Wednesday, June 25, 2008

2 year anniversary

Our 2 year anniversary was Tuesday. I really can't believe that we've already been married two years, but at the same time I can't believe we've ONLY been married two years. We've done so much in just two years. Been to Vegas twice, San Diego, Los Angelos, Disney World, Universal Studios (Orlando), New Orleans, and Wichita. Not to mention our trip all around Europe. We've moved twice, gotten another weina dog, opened another Roth IRA, seen 3 more Cirque du Soleil shows, invested in mutual funds, learned the process of buying a house (and then using the contigency clause) and made MANY new friends. I feel like our relationship has grown so much and we've gotten to know each other so much better. He's by far the best thing that's ever happened to me.

This past weekend we went camping with friends. We got a set of camping pots for our wedding and I got him a tent last year for our anniversary and we just used both for the first time this past weekend. The weinas had a good time and we did too. Ollie, again, was LOVING swimming. We were with a lab and Ollie was much more interested in the water than the lab was even. Pretty funny. We also went on a hike in the Wichita Mountains, which was a little tough. It was probably a little over a mile, up really rockie terrain, probably 600-700 feet up. We were with 4 other people (2 of them are pretty much professional backpackers/hikers) and 3 other dogs (which we all MUCH bigger than our weinas put together). We got left in the dust pretty much because we couldn't keep up with everyone else. We had to carry the weinas part of the way because they were jumping up and over rocks that were sometimes 3-4 times their size... A mile long walk is quite a ways when you have 2 inch long legs, but add the rough terrain and most of it being uphill - they did really well! We got some pretty pictures, which I'll put up on here after I get done putting the Europe pics.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Wet Weinas

Not a whole lot has been going on here lately. I found out Monday that my job is going to let me stay for a little while longer - at least through the end of June, maybe through part of July or longer. I really like working part-time. I'm kinda getting a lot of the crap work to do, but I actually don't mind it too much. It's better than not having a job and it keeps me busy while I'm there, so I can't really complain.

Mark and I took the weinas to a park this past weekend. We met up with 2 other couple's and their dogs. All the other dogs were MUCH bigger than our weinas. Sadie was terrified at first. They all came up to see her and she started running around on the end of the leash and the dogs were following her and she lets out this bark/scream. It was pretty funny. They actually went swimming in the lake all by themselves! When we were in FL, Ollie didn't really want to have anything to do with the water. We'd have to carry him in and then he'd swim back to shore. But they both jumped right in the little lake and swam around. It's funny to watch a weina dog swim. Ollie gets a little top heavy sometimes and starts falling over in the water. I wish we'd gotten some pictures. Maybe next time.

We're going camping this weekend with our friends Chris and Jessica. I'm pretty excited about that. It'll be our first time camping since we've been married and a first time for the weinas too. We bought some sleeping bags and mats on Sunday, and I bought Mark a tent for our 1 year anniversary. We're really looking forward to it so hopefully the weather will cooperate.

Mark and I have been playing our keyboard more lately. Mark got it for his college graduation. It's decent... but it's a keyboard. They just feel completely different than pianos do. Playing the keyboard REALLY makes me miss my piano at my parents house. Someday hopefully we'll be able to get a digital piano to move around with us while Mark is in the military bc they're easier to move and you don't have to worry about tuning them. They're pretty expensive though so we'll have to save up for a while first. I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to go to my 10 year high school reunion this year (am I really that old?), but if I do, I'm going to bring all my sheet music so I can play my piano while I'm there. =)

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Swimming, storms and a few pics

Not too much exciting going on in our lives right now. We're enjoying using our pool pass that we got for the base pool. We went Friday, Saturday and Sunday so we both have pretty good tans now. They have lap swims twice a day, so we've been trying to go to that a few times a week. I'm way out of shape though, so doing one lap leaves me pretty out of breath. I think my technique is really bad though - like I don't do my breathing right, so I always end up swallowing water and then I have to stop and cough. I'm not the most graceful person in the water, but hopefully by the end of the summer I'll be better at swimming and more in shape. I tried to find a "competition" swimming suit here in Enid (meaning not a fashion swim suit, but one my boobs will stay in when I try to swim laps) and of course they don't have anything like that here. So I ordered 2 suits online, a one piece and a 2 piece with a sports bra type top. Hopefully they fit.
My boss at work still seems to be really wishy-washy about if I'll have a job past this 2 week training period. One day she seems to be very optimistic that they'll keep me and the next day she's muttering things about the "big boss" under her breath and how she never knows what's going on... So... who knows what will happen but I'm not really going to worry about it too much. It'll stink if they don't keep me around longer than 2 weeks because they're pretty flexible with my hours, especially since I'm part-time now, and they pay better than most jobs in Enid, full or part-time. It's hard training the girl I'm training right now to do my job because she doesn't like it nearly as much as I did. She complains about having to enter so much stuff into the computer system and having to use the adding machine so much. I liked doing that stuff and she thinks it's a big chore. So it's a little tough but oh well. I love working part time though. It really is perfect. I can go in at 8am and be home before 12:30pm. I can grocery shop during the non-busy times and work out in the afternoons and keep the house clean and still have lots of time to spend with Mark. We both really like my current schedule. Mark keeps saying how much he likes me working part time too. So hopefully this will last.
Right now we have pretty bad weather here. There are thunderstorm warnings all over, along with lots of tornado watches. Oklahoma is SO windy! Even when it's 95 degrees out, there are still high winds (as in 20mph average winds) and the wind is hot. I'm used to cool breezes, but here they have hot winds. It's odd. It's really blustery outside right now with the storm rolling in. Mark is standing in our living room filming out the back door and it's starting to lightning out and he just said he could feel the heat from the lightning... Kind of scary. The storms roll in really quickly here, and it seems like there's rarely just a normal thunderstorm, most of them are pretty severe with high winds, lots of lightning and thunder, complete downpours of rain, sometimes hail and more often than not, tornados. I'm very glad Mark is home now. It doesn't freak me out very much when he's here with me, but when I'm home alone, the storms scare me quite a bit... especially if it's at night.
Here are a few pics from before and after our trip that I thought you might enjoy.
Grandma teaching me to knit a new stitch.



My grandma playing bowling in a Wii with my mom. Too funny!!! She's 93!!



The weinas love the back window of the car.



Ollie was determined to not be left behind this time. (He's in the suitcase.)

MSOE holds a special place in both our hearts, since that's where we fell in love, and Mark graduated from there with his engineering degree. =)

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

1st day back to work

It is very good to be home. I never really thought I'd be happy to be back in Enid, but we were both happy to be home, which is Enid for now. Most of our laundry is done and put away and the house is cleaned, which is nice. It's funny that you're supposed to go and relax on vacation, but I am much more relaxed at home, in my own territory, doing whatever I want to go and whenever I want to do it. I love traveling and exploring new countries, and I wouldn't trade our trip for anything, but it's nice to be home. I love being able to cook again! I missed that. I even missed doing dishes! I have our menu's done for the entire month of June and this time I planned meals for every night of the week, including weekends, so hopefully that'll help us save money with eating out.

Today was my first day back at work. It's a little strange to be back, since so much has changed there since I've been gone. Everyone has been very welcoming and I feel like I still fit in, but it does seem different. For now, I'm just going to work there for the next two weeks and train one of the people they hired while I was gone, to do my old job, and then we'll go from there. One of my bosses (2nd in command) seems to think that it won't be a problem to keep me on after the 2 weeks is up. That would be great if I could work there longer, but I'm trying not to get my heart set on anything yet bc it all seems so up in the air. I'm working part-time now - M-F 8 - noon or 9am-1pm, whichever I prefer, so it really is a good deal. They're very flexible so it's nice to have that freedom. And it's nice to work with my friends there again, even though one of them is leaving soon. I'll miss her.

So Mark went back to work yesterday and got an email that said his IFF date is been cancelled. .... Yes, cancelled... Not delayed, not rescheduled. Cancelled. So... we're pretty much bedding down for another winter in Enid, America. We were really upset the first time his IFF date moved back two months, and kind of upset the next time his IFF date moved back another month, and a little upset the 3rd time his IFF date moved back yet another month, and now that it's been cancelled it's kind of like.. Whatever. He basically works part-time and since I'm working part-time we're looking forward to getting to spend a lot of time together this summer. Our friends that are heavy pilots and have moved from Enid will most likely be deploying before the end of the year, so I'd much rather be in Mark and my position, where we're still stuck here, but he's here with me and not deployed. He might try to start on his master's since there's not much else for him to do right now.

Things are looking good right now. We're excited about the summer, even though it's unGodly hot here right now - like 95+ every day for the next 2 weeks. I've had this really weird urge to go camping lately. We have a tent and got pots for our wedding and we have coolers and pretty much everything we need to camp so hopefully we'll be able to go camping sometime soon.

I'm in the process of going through all our pictures from the trip. I'm about 1/3 of the way through right now and once I get done I'll make an online album of them and put some of them in my blogs. If anyone is actually reading this, feel free to leave comments on our blogs so I know people do read this and feel like people care about what's going on in our lives. =)