Traveling

Well, we are off on another adventure! I finished my fifth term of school last week and Scott is on an elective rotation, so we decided to take a trip. We had been wanting to see our good friends, Adam and Jessica, for a few months now and decided to see if they were up for an adventure as well – turns out they were. We needed a place where Scott could work on his medical spanish, Adam could surf, and we girls could work on our tan.  El Salvador is what we decided on – close enough for a quick trip, but far enough to get away. So here were are in El Zonte, on the coast, renting a little house on an amazing piece of property. We can hear the sounds of the crashing waves all the time, and see them everytime we look outside. It is perfect!

This is the view from our balcony

Scott flew in last week ahead of us to have a little more time to work on his elective, and the three of us joined him on Saturday, once I had finished my finals and Adam's vacation time from work started. We have been exploring the little village down the beach, and checking out the neat little tidal pools outside the property walls. We've also been reaaally busy laying by our pool, reading books, developing all sorts of new drink concoctions, and eating delicious food.

We have an amazing view of the sunset from our yard and are thoroughly enjoying it

The weather has been fabulous – 80 & sunny, and the surf has been huge here! We rented a car yesterday to have for the rest of the week and today we are exploring more of the little villages around us. We're in El Tunco, which is an amazing little surf village, with smaller, gentler waves, and more options for Jess and I to shop

After my post last night, it only seems fitting that I should wake up to this:

Apparently 36 hours straight of pouring rain is STILL more than our yard can handle. 

And you're getting an "after" picture much sooner than you probably would have.

The sod is cut out and spaced like that because St. Augustine grows outwards so fast and we have been assured that it will take over the back yard.  Well, yeah, we'll see if flooding affects that I guess....

On a positive note: at least we don't have to water for a few days!

Weekend Projects

Spring is here!  It's been here about a month now and we are completely enjoying it!  Our winter garden finally started kicking out tomatoes in high-gear about three weeks ago.  We enjoyed a final harvest of cabbage and lettuce before Scott and Francois tilled everything up when I was in Minneapolis.

Also, our Lime tree flowered for the first time this spring and now little buds are growing! 

We're really excited, especially since our Mojito Mint (Yes, that is it's name - it's a little sweeter, developed just for mojitos) is growing like crazy.  Our neighbor's tree puts out TONS of limes each year so we're anticipating great mojitos on the porch with everyone soon!

As we prepare for summer, we decided it was high time to get a lawn in our back yard.  When we first bought the house, it was a dump back there!  There was a ratty fence, garbage, abandoned lattice and carpet buried in two feet of leaves (that were composting very nicely - but allowed for no grass to grow).  We cleaned all that up and trimmed as many branches up as we could, and then discovered that every time it rains hard, we get three inches of standing water in the back yard.  So then we got 4 sq yards of dirt delivered and Scott planted grass seed.  No luck.  Next he attempted to transplant plugs of St. Augustine grass from the next yard over.  Some took off, but it was too thin and frail and mostly the dogs just destroyed it running around the yard.  Also, we still flooded with rain.

Our last ditch effort entails ordering the dirt and sod and going big, doing the whole yard at once.  In preparation we had the broken cement next to the house pulled up, and yanked the chain-link fence out between us and a neighbor.

Saturday morning I freaked out a little when the giant semi truck first pulled up LOADED with pallets of sod and thought perhaps our neighbor and Scott got a little over-ambitious.  No fear though, the driver unloaded our two pallets and continued on his merry way.  Five minutes later the dump truck came and deposited 12 sq yards of dirt on our driveway.  We only ordered and paid for 8, but the truck driver accidentally loaded and brought too much, so just gave it to us.

Sunday I finished up a class for school and then headed out back to help Scott for the day.  We spread dirt for quite a while and then began the sod-laying.  Just when we were starting to get rather grumpy and tired our wonderful friends Hunter and Sashi showed up and helped us finish everything, which made the whole process so much more fun.  

Pre-dirt and sod (Saturday morning)

Almost finished 

(I am just now realizing I didn't take an "after" picture. Sorry. I will soon, as I am far too lazy to get up now and go out in the rain to get one for you).  All I can say is that it is going to be awesome and I am so excited for it all to take root and start spreading out!  We've been watering twice a day (except the last two days as it has poured and poured) and are really hoping this works!

Oh, and last thing!  Here is our NEW garden that Scott has been working on for the last week!  If you look closely you can see our version of "Wilson" (Home Improvement - anyone? anyone?) over the fence behind :) 

The Arlich Hitch-Fest

This last weekend Hannah, who I have been friends with fooooooreverrr, finally ran off and got hitched. To a really fun, really tall & good looking, really all around great guy.  I couldn't be happier for her!

She looked absolutely stunning and I still just can't get over how perfectly the whole weekend went!

The weather was astounding for March in Minnesota.  I woke up on Thursday morning in a little bit of a panic to see that it had lightly snowed the night before.  All week long I just prayed no freak blizzard would come along, and we were so blessed!  Saturday, the day of the wedding, was bright and sunny with hardly a cloud in the sky and it was 60 degrees!!!  We took pictures outside and basked in the glory of it all.

(Their amazing photographer, Emily Steffen, took this picture and I nabbed it from her site)

The wedding was an absolute blast!  Hannah and Jerod did a fabulous job of planning every last little detail out.  Everything from their personally written vows and the readings they chose for the ceremony, to the decorations and place settings, was unique and very original to them.  It was so refreshing to be at a wedding that was different enough, but still just traditional enough as well that it didn't seem weird.  All around I just can't stop raving about it and how much fun it was!  

I was just bummed that Scott had to miss out due to his ICU rotation and needing to work the whole time.  However, it did give me tons of time to catch up with some of my bestest girlfriends that I've been missing so much. 

We had pretty much the best wedding party ever and danced the night away.  Today, four whole days later, I am finally not achey.  We were all so sore from dancing for so many hours, that on Sunday morning I really thought my knees and all the muscles in my legs would just give up and buckle right out from under me when I was walking around - especially climbing stairs.  I would say that's a sure sign of a great wedding though, so, once again...

CONGRATULATIONS Mr & Mrs. Jerod Arlich! 

 I love you two and wish you many, many, many, many years of wedded bliss together!

Three month labs

This happened like 2-3 weeks ago now and I completely forgot to update it on the blog here!  Sooorry!

Scott had his three month post-op labs done and his thyroid levels are finally good!!!!!  We have worked on getting to this point for over two years now, since they removed his thyroid, and never dreamed it would take so much work.  He's yo-yoed up and down and we've changed his Synthroid dosing several times.  But, he is feeling great now and we are thrilled he's leveled off and we're finally at a good dose!

His calcitonin levels (markers for MC) are still about the same.  We were hoping they would drop off, but no need to worry too much until after we hit the six month mark.  We're in the process of consulting with some other docs from MD Anderson again regarding the whole situation, just to get their opinion and see if they have any other ideas.  As of right now though we don't really foresee any big changes in the plan and are just hanging out.

Thanks for the continued thoughts and prayers!  Hopefully there won't be much to report for a few more weeks.

Neighborhood Watch

Our front porch is one of our favorite aspects of this house. And by 'our', I mean all four of us. Not only do Scott and I love to sit out there and drink our coffee in the morning, or eat lunch together in the sun, or enjoy wine with the neighbors in the evening, but Lucy and Ariyah love that thing just as much as we do, and possibly more.  It runs the length of the front of our house and was very poorly built.  All of the rails are unequally spaced and the nails are rusting out of it.  The dogs know where the wider-spaced rails are and their favorite thing is to stick their head right through those and watch the world go by

This allows them to get as close as possible to all dogs walking by on the sidewalk, which of course makes them believe their obnoxious greetings are even better.  Every now and then they forget about the particularly narrow spacings when they're really excited, which causes momentary panic as they twist and turn, trying to free their big heads.  No worries - they've never been permanently stuck and I've stopped being concerned about that.
We put up a baby gate to when we first moved in here so that we could leave them on the porch unattended if we're home.

This way they can bask in the sun for hours at a time, wrestle noisily, and chew their rawhides to their hearts content, without getting my floors any dirtier than they already are.

This is their daily routine when we're around, and it hasn't changed much in the three months we've been living in this house.  Until this morning.  This morning Lucy decided that resting her chin on the lowest bar of the railing no longer provided a satisfying enough view of the neighborhood.  No, she needed to be even higher than an entire 8 feet off of the ground.  So, as I casually glanced out the window while walking by this morning, I had to do a rapid double-take, and then burst out laughing when I saw this:

Lucy sitting in our chair

No guilt. No shame.  Just enjoying the view like she's a human.

She is such a mess.