The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown Post

Lately my blog posts have been as elusive as the Great Pumpkin (great movie!) So in order to have an incredibly long post to catch up all 5 of you (that might be a generous estimate) who read this, here you go!

~After leaving DC, I spent some time in VA before Eric and I left for Florida. We had originally planned on a cruise to Italy with our friends Stu and Leslie, but the Army (deep sigh) decided that instead Eric was going to rigger school (thanks for that). So instead we made our way down to the 2^nd happiest place on earth, and spent 6 days in Orlando.

What made Orlando even better was the freak heat wave with temps in the mid 90’s during our entire stay, which wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t so humid. It was like trying to breathe in jello. I somehow convinced Eric that participating in a 10k through Walt Disney World was a really fun idea. So we signed up for the Race for the Taste, which started off at ESPN Wide World of Sports, then went through Hollywood Studios and ended up at Epcot. Despite the rancid humidity it was really fun running though the parks before they opened. And at the end you got to stroll through Epcot’s food and wine festival (which was delish!)

Before the race through Disney World (still smiling)

It was so humid that I felt the Army 10-miler the week before was much easier than this race...it was that gross.

Splash Mountain

Yay I finished the race AND I didn't get heatstroke!

Smiling through the stickiness!

I flew back to WA two days before Eric, and he spent time with our friends Gabe and Mari in Fayetteville. Where he came back with even more respect for Mari, and all the work it was with two little one’s while Gabe was away.

~Our husky, Bear decided to welcome me home by eating a rope or towel the next day while I was at work. That evening he started throwing up and getting sick every 20-30 minutes, after a call to the emergency vet at 1am, they told me to come in at 7am if he wasn’t any better. At 7 after neither of us going to sleep since he was still throwing up twice an hour I took him to the vet. After a long tense day of running tests, x-rays, barium drips, they determined that he needed to go to a 2^nd hospital to have a scope go down his stomach to see what was going on, and there they discovered a rope/piece of towel that was caught in his small intestine, so off he went into emergency surgery. Oh and I was supposed to be at the airport an hour away picking up Eric, so I thoughtfully rented him a car to pick up, then there was a blackout (I know seriously) at the airport and they were processing all car rentals by hand. So needless to say, it was a very long day. Bear came out of surgery and we picked him up the next day. The vet told us that if he hadn’t had surgery within the next 2 hours he wouldn’t have made it. Since we don’t have kids, our dogs are our kids to us, and its so hard watching them sick and hurt, I cannot even imagine what it is like when it’s your own child. But Bear pulled through and earned the new nickname Zipper Belly from my sister. He just got his staples out this weekend and he is back to new.

~ I finished my quarter of school and I have a glorious ten days off before I start again, but it is my last quarter and I will finish in January (huzzah). I spent last weekend at an intensive 2-day yoga-fit training in order to decide if teaching Yoga is something I am interested in, I learned a lot and I am able to teach level 1 yoga classes now, but I think I will continue towards my 200hr certification before I add one more thing to my plate.

~My sisters came down for a Halloween pumpkin carving contest, which Eric won (I think he got the pity vote since he was a novice) but it was a lot of fun to spend time with them. It is so nice to be close to family again~

Eric's awesome pumpkin

Yes my sisters and I dressed up, Eric was a party pooper

What I have a weird sense of humor...

Yay Eric won!