Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Funny
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSWCvz9nn4Y&eurl=http://www.cgblog.org/&feature=player_embedded
Our next generation Coasties.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Well, it's been a while...Sorry. Everything got crazy once our house got full of boxes. Paul has been great! He's emptied a ton of boxes. I've emptied some. I'm still working on it. I figured it's about darn time for another post. We wanted to keep this blog going while we were here. Just another way to stay connected.
The animals are really happy. The dogs love the yard. The cats love the windows. The piggies just love it. And the humans love it too. We didn't realize how different the piggies had been acting in Kodiak until we got here. They are boooking and wheeking like crazy! They are talking up a storm all the time. They pretty much quit doing that once we got to Kodiak. We're glad they're happy again!!!
On last Saturday, we were invited to a barbecue by the neighbors across the the street. We had a great time. They had invited a bunch of people from around the neighborhood. It was great food and great conversation. We stayed until midnight and we weren't the last to leave. We're hoping to return the favor soon, once we get some patio furniture and some more unpacking done.
Paul is enjoying work. The train he takes is really convenient. I drive Paul to the train in the morning. It is literally a three minute drive. It takes him 30 minutes to get to downtown and a ten minute walk to get to his office. I pick him up from the station again in the evening. Work is going pretty well. He's enjoying it. We're getting lots of calls in the evenings and weekends as all the people in his office have to check in with him if there is a case going on. He has to approve all press releases and such. I have dubbed him King of the Run-On Sentence People! I swear, every single one of the press releases has at least one paragraph of a run on sentence and sometimes more, depending on who is writing it. It's actually pretty funny. I do feel bad because one evening, Paul was checking the release and the run on sentence was terrible. He was trying to figure out how to fix it. I told him to call the guy who wrote it back and make him fix it. Paul said, Duh! that would be the smart thing to do. The guy called back after he had "fixed" it. The problem was that is was the same run-on sentence with only three words taken out. I said as much, but unfortunately said it a little too loudly and the guy heard me over the phone. He called back once more when it had been fixed and said that Paul should tell me that it wasn't "exactly the same sentence." Luckily, he took the unintended criticism of mine in good spirit.
Now, if we could just get the pay screw-ups fixed, we would be set. Somehow things got screwed up and the Coast Guard says they overpaid Paul when they didn't. They're paying him less this paycheck and who knows what else. It should be fixed sometime soon. Luckily, we have some savings set aside for these times when the Coast Guard screws up.
Well, we had a scare a few days ago. We had a heat wave here. It had been in the low 70's during the day and down to the 50's at night. It was great. It got hot though, in the 90's. Because of the type of windows we have (bottom swing out), they don't have screens on them. Nobody here has air-conditioning. It's usually hot for only a few days a year. Everyone just leaves their doors and windows open. Well, that's not so easy when you have cats that you don't want to go outside. We opened the windows, intending to leave them open only a little while. Then dinner was ready and we started a movie and guess what...That's right! We forgot about the windows being open. I went to go feed the cats at about 9:30pm and nobody came when I made the kissing noise (that signals feeding time). We looked and the window to the guest room was open a lot more that I had left it. The cats were out. And, of course, Sam wasn't wearing his collar because it had pulled off when he and Mike were wrestling.
Paul and I went outside and called and looked for the cats until 12:30. We thought we heard Mike's collar bell a few times near this one house, but there's lots of brush all over our neighborhood. There are also tons and tons of cats in our neighborhood. We had flashlights and kept checking out the eye-shine we saw, but it was always other cats...well, except for once when it was two racoons. It was really cool though. Paul had seen the eyes in the back of some really thick brush. There were two raccoons and when they turned away and you couldn't see their eyes, they basically disappered.
The dogs were out in the yard and had been quiet the whole time. Finally, close to midnight, they started barking. I was about a block away and headed for home right away, knowing something was up. Paul shouted that he had found Mike and I saw him (Mike) dash into the yard. We tried to corner him, but he was scared and bolted past me. I, meanwhile, bashed my thumb into the fence trying to grab Mike as he darted past me. I bent my nail back and it bled under the nail. It really hurt. We managed to get Mike without being bitten or scratched. Flash really helped by working with us to corner him and keep him from escaping the yard again. We put him in the bathroom (which has no windows) and kept looking for Sam for a little while longer. I wasn't quite as worried about him because we're pretty sure he went outside with his former owner. He is front paw declawed (GRRRR...declawing) but we were hoping that wouldn't make things too much worse. We decided to call off the search and hope that he would be waiting on the doorstep when we woke up.
The next day, Paul called in sick to work because he had gotten less than 3 hours of sleep. Sam was NOT on the doorstep when we woke up. I made a few calls to animal control and such just in case and was ready to make signs. In the early afternoon, we decided to take the dogs for a walk around the neighborhood and look for him. We were hoping that he hadn't tried/succeeded crossing Edmonds Way which is close behind us and 5 lanes of really fast traffic. We saw a man outside watering his flowers at the end of the block. I decided to ask him if he had seen Sam. I explained that our cat had gotten out the night before and asked if he had seen him. He asked if it was a Siamese cat, which it was, but I had not told him yet. I got excited and said yes. He said that the girl who lives in the house (I'm assuming he was the landlord or something) had called and said a Siamese cat had showed up in her living room (inside!) at 11am that day and was bothering her cats. She has shooshed him out of the house and he had headed back in the general direction of our house. YES!!! Partial success! He was alive that day, at least mostly unhurt, and was still in the neighborhood!! That bodes well. We decided to go door to door on our block and a few houses on the 2 surrounding blocks to see if anyone had seen him and also to tell them that he was ours and we were looking for him. Everyone was very nice about it. They said that if they saw him they would let us know.
We did get one funny story. Apparently, Mike had been doing some visiting the night before. The gentleman at the house with lots of brush, where we thought we heard Mike's bell, asked if Sam was black. Apparently a black longhaired cat (Mike) had come into his house the night before (when we had originally lost the cats). He peeked around until he saw the homeowner and ran out when the man said hi to him. I apologized profusely, but the man was very nice about it. He said if he saw Sam he would let us know.
We finished our door to door and decided to head home. We called for Sam every once in a while so he would perhaps hear us in case he was confused. It had been hot that day. We were hoping that he had found a place to stay cool and would head home that evening when the temperature cooled off. We were on the phone with Paul's parents when I saw an elderly gentleman from down the block heading towards our house with something in his arms. IT WAS SAM!!! I shouted to Paul and told Paul's mom to hold on. We went out and got Sam. We couldn't thank the man enough. Sam was home safe and sound. The man had seen Sam sitting near his front door. YEA!!! Door to door saved the day!! And neither cat was worse for wear. They both want to go outside now and have been meowing and caterwauling for the past 2 days, but no outside for them and no more heart attacks and sleepless nights for mommy and daddy!! Well, maybe a few until the figure out that meowing won't get them outside.
I've been back on my allergic elimination food plan. I haven't been feeling good the past few days. This is normal as the body slowly eliminates the allergic inflammation and normalizes. It's amazing what allergic inflammation can do to the body. I'm sure I'll feel better in a few days. It's at least not as bad as last time when I had been so sick and run down by the time I started. Today was an up-down day. My emotions were screwed up, which happens when you go on an elimination. Part of the withdrawl. I know it sounds weird, but the inflammation affects all of your body chemistry, including your brain. I'm feeling better now though.
Well, actually, I'm a little upset. Paul told me about something that happened in the neighboring city that is very disturbing. A man's two pitbulls were found hung over his fence. He tried to save them but they were dead before he could cut them down. This was a responsible owner who trained and socialized his dogs. Neighbors had expressed concern that there were pitbulls in the area as he walked his dogs. They had never hurt anyone. These two innocent dogs were strangled to death because some moron was scared that they might possibly hurt someone even though nothing had ever happened. There is a special place in hell for such people. It's right next to the special hell reserved for child molesters and people who talk in the theater (inside joke-ask if you don't get it). Sorry, but breed specific predjudices and laws are a huge pet peeve of mine. You can read the article about what happened at:
seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003157827_pitbulls28m.html
What a terrible thing to happen to a responsible dog owner. I'm more worried that there is a lunatic that will strangle a person's dog with no provocation out there as opposed to some pitbulls. I sent an e-mail to the article author and asked them to forward the letter of condolence to the owner.
While I'm on my soap box, I'd like to talk for a minute about food. I just finished reading a book by Morgan Spurlock (the SuperSize Me guy) called Don't Eat This Book, that is a well researched book about food in the USA. It shows how "Big Food" (food corporations) are really bad and how most of the food isn't even food, but basically chemical and pesticide residue with some semblance of food. It is very scary how bad the food situation has gotten in the country. It is good to see some turnaround with the rise in popularity of free-range and organic food. This book makes you never want to eat corporate food again, which is so prevalent that it is very difficult to get away from. It helps to explain why everyone is getting sicker and sicker with weirder and weirder diseases. It is eye opening and I recommend that everyone read it, along with Fast Food Nation (Very inciteful) and possibly Food Politics (which I haven't read yet-but will as soon as Paul finishes it)!! Having been through food difficulties with allergies and chemical sensitivities it all makes sense. It really is so essential to eat healthy and biologicially appropriate food (not chemicals that some corporation says is food but can be left on a counter for years and won't grow mold). Your life does depend on it. So say no to corporate food and drink (like soda-especially diet soda which is chemicals in a can, and processed food-with its insidious MSG which often is labeled under many other names and can cause very serious health problems) and say yes to clean drinking water (no flouride-Europe has banned it because of health problems) and nutritious, free-range, organic, pesticide and chemical free, real foods. Your body and future generations (environmentally speaking) will thank you. Also, with the preservative and chemical free foods that we have bought, they seem to stay fresher for much longer than treated foods do. Weird huh? Just some food for thought...Pun intended.
Hope to hear from you all soon!
Renee (and Paul and all the mammimals)
The animals are really happy. The dogs love the yard. The cats love the windows. The piggies just love it. And the humans love it too. We didn't realize how different the piggies had been acting in Kodiak until we got here. They are boooking and wheeking like crazy! They are talking up a storm all the time. They pretty much quit doing that once we got to Kodiak. We're glad they're happy again!!!
On last Saturday, we were invited to a barbecue by the neighbors across the the street. We had a great time. They had invited a bunch of people from around the neighborhood. It was great food and great conversation. We stayed until midnight and we weren't the last to leave. We're hoping to return the favor soon, once we get some patio furniture and some more unpacking done.
Paul is enjoying work. The train he takes is really convenient. I drive Paul to the train in the morning. It is literally a three minute drive. It takes him 30 minutes to get to downtown and a ten minute walk to get to his office. I pick him up from the station again in the evening. Work is going pretty well. He's enjoying it. We're getting lots of calls in the evenings and weekends as all the people in his office have to check in with him if there is a case going on. He has to approve all press releases and such. I have dubbed him King of the Run-On Sentence People! I swear, every single one of the press releases has at least one paragraph of a run on sentence and sometimes more, depending on who is writing it. It's actually pretty funny. I do feel bad because one evening, Paul was checking the release and the run on sentence was terrible. He was trying to figure out how to fix it. I told him to call the guy who wrote it back and make him fix it. Paul said, Duh! that would be the smart thing to do. The guy called back after he had "fixed" it. The problem was that is was the same run-on sentence with only three words taken out. I said as much, but unfortunately said it a little too loudly and the guy heard me over the phone. He called back once more when it had been fixed and said that Paul should tell me that it wasn't "exactly the same sentence." Luckily, he took the unintended criticism of mine in good spirit.
Now, if we could just get the pay screw-ups fixed, we would be set. Somehow things got screwed up and the Coast Guard says they overpaid Paul when they didn't. They're paying him less this paycheck and who knows what else. It should be fixed sometime soon. Luckily, we have some savings set aside for these times when the Coast Guard screws up.
Well, we had a scare a few days ago. We had a heat wave here. It had been in the low 70's during the day and down to the 50's at night. It was great. It got hot though, in the 90's. Because of the type of windows we have (bottom swing out), they don't have screens on them. Nobody here has air-conditioning. It's usually hot for only a few days a year. Everyone just leaves their doors and windows open. Well, that's not so easy when you have cats that you don't want to go outside. We opened the windows, intending to leave them open only a little while. Then dinner was ready and we started a movie and guess what...That's right! We forgot about the windows being open. I went to go feed the cats at about 9:30pm and nobody came when I made the kissing noise (that signals feeding time). We looked and the window to the guest room was open a lot more that I had left it. The cats were out. And, of course, Sam wasn't wearing his collar because it had pulled off when he and Mike were wrestling.
Paul and I went outside and called and looked for the cats until 12:30. We thought we heard Mike's collar bell a few times near this one house, but there's lots of brush all over our neighborhood. There are also tons and tons of cats in our neighborhood. We had flashlights and kept checking out the eye-shine we saw, but it was always other cats...well, except for once when it was two racoons. It was really cool though. Paul had seen the eyes in the back of some really thick brush. There were two raccoons and when they turned away and you couldn't see their eyes, they basically disappered.
The dogs were out in the yard and had been quiet the whole time. Finally, close to midnight, they started barking. I was about a block away and headed for home right away, knowing something was up. Paul shouted that he had found Mike and I saw him (Mike) dash into the yard. We tried to corner him, but he was scared and bolted past me. I, meanwhile, bashed my thumb into the fence trying to grab Mike as he darted past me. I bent my nail back and it bled under the nail. It really hurt. We managed to get Mike without being bitten or scratched. Flash really helped by working with us to corner him and keep him from escaping the yard again. We put him in the bathroom (which has no windows) and kept looking for Sam for a little while longer. I wasn't quite as worried about him because we're pretty sure he went outside with his former owner. He is front paw declawed (GRRRR...declawing) but we were hoping that wouldn't make things too much worse. We decided to call off the search and hope that he would be waiting on the doorstep when we woke up.
The next day, Paul called in sick to work because he had gotten less than 3 hours of sleep. Sam was NOT on the doorstep when we woke up. I made a few calls to animal control and such just in case and was ready to make signs. In the early afternoon, we decided to take the dogs for a walk around the neighborhood and look for him. We were hoping that he hadn't tried/succeeded crossing Edmonds Way which is close behind us and 5 lanes of really fast traffic. We saw a man outside watering his flowers at the end of the block. I decided to ask him if he had seen Sam. I explained that our cat had gotten out the night before and asked if he had seen him. He asked if it was a Siamese cat, which it was, but I had not told him yet. I got excited and said yes. He said that the girl who lives in the house (I'm assuming he was the landlord or something) had called and said a Siamese cat had showed up in her living room (inside!) at 11am that day and was bothering her cats. She has shooshed him out of the house and he had headed back in the general direction of our house. YES!!! Partial success! He was alive that day, at least mostly unhurt, and was still in the neighborhood!! That bodes well. We decided to go door to door on our block and a few houses on the 2 surrounding blocks to see if anyone had seen him and also to tell them that he was ours and we were looking for him. Everyone was very nice about it. They said that if they saw him they would let us know.
We did get one funny story. Apparently, Mike had been doing some visiting the night before. The gentleman at the house with lots of brush, where we thought we heard Mike's bell, asked if Sam was black. Apparently a black longhaired cat (Mike) had come into his house the night before (when we had originally lost the cats). He peeked around until he saw the homeowner and ran out when the man said hi to him. I apologized profusely, but the man was very nice about it. He said if he saw Sam he would let us know.
We finished our door to door and decided to head home. We called for Sam every once in a while so he would perhaps hear us in case he was confused. It had been hot that day. We were hoping that he had found a place to stay cool and would head home that evening when the temperature cooled off. We were on the phone with Paul's parents when I saw an elderly gentleman from down the block heading towards our house with something in his arms. IT WAS SAM!!! I shouted to Paul and told Paul's mom to hold on. We went out and got Sam. We couldn't thank the man enough. Sam was home safe and sound. The man had seen Sam sitting near his front door. YEA!!! Door to door saved the day!! And neither cat was worse for wear. They both want to go outside now and have been meowing and caterwauling for the past 2 days, but no outside for them and no more heart attacks and sleepless nights for mommy and daddy!! Well, maybe a few until the figure out that meowing won't get them outside.
I've been back on my allergic elimination food plan. I haven't been feeling good the past few days. This is normal as the body slowly eliminates the allergic inflammation and normalizes. It's amazing what allergic inflammation can do to the body. I'm sure I'll feel better in a few days. It's at least not as bad as last time when I had been so sick and run down by the time I started. Today was an up-down day. My emotions were screwed up, which happens when you go on an elimination. Part of the withdrawl. I know it sounds weird, but the inflammation affects all of your body chemistry, including your brain. I'm feeling better now though.
Well, actually, I'm a little upset. Paul told me about something that happened in the neighboring city that is very disturbing. A man's two pitbulls were found hung over his fence. He tried to save them but they were dead before he could cut them down. This was a responsible owner who trained and socialized his dogs. Neighbors had expressed concern that there were pitbulls in the area as he walked his dogs. They had never hurt anyone. These two innocent dogs were strangled to death because some moron was scared that they might possibly hurt someone even though nothing had ever happened. There is a special place in hell for such people. It's right next to the special hell reserved for child molesters and people who talk in the theater (inside joke-ask if you don't get it). Sorry, but breed specific predjudices and laws are a huge pet peeve of mine. You can read the article about what happened at:
seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003157827_pitbulls28m.html
What a terrible thing to happen to a responsible dog owner. I'm more worried that there is a lunatic that will strangle a person's dog with no provocation out there as opposed to some pitbulls. I sent an e-mail to the article author and asked them to forward the letter of condolence to the owner.
While I'm on my soap box, I'd like to talk for a minute about food. I just finished reading a book by Morgan Spurlock (the SuperSize Me guy) called Don't Eat This Book, that is a well researched book about food in the USA. It shows how "Big Food" (food corporations) are really bad and how most of the food isn't even food, but basically chemical and pesticide residue with some semblance of food. It is very scary how bad the food situation has gotten in the country. It is good to see some turnaround with the rise in popularity of free-range and organic food. This book makes you never want to eat corporate food again, which is so prevalent that it is very difficult to get away from. It helps to explain why everyone is getting sicker and sicker with weirder and weirder diseases. It is eye opening and I recommend that everyone read it, along with Fast Food Nation (Very inciteful) and possibly Food Politics (which I haven't read yet-but will as soon as Paul finishes it)!! Having been through food difficulties with allergies and chemical sensitivities it all makes sense. It really is so essential to eat healthy and biologicially appropriate food (not chemicals that some corporation says is food but can be left on a counter for years and won't grow mold). Your life does depend on it. So say no to corporate food and drink (like soda-especially diet soda which is chemicals in a can, and processed food-with its insidious MSG which often is labeled under many other names and can cause very serious health problems) and say yes to clean drinking water (no flouride-Europe has banned it because of health problems) and nutritious, free-range, organic, pesticide and chemical free, real foods. Your body and future generations (environmentally speaking) will thank you. Also, with the preservative and chemical free foods that we have bought, they seem to stay fresher for much longer than treated foods do. Weird huh? Just some food for thought...Pun intended.
Hope to hear from you all soon!
Renee (and Paul and all the mammimals)
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Our Stuff Comes Tommorow
Sorry it's been a few days. We've been settling in. On Friday, we got to our new house. We met our new landlady. She is really nice, especially compared to our landlords in Kodiak. Our yard is huge!!! It's so awesome!!! It's bigger than we thought. The house is cute. It's really bare right now because we have no furniture. But our furniture is being delivered tommorow (Thursday). We signed all the papers for renting the house. Even though it's only three bedrooms, it's definately bigger than our house in Kodiak. We got the animals settled and went to find something to sleep on that night and until we get our furniture. We figured on just buying another futon. We found "The Futon Factory" which sells all different kinds of futons, but they are made here in Washington. We looked around and the queen sized futon caught my eye. We've been complaining about needing a bigger couch, but haven't yet found one we like. Well, they had one that matched our other futon. We debated about it and then decided to get it. The only problem was that it worked out to be $900, which was a lot more than we had been planning on spending. The warranty and upgrade to a spring mattress sealed the deal though. So, we bought it and brought it home. It's pretty comfortable. We figured we'd put our other futon (a regular sized one) in the guest bedroom. We're going to upgrade to a spring mattress right before my mom gets here in August, when we have some more money.
The animals are settling in. Mike has been a bad kitty the past couple days. He ran out of the house three times and ran around the yard until we could catch him. We learned from the neighbor kids that there is a really tough neighborhood cat, so no unattended outside for the kitties. I'm getting ahead of myself, but the neighbor kids and the kids from across the street are really nice. We met them and introduced them to the dogs. They really got a kick out of Flash's tricks. Fawkes behaved very nicely, but we didn't let him out of the yard yet as he can become almost a 100 pounds of goofball. We're working on that. The dogs really love the yard. Flash has been sunbathing every chance she gets. Fawkes loves running around.
On Saturday, we drove around. The downtown Edmonds is such a cute little area. There are great stores and a couple cute restaurants. And, best of all, they have a natural pet supplies store that has all the dog and cat food stuff I need. It's a great little store. And the prices are unbeatable!! Well, that may be a little bit of an exaggeration. When they told me the total for my pet food, I said "Oh WOW!!!" The girl ringing me up kinda cringed. I explained that it was a good "Oh WOW" and briefly explained the prices while living in Kodiak. They understood.
We continued driving around and went to Target and Fred Meyer, and NO WALMART!! :-) As that was pretty much the only store to shop at in Kodiak, we won't be doing much shopping there anymore. We checked out a bunch of natural food stores and went to another natural pet supplies store to pick up piggie food.
Then we headed to Whole Foods. We drove around a bit trying to find the store. We finally called and it turns out I wrote the address down wrong. I felt bad, but considering that's the first time I did that all the way from Kodiak, I didn't feel too bad. We got there and were stunned to silence. The selection was unbelievable!! We walked around and I found all kinds of stuff that I would be able to eat. We went through the whole store, but didn't shop yet. We hadn't planned on buying, only looking. We did go back on Sunday though. We finished the evening with dinner at Ivar's Acres of Clams, a seafood restaurant (obviously) downtown. It was very delicious. It was a nice celebration dinner for getting here in one piece and finding a place to live and everything.
On Sunday, we went grocery shopping. We took three hours, going up and down every aisle. Because of my many food allergies, I have to read pretty much every label to see if I can eat the things I'm interested in. We got two full carts of food and spent just under $500. I know that's pretty crazy, but let me explain. I found out about the food allergies while up in Kodiak. I wasn't able to find very much variety of things I could eat that wouldn't cause me reactions. It was very difficult. Plus, prices were so high up there that even when we did find stuff, it cost an arm and a leg. Often we would leave the store wondering how it could cost so much for the little that we got. Yes, we spent $500 at Whole Foods, but we felt like we got our money's worth, as we had two full grocery carts worth of stuff. I was so excited! I was such a dork, but it was so nice to have a variety of things to eat. You don't really understand unless you have been limited with what you can eat and what's available.
After completing our large shopping spree, we realized that we didn't have a pantry. Well, we have one, but the furnace fills it. We went to Target to get a pantry cabinet and another small cabinet for in the kitchen. We looked and looked, but couldn't find the cabinet I had seen. I knew I wasn't crazy, but we couldn't find it. We finally decided on something else and had left and come back to the aisle twice when we both saw the cabinet at the same time, on the bottom shelf towards the back, mostly hidden. We put the other option back and got the cabinet. Paul put them together yesterday.
So, we're here and getting settled. We still have to take an exploratory walk around the neighborhood. It's really cute here though. We're really happy with the area we're in. I almost forgot. The neighbor girl from across the street made us cupcakes to welcome us. It was really sweet. Well, Paul's going to post some pictures from the trip and we'll post some more of the house once we get the furniture. Talk to you soon.
The animals are settling in. Mike has been a bad kitty the past couple days. He ran out of the house three times and ran around the yard until we could catch him. We learned from the neighbor kids that there is a really tough neighborhood cat, so no unattended outside for the kitties. I'm getting ahead of myself, but the neighbor kids and the kids from across the street are really nice. We met them and introduced them to the dogs. They really got a kick out of Flash's tricks. Fawkes behaved very nicely, but we didn't let him out of the yard yet as he can become almost a 100 pounds of goofball. We're working on that. The dogs really love the yard. Flash has been sunbathing every chance she gets. Fawkes loves running around.
On Saturday, we drove around. The downtown Edmonds is such a cute little area. There are great stores and a couple cute restaurants. And, best of all, they have a natural pet supplies store that has all the dog and cat food stuff I need. It's a great little store. And the prices are unbeatable!! Well, that may be a little bit of an exaggeration. When they told me the total for my pet food, I said "Oh WOW!!!" The girl ringing me up kinda cringed. I explained that it was a good "Oh WOW" and briefly explained the prices while living in Kodiak. They understood.
We continued driving around and went to Target and Fred Meyer, and NO WALMART!! :-) As that was pretty much the only store to shop at in Kodiak, we won't be doing much shopping there anymore. We checked out a bunch of natural food stores and went to another natural pet supplies store to pick up piggie food.
Then we headed to Whole Foods. We drove around a bit trying to find the store. We finally called and it turns out I wrote the address down wrong. I felt bad, but considering that's the first time I did that all the way from Kodiak, I didn't feel too bad. We got there and were stunned to silence. The selection was unbelievable!! We walked around and I found all kinds of stuff that I would be able to eat. We went through the whole store, but didn't shop yet. We hadn't planned on buying, only looking. We did go back on Sunday though. We finished the evening with dinner at Ivar's Acres of Clams, a seafood restaurant (obviously) downtown. It was very delicious. It was a nice celebration dinner for getting here in one piece and finding a place to live and everything.
On Sunday, we went grocery shopping. We took three hours, going up and down every aisle. Because of my many food allergies, I have to read pretty much every label to see if I can eat the things I'm interested in. We got two full carts of food and spent just under $500. I know that's pretty crazy, but let me explain. I found out about the food allergies while up in Kodiak. I wasn't able to find very much variety of things I could eat that wouldn't cause me reactions. It was very difficult. Plus, prices were so high up there that even when we did find stuff, it cost an arm and a leg. Often we would leave the store wondering how it could cost so much for the little that we got. Yes, we spent $500 at Whole Foods, but we felt like we got our money's worth, as we had two full grocery carts worth of stuff. I was so excited! I was such a dork, but it was so nice to have a variety of things to eat. You don't really understand unless you have been limited with what you can eat and what's available.
After completing our large shopping spree, we realized that we didn't have a pantry. Well, we have one, but the furnace fills it. We went to Target to get a pantry cabinet and another small cabinet for in the kitchen. We looked and looked, but couldn't find the cabinet I had seen. I knew I wasn't crazy, but we couldn't find it. We finally decided on something else and had left and come back to the aisle twice when we both saw the cabinet at the same time, on the bottom shelf towards the back, mostly hidden. We put the other option back and got the cabinet. Paul put them together yesterday.
So, we're here and getting settled. We still have to take an exploratory walk around the neighborhood. It's really cute here though. We're really happy with the area we're in. I almost forgot. The neighbor girl from across the street made us cupcakes to welcome us. It was really sweet. Well, Paul's going to post some pictures from the trip and we'll post some more of the house once we get the furniture. Talk to you soon.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Some catching up to do...
Sorry to have not posted in a few days. We had some long travel days and no internet access. Boy, are we glad to be back in the land of civilization. We are here in Lynnwood, WA which is the town just north of Edmonds, where our new house (rental) is. This La Quinta is so nice. What a difference being in civilization makes. Aaahhh...but I'm getting ahead of myself.
I already wrote about the drive from hell. Now, on to the neverending drive. The drive from Whitehorse to Fort Nelson, Canada was neverending. It was supposed to be an 11 hour drive, which is long enough as it is. It took forever!! We drove for over 12 hours. It was a wildlife kind of day though. We came upon a huge bull moose right in the middle of the road. He didn't care that we were pulling up on him. We got some great pictures from really close before we were able to pull around him. We saw two black bears, but weren't able to get pictures of them. We saw a porcupine waddling by the side of the road, but also passed by too quickly to get a picture. We also saw mountain goats and caribou. There were bison that crossed the road right in front of and behind us. We also had horses right along the side of the road. It was really cool. Then, we got to our hotel around midnight. We found out that we were down a flight of stairs, which was a big problem because of all the stuff that we had to carry to the room. Plus, the bank of rooms that we were in were the only ones that didn't have air conditioning in the whole hotel. We were aggravated, but there's not much you can do. We stopped at the only place still open in the tiny town and ordered some food. We found out after we got to the hotel and had unpacked the car that they had screwed up our order and put all kinds of junk on our burgers. We ate them because we had no choice, but it didn't improve our evening. We got some sleep and packed up the car and continued on the next day. We almost had a delay though. Because of forest fires, they had closed the road south of Fort Nelson. Luckily the roads were re-opened the next day. We drove through lots of smoke though. You could smell the fires, which were hundreds of miles away, even in the car.
Last night's hotel was not very good either. We got in late again (close to midnight) and then they couldn't find our reservation or figure out how to work the computer. The lady got snippy with me and I was getting aggravated. They finally figured it out and we found out that we had to haul everything up two flights of stairs. It was hot and the air conditioning hadn't been turned on in the room. It was close to 200 degrees. Luckily, it cooled off relatively quickly. Paul is such a good husband. He did, for the whole trip, virtually all the carrying of stuff and loading/unloading of the car. He hauled most of our stuff up the two flights of stairs both that night and the next morning. The bed was lumpy and so were the pillows. We got back on the road the next morning around 11am.
We were, at last, on the last leg of the journey, heading towards Seattle. The time passed by much more quickly. What we thought was going to be an 11 hour drive turned out to be only 9 hours. Well, actually 10 hours because we drove around trying to find our hotel. We passed by the general area where it was only 4 times before finding the phone number (which was the only one I had forgotten to write down) and calling the desk for directions. Much to our delight, when we got there they had both luggage carts as well as elevators. We brought the cats and piggies up to the room. Then, I walked the dogs while Paul began loading up a luggage cart. We (well, actually Paul) got all our stuff up to the room in 1 trip (excluding the trip up with the mammimals). The room is large with a king sized bed and sitting/desk area with some open floor space. It was nice and cool when we got in and is very comfortable. Not a bad ending to the cross-continental trip. We are going to meet our new landlord tommorow at our new place to do a walk-through and start moving in. We're hoping that everything will be all right. As we were driving around tonight, we saw a bunch of really cute neighborhoods. We have relatively high hopes that everything will turn out all right. We just don't have good luck with hotels. Maybe it's just Alaska and Canada...We enjoyed three books on CD for the drive. We listened to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and Night Fall, which is a semi-fictional story about the TWA Flight 800 crash, and The Da Vinci Code (an abridged version). We really enjoyed all the books (though we both had actually read Harry Potter). Books on tape or CD really are the way to go for long trips.
I do have one huge complaint about this trip. NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON ASKED FOR THE PET HEALTH CERTIFICATES!!! I SPENT $200 AND GOT HALF-ASSED EXAMS WHICH WERE CHARGED FULL PRICE ALONG WITH THE HEALTH CERTIFICATE CHARGES AND I DIDN'T NEED THEM ONCE!!! NOT ON THE FERRY, LEAVING ALASKA , ENTERING CANADA, or RE-ENTERING THE USA!!! Sorry, but it's extremely aggravating to be told that you HAVE to have them and then you spend the money and they are never checked. But, we know that if we didn't get them then they would have asked for them and it would have been a big problem. Oh well... what are you gonna do?
We will be updating the blog with more photos of the trip in the upcoming week. It's too late to do it now. We do want people to be able to see the trip. So...we're here in Washington safe and sound. WE MADE IT!!! The animals are doing fine. They handled the trip much better than I could ever have hoped for. I'm sure they will be relieved to stay in one place for longer than 1 night (actually only a few hours in most of the cases). The dogs will have a yard to play in and no one will have to go in the car for hours at a time.
I must add that I handled this trip really well also. The last trip, I spent most of the time sleeping and didn't see much in the car. This trip, I hardly slept in the car at all. When I did take a nap, it was usually because I had taken a benadryl to help forestall an allergic reaction to the food I ate. I had been worried about eating on the trip because of my allergic reactions (not life threatening, but I get sick enough sometimes), but it went pretty well. I pretty much stuck to burgers and fries or onion rings (I know Mom, batter... :0) ) but I did pretty well. No major reactions and I felt relatively good, all things considered. I'm going to pay for it now that I'm here though. I'm not looking forward to the withdrawl I'm going to go through once I re-start my food plan. I feel so much better when I'm off my allergens, that it makes the week or two of feeling crummy well worth it. I am excited to find the health food stores and start grocery shopping. VARIETY...YEA!!!!
Well, we've come to the end. Many thanks to those who kept us in their thoughts and prayers as we made our journey. Talk to you soon.
I already wrote about the drive from hell. Now, on to the neverending drive. The drive from Whitehorse to Fort Nelson, Canada was neverending. It was supposed to be an 11 hour drive, which is long enough as it is. It took forever!! We drove for over 12 hours. It was a wildlife kind of day though. We came upon a huge bull moose right in the middle of the road. He didn't care that we were pulling up on him. We got some great pictures from really close before we were able to pull around him. We saw two black bears, but weren't able to get pictures of them. We saw a porcupine waddling by the side of the road, but also passed by too quickly to get a picture. We also saw mountain goats and caribou. There were bison that crossed the road right in front of and behind us. We also had horses right along the side of the road. It was really cool. Then, we got to our hotel around midnight. We found out that we were down a flight of stairs, which was a big problem because of all the stuff that we had to carry to the room. Plus, the bank of rooms that we were in were the only ones that didn't have air conditioning in the whole hotel. We were aggravated, but there's not much you can do. We stopped at the only place still open in the tiny town and ordered some food. We found out after we got to the hotel and had unpacked the car that they had screwed up our order and put all kinds of junk on our burgers. We ate them because we had no choice, but it didn't improve our evening. We got some sleep and packed up the car and continued on the next day. We almost had a delay though. Because of forest fires, they had closed the road south of Fort Nelson. Luckily the roads were re-opened the next day. We drove through lots of smoke though. You could smell the fires, which were hundreds of miles away, even in the car.
Last night's hotel was not very good either. We got in late again (close to midnight) and then they couldn't find our reservation or figure out how to work the computer. The lady got snippy with me and I was getting aggravated. They finally figured it out and we found out that we had to haul everything up two flights of stairs. It was hot and the air conditioning hadn't been turned on in the room. It was close to 200 degrees. Luckily, it cooled off relatively quickly. Paul is such a good husband. He did, for the whole trip, virtually all the carrying of stuff and loading/unloading of the car. He hauled most of our stuff up the two flights of stairs both that night and the next morning. The bed was lumpy and so were the pillows. We got back on the road the next morning around 11am.
We were, at last, on the last leg of the journey, heading towards Seattle. The time passed by much more quickly. What we thought was going to be an 11 hour drive turned out to be only 9 hours. Well, actually 10 hours because we drove around trying to find our hotel. We passed by the general area where it was only 4 times before finding the phone number (which was the only one I had forgotten to write down) and calling the desk for directions. Much to our delight, when we got there they had both luggage carts as well as elevators. We brought the cats and piggies up to the room. Then, I walked the dogs while Paul began loading up a luggage cart. We (well, actually Paul) got all our stuff up to the room in 1 trip (excluding the trip up with the mammimals). The room is large with a king sized bed and sitting/desk area with some open floor space. It was nice and cool when we got in and is very comfortable. Not a bad ending to the cross-continental trip. We are going to meet our new landlord tommorow at our new place to do a walk-through and start moving in. We're hoping that everything will be all right. As we were driving around tonight, we saw a bunch of really cute neighborhoods. We have relatively high hopes that everything will turn out all right. We just don't have good luck with hotels. Maybe it's just Alaska and Canada...We enjoyed three books on CD for the drive. We listened to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and Night Fall, which is a semi-fictional story about the TWA Flight 800 crash, and The Da Vinci Code (an abridged version). We really enjoyed all the books (though we both had actually read Harry Potter). Books on tape or CD really are the way to go for long trips.
I do have one huge complaint about this trip. NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON ASKED FOR THE PET HEALTH CERTIFICATES!!! I SPENT $200 AND GOT HALF-ASSED EXAMS WHICH WERE CHARGED FULL PRICE ALONG WITH THE HEALTH CERTIFICATE CHARGES AND I DIDN'T NEED THEM ONCE!!! NOT ON THE FERRY, LEAVING ALASKA , ENTERING CANADA, or RE-ENTERING THE USA!!! Sorry, but it's extremely aggravating to be told that you HAVE to have them and then you spend the money and they are never checked. But, we know that if we didn't get them then they would have asked for them and it would have been a big problem. Oh well... what are you gonna do?
We will be updating the blog with more photos of the trip in the upcoming week. It's too late to do it now. We do want people to be able to see the trip. So...we're here in Washington safe and sound. WE MADE IT!!! The animals are doing fine. They handled the trip much better than I could ever have hoped for. I'm sure they will be relieved to stay in one place for longer than 1 night (actually only a few hours in most of the cases). The dogs will have a yard to play in and no one will have to go in the car for hours at a time.
I must add that I handled this trip really well also. The last trip, I spent most of the time sleeping and didn't see much in the car. This trip, I hardly slept in the car at all. When I did take a nap, it was usually because I had taken a benadryl to help forestall an allergic reaction to the food I ate. I had been worried about eating on the trip because of my allergic reactions (not life threatening, but I get sick enough sometimes), but it went pretty well. I pretty much stuck to burgers and fries or onion rings (I know Mom, batter... :0) ) but I did pretty well. No major reactions and I felt relatively good, all things considered. I'm going to pay for it now that I'm here though. I'm not looking forward to the withdrawl I'm going to go through once I re-start my food plan. I feel so much better when I'm off my allergens, that it makes the week or two of feeling crummy well worth it. I am excited to find the health food stores and start grocery shopping. VARIETY...YEA!!!!
Well, we've come to the end. Many thanks to those who kept us in their thoughts and prayers as we made our journey. Talk to you soon.
Monday, July 03, 2006
An Alaska-Canadian Roller Coaster Ride
Well, what can I say, today was a day from hell. We drove from
Running Amok in the Fred Meyer or… The Road Goes on Forever and the Party Never Ends
Today, we got a late start. We checked out of the Days Inn in
Our drive today was from
Our room here at the Westmark in Tok is much better than last night’s hotel. It’s kinda cute. It’s set up as multiple single story “cabins” with multiple individual rooms. We were able to park right in front of the room. The only negative is there was a little flight of stairs that we had to carry stuff up…well Paul had to carry stuff up. It helped that he could pass stuff up to me over the “porch” railing to get it to the room. The cats, of course, immediately had to explore the entire room. We figured out an ingenious place to put the cat box (a constant concern)…under the sink and the baby gate fit right in front of it to keep the dogs from snacking (EWWW…).
The animals are handling the trip fairly well. Sam did spend a lot of time meowing. Through trial and error and about three hours, we figured out that the piggie carrier was rattling loudly on top of his carrier. It was making him meow. I used some bungee cords to hold down the tops/handles of the piggie carrier and Mike’s carrier, which was also banging rather loudly, due to the bumpiness of the road. He settled down for a while, but the road got really rough and he started crying again. After some more time, I figured out that even the very small rattle of some latches on the top the piggie carrier were disturbing him. Using a towel between the two carriers and another tiny bungee to hold the latches still solved the problem, more or less. The rougher the road, the more upset the cats got, but they pretty much settled once things smoothed out again. I feel bad that it took us so long to figure out what was bothering Sam, but it’s our first trip with cats, so we have some learning to do. We’re still trying to figure out the best feeding schedule so we can avoid any puking in the car from motion sickness. We’ve had luck with only feeding them in the evening, but we’ve been feeding them the equivalent of about 1 meal per day, though they usually get two. I’m worried that if I try to give Sam more food per feeding that he’ll puke (he has a sensitive stomach and pukes rather easily). While I was settling the animals and getting them fed, Paul went over to the lounge. While there, he drank
As it is now 11:20 pm, I will end the post here (before I fall asleep at the computer). We are on to
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Droopy in the City
Hi! It's Renee. I thought I'd do a quickie post. We've all eaten (though our food wasn't very good-pizza we ordered to the room) and had a much needed nap. Everyone has settled into the room quite nicely. The cats of course had to explore the entire room once they got in and were let out of their carriers. I just got back from taking the dogs out for a walk to go potty. About a block and a half up from our crappy hotel is a little grassy area where the dogs can go sniff around and go potty. We tried to find another park that Paul found earlier, but I forgot to make a right that would take us there. The dogs were very well behaved. As we are downtown, there aren't very many trees to shade us from the sun. It is rather hot in the sun, but still nice and cool in the shade. Flash got really droopy (in her face and tail) on the way back to the room. It was cute. Mike is climbing up on top of the carrier that is on top of the guinea pig cage that is on top of the table. He loves being up high. Sam is resting on the other bed. It's a big relief that everyone isn't freaking out. The cats don't like it when either of us leave the room though. Hopefully everything will go well tommorow. We only have to drive about 6 hours to get to our next stopping place Tok. That's a lot better than 9 hours in the car on the ferry and 4 1/2 hours of driving to Anchorage. That's a long time to be cramped up. We shall see... Talk to everyone tommorow. ~Renee
A Bugsplat on the Windshield of Life
Hi all! We just got to Anchorage. Sorry we didn't post again yesterday but we ran out of time. As it was we were five minutes late for the ferry check in time. Of course once we got there we sat for an hour before they checked us in. Renee and I were packing the car like crazed monkeys. The car is packed from floor to roof plus the car topper. As you can see in the photo the front is higher than the rear.
That's the M/V Kennicott behind the car. The ferry was nice. It was so much better than the M/V Tustumena (the ferry we took to Kodiak when we moved there). The room was actually carpeted and had a nice couch that turned into a third and fourth bed. The boat was large enough that Renee didn't get sick. Of course she didn't walk around the boat while we were underway either. I did walk around. The sea was smooth and calm as we left Kodiak. It had been rainy and grey all day but just as the Kennicott put her stern to Kodiak the clouds broke over some of the mountains giving me the most picturesque final memory of the island I could ask for. As I stood on deck watching the island fade in the distance a single whale breached not 50-feet away from the boat. As the sun set I headed to the lounge to grab one of the draft $2.50 Alaska Ales and then to bed.
The animals did well in the car overnight, nothing damaged, no one overly sick. Renee and I let everybody stretch their legs in Homer then we hit the road again. The drive was relatively uneventful save for a few drivers who can't either drive the speed limit or stick to a speed limit. ARRGGGHH!!! Sam cried a little through the drive but everybody was pretty good. We got to Anchorage at about 12:45 to find out that our hotel didn't have a room ready for us so we had to wait about an hour to get in. So, we're here in Anchorage, everyone is bushed from the traveling so far. We just ate out lunch (a very unfullfilling pizza, Renee's stomach is upset again) I'll throw in a couple of photos from the boat to round out today's entry.
Friday, June 30, 2006
A Quick Post
Three hours to go before we need to be at the ferry and we are about to start packing the car. Renee ran over to the animal shelter to drop some last minute items that we didn't need off. For those of you who sent me e-mails thanks. I think I figured out why no one could post comments. I forgot to configure the settings for comments. Woops! As soon as we're packed up Renee and I will post once more before heading off to the ferry.
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