BullyNurses

Facebook

2009-02-13T17:07:00.001-05:00

For those of you that still read this, I've switched to facebook. You can find me there if you sign up for facebook, as well. If you haven't started on facebook, it's a highly addictive site where you can find your old friends and keep up with new ones. Come on, my MOM even joined! I'll still post here if something major happens.

Holiday 2008 pics

2008-12-29T16:11:00.005-05:00

At Claire's 40th birthday party! Arlene, Me, Brian, Claire's aunt Chetty, Claire, and uncle Daniel. We stayed with their aunt and uncle when we went to Paris last year.

Brian's 35th birthday cake. Isn't it great?

"SHH! Her is seeping!"

Kalie and I made Christmas cookies. Think we need more flour?

We got her a rolling pin for Christmas.

Santa came to see Grandma Sparks at rehab.

At Tavern on the Green in NYC.

Video games at the Helmuth house. Notice the lipstick on Brian's cheek. Us girls had a makeup party.

Harley's 6th birthday. They had frozen melon.

Isn't he cute?!!

Joy really hates getting dressed up for Christmas.

Cookies for Santa

Sunny Florida

2008-12-28T21:20:00.005-05:00

We're happy to be here in sunny Florida. The weather has been perfect since we got here a little over a week ago. We enjoyed Christmas with Brian's parents. Brian took me to the beach on the day after Christmas. On the 27th, we had two parties! One was here at Brian's parent's house and the other was at Claire and Arlene's for Claire's 40th b-day! Happy Birthday, Claire!! Claire's aunt and uncle that we stayed with in Paris were there. It was really nice to see them again. They invited us to come back and stay with them!! I wanna go now! O.K., maybe we should wait til spring. Or, maybe we should wait until we're done with school in about 5 years. We have a little over a week before we start back to work. We're hoping to relax all week and maybe go back to the beach on New Year's Eve. We need to get our fridge fixed and we PRAY that it's fixed before we go back to work, preferably Friday.

It's COLD!

2008-11-19T00:52:00.002-05:00

Winter is here! I don't care what the calendar says! We're sticking it out in the RV (for now). We might move into the house over Thanksgiving weekend. We only have 6 nights of work left here in Ohio before we head for Florida. Those are the plans right now, anyway. We're grateful to have a job lined up.
The last couple of weeks have been rather stressful. Brian's beloved Grandma fell a couple of weeks ago and cracked three vertebrae in her neck. For three months she has to wear a collar which keeps her neck rigid. Because of the collar, she started choking and had to have a feeding tube placed. Because she choked on food, she now has pneumonia. The family had a meeting today with the doctor. It was a very emotional day, but I think that the right decisions were made. She's still oriented (not confused), although at times she is difficult to wake up. We'll just have to keep praying that she doesn't have to suffer and that she will recover if it is God's will.
We were going to go sit in line on Thanksgiving in preparation for shopping on Black Friday. However, we decided that it was probably more important to spend Thanksgiving with my Grandma as it looks like it will probably be her last one on this earth. Never fear! We will still be shopping on Friday. For what, I don't know. It's all about the thrill of the hunt!
We plan to head for Florida mid-December. We have lots and lots of plans between now and then. I hope we get everything done!

What a summer!

2008-08-21T05:50:00.007-04:00

It's been quite a summer! Almost two years ago we surprised Mom for her 70th birthday. This year was Dad's 70th birthday. When Mom had her birthday, I blogged that we'd have to celebrate Dad's birthday a year early or a year late to surprise him. Well, that didn't happen. We were trying to set a date for his party. His birthday is July 27th. It didn't suit everyone to have his birthday then. We settled on June 29th. It worked perfectly! Mom's sister, Ruby, and her husband, Dale, came to visit them for the weekend. They told Mom that they wanted to spend time with each of us kids. They made the rounds to everyone's house. Donna conveniently invited them to come down on Sunday. Dale & Ruby didn't mind being used to get Dad down to Richard & Donna's house. It was so fun to see Dad's face when everyone filed into the pews behind them at church. I still can't believe that a) we all made it and pulled it off and b) we surprised him!
Mom, Dad, & us 5 kids.
Ruby, Mom, Dad, & Dale
It would have been nice to have pictures of the whole family. It was starting to rain, though, so we were happy to get the pictures that we did. Harold & Carol Uhl, our neighbors from 1970 to 1981 even stopped by to wish Dad happy birthday.

Brenda, Phyllis, & I had fun surprising Elaine with a cooking class for her birthday. We told her to wear clothes that she didn't mind getting dirty (true) with closed-toe shoes (true) because we were going spelunking (not true). I acted like I let it slip that we were going to go traipsying through a cave. This is NOT Elaine's idea of a good time. Brenda played right along, acting like I had really let the cat out of the bag. She acted like she was really upset that I let it slip. I'm not that good of an actress, though. Elaine was really quiet, looking down at her soup. She finally looked up and said, "I really hate picking peas." She was quite happy, though, when we walked up to Sur la Table and she realized what we really going on. Our teacher was very good and the four of us were the only ones in the class. We learned how to make French desserts.

It was really nice to be home for Red, White, & Boom on July 3rd. It's one of those things that I love to do in Columbus. We've also been to Schiller Park a couple of times for free Shakespeare. We got free Ohio State Fair tickets. The Fair isn't as fun as it used to be when we were young and crazy. Brian & I did, however, break the mouse roller-coaster/whirly ride. He denies it, but I still think that Brian prayed for that to happen. It didn't go around as it went up and down the hills. He's not so pumped up about rides that go around and around and around. He was a good sport, though, to go with me.

We've been cleaning out the storage shed that we've had for 7 years. WOW! What a job! We are astounded at the stuff we've been paying to store for so long! We are having a humongous garage sale on Sept. 4, 5, & 6 if anyone needs anything. Come on over!

Last week Brenda & I drove to Michigan to spend two nights in a cabin with Jenni & her family. Jenni's sister, Rachel, go married in Indiana on August 9th (Congratulations, Rachel!). We spent Tuesday sitting by Lake Michigan watching the boys play in the sand. It was Hannah's first trip to the beach. She didn't really seem to enjoy it. I'll have pictures later. It was so good to actually spend some time with her family! It's always good to see Jenni, too.

This summer was Grandma Helmuth's 90th birthday, Dad's 70th birthday, and Brian's Dad's 60th birthday. We left Columbus yesterday, knowing that T.S. Fay was pounding Florida with rain. We were very happy that we were able make it down. We were a bit anxious about flights being cancelled, but our flights were both on time. We had no difficulties. However, the landing was one of those where everyone clapped when the pilot actually got the plane on the ground. We had one nice drop that I enjoyed, but some people screamed. When we actually were landing the plane was rocking back and forth quite a bit. They were just getting people ready to go ride roller coasters! We worked Tuesday night and only slept on the planes. When we got here we were quite tired, so we were in bed by 9:30. Brian woke up (and woke me up) at 4. Oh well, we're on vacation. We'll just take a nap this afternoon. Claire & Arlene picked us up at the airport and brought us over to Brian's parents' house. Larry was sitting at the table eating when we walked in. It was so fun to see his face when he saw that it was us! We're taking him out to eat tonight and then having a bigger party on Saturday. Brian said that we're not flying anywhere for any more surprise birthday parties. (See blog about Mom's 70th birthday.) He already told his mom that we'd be here for her 60th. The county just southeast of where we're at is being seriously flooded right now by T.S. Fay. It's raining here, but no flooding yet. The schools in Seminole County aren't even closed today, so it must not be too bad out there. It's supposed to rain through Friday. They really needed the rain here, though. We're looking forward to a relaxing weekend with family and friends.

As you can see, this summer has been a great one to reconnect with friends and family. Does it get any better?

Skateboarding Bulldog

2008-06-12T04:44:00.006-04:00

Those of you that love bulldogs have GOT to go to youtube and look up videos of a skateboarding bulldog named Tillman. It's hysterical! I'd like to teach Joy or Harley to do that!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQzUsTFqtW0

I'm afraid though, that this is what our dogs would do:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYwv8iQSMFA

Does it get any cuter than this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XabRyNKwThI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L_aAVn1j5c

And, here's what would happen if we had kids:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBSZn30OSsI

This one is HYSTERICAL!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAPoClLR8TE

Happy 90th Birthday, Grandma!

2008-05-25T21:27:00.004-04:00

Yesterday was Grandma's 90th birthday! Here's Grandma with her 7 children.

Ocean City

2008-05-25T20:10:00.006-04:00

After 10 years, I returned to Ocean City, MD with friends. This time I took my husband. The last time that I went was for my bachelorette party. Brenda, Elaine and I went every year for quite a while. It was a bit chilly . . .

"WE'RE GONNA LAY OUT!!" (Notice the blankets and the furious flapping of the umbrella!) We laid out during hurricaine Fran years ago and found sand everywhere for days. This wasn't that bad this time, but it was pretty chilly. Here's what some other people were doing:

We had so much fun relaxing, reading, eating and shopping. We always stay at Lankford Lodge which is an old, huge house right on the boardwalk. This time they upgraded us to a three bedroom apartment with a kitchen and our own porch overlooking the boardwalk!

Two nights we had magnificent light shows on the water:

One of our favorite places to eat in OC, Seacrets:

Two mornings we were awakened by hot rods invading OC. They were allowed to drive right on the boardwalk!

We need to go again sometime soon! Maybe we'll wait until it's warmer!

April in Ohio

2008-04-22T14:50:00.000-04:00

Hi, everyone! Yes, I know that I don't blog very often, but I know that anticipation is always half the fun, right? We're back in Ohio for at least three months, hopefully more. We're staying at Mom & Dad's and driving 50 minutes to work at a small hospital. The hospital is o.k., not the greatest. However, as I told Brian, "it's not the healthy that need a doctor" (Matt. 9:12) and it's not the best hospitals that need the most nurses. It serves the purpose of being within driving distance to family and friends and that's why we're here. We've already been able to go see one sister and her family and to "babysit" for another set of nephews/niece. We hope to stay in the area at least until the end of November, take off the first two weeks of December, then head to Florida for good. We'll see . . .
It sure is pretty here this time of year with all of those flowering trees. Joy really loves to lay out in the grass. Harley actually doesn't mind walking on the grass here. He hates grass in Florida and goes out of his way to avoid stepping in it, to the point of pooping on the sidewalk (we're trying to break him of this habit). Brian took me to Hocking Hills where we spent my birthday in a cabin - so nice!!

All Aboard!

2008-02-13T10:50:00.001-05:00

Left to right: Me, Phyllis, Brenda, Arlene, Claire, Brian (Virginia is taking the picture.) Photo taken Sept. 2, 2007.

Monte Carlo

2008-02-13T10:01:00.001-05:00

On Sept. 2nd, we took a 1 1/2 hour ride from Rome to where our ship was docked. Our ship was new--it's maiden voyage was in April. We took a tour of the ship. Right after we sailed, we went to the salon where they were giving away free massages, etc. Arlene won a facial, and Claire won a massage! On her way to get to the free drawing, Brenda hit her hand on a deck chair, dropped her camera and really, really hurt her hand. Her camera worked fine that day, but the next day (in Eze) was a different story. Phyllis had just "happened" to throw in an extra camera into her luggage that Brenda used for the rest of the trip. Our first stop on Sept. 3 was in Monte Carlo. I love Samantha Brown's "Passport to Europe" on the Travel Channel. When she was in Monte Carlo, she went to Eze (in France). We decided to follow in her footsteps. First of all, Monte Carlo is only 1.5 x 1.5 miles and is it's own country. It's very expensive to live, visit or eat there unless you are native Monegasque. Then you have first dibs on jobs and housing, free cable. You can buy housing at 10% of what outsiders pay. It's very prosperous due to its casinos and being known as the place to be seen by the very rich. While we were there we saw the yacht of the Fayed family (son was Princess Diana's boyfriend; they own Harrod's in London; I think they're Saudi royalty). The yachts in Monte Carlo make the one's in Fort Lauderdale look like fishing boats. Anyway, we went to Eze. It's a medieval village on the top of a mountain overlooking the ocean. I don't know when it was built, but I did see a gate where the Moors came through in the year 900 to invade the village. It was very quaint. Now it is home to 6 year-round residents. There are 100 or so in the summer. We had a fantastic time running around taking pictures. It would be a wonderful place to spend a couple of nights. There was a perfume factory at the base of the fortress. Some of us went there, but those of you who really know me know that I was doing other things (see below).

A view overlooking Monte Carlo:

Around the streets of Eze:

If you look closely at this picture, Eze is only at the very top of the mountain. The peach-colored church is at the back end, with the rest of the village sitting mostly to the left. If you double-click the picture, you should be able to see it better.
This day was one of the hightlights of our trip. We had gorgeous weather and the scenery was awesome!

It's tough being a Bully!

2008-02-13T09:57:00.000-05:00

Jan. 2008

2008-01-31T10:04:00.000-05:00

Hi, everyone! Yes, I know it's been months since I wrote anything. We've been working in Ocala, FL. It's only 1 1/2 hours from Brian's parents, so we've been enjoying going to see them on our weekends off. We were able to fly home to Ohio for Christmas the second weekend of December. We've been here since October and plan to be here until April or May. I am having trouble with my computer again, so I can't post any pictures right now. In response to my last post, I did find Shutterfly.com. I'm really happy with the pictures that I've had developed. I also figured out how to make pictures small enough to put on e-mail and the blog by using Adobe Photoshop (which Brian doesn't have on his computer). Congratulations to Keith and Jenni on the birth of Hannah Joy (Jan. 12)! I received a letter from my old high school asking for a summary of my life in the 20 years since I've graduated! I REALLY can't believe that I'm old enough to be out of high school for 20 years. Oh, well, as long as I don't have to act like I'm that old . . .

Getting pictures printed

2007-10-22T17:01:00.000-04:00

Hey, everyone out there! Since I am new to the whole digital picture world, I was wondering if anyone had some tips for getting pictures uploaded to be developed. I just uploaded 68 pictures to Shutterfly. I thought I'd try them since they're giving out 15 free prints. It's taking over 4 hours to upload 68 pictures! By that calculation, it's going to take me roughly 229.4 hours just to upload the pictures from our trip! I know that I can just take my memory card to a store and do it that way, but I want to go through and edit them. I don't want to sit at the store that long. I have previously used Ritzpix.com, but that also takes a long time. Any ideas?

Thanks, Roie! Good to hear from you!

Rome pictures

2007-10-21T02:44:00.001-04:00

The Colosseum outside and in

The Pantheon and the wonderful Lasagna in the Piazza Navona

The famous ceiling in the Sisine Chapel. You usually see the finger of Adam reaching toward the finger of God. I liked the painting of the flood. I thought Michelangelo's view of what the Ark looked like was interesting. You might be able to see Noah waving from the square Ark.

The other ceilings in the Vatican were also very interesting and beautiful. A person could spend a week just looking at all the things in the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's Cathedral.

Rome

2007-10-21T01:53:00.000-04:00

We left Columbus and flew to Atlanta. After a 7-hour layover, we left for Rome. Our friends, Claire and Arlene, flew from Orlando to Atlanta and we took the same flight from Atlanta to Rome. We could have chosen a flight from Columbus that would have let us have only 1 1/2 hour layover but we wanted to make sure that we made our flight to Rome. Good thing we did, because 70 people missed the flight to Rome due to storms in Atlanta that afternoon. We boarded our plane an hour late because the back of the plane had 2 inches of water on the floor from the storms. What we didn't know until we arrived in Rome was that two of our suitcases had gotten soaked through. We were thankful that the clothes didn't stink. We simply hung our clothes around the hotel room and smiled thinking that we would laugh at this later. Because 70 people missed the flight, there was room for Arlene to lay down on three seats in the middle. She still wasn't able to sleep. I, however, slept like a log (with help, of course). Dramamine really knocks me out!
We arrived in Rome the next morning. Arlene had arranged a taxi to take us from the airport to our hotel. When we got to our hotel, their room was ready, but ours wasn't. They laid down to take a nap, and we tried to lay down on a third twin bed in the room, but we couldn't sleep--we were too excited to be there. We left and went to find the Spanish Steps. We got lost and ended up by the Trevi fountain by mistake! We actually had two coins and threw them into the fountain over our shoulders to guarantee that we will someday return to Rome. We walked back to the hotel. Our room was ready by that time. We wanted to stay up, but we were so exhausted that we were able to take a nap. We got up later, and with Arlene's help found the Spanish Steps and a place to eat.
The next morning we got up and went to the Colosseum. This was what Brian was most looking forward to on our whole trip. We got there early, before the crowd. After a thorough tour of the inside of the Colosseum, we walked through the Forum. It was hot and we were tired, so we weren't as interested as we perhaps should have been. Did you know that they took the marble off of the outside of the Colosseum to make the pillars outside St. Peters Cathedral at the Vatican. That's why there are holes in the side of the Colosseum. We took a taxi to the Piazza Navona, a lovely square with restaurants and fountains. We sat at a cafe where Brian had lasagna that he said was better than his mom's (don't tell her). That is a high compliment. Our first "argument" when we were dating was whose mom made better lasagna. After lunch, we walked to the Pantheon. To me, this was the most impressive thing I saw in Rome. It was built in 129. It is perfectly round inside and as wide as it is tall. It has a hole in the center of the roof. When it rains or snows, there are drains in the floor for the water to run into. The only reason it survived so long was that it was converted into a church. It is very ornate inside due to the conversion. Raphael, the artist, is buried inside. I guess that when we went inside it really hit me that we were in Rome.
That night we decided to go out for a cheap dinner. We wandered around and finally sat down at a restaurant that we had walked by three times and someone always came out and begged us to come in. We decided to eat there. Brian ordered lasagna (10 Euros) and I got a Greek Salad (8 Euros). Arlene wanted bread. The waiter said, "No problem. I bring garlic bread for all of you." Great, we thought. The "garlic bread" was toast with tomatoes piled high on top. Neither Brian nor I like tomatoes, but we shook them off and at them with the delicious balsamic vinegar. Later, I wanted some chocolate and went inside to look inside the case. There was some profiteroles (puffy things) with either white or regular chocolate stuff on top. I asked the waiter if they were good. "Yes", he said, "I bring white for you and brown for your husband." Brian also had a couple cokes and I had water (they bring bottled water, so the water isn't free). We almost fainted when we got the bill. He charged us each for an order of garlic bread. It was 12 Euros each. The dessert was 11 Euros each. The meal was 90 Euros!! That's $135!! It was the most expensive meal we've ever eaten!! It took Brian a while to get over it. We learned our lesson though: In Rome, never just nod when the waiter says he'll bring you something. Make sure it's included in your meal.
On Saturday we went to the Vatican. We got there early to stand in line. While we were standing in line a man approached us and asked if we wanted to take a tour in a group. We were hesitant because we were supposed to get tickets for three others who were joining us later. They told us that if we didn't go on a tour we might not get in. You couldn't get in after 1:30, and the line was blocks long. We finally decided to go. We're very glad that we did. It was so much more interesting to learn things from the tour guides that we wouldn't have known otherwise. Afterwards, we looked in a few shops and ate at a local pizzaria. My fervent prayers were answered as the other three got there just before closing and also got in on a tour. We were very glad to see them when they finished their tour. We did split up after that, though. We went back to the Spanish Steps, then Brian and I walked through a very nice park that had a nice overview of Rome. It reminded me of a smaller Central Park (NYC). After dark, we all met back in Piazza Navona for tartufolo (very dark frozen chocolate) at Tre Scalini. YUM!
The next morning, we slept in just a little. We were ready for our taxi to the cruise ship by 11. We'll save that for the next time, though.

Kalie's 2nd Birthday

2007-10-15T00:33:00.000-04:00

Brian flew to Florida from Ohio the weekend after camping for Kalie's 2nd birthday. Here are our favorite pictures:

Meanwhile, much later . . . .

2007-10-14T23:36:00.000-04:00

I have to work tomorrow! We haven't actually worked (on a nursing floor) since August 18th! That's almost 2 months! No wonder we're nearly broke! We did have classroom orientation in Ocala, FL last week. So much has happened since August 18th. We drove home to Ohio and spent a week there. On August 29th we flew to Atlanta where we met friends, Claire and Arlene. We all flew into Rome where we spent three nights. On Sept. 1st we were joined by three more: Brenda, Phyllis, and Virginia. The next day we went to the port closest to Rome where we jumped on a cruise ship for a 12-day cruise! Our ports of call included Monte Carlo, Livorno (Florence), Naples, Santorini (Greece), Kusadasi (Ephesus, Turkey), Mykonos (Greece, Athens, Katakolon (Olympia, Greece), Corfu, and Venice. We then spent 3 nights in Venice. Brenda, Phyllis, and Virginia left after 1 night to go to Switzerland. Claire, Arlene, Brian & I took an overnight train to Paris. We spent three nights there. Two of those nights we stayed with Claire and Arlene's aunt and uncle. It was so nice of them to let us stay there. After we flew home, Claire and Arlene stayed another week. This was not a "relaxing" vacation. We got a workout every day! What a trip, though! We got to see the Colosseum, Vatican, Tower of Pisa (which we climbed), Pompeii, Ephesus, the Acropolis, Venice, AND the Eiffel Tower. Through in the beautiful Greek Isles, and WOW, it's enough to blow your mind. We feel very blessed to have seen any ONE of those things.

Favorite Place: Oia, Santorini, Greece
Places that we hope to return: Oia, Paris, Venice, Florence, and Capri
(We missed Capri due to our ship being late into Naples.)
What I will think of when I am having a stressful night at work: I will close my eyes and pretend that we're sitting at a sidewalk cafe in St. Marks Square, Venice. We sat there and listened to the dueling orchestras while we drank cappuccino and ate tiramisu (or gelato). This is my favorite memory out of many, many, many wonderful memories.

After we returned to Ohio after our trip, we went camping with my family for a weekend. Everyone was there! The weather was perfect. What a great time!

Now we're in Florida for the rest of the fall and maybe all winter. We've already been to see Brian's family two weekends. We hope to do a lot more of that. I'll post pictures soon.

2007-07-29T21:07:00.000-04:00

It's been so long since I've written anything. Our assignment here in Flagstaff is going o.k. We're looking forward to it being over because after this we plan on going on a huge vacation! More about that later. We've had a lot of fun this assignment. Brian's parents came to see us the end of June. It was really hot that weekend. They couldn't wait to get back to Florida to cool down! The next night after they left we went to Holbrook and stayed in a wigwam. "Have you ever slept in a wigwam?" A few weeks ago my parents came for a visit. They came in on Amtrak. They went from Ohio to Oregon for my cousin's wedding, then down through CA to LA. From LA they came into Flagstaff. We did our best to keep them busy while they were here. In two weeks one of my nephews is getting married in KY. After we get back from the wedding, we work for one more week before we head to Ohio and our vacation. We're ready to see some grass! It's amazing what you miss or get used to!

Do you like to ride in the car this much?

2007-05-20T18:30:00.000-04:00

Just in case anyone was wondering if our dogs mind riding in the car.

I'm a modern woman!

2007-05-09T00:55:00.000-04:00

I finally entered the modern era! I have a digital camera. Brian's been bugging me to get one, but I think that they're too expensive and newer/better ones keep coming out all the time. How do you keep up? Here's some pictures taken with my new camera. O.K., so I still have a ways to go, but I'm getting there. These pictures are from Saguaro Nat'l Park East. The saguaro were blooming, as well as other cacti. Beautiful!

Weekend trip

2007-05-09T00:43:00.000-04:00

We got 7 days off in a row! We went to Sedona, AZ first. One of the first things we saw was Montezuma's castle. Approximately 1100 - 1300 A.D. some Indians built this house into the side of a cliff. Wow! We spent that night in Flagstaff. The next day we went to Page, AZ to see Antelope Canyon. Antelope Canyon is a slot canyon. The light shines down through and it's gorgeous (that's us in the slot canyon). The next day we went to Chinle, AZ to see Canyon de Chelly (pronounced, "Shay"). In this canyon, there are about 300 of these Indian dwellings built up into the side of cliffs. It's amazing that they built these houses way up into cliffs. Currently, Navajo still live down inside of these canyons, but not in the houses in the cliffs. The last picture is just a picture of the canyon. The scenery is awesome. We had such a good time this weekend that we called our recruiter. We had a job in Flagstaff the next day! We're so excited and grateful! We end our job here next week and then head there.

Javelinas are . . .

2007-05-09T00:35:00.000-04:00

pig-like animals (rodents) that run wild here in southern Arizona. Several of our co-workers say that the see them in their back yards. They're not dangerous unless they're cornered.

Javelina

2007-04-23T18:25:00.000-04:00

Answer me this: What is a javelina?
Is it A) A small javelin (spear-like weapon) used by Native girls?
B) A pig-like rodent that lives in the southwest.
C) A goat taco
D) An eight-sided Navajo house
I'll post pictures and the answer next week. No fair looking it up in a dictionary!

Off to Tucson

2007-04-06T01:38:00.000-04:00

The morning that we planned to leave CA, Brian went to remove the tire covers on the RV. He felt a groove on the inside of the right rear tire. We had the tires changed on the way to CA, remember? They put better, and slightly larger tires on the RV in Amarillo. The shocks on the right side rubbed the tire. We were able to get right into a tire shop in Paso Robles and were on our way by 1:00. We went to Bakersfield because we wanted to get some other work done on the RV. On Saturday, we drove through Lake Havasu City, AZ where the London Bridge is currently located. Yes, the London Bridge built in 1824. When the London Bridge started to fall down, they replaced it. They brought the old one to Lake Havasu City, AZ in 1971 and set it back up!

The first week and a half that we were here it was really hot (100). But as they like to say out west, "It's a dry heat". I agree with my mother-in-law who says that my oven is a dry heat, but it's still hot! It cooled off for a week, but now it's back up to the low 90's. The heat is the reason that we'll only be here until mid-May. The nice thing about Tucson is that there are a lot of things that can be done in partial days. Our schedule hasn't been the greatest, but we soon have a 7-day stretch off. Our RV park is close to an Air Force base. We got to see the Blue Angels for four days straight! They did two days of practice, then a two-day air show. Joy loves the doggie park here in the RV park. So far we've gone to Saguaro Nat'l Park, the local mission, the Titan Missile Museum (very interesting! it showed how war was prevented!), and today we went to Biosphere 2. Biosphere 2 is where 8 people lived inside this man-made "miniature earth" for two years. Brian enjoyed seeing the engineering aspects of it. During the time the people lived in it, oxygen levels ran really low. I enjoyed seeing it, but the whole time I was thinking of that verse about God looking from heaven and laughing at the foolishness of men. The smartest people on the planet got together to try to make a miniature earth and they do a pretty good job, but they made serious miscalculations about something that we can't live without. It has cost some billionaire in Texas $250 million so far. Sure, they learned some things about the earth, but I still think it was/is a giant waste of time and money. Work has gone pretty good so far. It will be over really fast. We only have 6 more weeks here.

Last CA pictures

2007-04-06T01:33:00.000-04:00

We went to Parkfield, CA before we left. It's the earthquake capital of the world. The bottom picture is of the mission that was closest to us. I finally went to see it the day before we left.

Between assignments

2007-04-06T01:27:00.000-04:00

Between assignments, Brian went to Florida to get our taxes done and to see his parents. AND, Brenda & Elaine came to see ME!! Needless to say, the time was too short! We watched the sunset 3 times, ate, and tried to see as much of the central coast as we could. In this picture, we were using ALL of their bread to taste different olive oils at We Olive. Elaine and I also ate quite a few olives. Brenda was brave enough to try some olive spread that I told her was really good. We didn't need lunch that day!

We had a great time and made more wonderful memories!

Green Hills

2007-04-06T01:25:00.000-04:00

It was so nice to see the hills turn green before we left! The cows sure did look happy!

Morro Bay

2007-04-06T01:22:00.000-04:00

We were determined to watch the sunset at Morro Bay even if we froze!

Computers

2007-04-06T00:20:00.000-04:00

I have to post a copy of an e-mail that I recently received. My reasons for doing this are: 1) It is very funny and 2) It applies to our lives recently.

Disclaimer: I don't know if it's true or not! I personally don't believe everything I read. I don't know who wrote this!

"At a recent computer expo (Comdex), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, 'If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1000 miles to the gallon.'
In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:
If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash . . . . Twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason, you would simply accept this.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only 5 percent of the roads.
6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light.
7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.
8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turn the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
9. Every time a new car was introduced, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
10. You would have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

The morning before our last night of work in CA, I tried to check my e-mail. The computer wouldn't even turn on. Brian woke up early that evening and went to Best Buy before work. Since we were leaving CA soon, they advised him to try to erase the hard drive and reinstall all the programs just to make sure that it wasn't just a virus. He spent the whole next day erasing the hard drive and putting everything back on it. That worked for two whole days before darkness occurred again. He had taken his computer to Florida with him, but I was busy and didn't REALLY need it. When we got to Tucson, we took it to Best Buy. They told us that the hard drive was kaput and that they'd call us in 5 days. During this time, I was reminded why we needed two computers (it helps the marriage if we don't have to share computers). We did o.k. On the 5th day, I called Best Buy to see if the computer had come back and they just forgot to call us. I handed the phone to Brian when they started saying things like "mother board", "cd drive nonfunctioning", and other things that are over my head. I heard Brian saying "O.K., O.K., O.K., so we should come pick out a new computer?" I was sad to say goodbye to my computer, but in exchange I got a new one with the new operating system and it's supposed to be a little faster. Hopefully it will last longer than 2 1/2 years!
Despite all of this hassle, I am very grateful for computers!! Where would we be without them?
I am also very, very grateful for a husband who can take care of them for me. Would I have one if he hadn't come around? I don't know the answer to that question!

Valentine's Trip

2007-04-06T00:11:00.000-04:00

For our valentine's getaway this year we went to Lake Tahoe. The night before we got there they had 20 inches of snow. It was absolutely breathtaking. We drove around the lake a little bit, then took the gondola halfway up the mountain. We thought about going intertubing, but since we didn't get up there until a little before 3 and they shut down the gondola at 3:30, we decided not to pay $25 each for an hour of sledding. A guy heard us talking about it and told us that we could each do a "test run" for free! What a blast!

Pictures of Florida nieces

2007-03-18T23:20:00.000-04:00

Finally! Here are the pictures of our nieces in Florida, Kalie & Lexus. Kalie loves her "binks"!

Florida

2007-02-06T03:34:00.000-05:00

We got to go to Florida Jan. 18 - 28 for our Christmas with Brian's family. We did a lot of nothing! I sat around & drank lemonade and ate. I did get to sit in the sun one day. It was 80! One thing we did accomplish was clearing our land in Deland. It had been 4 years since we had it cleared and the ferns were waist high. Two years ago we had at least 3 trees come down during the hurricanes. We wanted to clear it to cut down on the critter population and make our neighbors happy. We spent quite a bit, but we thought "We haven't done anything to the land in 4 years." It's a good thing we had all the trees cleared as a week later a couple of tornadoes went through Deland! Brian will go see if any of our trees hit neighbors garages when he goes back to Florida in March to get our taxes done.
We have less than 4 weeks left here (we think)! We'd like to go to AZ next, but we'll see. We've really enjoyed our time here, but one of us is getting a little antsy to go see something else. I would love to live here, butwe c(w)ouldn't afford it. How do people pay $400,000 for a tiny "fixer-upper", two-bedroom with no land? We're really glad that we were able to "live" here for a short time, but not pay that kind of mortgage. I'll post pictures of Florida when I get them developed.

Rose Bowl Parade

2007-01-14T06:04:00.000-05:00

We had off on New Year's Eve this year. I went to bed at 6:30! There was a good reason, though. We had to get up at 4 a.m. and go to the Rose Bowl Parade. Here are a few of our favorite pictures.

Missions

2007-01-14T05:58:00.000-05:00

The day after the rose parade we went to see the Mission San Luis del Rey

and Mission San Juan Capistrano. We really liked San Juan Capistrano. It was really peaceful.

Butterflys

2007-01-14T05:50:00.000-05:00

The last stop on our weekend was at Pismo Beach about 15 minutes from work. Monarch butterflys by the 10's of thousands come there every winter between November through February. Here are some pictures:

Chris Rice

2007-01-04T01:21:00.000-05:00

I think that Chris Rice wrote a song for me. It's called "Lemonade" from his Amusing CD. I haven't listened to all the words very closely, but it's got a catchy tune and it talks about needing a bigger straw. He must know how much I LOVE fresh Florida lemonade. I'm looking forward to having some in about 2 weeks!

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-19T01:34:00.000-05:00

No Bulldogs were injured in the taking of these pictures (even though they acted like it!) It was quite a trial for them.

Joy would like to say: "Bah Humbug"

Christmas tree 2006

2006-12-19T01:30:00.000-05:00

This is my Christmas tree decoration and sheep collection for 2006.
I took this picture with my phone camera, so it's not the clearest, but
I hope you enjoy it anyway!

12/18/2006

2006-12-19T00:57:00.000-05:00

I know that it's been a long time since I posted. After I went home in October, we started working some overtime. It seems like we pretty much worked constantly until Nov. 28 - 30. We went up just north of San Francisco along the coast and drove down Rte 1. It was beautiful. We especially liked Santa Cruz. On December 7th we flew to Ohio to spend some time with family and friends. December 12th was Brian's birthday. We ate brunch with Grandpa Rauch and Grandma Betty, did a little shopping, then went to Tony's for Brian's favorite Seafood Fettucine Alfredo. Wednesday was Brenda's birthday. We ate at the wonderful Banana Cafe in German village, went shopping, got pedicures (!!!), and ate at the Cap City Diner. On Wednesday, my brother-in-law Richard had a mitral valve repair at the Cleveland Clinic. They used a robot to go into a 3-inch incision under his RIGHT arm to go in and repair the cords that help the valve open and close. We went to visit on Friday evening. He is doing well except his voice is raspy due to vocal cord damage incurred during surgery. We pray that the vocal cords will heal completely and that his heart is completely healed. Our family Christmas was on Saturday at Don & Sherilyn's house. Here are our only complaints about our time at home: 1) It went entirely too quickly and 2) No snow (actually Brian didn't complain about that once). I, however, took my boots to Ohio all the way from California and didn't get to wear them once. Maybe it will snow next year. We had an uneventful flight back to California. We were very happy to see and de-stink two doggies. They seemed happy to see us as well. We work most of the next two weeks. Contracts ended for three travelers while we were gone. No new travelers will start until after the first of the year. We signed up for some overtime the next two weeks. I did some decorating tonight. It's supposed to get down to 20 degrees tonight! It gets coldest from 2 - 7 a.m., then warms up when the sun comes up. Merry Christmas everyone!

10/15 - 10/20

2006-10-20T22:49:00.000-04:00

On Sunday evening we drove to LA. We stayed at a really nice hotel. Did you know that Sheratons allow dogs? On Monday we went to an RV show there. It's supposed to be the country's largest. We saw several RV's that we really liked. The dogs stayed at a groomers while we were at the show. We then drove home that evening. Joy started getting sick on Sunday night. She didn't quite get over it until this morning. Yesterday and today have been beautiful! Highs were in the low 80's. Tonight it's cool enough that we're wearing sweatshirts. We've been going and going so much. Tonight we decided to stay home and just cook out. We finally got our fire pit out. I'm blogging by the fire! That should be a song, eh?

Our anniversary

2006-10-12T08:15:00.000-04:00

So after church with Brenda & Elaine on Sunday, I had an uneventful flight back to CA. It was much prayed for, believe me! On Monday, Brian & I dropped the dogs off at the kennel and drove to LA. Brian didn't go with me to Ohio due to lack of funds on our part. On Monday evening, we went on a tour of LA. After the tour, we went to bed for a couple of hours. Gina Yutzy and Emily Mayer and their husbands had flown to LA for a week's vacation. I worked with Gina and Emily waitressing at the Der Dutchman for many years. We met them on Tuesday for "The Price is Right". I couldn't sleep, so we decided to go ahead and get in line. We were #1 and #2. We were in line by about 12:30 am. We had to stay in line until 6 am, come back at 7:45, stand in line until after 8, then get back in line at 9:45 and stay there until the show started at 2:15. It was a long day, but we were excited when we got to sit in the front row. You can see us on "The Price is Right" on December 6th. Brian sat on one side of the contestants' seats in the front row, and I'm on the other side. One of the men who sat in line just after us got to go onstage! He was so excited. He watches the show every day! After the show, the others went back to their time share in Palm Desert. I surprised Brian by taking him to Chipotle. We split a burrito because we had dinner reservations at a nice restaurant for our anniversary. There was one across the street from our hotel. (I had seen it earlier that morning when I went with Gina and Emily for a little breakfast. He had gone back to the hotel for a nap.) We decided not to go out to eat that night. We slept 14 hours instead. Wednesday morning we went to the Farmer's Market across the street from our hotel. It was really neat! We then went back down to Hollywood Blvd to see the stars on the walk of fame and Kodak theater where the Oscars are held. We drove to a place where we could see the Hollywood sign pretty close. We then headed home, because we had to get the dogs out of the kennel before it closed. What a fun little trip for our anniversary!

Mom's Birthday

2006-10-12T07:47:00.000-04:00

On Thursday (her birthday), Linda called Mom and told her that they were bringing supper over. Of course, by that time Mom knew that I was coming, too. Wes, Linda, and the kids showed up. We were trying to stall. We finally set the table. Mom had gotten us a table cloth--it was too big, so we just folded it under. We put the lasagna 0n. Just as we were finishing up, Grandma, Carolyn, Bill, Fannie, and Clara Louise (Dad's family) showed up. Mom said, "I think you need to set more places at the table." The table cloth was the perfect size. Jeff, Karen, & kids came, too. Of course, this party was supposed to throw her off.
She kept asking what I was doing Saturday. I just kept saying that I was spending the day with Wes & Linda. I told her that they were picking me up between 9 & 10. These were not lies. On Friday, we worked on her pictures. On Friday evening, Cody called and invited Mom & Dad to his baseball game on Saturday morning. Dad (in on the surprise) said that they could come. His game started at 9:30. I had to call Dad because I couldn't find the ice cream freezer. I told Dad to tell Mom that Wes and Linda's ice cream freezer was broken (not a lie), and they wanted to borrow theirs. I forgot that I had to get some things at the grocery store, so I actually drove over to Jeff & Karen's instead of having Wes pick me up. We grilled the burgers for lunch and made home made ice cream. We had everyone park at Shiloh (around the corner from Jeff's house). We wanted everyone there by noon. At the game, Karen invited Mom & Dad over for lunch and to see their new concrete patio outside the basement door. We had a two-pronged attack planned. When Karen called to say that they were on their way, we all went to the basement. We all hid on the patio. When she came outside, all of her kids and grandkids (minus two who had been there Thursday) were out there. We sang "Happy Birthday", then headed upstairs. When she got to the top of the stairs, her brothers and sisters were all sitting in the living room. They had been in the bedroom when Mom got there. She was speechless for a few minutes. I hadn't seen my aunts and uncles since our wedding 8 years ago. I think that it had been a few years since all of her brothers and sisters were together. Mom said that when I called about the ice cream freezer, she thought that maybe we were doing something in the evening for her birthday, but she never thought that it would be anything like we planned. Dad bought pizza for supper. We had a great time together. I was trilled that we actually were able to surprise her. We had debated whether we should do something for 70 or 75, but we decided that we might as well celebrate 70. Dad is going to be harder to surprise. We talked about celebrating 71 or 69--you never know!

Can anyone top this?

2006-10-12T07:11:00.000-04:00

Let me tell you a little story about airplanes! It all started when I decided to go home to Ohio to surprise my Mom for her 70th birthday. I worked Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights. After working all night on Tuesday, I went to the airport Wednesday morning, October 4th. My flight was supposed to leave at 11:35 a.m and I was due to arrive in Columbus at 11:10 p.m. Beverly Yutzy was going to pick me up. Sounds great, right? There were some concerns in the family about me sneaking into Mom & Dad's house in the middle of the night and causing Mom to have a heart attack on her 70th birthday. They need not have been concerned. When I arrived at the SLO airport at 10 a.m., I was told that my flight from LA to Chicago was cancelled due to "weather" in Chicago. After some debating, I chose a flight out of LA to Chicago at 11:25 that night. That meant that I would have an 11-hour layover in LA. I would then arrive in Columbus at 9:25 am. I think that one of my options would have been to leave on the first flight October 5th from SLO and go through Dallas, arriving in Columbus Thursday afternoon. That would have let me sleep before leaving, but I didn't want to lose Thursday in Ohio. In addition, I called Brian about a half hour after he left the SLO airport to make sure that he got home o.k. When I hung the phone up, I noticed that I only had two bars left on my phone battery! My charger was in my suitcase. My phone has a terrible battery. (Today I made a 10 minute phone call and my battery went to one bar after being plugged in for 14 hours last night.) I had to call Beverly and tell her not to come because she had to work. I called Dad and asked if they could pick me up. We decided that we would go out for breakfast. So I left SLO at 11:35 and arrived in LA at 12: 40. American Airlines didn't want to give me a flight, hotel, or food voucher because the delay was due to weather. However, there were flights leaving for Chicago, so I'm not sure why my flight was cancelled. The agents told me that they could probably get me a discout on a hotel. I was too tired, and I had very little battery left on my cell phone (for an alarm). I was afraid to leave and then have to try to get back in time. I laid down in a quiet area and slept for 3 hours. When I woke up, there were two people sleeping behind me! I ate something, then went to my gate area to wait. I sat against a wall (the seats weren't comfortable enough to sleep in). When I woke up two hours later, I was sitting there with my mouth open and two guys staring at me. I had a nice flight to Chicago. It didn't leave until 1 am, so I was actually in LA over 12 hours. Brian stayed up (not even a nap) until I got on the plane to Chicago! Remember, he hadn't been to bed since Tuesday afternoon at 4 pm. I got to Chicago and when it came time to start boarding the plane, they announced that our flight was cancelled due to mechanical problems--our plane was still in Columbus. Other people that were on this flight got flight vouchers and food vouchers, but I didn't since my original delay was due to weather. They told me that I had automatically been re-booked on a flight to St. Louis then Columbus that would arrive in Columbus at 3:20. That's when I kind of flipped out. I said, "I could have driven there by now!" (Of course, I shed a few tears before). I settled for a flight that left Chicago at 1:05 pm and was due to arrive in Columbus at 3:50. I spent 7 hours in Chicago! I tried to get on two different standby flights to no avail. I called Dad several times. Mom figured it all out after a couple of calls. After we boarded the plane and drove out to the runway, the captain announced that there was now "weather" in Columbus, and that we had to return to the gate to get more fuel in case we had to land at a different airport. I really started crying at this point. I also started praying. I had no idea where my suitcase was by now. We left late (I have no idea what time because I also did not have a watch). We got into Columbus at 4:15. I got off of the plane and went down to the baggage area. My suitcase was sitting outside of security. I picked it up and went outside to see if Mom & Dad were circling around outside. I tried to call Dad twice, but the call didn't go through. I went back inside to see if they were in there. I saw Mom standing there and my phone beeped "Low Battery"! How's that for provision!! Miracles do happen. We got to Mom & Dad's about 5:30. I was tired, but once I got there, I woke up enough to enjoy the birthday party.

9/2/07

2006-09-30T00:05:00.000-04:00

Here's something exciting: we just booked the cruise that we've been saving money for 4 years! Four years ago Brian looked at a Greek Isles calendar and said "That can't be a real place." I guess we'll find out next year if it's real. Our friends Claire & Arlene are going and have invited us to go with them to Paris afterwards (their aunt lives there). Does anyone else want to go on the cruise with us?

Working & working out

2006-09-29T23:53:00.000-04:00

We've been working quite a bit. Our RV park has a workout facility. We finally started using it last week. Ouch! But it will be worth it when we're buff and toned. Tonight we went on a tour of a huge vineyard and learned how they plant, grow, water, & prune the grapes. We tasted the different grape varieties. What a lot of work! They let us bring a picnic and we sat on top a hill and watched the sunset. Of course I took a bunch of pictures. Since I don't have a digital camera yet, you'll have to wait.

Just down the road from us . . .

2006-09-21T00:42:00.000-04:00

Day trip!

2006-09-21T00:39:00.000-04:00

This was taken in King's Canyon Nat'l Park.
Look closely so that you can see our little traveler!

The last couple of weeks

2006-09-21T00:16:00.000-04:00

On September 7th, we drove through Solvang on our way to Santa Barbara. Solvang is a town where a lot of Danes settled after they moved to America. The building downtown look very European. It's a very pretty little town and a great place to get breakfast. They still make Danish pastries like they do in Denmark. Santa Barbara was pretty. I think that I would like to live there. It has a beach-front park. It's kind of built up on the side of the mountains. It's a very expensive place. Because of that, we stayed overnight a little south of there in Carpenteria. I thought that I got a good deal on a hotel. Brian thinks that it's where all the illegal migrant workers live. It was a little scary, but funny now that we look back on the experience. We didn't sleep very well because you had to open the windows if you wanted any ventilation and I wasn't about to do that. There were some people that sat outside our door until very early in the morning talking. The large crack around the door enabled us to hear every word that they were saying. On the way back from Santa Barbara we drove through Lompoc which is where they grow a lot of flowers. We were a little late in the season, but we still got to see a couple of flower fields. On the way back from there, we saw field after field of lettuce in various stages of growth.
Last weekend Brian's mom came to visit! We enjoyed showing her around here. On Thursday we went to the Apple Farm (a restaurant and inn that has a lot of flowers and a water wheel/mill). In the evening we went to the SLO Farmer's Market. We always enjoy doing that. On Friday we went to an olive farm where they showed us how they make olive oil. After that we went to a couple of wineries. We went to a wine tasting. After we tasted it, we went out into the vineyard. Brenda tasted a grape and said, "That's really good. Whoever took this grape and ruined it by making that wine should be taken out back and beaten." After that we went to Morro Bay (the closest beach). It was really windy that day. On Saturday we went to the park in Paso Robles. They were having the "Taste of Paso." We had to buy a book of tickets. We then walked around the downtown area and a lot of the restaurants had samples of their food for us to taste. We really enjoyed that and we enjoyed having Brian's mom here for a few days.
We had three days off in a row this week and three days in a row off next week. We decided to just relax. We have been running around so much that we're rather worn out. I have been running around in the evenings when the light outside is a nice rosy gold taking pictures of the vineyards. Our company is having another photo contest. If we win anything, I'll post the picture(s) that win. I'm not sure that I want to enter the contest. I won honorable mention in 2001. They used my picture on the front of that calendar and in that calendar, on the front of one of their magazines, and again in this year's calendar. I figured, though, that I'm not doing anything else with the pictures, so I might as well. This year they're paying $250, which would pay for a lot of photo developing!

Huge trees

2006-09-21T00:08:00.000-04:00

On September 1st & 2nd, we went to Yosemite and Sequoia Nat'l parks. We had been to the northern areas of Yosemite, but we wanted to see the sequoias. The tree in this picture (left) is called General Grant. It's the third largest living tree. It's so big that I had to piece two pictures together to get a picture of it. These trees are supposed to be around 3000 years old. Amazing!

San Francisco II

2006-09-20T23:50:00.000-04:00

On August 5 - 7, we went to San Francisco. We were so surprised when we got there. The sun was shining! We had heard so much about how the summers there were cold and miserable. I think it was Mark Twain that said, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." On Saturday (the 5th), we went to the cable car terminus and watched them turn the cable cars around and then rode one to Lombard street (look closely one of the pictures). It's the crookedest street in America and great fun to drive down. We then went to Fishermans' Wharf where we had some clam chowder in one of the famous San Francisco sourdough bread bowls. We rode the cable car back as close as we could get to our hotel. The cable cars are $5 to ride each way with no transfers (if you get off you have to pay $5 to get back on again). We were going to get a three day pass for $18 each, but when I was standing in line a nice English gentleman came up and gave me two one-day passes and said that they weren't going to need them anymore!! I was very thankful. We had gotten a great deal on a San Francisco hotel. On Priceline I offered $80 for a three-star hotel and got an upgrade to a 4-star Hilton!! We were so excited. It was in a nice area of town, too. There was one hitch: parking was $48/night!!!! We paid more to park the car than we did to spend one night there! Everyone told us that that was the average amount to pay for parking in San Francisco. If you go, don't take your car. One the way back on Saturday night, we walked into a Chinese night festival. Our hotel was right on the edge of Chinatown. San Francisco has the largest Chinatown in the U.S. It was so cool!! I could have spent hours there. On Sunday morning we walked through Chinatown and ate brunch at a local restaurant. We went back down to Fishermans' Wharf and just watched people until it was time for us to go to Alcatraz. You can see one of the prisoners there if you look at one of the pictures. That's also Alcatraz Island in that picture with the sailboat. We really enjoyed going to Alcatraz. We walked back to our hotel. On the way, we stopped at an Italian restaurant. They sat us right by the kitchen. We had a lot of fun watching the chefs and waiters yell at each other in Italian. Monday morning was overcast. We drove around San Francisco a little bit to see the "Painted Ladies" (row houses painted very extravagantly). We then went to the Golden Gate bridge. I could have spent more time there, but we needed to get back in time to get the dogs out of the kennel.

San Fransisco

2006-09-20T23:46:00.000-04:00

Laundry

2006-09-13T19:53:00.000-04:00

I have Brian convinced that if/when we build our house that I'm going to need 5 washers and 5 dryers. It is so nice to do my laundry all at once and get it done. I'm sitting here playing on the computer while my laundry finishes. I'm sitting here looking at the pool. Brian's mom is coming today. Next week we were going to go to Napa valley, but we've been running, running, running. I'm so exhausted that we just decided to stay home for once. Maybe I can kick Brian off of the computer long enough to update my blog. We're seriously thinking about getting a second computer. Anyway, I'll write more next week.

. . . concert

2006-08-09T18:54:00.000-04:00

I should add that we were sitting pretty close to the speakers, so maybe Brian just couldn't hear me yet when I suggested that we stay for concert #2. HA!

Concert

2006-08-09T18:45:00.000-04:00

I am sooooo happy! It only took me three tries to get this picture from Brian's phone to here! Last Friday we went to the Mid-State California fair here in Paso Robles. Brian had worked on Thursday so we went about 4 pm. The fair was only about the size of the Franklin County Fair!!! However, they had some pretty big names coming to their main stage every night. They had two side stages. The concerts at the side stages were FREE!!! Of course they didn't include the price of admission or the corn dogs in that concert price. We got to see Casting Crowns for the price of admission and a couple of corn dogs (and a funnel cake for Brian and a chocolate covered cheesecake for me). They gave two concerts, each lasting about an hour. I wanted to stay for the second one, but Brian didn't think that was necessary. They give the best concerts (next to Petra of course). What a fun and uplifting time!!!

AC

2006-08-09T18:09:00.000-04:00

I forgot to write that after our back AC breaker flipped a couple of times, we had a repair man come out. We were afraid that we would need a whole new converter panel ($$$$). We were so thankful when all he had to do was put in a new breaker and change some things around. It was still $$ but only about a third of what we thought it would be. Since then we have had no more problems with breakers flipping. One Sunday afternoon when we were sleeping for work, the electricity did go off, but it was because someone hit a phone pole. It was only off for 1 1/2 hours. We were very thankful that we didn't have any other problems. We live about 2 miles outside of town. When it was over 110 here for about five days, they did loose power in town at least one of those days. We didn't, however, and for that we are extremely thankful. Thanks be to God for AC and working electricity!!! (among many other things)

Live in CA

2006-08-09T17:47:00.000-04:00

It's been quite a while since I wrote anything, I know. When we got home from whale watching that day, the breaker on the pole outside had flipped. This was a Saturday. Harley was so hot that it took him about 4 hours to stop panting hard. He even let me put bags of ice under him--he usually doesn't do that. The breaker flipped again the next day. The temperature was over 100. We had gone to church. When we got home, it must have just flipped. The magic fan (runs off of the battery) is set to go off when it gets above 80, and it wasn't running yet. The park owners don't work on the weekend. On Monday, they came and fixed the breaker. After that, our breaker for the back air conditioner started flipping and getting hot. We were very thankful that we worked nights so that we could be here with the dogs during the day. On the days we had off, we didn't leave unless we took the dogs with us. One Sunday evening we took the dogs to Morro Bay, to the beach. That was wonderful! It is so beautiful there. There is a bird sanctuary on either side of the doggie beach so there were so many birds flying around as the sun was setting. The next day I checked into RV parks down there (the temperature is much cooler--many people don't even have AC). They were all booked until January!! The next evening we went to the drive in movie theater. The next week we drove Highway 1 up the coast. We got up to Pebble Beach before it got dark. Last week it cooled down to the mid 80's every day. NOW I can see why people live here. It really is a beautiful place with so many different beautiful areas near by. I don't think I've been anywhere before that is so varied. I'm most suprised that most of CA is small towns. Of course there's LA and San Fran, but otherwise it's pretty much just small towns. Work is still going pretty good. I'm minutely shocked that the hospital is so behind the times. When we were in nursing school, they always told us that the east and west coast had the most progressive hospitals. Maybe that's true in the larger cities, but I haven't seen it here. If something happens to us, I hope that they take us to Stanford (3 hours away). We're hoping to stay here until December, but we're still working out a small detail (time off together every other weekend). I'll tell you about this past weekend later.

Whale Tales

2006-07-13T04:46:00.000-04:00

Here's a few whale pictures. Again, you can see this in person if you come visit!

Hearst Castle Pictures

2006-07-13T04:39:00.000-04:00

These are just a few pictures from Hearst Castle built by William Randolph Hearst, newspaper magnate. He had so much money, he didn't know what to do with it. The funny thing is, he was unable to finish it. He kept adding and adding things. Toward the end, he was $120 million in debt! This was toward the end of the Depression. If you want to see this in person, all you have to do is COME VISIT US!!!

New Breaker/Whales

2006-07-12T12:10:00.000-04:00

The RV park owners changed the main breaker on our pole on Monday. Since then we've been able to keep it cool inside the RV. We hope that trend continues. I'm in a lot better mood when I don't get sweaty when I'm doing nothing. My whale watching pictures turned out pretty good. We have been whale watching in Maine, Washington and Alaska. One thing that I've never seen is a lot of seals in the water. The seals went wherever the whales were feeding. The seals ate and played while the whales ate. There were 500 to 1000 seals playing and swimming around these massive whales. They were so fun to watch. We saw quite a few whales (humpbacks). Our boat was a 20 foot pontoon boat with two outboard motors attached to it. It was pretty wavy and a couple of people got sick. It had room for 24 people including the captain and the first mate. We weren't very far from the shore (maybe 3 miles) to see the whales. These whales are 40 - 50 feet long. One whale liked the boat and kept sitting right underneath us. He put on quite a show. One time he even stuck his head out of the water to get a better look at us. The first mate was crying because she was so excited. She said that she's been doing this for a year and has never seen anything like this. She said that if a whale breaches (jumps out of the water), she'll jump into the water. We were hoping even more that a whale would breach so that we could see her jump in the water. I'll try to post some pictures of whales and also of Hearst Castle tonight.

The Doctor said . . .

2006-07-10T20:52:00.000-04:00

One of the first days that we worked, I was sitting in the nurses' station reading my California travel book. A doctor said, "Where are you from?" I told him Florida. He said, "Isn't Florida supposed to be flooded soon due to global warming?" I replied, "Before I came out here, everyone warned me that California is due to drop off of the edge of the continent." He told me that I'm not allowed to talk to him again. He had questions about one of my patients and he pretended that I wasn't even talking to him.

The Job

2006-07-10T14:54:00.000-04:00

Oh, yeah . . . The Job. The reason we're here. Like I said before, it's a very small hospital. CA has very strict laws about how many patients a nurse can have. For step-down units, nurses are only allowed to have 4 patients. The first week that we were here, we had only 3 patients each. They have to staff it that way in case they get a lot of patients coming into the ER. A lot of hospitals that we work for will send people home the instant that a unit's census drops. If they get a lot of admissions, the nurses on duty just have to take more patients until the next shift. Last fall, to cut costs, this floor got rid of all of its techs/nursing assistants. Most of the nurses on the unit either left, went to other floors, or went into the float pool (float between the units of the hospital). That means that most nights that we work, it's all travelers or float staff. I like working with no techs. Some places that we work the techs are great and really help out. A lot of times, though, it's hard to get them to do things so we end up doing our job and theirs, too, rather than argue. They had two charge nurses that were staff. One of them just lost her dad to a heart attack. Her family is wealthy and owns a ranch which she needs to help run. That means that she's off indefinitely. We work with a traveler whose husband is also a nurse and works in the ICU. They usually live in a RV but decided to take an apartment this time. They didn't want to drive the RV all the way from Florida. Another traveler's husband is an LPN that works in a local nursing home while they're here. They also live in an RV. Two female travelers travel together and two male travelers also travel together. The guys make sure that everyone knows immediately that they are just friends. Their contract is almost over and they're heading for Orlando. It's a fun group and they want to do some things together if we all have off at the same time. The job seems to be going fairly well. We'll probably ask to stay until Dec. 2nd. We've got a lot of things to see!!

The Weather/The RV Park

2006-07-10T14:20:00.000-04:00

The weather here is so strange. We live about 30 miles north of San Luis Obispo (SLO) where we work. To get to work we go down a long 7% grade. At the top of "the grade" it can be 100 degrees. It's been 100 degrees every day where we live. As soon as we drive down the grade (that's what the locals call it), the temperature drops to mid-70's. When you drive 10 miles further west to the beach, it's mid-60's. This is all in the middle of the day. In Paso Robles, where we live, about an hour-and-a-half before sunset, the temperature drops dramatically. Most nights that we have off we open the windows because the temperature at night is mid-50's. I love the evenings here. There aren't a lot of bugs. I like to sit outside and watch the sun set over the next hill. It doesn't rain between April and December, so you never have to worry about getting rained out of something. Unfortunately, there aren't any RV parks in SLO. The weather there is perfect. Our main breaker has flipped several times. On Saturday, we went whale watching and to the coast. When we got back, the breaker had flipped and it felt hotter inside than out (it was 106 outside). It took Harley 4 hours to stop panting. The owners of the RV park don't work on weekends. They're supposed to change the breaker today. We're looking into RV parks in the beach areas, but so far they're all booked until mid September. The RV park is really, really nice. It does have a pool that we can cool off in and a hot tub for those cool evenings. On July 4th, they gave us a nice dinner and we watched the town fireworks from the clubhouse. The fireworks went off right across the street. The RV park is the only one in the area that has grass. Beside each site there is a large enough area of grass to put a picnic table in. Because it doesn't rain, it costs them a lot to have grass. They told us that they are pretty flexible with most of the rules as long as you don't do anything to the grass. The dogs, Joy especially, have had a hard time adjusting. Joy still isn't very keen about doing her business in the dirt.

The Bullys

2006-07-01T04:39:00.000-04:00

New Beginnings

2006-07-01T03:23:00.000-04:00

Hi, everyone! Someone suggested that I start a blog, then Jenni started one and I thought "Hey, why not?" It's not like I'm FORCING anyone to read this, right? We arrived in CA on the 18th. We left Ohio on the 14th. We were very excited to be able to drive together this time. We had the Beetle shipped. It's supposed to arrive about July 10th. As we were leaving Mom & Dad's, Brian said that he expects that he'll do most of the driving. That was perfectly fine with me. However, we were almost to the Ohio/Indiana border when we pulled over at a rest stop. I said that maybe I should start driving because it was flat and there was very little traffic. I ended up driving more than my share!!! The next afternoon, he said "Boy, this is really nice to sit back and let you drive." I didn't mind at all. We weren't getting very good gas mileage through Missouri and Oklahoma. We were 20 miles from TX when Brian "just decided" to check the tire pressure. He put his hand on the tire and was shocked to feel no last row of tread on the inner most part of the tire. All four tires were that way. It was about 8 pm in the middle of nowhere. We went into the gas station and they gave us some names of tire places. We went back 3 miles. I was praying the whole way that they wouldn't rip us off. They refused to put new tires on, because they said that by the time we got to Amarillo we would need new tires again. They told us to go that night because it would be cooler, to drive slow, and to "keep our fingers crossed". It was about 100 during the day. We drove 200 miles to Amarillo that night. The next morning we called several places. The place that did the alignment said to get new tires on, then they could do the alignment on Monday. Brian begged him to do it that day (Friday), because we had to be at work on Tuesday. He called someone in and they got it done. We were on our way by 3 pm! I had been praying that it wouldn't be too hot, either. Harley would have never made it outside in that heat. It was nice and overcast, and the second place let them sit inside. We are so grateful that Brian "just happened" to feel the need to check the tires (which he's never done while we're traveling) and that it got fixed so quickly in the middle of nowhere. We could have had the tires blow out in the middle of the desert somewhere. We got better gas mileage after that, too. We had nothing else eventful happen along the way. On Monday we did some paper work for our job (that we had to complete there before we started). Tuesday, the 20th, we drove to Yosemite to meet Wes, Linda, and kids for the afternoon. I thought that it would take 3 hours to get there--it took 5! Luckily, they were running a little late, too, so they weren't just sitting there waiting on us. We started working on Wednesday, the 21st. It's a very small hospital--about 167 beds. They only do 1 or 2 heart surgeries a week. California has lots of laws about nurse:patient ratios, so we only have 3, or at the very most 4 patients every night. It's pretty nice for us. We worked last weekend. On Wednesday, we went to Hearst Castle. I'll talk more about that later. We did two of four tours this time and hope to do the other two soon. Maybe I'll have pictures by then. Thursday, we went to San Luis Obispo (SLO) for the weekly farmer's market. Every Thursday evening year around, they close down a street and have fresh local produce, BBQ pits, music and lots of other food. Just the kind of thing I love to do! We were going to go on a tour of a local vineyard today (there are over 200 in the area), but our truck brakes have been whining. Yesterday, they really started rubbing, so we got a little concerned. I thought that we had the brakes and rotors changed December 2004, but I guess that was only the front brakes. Firestone couldn't check the back brakes. So today we had to but new brakes and rotors for the back. We hope that we don't need anything else mechanical done anytime soon. We work again this weekend, but have July 4th off. Our campground is right across the road from the park where Paso Robles sets off their fireworks. The RV park is having a cookout, then we'll watch the fireworks. We were going to go to Pismo Beach for the fireworks, but they say it's pretty crowded. Next time I'll write more about the RV park, the weather, and the people we work with (this sentence was mostly written to remind me :) ), since I wrote such a long note this time. Love, Karla & Brian