Salem Bathtub Tour 2007

Thanksgiving morning in Tucson at Casa de Clause--my mom's house

The Alaska Klan--our friends from AK who joined us for Turkey Day

Due to not feeling well, she didn't even eat a bite of Turkey

A kiss from her cousin who was trying to make her feel better

But this is how she really spent most of the days on the trip

Even her Mimi brought her a special bear for Christmas to cheer her up

What a trip, what a trip. We spent the past 2 weeks in AZ and what a joy it was! I mean that in both truthiness (Stephen Cobert's made up word) and also in complete sarcasm. As we were getting ready to leave for our trip, I came down with the stomach flu...bad, bad, very f'ing bad. Then, wouldn't you know, that as soon as we get there, Salem gets the same damn thing. After that, it was just a HUGE, HUGE chain reaction. Every one that we came in contact with on the trip got it. Andrew, my mom, stepdad, oh, and did I mention 25 out of the 40 people that were at my mom's house for Thanksgiving? Talk about feeling like crap. It's one thing for yourself to have it, but knowing that a shit ton of other people got it most likely from you.....makes you feel a little guilty.

This was her worst day ever on the trip at my cousin's house in Prescott. Pictured are my daddy and stepmom.

Anyways, besides Salem being sick for almost the whole trip and having the shits out of her car seat 10 x's, it was a GREAT TRIP!!! We called the week of traveling around to all of our friends and families homes across AZ: Salem's Bathtub Tour 2007 because she needed a clean rub down at each house we stopped at. It was embarassing. "Oh Hi Old Granny. I haven't seen you in over a year, but before we get to talking....could I use your nice, pretty white polished tub to clean the diarrhea off of my daughter from head to toe?" We spent days, upon days, reciting those exact words to every family member we came in contact with.

Just being in the presence of friends and family that you love and adore makes you forget about the humps in the road. I always wish I could have had more time to spend with each and every one of them. For those of you we were able to catch up with and those of you we wish we could have, we love you all and thank you for taking the time out of your busy lives and schedules to see us.

Aahhh....here we are dinning at my favorite Mexican food restaurant in AZ called La Parilla Suiza. This day we met up with HARB ( one of our B.F.F.'s that married us), his wife Teressa, Andrew's A-10 roomate in Tucson John Buske and his beautiful wife Lisa and thier baby girl. We laughed how I basically took up the whole picture like: Look at me, look at me!!! I had no S.A. that there were people behind me that needed to also be in the photo. Hhhmm...I'm sure you are all laughing right now that some things never change!! Hey, at least I can laugh at myself!

And Congrats to the Nelson family who welcomed a beautiful baby girl yesterday: Ms. Elliot Noel Nelson. We love you guys and it was great seeing you in Tucson! Give Sweet Elliot a kiss for us!

Our Cover Girl

Last week I signed a contract with The Picture People for them to use Salem as a model for the holidays. It wasn't guaranteed that they were going to use her, but flattering to say the least. So, on Thursday I took a hike into San Antonio to look for a dress for the holidays, when what to my wondering eyes did appear......But beautiful pictures of my sweet, Baby Salem lined up and framed inside The Picture People!!!! Me, being the out of control mother that at I, hysterically ran in there, was screaming at the top of my lungs at Salem to look at her adorable self, was throwing things out of my purse onto the floor to get to my phone to call Andrew, realized he was flying and couldn't answer my important phone call, opted to call my mom instead, threw more things out of my purse onto to floor to get to my camera, took pictures of the pictures, and walked out of there even more ready to shop than I was 2 minutes prior to all the madness...SHEWWW!

It doesn't end there.

Then, yesterday, I hosted playgroup at my house with all my girlfriends, and one of them came across pictures of Salem inside a different store!!! OH MY GOD!!! Maybe we're on to something here. Maybe she can become rich and famous, and Andrew and I could sit around on our asses for the rest of our lives and live off her her income. What? What's wrong with banking off of your own kid? Everyone's doing it. We could live lavishly, travel to PRIMO destinations, get Nip and Tucked from all the fantastic food and wine we could eat, and never have to lift a single finger again around the house.....Aaaahhhh.....what a life.

But NO. Instead, we're stuck in a little SLICE OF HEAVEN here in New Braunfels, Texas for the next two years with not a single snow covered mountain in sight. I don't understand why Texans refer to the state they live in as heaven. If this is what heaven looks like, I definitely don't want to go there. Alaska is where I want to be. I miss it there...sigh.

Natural Bridge Caverns

The bridge on the outside of the cave..where the name came from

If you are ever in the San Antonio area and looking for something to do, I highly recommend checking out the Natural Bridge Caverns. I took the kids (Salem + Andrew) there on Monday, and it was well worth it. I have to admit that I was skeptical at first...Caverns in New Braunfels, Texas, PLEASE! However, they were great and just as good as others I've seen in Utah and Colorado. If you have little ones, the only way to do it is with a hiker carrier..and that was even challenging. At some points, Andrew almost had to be on all floors to get through the low ceilings.



Salem, on the other, didn't much care for it. I think the darkness of it all, along with the rythem of Andrew carrying her, made her tired and she crashed out in the end game. Can't blame the poor kid. If I was as lucky to have someone lug me around like that, I would have fallen asleep too.

The Fern...only living thing inside the cave.


Bat dookie!







The best part about the whole experience was getting there right when they opened at 9:00 AM. We had our very own private tour and as we were leaving, lines of school buses were pulling in. I would have probably jumped over the 100 ft. railing in the cave and killed myself if I had to deal with a butt load of kids. Yikes!

13.1 Miles

I did it! Yesterday I ran my first (and hopefully not my last) half marathon. I had a blast, loved every sweaty step of it, and now, it makes me want to do a full. There's always that next step to achieve. Oneday, I want to work myself up to an IronMan. Mark my word,even if it means doing it in my 30-40's..I will!

My timing was okay. Now that I know what I'm in for, I feel that I can do better next time. My total time was 1:55:46. I placed 29th in my age group, 154th out of all the women, and 590 overall (men and women). That put my average pace at an 8:58 minute mile. My original goal was 2:00, so I'm definitely pleased with my results. Having not ran that far EVER in my life, I didn't really know what to expect.

I wore a sports bar, so unfortunately ,I don't have any marathon boobie shots like Katie Holmes did last weekend. Now how in the heck did she run without a bra? I wore one and my boobs are killing me this morning. I don't care if all you have are ant hills; we, as girls, know that you still need to sport one. My goodness!

Andrew didn't catch any photos during the race, so these were all taken after. We were laughing because the whole thing looks staged with not a single other person in sight.

Noel Scissorhands

Okay, it's been a few weeks since I took the plunge, so cut me a little slack on the photo. Let me just make it clear that up until almost 3 weeks ago, we hadn't trimmed our outside bushes...EVER. We have been in our home since March, our landscaping was put in in January, and it was the end of October by now; so you can only imagine what the front of our home looked like...CRAP. I was embarassed when I would be out front doing something and see a neighbor walk by. We have such a beautiful home and our yard looked ghetto. To even add to the ghettoness, we STILL have our trailer that we bought to move from AK sitting in our driveway with a HUGE FOR SALE sign on it. Andrew seems to think that it will just magically sell by sitting on our empty street with only 3 other neighbors on the entire block. Honey, I hate to break it to you, but I don't think so. If we had a vehicle that I could properly move the trailer to a for sale lot, I would do it for him.

Moving On.

I couldn't take the front yard any longer. Andrew didn't want to mess with it because really, he is lazy and afraid of what he might come across in such a jungle of a yard. He wanted to hire a crew to do it for us, but I wasn't about to pay someone $200 to spruce things up when we are perfectly capable of doing so ourselves. So, I got my ass out there and took care of business with these..... Yes, they are kitchen shears!

We don't own ANY yard tools, or other handy tools for that matter, so I did what I had to do with what I had. I really am proud of myself that I did such a thing and pat myself on the back whenever I am coming and going. People were literally driving by and watching what I was doing in their family minivans. It was by far the greatest forearm workout I have ever had.

Now if only I can get Andrew to move the damn trailer.....fat chance.

Wish you were BEER...I mean, HERE!

I've never seen anything like it. More beer flows at Wurstfest than it does on college campuses during Saturday football games. And, I would have to stay, that the average age of all the wasted people were also in their 70's, not 20's. I couldn't
believe what I was seeing. Trashed grandma's and papa's livin' and partying it up! I hope that Andrew and I are that cool when we get to be that age.



Speaking of Andrew, he enjoyed himself so much, that he went back for more. He
went with his friends on Saturday, and went back with Salem and I
yesterday. He is even talking about hitting it up a few more days this
week. I honestly haven't seen him this excited over something in a very
long time. A man extremely excited over sausage...should I be worried?


Thank goodness this festival only lasts 2 weeks a year. We would go into serious
debt if it went on any longer than it does. At $25 DOLLARS per pitcher
of beer, we couldn't afford to keep up with that. Andrew, himself, went
through 6 in 2 days..you do the math; and that was just on the BEER! He
alo managed to pack in 4 sausages, cheese sticks, and bread pudding.
Salem, I must admit, loved Wurstfest too. She loved the music and also found her daddy pretty entertaining. We took her to a puppet show and she ran around with Knox while all the parents stood back and slammed beers. I'm pretty sure that you could
only find something like this in Texas. Maybe if I was from here, I
wouldn't be as weirded out as I am. Do you think? All you Texans out
there explain this to me!

I'll keep you in the loop if Andrew makes it back there this week!
Otherwise, SALUTE TO SAUSAGE!!!

Salem and her daddy flirting at the puppet show together!

Wurstfest Run, Purses, and X-Mas

Random. I have been promising my mom pictures of a purse I bought for her for weeks, along with the cards I made for her for Christmas to send out to people. Hope you like them Momma!

Along with all of that, I did a Annual 5 mile Sausagefest Run this morning! Wurstfest is finally here which makes everyone in this huge sausage and beer craze-faze. For all the runners, they had free sausages and ALL YOU COULD DRINK FOR FREE (yes, you heard it right) BEER starting at 8 am this morning. I wish I would have taken pictures of all these tired/sweaty runners standing in line waiting for their beers. I couldn't bring myself to do such a thing. After 5 miles, all I wanted was some water.

My girlfriend, Janelle (a.k.a. Knox's Mommy), ran it with me and kicked my ass. I set a goal for 45 and ran it in 41 ....so, I was pretty happy with that. Next week is the 1/2 marathon; which I am totally DREADING by the way.

We are heading back to the Wurstfest festivities this weekend, so stay tuned for a crap ton of drunken photos of various random people. Hopefully I'll be able to capture a few classics!

Indians, Tigers, Dragons, Monkeys, Kittens, and Skunks....OH MY!

Halloween was fun and Salem was the life of the neighborhood block party. She ran, laughed, laughed, and ran, for 3 hours straight. She doesn't try to get into anything, but more or less just enjoys running back and fourth. Some of the kids were crying because they didn't want to wear their costumes, Knox threw up from eating too many treats, others were sitting in spilt beer that their drunken parents spilled, one was eating play-doh that was being handed out, and Salem was..just running! What isn't there to love about halloween...seriously?

only months ago