Sad Day

I received some very sad news today, but I was asked not to post about it - please pardon the vagueness. Maybe I'll be able to post about it down the road. My wonderful friends/coworkers have been so supportive and sweet. After spending time this morning crying and trying to wrap my head around everything, I escaped the office for a little bit with Becky to find some things we need for a contest at work. In the meantime, my work-wife went and got me treats: She brought back Chipotle, a flower, create-my-own necklace and a Starbucks strawberry frappuccino. She has such a wonderful heart and always want to lift people up when they are down. I'm so grateful for my family and friends. I haven't met some of you that read our blog, but I still get so excited to see comments and people reading our blog. We love you guys and we're so happy we can share our silliness throughout the years with you.

Please keep those you love close and make sure you tell them how much you love them each and every day. We love you guys!

I Heart Del Sol

Have you ever heard of Del Sol? I love Del Sol stuff because it's like having 2 items in 1. All of their products change color in the sun. The first time I learned about Del Sol was on a cruise about 7 years ago, then when Doug and I went on our honeymoon we went to another Del Sol store. The 2 t-shirts we bought 4 years ago still change color in the sun. The nail polish I bought is really fun too! We went to another Del Sol store during our trip earlier this month and I bought a couple more nail polish colors (I'm a sucker because they usually have a deal that if you spend a certain amount of money you get a color changing canvas bag too). Here are the colors without sun: And the colors in the sun:

They are in the same order in both pictures - without sun the left is a clear polish with silver glitter and the left polish is kind of a light beige color that goes on clear. I got the clear colors this time so that I can use it as a top coat over any of the colors I already have.

It's fun that the shopping bags change colors too. You can order stuff online, but it's fun to see everything in person in the stores. They have black lights set up so you can see what the item will look like in the sunlight.

Short Term Roomie

We have a friend that is going through some relationship problems so she will be living with us for a few months. It's sad to watch their engagement break up, but I'm sure things will work out in the long run. She is really heart broken while he is being indifferent and sometimes mean. Luckily she is a strong woman with a good head on her shoulders.
I took everything out of the room she will be staying in.Having someone live with us is going to be weird. I didn't have a roommate for years before Doug and I married and it's just been the 2 of us for over 4 years. It will be fun to have a roomie for a while though. We're glad we are in a position to help.

Bowling Party

The company Doug works for had their annual summer bowling party. It's been pretty fun in the past. We got there fairly early, so there weren't many people there yet. We didn't bowl, so we went to the attached restaurant and had dinner. I ate one of the greasiest burgers I've ever eaten and my stomach decided it wanted NOTHING to do with it. I didn't get anymore pictures than the one above because we had to leave early (TMI, but I honestly didn't think I was going to make it home in time).

My stomach and intestines are still messed up - 5 days later. Yesterday was an awful, long drive home while trying to plan where to stop during stop and go, rush hour traffic. NO FUN! I've dealt with stomach issues for years and it's getting old. I went through a 3-4 year period with unexplained stomach/intestine problems. I went through numerous doctors and medications. One doctor actually said to me, "Do you think you're fat??" UM WHAT!!??? Jerk. I didn't go back to her. Yeah, I have an eating disorder because I think I'm fat... just because she couldn't figure out what was wrong with me and where the pain and bleeding was coming from, she put it back on me. I had doctors want to put me on sugar-free diets, high protein diets, etc. Find and fix the PAIN and bleeding people!!

I eventually found a doctor that would listen to what I was telling him and he sent me in for an EGD (camera down the throat into the stomach). They found some gastritis type stuff, but still nothing to explain the pain and bleeding. I gave up and learned to deal with it. Years down the road I started all over again. Another EGD, same results.

My little brother was having stomach problems and bleeding too and was rushed to the hospital. They did a colonoscopy on him and found that he has Crohn's Disease. I told my new doctor and he wanted a colonoscopy done on me right away. The colonoscopy was one of the most painful things I've been through. Every time they would try to advance the camera I would scream because my colon walls were so swollen. They felt horrible because I shouldn't have been awake and I shouldn't have felt anything, but I was at the maximum amount of meds so they couldn't do anything. Every time the camera pressed on my colon wall it would start bleeding. They did as much as they could without completely traumatizing me. The doctor came in while I was in recovery and told me that I was going to be admitted to the hospital for internal bleeding. Great.

I spent 3 1/2 days in the hospital and had a bunch of tests done. I didn't have Crohn's Disease, but they found ulcerative gastritis and non-specific colitis. I was put on a few medications after I left the hospital and I was finally getting better.

I slowly learned what foods/drinks would trigger my stomach problems during those years. Luckily I already eat a bland diet anyways. The most interesting thing was that I found out that sleep has a lot to do with it too. If I only get a few hours of sleep at night I will have a terrible stomachache.

A few years ago a doctor insisted on doing a follow up colonoscopy and I refused after screaming through the first one. I told him I wouldn't have it done unless I was completely knocked out - I didn't think he would agree to it, but he called my bluff and I had the test done again. Luckily they didn't find anything.

Why did I just ramble about all of that?? Because the last 5 days have been like those years with the pain and bleeding. I know it's not the same and I know it's just my stomach/intestines recovering from that burger last week, but sheesh! Gotta love the human body :)

Annual Check-Up

I went to the doctor for my annual appointment.... ladies, you know the appointment I'm talking about! - You get felt up, poked and prodded, but the doctor doesn't buy you dinner first! HAHA


On my way out of the doctor's office I watched a life flight helicopter land on the next building. Of course it wasn't as exciting as what is shown on TV, but it was still interesting.

It also reminded me to remind you to keep praying for Doug's brother, Brian. We went to visit him in the hospital a couple nights ago. I was hoping I could have taken some food to him on the way home from work, but he's on a liquid diet again. We took him some movies to watch, so hopefully it will give him some entertainment. His liver isn't working right due to the tumors, so he's got jaundice. He has lost more weight (I think he's lost about 60 pounds over the last 9 months or so) and lost his hair. I sure hope this round of chemo will kick those tumor's butts!! He is still in good spirits, but I know we would all love to see him at home, grilling up some fantastic barbecue. He really made a point to talk to us about making sure the family gets closer together. He wants everyone to video chat, or whatever it takes, each month to become closer and be able to support one another. PLEASE keep Brian and his family in your thoughts and prayers. He needs all he can get.

Please also keep my nephews, Shawn and Ethan, in your thoughts and prayers. My nephew, Shawn, was tested for sleep apnea and he stopped breathing over 90 times! I have no idea how that poor guy gets any sleep! It's finally convinced the doctor to remove his tonsils. He's been on antibiotics for so many years - they should have taken his tonsils out YEARS ago!! And Ethan will need heart surgery soon, but I hope not TOO soon! Poor little guy! They are both such active kids and they keep my sister-in-law running around to keep up with their schedules. It's going to be sad for them to go through surgery, but I hope it will reduce a lot of their medical issues so they can get back to being kids. My brother and his wife have dealt with many, many doctor appointments over the years and I hope it will calm down soon!

I know this post started out silly and ended on a serious note, but I appreciate you and all you do! Thanks in advance for keeping our family in your hearts and minds.

Triclimate Jacket

I'm sure you can imagine how hard it is to find a winter jacket in the middle of summer. The jackets I found online were $100-$400!! Doug showed me a Columbia jacket called Bugaboo and I really liked the jacket, but not the color. I wanted a black jacket so I won't get sick of the color in a year or 2. The Bugaboo jacket is a triclimate jacket and has a fleece jacket that attaches inside. You can wear both pieces for really cold weather, just the outer shell as a rain jacket or just the fleece shell for cool weather. Sounds great! Finding this jacket and/or a similar jacket was almost impossible - especially because I wasn't willing to pay $250+ for it.
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I found one, on accident, on REI's website for $98!! The jacket is normally $172. I ordered it right away. It was going to be delivered a few days before we left for vacation. I kept stalking the order online and I called the next day to see if it was on track for package and shipping that day. The REI customer service rep told me that they don't see the jacket is in stock (the website showed it was out of stock that morning too). After talking with her, I cancelled the order and I was so disappointed!
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After about an hour I went back online to see if they cancelled the order and there website said the jacket was in stock again. WHAT??!! I called REI back and asked about the jacket again. She said they must have a jacket available if the system shows it is available. I ordered the jacket again. She waived the 2-day shipping fee so we would still get the jacket before we left.

I called the next day to check the order and I was told it was packaged and ready to go out. I still hadn't received the shipping information that afternoon, so I called back again. I was told they don't have the jacket available!!!!!! HOLY CRAP people!!! They told me to leave the jacket on order and they would know more the next day. I was getting so frustrated and still searching online and locally for a winter jacket. The next day, they still didn't know what was going on with this jacket. I asked to speak with a manager.
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It's now Wednesday and we need the jacket Friday. I explained everything to the manager in hopes of getting a straight answer about the jacket. She was very understanding and extremely helpful. She asked if she could do some research and call me back. I didn't have high hopes of ever seeing this jacket. The manager called me back and told me she found the exact jacket and size in Michigan and they were going to overnight the jacket to me!! She said it was too late to ship the jacket that day, so it would go out on Thursday for a Friday delivery.
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At this point I'm wondering if someone will remember to ship it from the REI store, if UPS will get it here in time, etc. Sure enough, Friday morning I had the mysterious Bugaboo jacket in my hands. It's a fantastic jacket! It was so warm and comfortable. The 2 layers unzip from each other easily and the hood comes off if I want. It pays to not give up sometimes! I tried to call REI and find that manager to thank her, but there are so many people that they weren't sure who it was although I had a name. I'm going to try again on Monday. After everything the manager did and waiving the overnight fees, the least I can do is personally thank her.

Angry Birds

Did you know there is an Angry Birds claw machine game?? I didn't until I went to the grocery store the other day. We now have our very own Angry Bird to throw at each other!

Now I have to get some of the pigs to throw it at instead of throwing it at Doug :)

Ring Bling

We bought an Alexandrite & Diamond ring while we were on vacation. It took a lot of ho-humming to actually commit to buying this ring. I love the ring, but I didn't/don't want to pay for it. :) (Who does? Wouldn't it be nice to get beautiful, sparkly jewelry without having to pay for it!) Alexandrite is a rare stone that changes colors depending on the light. It's the birthstone for June and the anniversary gift for the 45th and 55th year.

Our stone has deeper colors that the picture below, but it gives you an idea of the color change. The green color comes out with sunlight and the reddish color comes out with indoor lighting.

Our ring is more of an emerald green and burgandy-purple.

We were looking at a Tanzanite ring, but I'm too hard on my jewelry and Tanzanite is a softer stone so it will scratch too easily. My birthstone is an Opal and I've broken an Opal in a necklace and a ring. I don't want to buy something I know I'm going to ruin. Alexandrite has a hardness of 8 out of 10, so it's not too far behind a Diamond.

We're having an appraisal done soon so we can make sure we got what we paid for.

Vacation Days 9 & 10

We woke up back in Seattle this morning. We went to have a quick breakfast and then finished getting ready to get off the ship. Last photo from the ship: Andrew and Autumn were so sweet to bring us our car early so we could get on the road.

A water slide we saw on the way out of Washington:

One state down - Check!

Pretty flowers at a rest stop:

We missed the California sing, but here is Mount Shasta and Shasta Lake:

It's hard to see the lake with the bridge in the way:

We almost made it home before the sun went down. Because Andrew and Autumn brought our car to us we got home hours before we were expecting to.

We unloaded the car and started making a pile of clothes to wash, souvenirs, leftover snacks from the trip, bottles to wash, etc. I have a better picture of our laundry pile, but Doug likes this one because it looks like there are fumes coming from the pile:

Vacation day 10 was spent doing laundry (5 loads), putting things away, looking at 100's and 100's of pictures, going through a week of mail, etc.... but we managed to get a quick nap in too. We cleaned the house before we left so we wouldn't have to worry about it when we got home. Back to the real world - gotta go back to work to finish paying for our trip.

Vacation Day 8

Vacation Day 8

We spent today sailing to Victoria, BC, Canada. There wasn't very exciting scenery today. When we got back to our room after breakfast there was a towel monkey hanging from the ceiling!! SO FUN!! We ate lunch at Indigo. The food was just like the Summer Palace restaurant - great as usual. We couldn't decide what entree to eat, so we ordered 3 entrees between the 2 of us. We ordered Pecan Crusted Salmon with Spaghetti, Salmon Fillet with a sauce we can't remember (but it was delicious) and steamed spinach and potato wedges and also Roasted Chicken with Garlic Mashed Potatoes and steamed veggies (I had the salmon fillet meal earlier in the week, it's very good). YUMMY!On our way back to the room, I tripped up the stairs and punched the banister on the way down. I broke my knuckle open and it started bleeding. OOPS

We got into Canada around 6:00pm. It was terrible trying to get off the boat. It took us about 20 minutes to go down 2 flights of stairs - I asked, "Are we supposed to get off this boat like this if there's an emergency??" There were 100's and 100's of passengers trying to get down the same stairs to get off the ship. Craziness.
We got on our double-decker bus and they drove us to the dock to catch our boat to go whale watching. During the drive I saw a party on a wall overlooking the ocean taking pictures.Look at this cute house on the water:

We were driving so fast on the boat! I tried to take a picture and the batteries in the camera died. We were standing at the front of the boat, hanging on for our lives while going about 60 knots (which is about 70 miles an hour). We decided to try and hang on while changing the batteries in the camera. It was so funny! Getting the batteries out of the camera was hard enough, but Doug was trying to get the new batteries out of the package without losing any of the wrapping. I put the old batteries in Doug's pocket and ended up hitting my knuckle while doing so - it started bleeding all over again. Then the challenge was to get a tissue out to wrap my knuckle and not lose anything in the wind. I bet it would have been so funny to watch us from inside the boat or on camera afterwards.

Whales!

I was trying so hard to get a picture of their faces:

Going fast again, we tried to take a picture of ourselves:

On our way to the lighthouse to see what other critters we could find:

Seals sunning themselves on the rocks:

Sea lion getting cozy on a rock. It actually very slowly slipped off the rock, putting it's head in the water little by little.

More seals on the other side of the rocks:

The sun is starting to go down; time to head back in. Bummer.

Another super fast, very cold drive back to the dock.

Pictures on the way back:

Coast Guard and Canadian Coast Guard parked together:

Awe! Vacation is almost done. (Sad face!)

More homes on the water:

Our guide Rachel.

When we got off the boat we still had 5 hours of left in Victoria so we decided to get dropped off in town and walk back to the boat. Here are some of the things we saw. Plaster Man - he stood still until you gave him money, then he would give you a hug. I must say, the hug part was kinda creepy.

A tile whale:

The Canadian Legislature building - we forget what it's called:

We spotted a couple totems while walking through town:

Very pretty building!

The other totem:

These water taxis are so cute:

We're almost back at the ship:

This was our last night on the ship.