am hoping it is pretty like it was last Sunday!

The weekend...

What a great weekend we had! On Saturday night we went to a banquet here in Huntsville. It was for the district that Garet used to work for. It was so nice! There were probably about 200 people there - everyone got to say "Bye" to Garet. They even recognized Garet and the guy he worked with. It is really touching to see how much they appreciated Garet with the short amount of time he was there. Here is a picture of Garet at the front of the room:



Sunday was beautiful!! The high was about 60 - bright and sunny! It got me ready for spring :) Garet got his bike out and even got to wear shorts!


While Garet was out on his bike, Suzi and I hung out in the backyard. She is still sick. When she gets really excited she starts coughing - so I tried to get her outside and in the fresh air without having her running around. It is harder than it sounds! We couldn't just sit inside on such a beautiful day!
Sunday night we watched the Superbowl of course! What a great game! I really didn't have a favorite team, I just wanted to see a good game.

Today was the start of another crazy week.

Catch up...

Last Friday one of Garet's best friends, Scott, came to visit from D.C. Scott and his girlfriend got here Friday night. We ended up going downtown to hang out for a while. Scott and Garet have been friends since elementary school! He was one of Garet's best men at our wedding (yes, Garet had 2 best men). This was his second time being here so he'd already seen the area, but it was neat to show his girlfriend around. She couldn't believe the "traffic" here! Garet was driving them to our house from the airport around 5:00, ya know during "rush hour" and she kept asking where everyone was!

Saturday we went to some stores and Scott bought a Wii Fit. It was $50 cheaper here than in D.C. So we, of course, hooked that up! That is a really fun game (exercise)! We got stuck playing all the balance games. These pictures don't do it justice, but everyone was flailing their arms all over the place trying to balance!

Here is Garet:


Here is Scott... I think he was skiing:


Here is me on the balance board:

I hate to toot my own horn but I really kicked butt on the ski jump :) OH and my Wii age was 28, compared to the boys being in their 40's!

So we took them out to Bridgestreet for some food and shopping and a movie. It is so nice out there. We took it easy on Sunday since we all had to wake up early Monday morning. Their plane took off at around 8 a.m. Here is Garet and Scott:

We had a good weekend with them!

Just an update on my sweet pup: After being at the vet ALL day yesterday they *think* she has a fungal disease. They are doing a blood test now to see what type of fungal disease. They were shocked because it isn't common around here.... So she's on medicine right now, and other than an occasional cough she seems to be doing pretty okay. We just can't get her excited or she will start hacking - If anyone knows my dog they know as soon as someone walks in the door she gets VERY excited! So it is pretty difficult to keep her calm :)

Sick...

No, not me...
Poor sweet Suzi is sick =(

Over the weekend, while Garet's friend was here (which I'll have to tell about later), Suzi started coughing. It was a horrible sounding cough - pretty much like a gag. We took her to the vet Monday morning and, of course, she didn't cough while she was there... so they just based their diagnosis on what we described to them. They said it sounded like she had reverse sneezing. From the symptoms at that time, it did sound like that...

Well last night after Garet and I got home from work, she started again. This time it didn't go away and it turned into just rapid breathing. She was having to hold her head up real high just to breathe. It freaked me out. So Garet and I decided to take her on in to the emergency vet.

After x-ray's and a few blood tests (and a lot of money!) they said Suzi had pneumonia. They sent us home with some pills and said we need to get her back to our normal vet today. We got home at about midnight - Suzi woke me up at about 1:30 just pacing because she couldn't get to sleep since she was breathing so hard. So I got up and rubbed her till she fell asleep, got back into bed around 3 a.m. then woke up at 6. Then do you know what I did???

walked right into my door frame.
yep.
right in the middle of my face.
so, now my nose has a bruise on it - right in the middle.

I'll give an update about Suzi after her appointment today. Poor pup!

The weekends here...

This week has flown by for me! I think it is because I have been super busy at work - time always flies by when you have a lot to do! I would so much rather be busy than bored at work :)

Anyway - last weekend Garet took me to Decatur and Athens (the area he is now over) and we drove around just to see the area. I had never been. Athens is really cute, really small, but cute. There were some really neat stores downtown there. Decatur is right on the the water, so that was pretty. We haven't put much more thought into moving - yet. Right now Garet is able to do a lot of his work from home, or the office (which is here in Huntsville), so it's all working right now.

Last night we had a dinner out in Decatur at the country club. It was nice - but when you are driving back home at 9:30 at night, you realize how far of a drive it is!

Today Garet has a friend coming into town. He has been here once before, but this will be the first time since we've lived in our house. I know Garet is excited to see him and hang out. I've been bad about taking pictures but I'm sure I will have some to post after this weekend!

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Photo fun...

A little over a week ago I got Photoshop - it is a computer program for pictures. I have been playing with it NON-STOP! If you think I'm kidding, just ask Garet! There is SOOO much you can do with this program! I am so excited about it! :) Here are some pictures that I've played around with...

Before

After - notice the pole is missing

Before

After - I just figured out layers, this was just a random background I used.

Before:

After

I have been pretty much obsessed with figuring out all I can do with this program!