Kim and Sean - A New Start!

Spring has sprung!

2009-04-11T19:40:00.002-04:00

And with it, our yard has started to bloom! Only one problem...we don't really know what is what. Plus, I am famous for thinking that anything with a 'flower' must be intentional, even if my mother insists it's a weed. Can't there be pretty weeds?? Anyhow, pop quiz - what can you help us identify?

#1 - this flower is blooming right next to the hot tub. There's also one by the back fence. So pretty!

#2 - close up view of #1.

#3 - these flowers are on vines that go all around and up our big tree. No thorns!

#4 - close up view of #3.

#5 - Buddha enjoying himself among some pretty purple flowers. There are also some teeny white flowers in the background that appear in various parts of the flower beds.

#6 - close up view of #5 - and my new computer background for now! I love those!

#7 - this little tree/bush is right under the dining room window.

#8 - a close up of the leaf to help identify #7.

#9 - some really adorable tiny flowers.

#10 - this is the plant I thought looked like a shamrock!

#11 - a close up of the leaf to help identify #10.

#12 - this corner needs some help! I think there are two kinds of ground cover here - not sure what the tall grass is supposed to be, plant or weed?? Plus, how can we convince the ground cover to get the spots that are bare? Luckily, this corner really isn't viewed unless you go looking for it on purpose!

#13 - I really like this little tree. It sort of droops over like a willow, but it has red buds on it.

#14 - this crazy looking bush is all over the one corner. We haven't really done anything in that corner at all yet.

#15 - close up view of #14.

#16 - again, we're in a part of the back yard that we haven't really done much with yet - but these little clusters of green appear periodically along the line of the yard in the flower bed. No flowers yet, any ideas?

#17 - this plant looks mighty familiar.....hmmmm. =)

#18 - this plant has the same story as #16. No flowers yet, but it certainly looks like it was meant to be there.

#19 - I'm almost certain this is a weed - but there are only a couple, and they grew so fast...so I'm checking.

#20 - another mystery plant like #16 and #18. Anything?

#21 - I think these will eventually be tulips....I will show you why in #22.

#22 - tulip! It's currently being engulfed by the little tree next to it, which we need to trim a bit more.

#23 - another mystery plant. I have no idea.

#24 - Ok, I get it - this is a real plant! Shrub, whatever. But what is it? Lydia likes it!

Here are some other random pics!

Front of the house, after our first attempt at weeding/trimming/mowing.

Looking down our street, on a nice sunny afternoon!

When you leave our house, and exit our neighborhood going towards Portland, I get to see Mount Hood right between those two striped flags on the corner. On this day, unfortunately, it was too cloudy. (and I took the pic a bit late, it's more to the left)

We decided to take a drive up Skyline Hwy - it's so beautiful up there!

Here are some from Liza's last trip to the beach - they are still pretty tough to look at for me, but there are some great ones.

Liza checking out Haystack Rock.

Enjoying the ocean, while the breeze makes Lydia look like Dumbo!

Liza liked to splash around, but Lydia seemed happier when planting her feet and bracing for the little waves.

A lighthouse off in the distance.

Liza and the ocean.

I think she's wondering where all the water went!

Liza was so tired after our walk in the water that she was falling asleep on her feet.

Lydia offered to help her out.

After we left the beach and headed down the coast, I thought we made a wrong turn and ended up in PA!

These signs creep me out. I'm pretty sure I can't sprint up the side of a mountain like that.

Nehalem Bay. You get some amazing views of it from the highway.

The Bay again.

Thar he blows! It's not much to see, but it's my very first 'wild' whale sighting. We were told later that he was one of the young males, migrating up the coast early before the pods arrived.

One more Bay picture!

We stopped briefly at a little campground area, and I spotted this scene. The picture really doesn't do it justice. The moment was quite beautiful.

There are lots of big rocks along the coast, and I always think they are cool to see!

Look at the trees on this one - it's like a tiny mountain!

We were getting close to Tillamook when I had to take the classic "Seagull on a post with misty mountains in the background" picture.

What's in Tillamook? Well, there's this.

And there's...well, that's about it. It's pretty, though.

Well, they do have a McDonald's - that's where we met "Mac". He's cute!

That's it! Hope you enjoy!

Our small adventure

2009-01-03T19:05:00.003-05:00

So, we took Liza to the vet yesterday for a follow up appointment, and of course Lydia came along for the ride. Upon leaving the vet, with the sun shining so brightly and the sky so blue, we were compelled to take a drive, and decided to hop over to the coast! What we discovered driving over the mountain was not entirely expected!

Our first look at snow. Didn't seem too bad...we kept going.

Getting a little deeper. But hey, still not bad. We forged ahead!

Starting to show on the road now. We weren't scared - we're in the FJ Cruiser! The Rig! No problem!

The lookout point. As we passed this point, we began to realize how deep the snow was getting. (and by the way, I took all these pictures from a moving vehicle through windows - so pardon if they are a little blurry!)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. However, Christmas is over and the guy in front of us is now going 20 miles per hour.

It's beginning to look a lot like the North Pole. The trees were beautiful. There must not be much of a breeze up there, because all the trees were holding the snow on their branches. The non-fir trees looked the most amazing, almost like they were made of crystal.

Reaching the summit. We start to wonder if this was such a good idea. Where are the blue skies and our sunshine?!

So, we finally make it down the mountain and into Cannon Beach. Needless to say, thanks to the frightened driver in front of us taking his time, it took much longer than normal to arrive; and the beach was quite dark. We parked anyway, and decided to let the dogs feel the sand on their paws for the first time. They were both entranced by the sounds of the ocean, although Liza was much braver than Lydia, and wanted desperately to get closer to the water. Since it was freezing cold and pitch black, we couldn't really go that far, and I had to promise her a return visit when it was light. And, you know, after the snow melts. Completely.

Here we are near Haystack Rock. See it in the background there? No? I promise, it's there.

We begin the long journey home, cold, but happy we made the drive. It was fun! We head up Hwy 26 for about 10 minutes only to see some flares on the road, and a fireman approaching the car. He helpfully tells us that Hwy 26 has been closed, and won't reopen for at least an hour.

Uh oh. That's the way home.

So, back to Cannon Beach we went, firing up the GPS and hoping for the best. We had two choices - north or south on US 101. I vetoed North - I figured North = more snow. So, South we went, to pick up Rt 6 and head home. It added....oh, about 2 hours total to our trip. Yikes! The nice thing was that we got to see Nehalem Bay, which was pretty in the dark - and the Tillamook Cheese Factory, which was huge! We resolved to come visit again during the day. We headed back over the mountains, through the snowy passages, and the FJ Cruiser (and it's driver) did a great job getting us home safely.

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday - I know we did! Although Jeff had to go into the hospital for a bit to fight off an infection, we had a great Christmas together and were thrilled to see him make it home by Saturday.

The Powers/Lowes/Collins Christmas celebration!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Oregon + snow = insanity

2008-12-15T15:11:00.006-05:00

It snowed. Not just a little - but 2-4 inches in some areas. Here, maybe 3 at most - a lot of which is melting already. I did grab some quick pictures though!

What's really amusing to me is the response to the snow - everything shuts down! You'd think there had been a blizzard, complete with two feet of snow! They were literally advising people on the news last night not to leave their homes unless it was absolutely necessary. ?!

Want an example? Here's a quote from the local news: "Interstate 205 has reopened after a tanker truck carrying 5,000 gallons of a deicing chemical flipped over, closing the freeway for an hour. Magnesium chloride acetate, which is used in deicing formulas for roads, spilled in the crash, said Lt. Allen Oswalt, a Portland Fire Bureau spokesman.

"Ironically, it didn't spill onto the road," Oswalt said."

....good grief.

Here's a couple more: "On southbound I-5, there's a report of plywood in two lanes near Delta Park. On U.S. 26 westbound at Oregon 212, two semi-trucks hauling cargo have collided. One is in the ditch. The other is on its side."

"The Oregon Department of Transportation has revoked its requirement for chains on Portland area highways. Still, it's slick and freezing out there. Keep them in your trunk."

Chains....in my trunk.....for what now? Sean's FJ Cruiser could climb Mount Hood, but we can't drive on the highway with 3 inches of snow without chains on the wheels?? Who does this?? Are there no cinders or salt in Oregon?! Oh well. I just want it gone before Friday.

Pictures!

Backyard, our snowy hottub

Lydia, looking for her nemesis, Chubby the Squirrel.

Liza ventures off the porch, snug and warm in her sweater.

Lydia is certain that Chubby is near....she can almost smell him.

Liza indulges in her favorite winter treat - snowcones! Or, just plain old snow licking.

Out front - yep, those roads are treacherous.

The stairwell skylight - I just thought it looked pretty!

Happy Holidays!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-28T15:44:00.009-05:00

Sean and I celebrated our first Thanksgiving together yesterday, and I made my very first turkey dinner. Luckily for me, he liked it! Nothing is as good as mom's, of course, but I did my best. For an apprentice cook like myself, this was a huge undertaking. So, we took some pictures to share!

The Spread

Another view (I think this one is funny; it looks like someone stuck their finger in the pie - really, that was from the knife I dipped in to test it. I had to test it about a dozen times because it just wouldn't set up in the oven!)

The Bird Our turkey looks a bit like a chicken, right? It was only 9 lbs!

One more view

Liza checks out the table - her tail is wagging so fast it's a blur!

Lydia begs in comfort from the couch

And here are just a couple more cute ones of the pets that I couldn't resist:

Lydia and Spencer come to an understanding (if you know Lydia personally, you know how difficult this is for her!)

Liza uses Lydia for a pillow - I'm thinking of starting a whole series of photos in which Liza uses another family member as a pillow. She does it a lot! =)

Sean says use the flash. I say I don't want to wake them up! He says nah, it will be ok. Result.

So that was our Thanksgiving! I hope yours was wonderful too!

And more pictures!

2008-11-25T15:12:00.002-05:00

Bookshelf in the office, work in progress.

The Den, also in progress.

Those boxes represent where my bookshelf would be, if it hadn't arrived broken. Oops.

This is the exercise room/cat hideaway. It's a weird combo, I know. The red square is a little cat tent thing. They have a triangle one also. Spoiled kitties!

Guest bedroom, or what I refer to as "Mom's Room"!

Guest bathroom.

The master bedroom, with our new comforter set.

Another bedroom view - Liza can't wait to hop on the bed when we're upstairs.

Master bathroom.

Waving hello!

The spa. It's wonderful!

Bad kitty Iris!

Lydia joins Liza on the bed, as always!

My view when I wake up in the morning. On the weekend, that field is filled with soccer kids.

The rest of the field.

The 'nut' tree that makes our squirrels huge. No idea what they are!

Liza LOVES the new pillows. I swear I didn't pose her for this picture - this is what she does when I'm not looking!

Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Some cute pictures!

2008-11-24T18:58:00.002-05:00

Liza using Spencer as a pillow.

Liza sharing the couch with Spencer and Iris. (do we have enough remotes?)

Liza stylin' in her new sweater.

Lydia reclinin'.

Liza stylin' and Lydia reclinin'.

A nice shot of the living room!

And here's the dining room!

Liza and Lydia sharing their new dog bed in the office! We actually have two of these, identical - but this one is right between our computer desks, and is apparently the prime location.

More house pictures coming soon!

We made it!

2008-10-20T16:40:00.002-04:00

So....much.....unpacking. And organizing. But we're home! The dogs settled in immediately, happy to be in one place, I think. They just follow us around, lounging happily whenever we sit still.

The cats spent the first day and night in the laundry room, just resting; yesterday we let them out to explore the house, and last night Iris disappeared, sending Sean into a panic. Now, this isn't the first time this has happened; while we were still in PA, Iris disappeared one night and we couldn't find her. I wasn't surprised by this; she's a tiny cat, and she's always finding small spaces to take naps. She always pops up eventually. She has never been outside, so she doesn't really want to go there - so I knew she was in the house somewhere. At my house in PA, I was pretty confident that I knew most of her hiding places, but poor Sean didn't feel right until he finally found her, hidden among the boxes in my living room, way back under the loveseat. Here, however, I had no idea where she might be; and Sean was determined to find her.

After searching the entire house, upstairs and down, including outside in the yard and the garage, at least three times, I was ready to throw in the towel. I admit I was starting to panic a bit, mainly because if she had somehow gotten outside, I didn't believe we had been here long enough for her to imprint on this house as "home". She is microchipped, but that doesn't stop a car, right? In frustration, I went into the living room and sat down on the couch. From right underneath me, I suddenly heard Iris meow. Now, of course we had already picked up the couch and looked under it, and she wasn't there. I called Sean, and we picked it up again - no Iris. However, since I was absolutely sure I had heard her meow, I tapped the fabric on the bottom of the couch where I spotted a strange cat shaped lump. It meowed.

SHE WAS IN THE COUCH.

The silly feline had climbed down behind one of the cushions, found a space where the fabric was pulled away from the underside of the couch and dove right in. What a great place for a nap! We were quite relieved and yet ready to strangle her all at the same time. =)

After resucing her from the couch, she spent the next hour running full speed throughout the house, specifically up and down the stairs; it was really funny. She's a nut.

We haven't taken any house pictures yet because we still have luggage and boxes all over the place. As we get things organized I promise we'll take some! I still have some that I took along the Columbia river to upload as well; I'll try and get them posted later today. We have a lot of laundry to do today! =)

Love and miss everyone!
Kim and Sean

What day is it again...?

2008-10-18T12:14:00.003-04:00

Oh right, we're almost home! As much fun as this trip has been, we are both looking forward to being able to relax at home. Heck, I'm just anxious to see the place in person!

I didn't blog last night because you should never drink and blog, and Sean treated us to a nice bottle of champagne with some room service from the excellent steak house in the hotel. We each had filet mignon with a garlic smash and some steamed broccoli - it was wonderful! Oh, and for an appetizer we shared a shrimp and crab cocktail to make it a surf and turf dinner - yum! We finished by sharing a piece of chocolate cake that we couldn't even finish because it was so rich. I think my palate is still in shock after eating fast food for so long; to not only have real food, but to have really, really GOOD food was fantastic.

Actually, the Doubletree is spoiling us quite nicely. When we arrived, they gave us each a warm cookie at check in (which was predicted by my stepfather, good one Tom) but that was just the beginning! We weren't sure where we could unload, so we flagged down on of the valet guys, who not only got us a luggage cart, he said "just point at what you want and I'll load it for you." After that, he brought the cart up to our room while I followed with the dogs and Sean parked the truck. When we got to the room, he unloaded it for us while I did a small dance of joy. I tipped him and thanked him; he patted the dogs and went on his way. I guess we'll find out pretty soon how this works in reverse, as we get ready to check out! I It was SO nice to have everything brought in on one trip.

So yesterday we finished our trip through Montana, into Idaho, and now Washington. Today we are going to check out Mt. St. Helen's and then home. The movers called yesterday and said they will begin the drive to bring out the rest of my things on Monday, so we should have them later in the week. We also found out we only exceeded our estimate by $54! What a huge relief.

Well, let me post some pictures from yesterday before I start packing up for today's journey.

Landscape 1

Landscape 2

Landscape 3

Landscape 4

Landscape 5

Landscape 6

Landscape 7

Landscape 8

Landscape 9

Landscape 10

Liza and Lydia enjoying the Doubletree after a long car ride

Ok, we're outta here! Talk to you all soon!
Kim and Sean

The promised pictures!

2008-10-17T11:42:00.002-04:00

I'm sitting in the Best Western laundry room, and figured I get those pics posted while the laundry does it's thing. Of course that meant that poor Sean had to drag the laptop down here for me because A. it's very heavy and B. I'm guarding the clothes! Hey, that's legitimate! =)

He was awake anyway, don't worry. =)

So, let's start with the videos!

Old Faithful, right on time

Some elk running away....or at someone, hard to tell.

We didn't do a lot of video, so here are some pics:

These are in no particular order, and will mostly be named witty things like "Landscape 2" to save time.

Landscape 1

Mammoth HotSprings

Some elk in town - we weren't really this close, we zoomed in. We're not crazy.

Landscape 2

Landscape 3

Landscape 4

Landscape 5

Landscape 6

Landscape 7

Landscape 8

Landscape 9

Absolutely adorable

Landscape 10

Papa elk

There are tons of spots like this all over the park.

The most dangerous animal we approached.

Landscape 11

Landscape 12

Landscape 13

Landscape 14

Horses + Landscape = Awesome

Landscape 15

Landscape 16

Landscape 17

Landscape 18

Landscape 19

Landscape 20

Landscape 21? (I had to put more quarters in the dryer, this may be a double)

Landscape 22

Landscape 23

Landscape 24

Landscape 25

Landscape 26

Landscape 27

Landscape 28

Landscape 29

Landscape 30

Laundry is almost done, so I'm going to stop there for now. I hope I didn't duplicate any - with so many to go through, I lost track!

Headed to Spokane soon, have a nice day!
Kim and Sean

Day Six - Yellowstone Park!

2008-10-17T01:21:00.002-04:00

Sitting in the car, about five minutes away from the icky hotel that I didn't like, I realized this morning that I wasn't wearing my ring. To say that I was stressed out is an understatement; my mom gave me that ring as a gift and I wear it everyday. I was completely convinced that the hotel somehow heard the mean things I said about it and struck me with bad luck, as I am usually quite careful about where I leave my ring while getting ready in the morning.

Sean, my hero, immediately turned the car around and went back; while I cried and searched the car, he (along with two maids that he somehow recruited) searched the whole room from top to bottom. Much to my relief, I found it in my makeup bag - it had somehow fallen off the counter and landed in an open bag, and I didn't notice. I felt really bad for delaying the trip and especially because the room was up this huge flight of stairs and down a really long hallway - but Sean just smiled and said the fact that we found it was the most important. I owe him a souvenir for sure. I was thinking baby burro, but....maybe not.

So, today we found our way to Yellowstone, and it was amazing. The ride to the park was honestly breathtaking; we took plenty of pictures, but it's hard to capture the immenseness of the rock as it towers above you, or the dizzying depths of the canyons as you skim along the top on narrow roads; it was the ultimate roller coaster, and typically I am quite afraid of those!

We did see some wildlife, although the bears managed to elude us all day. We saw some bison, of course; in fact, we've seen so many now that Lydia doesn't bother to bark at them anymore. My city dog has become accustomed to bison. How strange is that?! We also finally saw some elk; we were warned upon entering the park that it's mating season for the elk, so we had to be extra careful. We stayed well away! Sean got some excellent pictures. We also saw what we first thought was a small wolf, but I believe is a coyote; I'll post a picture of him. He (or she) was adorable, and posed for some great pics. I did spy a mountain goat on our way out of the park, but I missed the picture and there was no good place to turn around. If you saw the pic of the goat sitting on the road in the Badlands, it looked just like that! Very cute.

Old Faithful was pretty interesting - I took a video of it. We were lucky - we only had to wait about 10 minutes before it erupted. We also saw lots of other geysers and springs, etc. It's really an amazing place.

We are currently in the Best Western and our room is great. (and yay for high speed internet) Tomorrow we make the long drive to Spokane, Washington, then after that we head home! It will be sort of nice to be able to unpack and stay unpacked for a while! I'm sure the animals are ready to stay in one place as well; the dogs seem to be enjoying the ride quite a bit, but the cats really aren't speaking to me at all. I had to ask Sean to get Iris out of the cage yesterday because she wouldn't come to me at all. Fickle creature. =)

Ok, time for more pics! I'll have to post the videos tomorrow because they will take forever to upload.

PS. Did I mention we took around 580 pictures today?

PS2. After sorting through all those pictures, I am pretty tired. I have to get up to do a little laundry in the early morning, so I'll link some then! Sorry!

ZZZZZzzzzzzzz......
Kim

First disappointing hotel. =(

2008-10-16T10:17:00.002-04:00

the only good thing about this hotel is that they have WIFI. Too many bad things to count, starting with the fact that they tried to tell us when we checked in that they don't take cats. Funny, considering we contacted them specifically in advance to make sure we were ok with everything. They "did us a favor" and let us stay. Gee thanks. The only pet rule they claimed to have in advance was that all pets must stay in first floor rooms, which we were very happy about - so guess where we are? Oh yeah, second floor, WAY at the end of the hall, farthest from the door. Nice. Let's add to that the fact that "historic" must mean "worn" because the blinds don't work, there are tiles missing in the bathroom floor, chips in the tub, blemishes in the paint, etc. It was also loud all night with people roaming the halls, and again this morning through the vents; we may as well have had roommates. Ah well, we're packing up soon anyway.

The rest of our videos uploaded overnight, so I'll link a few more, along with some more pictures!

Our first few buffalo

Pronghorns up close and personal

Sean meets the burros

Mama burro says hello

The Badlands, shaky but beautiful

The moon rising over the Badlands

For Tom (ok, looking again, these are probably mule deer after all, but still!!)

Back to pictures:

The mountains we had to cross

Are we ever going to get there?

Closer...

Almost!

I want to go back down now.

Yes, I'm taking these out the car window. No, I'm not getting out.

Baby bison crossing

The big herd

He's right there; he doesn't care.

This little one would have fit nicely in the Suburban.

Crazy Horse Memorial

Zoomed in - the drawing you see is actually the plan for the horse's head - see the ear and the eye?

We are booking this hotel on our next trip.

This was sitting in an open field in the middle of nowhere - I loved it.

The road goes on and on and on and....

A blue mountain lake

Cool curves

One little shrub

Well, it's time to get ready to go - but since today is Yellowstone, I'm sure we'll have tons more pics tonight! Le'ts just hope the hotel has WIFI.....

Missing everyone,
Kim and Sean

Where's my WIFI??

2008-10-16T02:23:00.003-04:00

Where have we been? Lost in some crazy backwoods with no cell phone access and no WIFI! It was brutal! Actually, it was quite beautiful.

However, I'm also insanely tired, and these things take forever to upload (esp videos) so I'm only going to post a couple right now, and will try to do some more tomorrow! We are currently in Cody, Wyoming, after spending the last two days in the Black Hills in South Dakota.

In no particular order:

For Jeff

Mt Rushmore

Mountain goats (one of the many animals chilling right next to the car)

Prairie dog (which we later learned carry bubonic plague, the cute little killers)

Wild goat on the Badlands tour (watch out, he may fall asleep any second)

Another one for Jeff - apparently this is the largest drug store in the WORLD.

So large, in fact, they advertise this.

More of the Badlands

Rushmore through a tunnel

I can't post any more right now without messing up my video upload, but I did post the best video (in Sean's opinion) so I could link it now. Enjoy my hilarious (and only mildly profane) reaction to the man-eating burros. =)

Kim meets the burros

Enjoy!

Corn, corn and more corn.

2008-10-13T01:28:00.008-04:00

Indiana looks like Ohio. Illinois looks like Indiana. Iowa looks like Illinois. Know why? CORN. Nothing but corn as far as you can see....which is remarkably far. Another good day of traveling; the animals did fine, and I even took a turn at the wheel!

Couldn't figure out how to upload pics to the blog, so I uploaded them to Sean's photobucket account and will link them below! Keep in mind these are my pictures, which means they are sometimes taken out the moving car window or in other strange ways - Sean is the far more professional photographer, but hasn't had a chance to upload anything yet. Soon!

Here are some pics from day one and day two:

The lake at the B&B before we got swarmed by hungry geese.

Another lake view.

Lydia enjoying the ride.

Liza enjoying the B&B bed!

A sunset in Indiana.

The jacuzzi tub at the B&B - delightful!

A pretty fireplace mantle in our room.

Our sitting area in the B&B.

A farm with.... corn.

Liza and Lydia chilling as we drive through Iowa.

My first "touristy" picture - just don't ask me the name of the town.

He even had his own trail!

I will post more in the morning!

Goodnight!
Kim and Sean

On the road!

2008-10-12T01:16:00.002-04:00

Ready or not - here we go! Ok, so we weren't quite ready. We went on a packing marathon for days with little sleep, and still weren't ready to go this morning. Thank goodness mom came over to help out or I think we would still be there.

Where are we now? We are in Chesterton, Indiana, at a beautiful Bed and Breakfast called The Gray Goose Inn. It sits right on Lake Palomara so we intend to take the dogs to the lake tomorrow after check out for a walk. It will be hard to keep Liza from diving in, but no wet dogs in the Suburban! Liza and Lydia rode very well today, considering we were on the road for about 8 hours. The cats did even better - they were crated when the movers came at 8am, and stayed crated until we arrived at the B&B, poor things. We are using hamster water bottles so they can drink and ride, and they were silent and snuggled into their blankets the entire ride.

The drive was LONG, especially since we hadn't had much sleep, and drove the whole way across Ohio. It was very flat. And more flat. Then some corn, then more flat. Fun!

The B&B is wonderful; Sean jumped into the jacuzzi after we unpacked and it was awesome! I was skeptical, but when he was done I decided to give it a try - I didn't want to get out!

Well, that's about it for Day One! I'm going to try and attach pictures, hope it works!

Cya tomorrow!
Kim and Sean

Our first post!

2008-09-23T11:08:00.003-04:00

Welcome to our blog! I say our blog because technically, this space will be used to update whomever might be interested in the adventures of myself and Sean both; therefore, our blog. Where to begin...well, it's been more than a week now since I left CVS|Caremark after so many years, and frankly, I miss it. Well, to be fair (and honest) I miss parts of it. Those parts know who they are. =) We've been so busy over the last week that the time is flying; I can't believe Sean will be here in less than a week! There's still so much to do.

Thankfully, some of the bigger issues with the move are already in place. We had to scrap the RV idea - you would not believe how much money those places want for one way trips. Apparently renting an RV and driving east to west is very popular, but driving back is not. What does that say about the east coast, sheesh! It's lovely here, people!! Bring back the damn RVs already!! Anyhow, we could have put a down payment on one for what they were asking, so we decided instead (on some excellent advice from my mother) to rent a van type vehicle and stay at pet friendly lodging. This appealed to me almost immediately, at the thought of real bathrooms and not having to drive a 32 foot thing in any direction other than perfectly straight.

With that said, let me tell you about finding pet friendly lodging. It's insane. Oh sure, you can find a ton of websites that name hotel chains that are "pet friendly"; here's the joke - not only might individual hotels in the chain have crazy restrictions on their pet rules, they may not allow them at all! "But Kim...how can the chain be pet friendly if individual hotels in the chain are not...?" I have no idea! I didn't make the rules, I'm just reporting them. Just for the rest of you out there with pets, should you decide to travel with them, please learn from us and keep the following in mind in regards to pet hotel rules.

Restrictions may exist regarding:
Pet weight
Quantity of pets per room
Kind of pet (dogs ok, cats not, etc)
Supervised in room or not
Type of room that can be reserved (sometimes smoking only)
Whether or not they can be present when housekeeping is in the room

And of course, there are the fees. There's typically a fee per pet; I've seen as low as $10 and as high as $50. Sometimes there's another $100 cleaning deposit that you could get back when you check out; sometimes you don't get anything back at all, regardless.

The most fun about the whole process is that their websites never tell you any of this - they just paste a picture of a cute golden retriever puppy on their homepage and say "We're pet friendly!" while the truth is that they only accept one 15lb pet per room and that puppy probably wouldn't even make the cut! Luckily, we have managed to book something for each night except one; we're still checking out some options for that town, and have a back up plan just in case.

Speaking of pets, my poor dog Liza is still fighting hard against her mystery illness; I think my vet and I both believe at this point that it is cancer, but the final test to find out for sure is Oct 2nd. She has to get a needle biopsy, the poor thing. She has more good days than sick days, so we're forging ahead for now. She is certainly enjoying her new chicken diet! Lydia, my younger dog, just had a growth removed on her belly that my former vet had told me not to worry about; and bam, it's a malignant tumor. Thank god Dr. Krazel (current vet) convinced me to remove it. The test results came back saying that the edges were clean (he got it all, basically) so now I just pray it won't return. That just leaves the cats - Iris' liver is back to normal, thank goodness! I was starting to think this house was cursed. Spencer has just been sort of wandering around, blissfully unaware of everyone else's major health concerns; he's been through enough in his cat life already, he's off the hook. =)

Back to the trip planning! We rented our vehicle last night; don't get me started on that either. It's absolutely amazing how difficult it is to get from Point A to Point B if you aren't returning to Point A. However, thankfully, last night we were able to secure a Dodge Durango for the needed time frame, and are quite relieved.

The movers have begun to court me as well, filling my inbox with sweet talking offers, and begging me to call them. Some are proactively calling me - like the nice lady who called me at 8am, when I wasn't quite awake yet. She did not score points. I'm packing my own boxes, and I'm already in awe of how much crap I've accumulated over the past few years. Jeez.

Well, speaking of packing, I should get back to it. This blog will get a lot more interesting (I hope!) once we're on the road. We'll have his laptop and wireless card thing, so I'll be able to blog from the road, and post pictures too!

Talk to you soon!