My New Do

My highlights needed some definite help, so Friday I headed to the salon. I wanted to get my hair cut but I wasn't really sure how short to go. It has been so hot and humid, lately, that my hair usually ends up in a ponytail, anyway. Normally, I am not very brave when it comes to my hair but I ended up cutting 6 inches off! It is so much lighter now but I'm still getting used to it. Here is my new look, let me know what you think. :)

ER Visit Number 2

Last weekend, Matt was trying to set up a new wireless setup for our house. Once, he was done I asked him to put some security on it, so he was running back and forth between the downstairs and upstairs. He landed wrong on his bad ankle, it looked awful, so I was sure it was broken. We loaded into the car and were off to the hospital, again. People are going to start thinking something with as many times we have gone to the hospital, in the last month. The doctors did some xrays and discovered he had sprained his ankle, so he was laid up for a few days and just recently has been able to walk around more.

ER Visit Number 1

A few weeks ago, Matt and I were eating at our favorite restaurant. Matt decided to try something new; he went with clam chowder and a sandwich. As most of you know Matt has a pretty severe peanut allergy, so we are normally very careful when trying new things. Since, there were no warnings on the menu, we felt it would be a could choice. Anyways, everything was fine until the ride home, Matt started having some problems. I was pretty sure he was having an allergic reaction but he kept saying maybe it was just bad clam chowder. After we got home, I immediately called the restaurant to see if there were any peanuts in the clam chowder. I have never heard of people putting peanuts in it but hey, I am not a fan, so what do I know. After staying on hold for what felt like forever, for the manager to look in the ingredient book, he came back to say that meal was not on the allergy friendly menu. So, I hurried and gave Matt some Benadryl we waited to see if he would start feeling better. About five minutes later, we were off to the hospital because he was having trouble breathing. Luckily, it wasn't a huge reaction, so they gave him some pills and observed him for a couple hours but all was well.

Fourth of July

This year for the Fourth of July we went up to Washington D.C. to celebrate. Everyone told us we would be stuck in traffic for hours but amazingly we got there in 2 1/2 hours! It probably helped that we stopped in Springfield, which is about 13 miles from D.C. and rode the Metro in. I am a huge fan of the Metro, it is so convienent, you just hop on and it takes you all over the city. No sitting in traffic or trying to find parking, it's great. One of Matt's friends from high school was vacationing in D.C. that weekend, so we met up with him. It was a lot of fun to see him and be in our nation's capital for the fourth. We weren't very good at our time management skills, so we didn't make it to the National Monument for the fireworks but we did watch them from the street. The picture above is a fountain that is by the Art Museum, Matt and I sat here for awhile because it was so relaxing. The picture to the right is at one of the metro station that had the steepest escaltor! Here are some random pics from our trip.

WHALE WATCHING EXPEDITION 2008

Since, we have been here I have wanted to go whale watching. During the winter months humpback whales are often spotted off the coast of Virginia Beach, so I did not want to miss out on such a rare opportunity to see whales in their natural habitat. So finally a couple weekends ago we made plans to go down there with our good friends Josh and Amber. We planned to go on the boat that would be leaving at 3 pm. Due to wind conditions we found out at 10:30 that our boat was being cancelled and if we wanted to still go we would have to go out on the boat leaving at noon. We were supposed to be there about 15 to 20 minutes early which meant we needed to leave ASAP. Well none of us were ready but Amber and I decided to at least give it a shot. Matt and I didn't even get on the highway until alittle after 11, so it was looking pretty doubtful that we would make it before the boat left. We made remarkable time and it started to look promising until we got off the freeway and hit every red light there. Luckily, we made it there about 11:50 and I ran to go stand in line for tickets while Matt parked the car. I was so impressed that we all made it down there in time to load onto the boat. The boat ride was alittle bit rough and it caused a lot of people to get sick. It lasted about two hours, sadly we didn't see any whales but we did see some dolphins.

Tagged

Well I was tagged by Krystal, so I will give this my best shot. The rules are: Each player lists 6 facts/habits about themselves and then chooses 6 more people to tag, you add a comment to them telling them they are tagged and then ask them to read yours for details.

1. I know it's childish but I hate the dark, especially since Matt has been gone. I always leave either the hall light or the bathroom light on when I go to bed. Some people like to watch movies in the dark at their house, not me I need to have a light on somewhere.

2. I hate, I mean HATE scary movies, I used to be able to handle at least a couple of them every once in awhile. Not anymore, I avoid them at all costs because I will be up for days and have nightmares for months if I watch only thirty minutes.

3. I love to stay busy, maybe it comes from working and going to school for my adult life until recently. Since, I have graduated, I honestly miss school, as weird as that sounds. I don't know if it's the constant knowledge or just being busy.

4. I love to laugh, which is one of the many reasons I married Matt. He can always make me laugh, even on my worst days. We can talk about anything, no matter how silly or serious and he always has an interesting twist. I would hate to live without laughter.

5. I am a big kid at heart and I enjoy being around people that aren't overly serious about life. I love being silly and I enjoy being around people that don't care what others think too. I still love to carve pumpkins and dye easter eggs as much as I did when I was eight.

6. My dog is spoiled rotten, everytime I leave her alone I make sure the radio is on and two lights are on for her. I turn the radio on so she won't get lonely and the lights are on because honestly, who likes to hang out in the dark.

I don't know six people to tag so I won't be tagging anyone but I figured I would at least do half the assignment, 50% is better than zero, right? :) Well I hope everyone is doing alright and have a safe and happy holiday season.

Happy Halloween!!

The picture above is of Amber and I after we had our faces painted at the pumpkin patch. The pictures below is of Kristin and I carving pumpkins and being ghosts for Halloween.

Matt and Ross

As most of you know, Matt's brother, Ross, has been over in Iraq for a year now (or in other words way too long) and it turns out where they are each stationed is fairly close to one another. So a couple of weekends ago Ross was able to go and visit Matt in Balad. Here are some pictures from their weekend together. It was nice because they both were able to get the weekend off and just have fun, well as much fun as you can have on a FOB. Personally, I'm surprised that they didn't decide to backpack through Iraq, since they come up with some fairly odd ideas when they get together.

My Four Hour Adventure

I have had quite the exciting adventure today and I'm exhausted. Since, it is fall I have been finding a lot more bugs on the wrong side of the door and decided to make it war. My first line of defense was setting off bug bombs; I just had to get myself and Roxie out of the house for four hours. Since today was such a gorgeous day, I thought to myself what better time than now.
I should have known by how the four hours began it was not going to go in my favor. First off I had a really hard time getting the foggers to work so I'm sure I inhaled some poisons that I wasn't supposed to. I had to let Roxie out so I could get out quickly and obviously so she wouldn't breathe in the nasty stuff. Well I did that and all she did was whine and cry; it was a cry like "help, she is beating me." So once the foggers are going off we get in the car and we are on our way for a wonderful fall walk in Newport News Park. I looked at the trails and decided to do the 2.6 mile loop, everything was going well until somehow I got off the trail I needed and onto another one. Suddenly, I see this huge sign with snakes plastered all over. Basically, it said that there are snakes but they aren't aggressive unless provoked (yet the picture is of one striking) and sightings normally only happen in the spring and the FALL!! So at this point I'm completely freaking out and speed walking through this place hoping I won't be one of the lucky ones to spot a snake. I'm completely alone in the woods, I haven't seen anyone for at least 30 minutes and I'm freaking out. Everytime I say a twisted limb I practically wet myself thinking it was a snake. I mean honestly, I'll stay on the trail but I don't think the snakes are exactly going to stay off the trail. Well finally I found my way back to the original trail but it was forked, I just decided to go back the way I came and hope for the best. So by the time we got back to the beginning we were exhausted and then I noticed on the little trail map that I was practically done when I decided to back track! Oh well at least I made it out safely.
Next we headed to Petsmart, by the time we made it there we had already been gone 2 hours, so we were doing good. We walked around checking stuff out and they were having a pet adoption, guess what..............I didn't buy one. :) Haha made you nervous. Anyway I got a traveling water bowl for Roxie, for our next walk, a bone and some food. Well for some reason Roxie was terrified of the food bag, so there I am with a huge food bag in one hand and Roxie doing her army crawl trying to get away from the bag in the other. I'm sure people thought I beat her with the bag. Luckily, the gal that we bought her from came up to Roxie before all that happened and commented on how much better she was and how she is such a pretty dog. Otherwise, she would have had me arrested on the spot for animal cruelty.
Well I ran out of stuff to do around the 3 hour mark so I just headed home, luckily I brought my laptop for just this type of occasion. So there I am sitting enjoying myself when I realized I had locked myself out of my house!! I had dead bolted the front door and not the back door. The bad part is that I didn't bring my keys to the back door! Luckily, I did have keys to the side door; the only problem standing in my way was that Matt put the weight bench up against that door. Since, I didn't have many other options I jimmied my way in through the side door, trying my hardest not to breathe the toxic air. Once I was in I ran to the other door to unlock it and let me out. Another disaster avoided. Now I'm just sitting here waiting for the house to air out while getting pelted by acorns. Seriously, three have already hit me! It's hard to believe this all happened in a four hour time span but believe me it did! I just hope it was worth it.

Deployment

It's been two weeks since Matt boarded the plane to head overseas. Although if you ask me it seems like a lot longer. :) Here are pictures of the days before he left. As you can see he felt the need to buy Roxie a bone the size of her. She was so excited and didn't even know where to start. I think it overwhelmed her because Matt had to cut it into four pieces.

Here are some pictures of Matt on the day he left.

Our Pretend 3rd Anniversary!

Since, Matt is going to be gone for pretty much all of the big stuff this year we decided to live it up while he was here. Before he left, we tried to enjoy every last minute together and went to a couple of the nicer restaurants in town. Our friends Erin and Jake sent us out to dinner at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, so we both got dressed up and went to celebrate our pretend 3rd anniversary. This restaurant is basically our Anniversary spot so it was a lot of fun to reminisce about where the last three years have taken us. We ate a lot of great food and fully enjoyed ourselves. Here are some pictures from our big night out!

Baltimore

With Matt's deployment approaching fast, Matt and I decided to go up to Baltimore and check out the sites. We have been meaning to go up there to check out the National Aquarium and decided there was no better time than the present. That city was a lot of fun, unfortuantely we didn't have time to see all of it and we mostly just hung out in the Inner Harbor. We went the National Aquarium, which was huge, and we even were able to see a dolphin show! After we were done there we went to dinner at the Hard Rock, we couldn't leave without getting some shirts, and then just strolled around the shops at the harbor. All in all it was a great day trip to Baltimore.