What a weekend!

     This past weekend is one we won't soon forget!  It flew by in a flash but man was it fun, one of the funniest weekends of the summer, and we didn't even leave the South Hill!  It all started with a round of golf with dad and a couple of coworkers on Friday afternoon in perfect weather!  I told dad I love this time of year as the weather is perfect for golfing, I probably play more golf in September and October than I do all summer.  When the golf was over Kelli and I went to a potluck desert game night and social that was held for an adoption agency(that's another story for a different time:), and it was held at a church on the south hill that we've been to a few times.  There was a great group of people there and we had a really fun time playing Scategories and sampling just about every desert there!

     Saturday brought with it a date night with our niece Tatum!  Jill was out of town running her second half marathon of the year so Kelli and I decided it would be a perfect weekend to babysit T for a night.  The last outdoor movie of the season at the Shop in the Perry district was Frozen and unless you've been under a rock most of the year you understand how popular that movie is with kids.  So Ryan dropped T off for our date around 5 and we went down to Perry Street Pizza for dinner, followed by some time in the park, then the movie.  Of course we spoiled the crap out of her, that's our duties as godparents, so she had some ice cream, popcorn, candy, and face paint, all in one night!!  As the movie drew to a close Tatum started to get cold so I held her in my arms and she fell asleep before it was over.  As I carried her back to the car while Kelli lugged all of our chairs, I could only imagine how much fun she had!  

     

     We didn't get home until 11 so we quickly got ready for bed and hit the sack.  Tatum was really excited to sleep in a "real person bed" cause as she put it, she likes to squirm around while she sleeps:).  The next morning we got up around 7, got ready for the day and went to Rockwood Bakery for breakfast, and some more spoiling!  Tatum had a cinnamon roll and a kids mocha, also known as hot chocolate, and once we were good and sugared up we took her back home.  All in all if she had half the fun we had it was a fantastic weekend!  We can't wait for our next date night:)

     Then we capped the weekend off by taking our babies, Kashi and Duchess to the Comstock pool for the annual doggie dip.  The city pools open up to dogs on the last day of the year for what was probably the coolest thing we've ever been involved with for the dogs!  There were so many dogs there the pool resembled the pool in Caddyshack on caddy swim day, including a couple brief evacuations for turdie removal, and every dog there seemed to be in heaven!  Kashi just roamed around the pool trying to meet new friends, and Duchess dove in repeatedly after her tennis ball, each time returning it to my feet with a look of pure joy in her eyes!  I think both of them could have died right then and been completely satisfied, life could not get much better than it was in that moment!

Remember, some of the most memorable times in life come when you least expect it!

Time flies!

     It's hard to believe that 8 years ago today this striking young couple got married!

     In the past eight years we have moved 4 times, been employed by 11 different people, survived one forest fire, more nights on the road for work than at home, made 2 trips to the emergency vet, and coped with male pattern baldness.  That's just a brief recap but as you can see it's been an interesting journey!  One thing has remained a constant throughout all of the years, and that is we're still just a couple of crazy kids who are still madly in love with each other!!

     I don't have the time or the words to express just how much I love this girl, but as we sat down and had our annual viewing of our wedding day video, I was reminded yet again that our love for each other is just as strong today as it was back then!  Kelli asked me a while back if I would go back and change any of it if given the chance and my answer was an easy one, not a chance!  Every little bump in the road life has thrown us has only made us stronger and I can't wait to see how out love will grow in the next 8 years.  No amount of time will ever make me stop feeling like the luckiest man alive!

Remember, no matter how much hair you lose or how many wrinkles you may acquire, love can overcome all of it!

Plans

     Oh how funny life can be when we try to plan it out too!  This week Ryan and I had to fly down to Klamath Falls for work and on the surface it looked like a pretty easy trip.  We were going to get here Monday, meet with all of our growers Tuesday, and fly back to Spokane early Wednesday morning.  We've made this trip enough times to where we have it down to a science, from which rental car company is the most efficient, to first name basis with the front desk staff at the hotel.  After working in this area for two claims seasons now the trips down here tend to feel like dejavu!  That was until this trip!

     In my plan by this time Tuesday night I was supposed to be in my usual hotel pit stop in Medford, waiting for the early morning flight back home.  That all changed Monday afternoon when the Klamath basin was hit with a hail storm.  A bunch of hail claim were opened up as a result and we needed to call in the reinforcements so dad showed up a couple hours ago and Ryan and I changed our flights to tomorrow night.  There is also a huge forest fire near here so all of the rental cars were gone so Ryan and I had to go pick him up, a 3 hour round trip!  Oh, and on the way to pick up dad the basin was getting hit with a second storm!  The fun just kept on coming:)

     So as I sit here getting ready for bed I'm not even thinking about making much of a plan for tomorrow!  I guess today has showed me that it really doesn't matter how much planning and control we think we have, things are always subject to change!  When your plans fall apart like ours did today all that really matters is how you react to the redirection.  You can either gripe about it in a failed attempt to feel sorry for yourself, or you can roll with it and take it in stride.  Today we just went with it and decided we had to make the most of it and just be thankful that our rental car wasn't headed to a firefighters base camp!!  Sometimes it's easy for us all to forget when life throws us a curve ball that things could always be worse!  So we'll go into tomorrow with a tentative plan in place, but open minds to just about anything happening:)

Remember, it's okay to make plans, just make sure you plan for a little bit of change in all of your plans!:)

More good days:)

     Yesterday was Kelli's birthday and after the day we had I can't help but feel like it was mine too!  We started the day off by sleeping in, always a must on your birthday, then kicked it off with croissants at home.  We then went to the mall downtown for a little shopping for the birthday girl followed by a fantastic lunch at a local soup and sandwich shop.  Once we were finished with our great lunch we headed out to Liberty Lake in pursuit of stand up paddle board rentals! We'd done this last year with the Nagles and we fell in love with it!  It's so peacefull and relaxing to be coasting around a lake on one of these boards!  We found the rental place, as well as probably the best kept secret of the greater Spokane area, the Liberty Lake Community Park.  This place is a small sand beach on the far south end of the lake with ample picnic tables, a playground, and a roped off swimming area complete with a floating island dock!  We signed a quick release form and we were off and paddling.  The lake was beautiful with tons of great scenery as it is tucked into a small mountain range, for a minute we both felt like we were back in Montana!  

     The water was the perfect temperature for us to take a quick dip as we paddled our way around the edge of the lake wishing we owned one of the many houses with private beaches!  We called off our great day by having a wonderful dinner downtown.  Overall it was not just a great day for Kelli, it was just simply a great day!  And as I've mentioned on here before that's exactly what we've been trying to do!:)

Remember, if you can't beat the heat, get in the water!:)