Weekend Update

Today’s update is brought to you by procrastination! I am the worlds most amazing procrastinator…having said that let me catch you up to speed on this weekends highlights. On Saturday Greg and I took the two buses up to get the car and were delighted to see our bill of $0.00! We then drove home and took a long nap and waited for Greg’s cousin Rae to get in to town. Rae got here around 8:30pm and we went to dinner and walked the Promenade. After we got back we spent hours catching up which was a lot of fun! The next morning we woke up and went for a wonderful bike ride, Greg and I didn’t make it too far since we weren’t feeling all that well but Rae got in a really good ride. Once she got back from her ride we went to lunch, and then Rae was kind enough to trim my hair for me! Unfortunately after her short trip it was time for Rae to go but we had such a great time visiting with her. Pico especially loved the visit since Rae was nice enough to share her air bed with him. Well I better get back to work…

Greg took pictures of me getting a hair cut...so I decided to post at least one of them!

What a week...

Monday was Greg’s birthday and to tell you the truth I think that I may have been more excited then he was. You see I am 7 months older than Greg and the only time he let’s me forget it is when he catches up to me in April. So on this glorious day I woke up knowing that I had 5 months ahead of me where I wouldn’t be hearing about how I robbed the cradle. Mind you he is the one who bribed me with poetry and ice cream. So after getting some chores done around the house I head out to the gym. As I am driving along all of a sudden the car stops…and I mean stops dead in its tracks, I cannot get the clutch or the break in and am currently in the middle of the intersection. Thank goodness for adrenal glands. My adrenalin kicks in and with the upmost of speed I grind the car into neutral jump out and push the car into an open parking spot on the side of the road! I then call Greg and let him know that for his birthday I am pretty sure I will be getting him a new clutch. After hanging up with him I call the insurance company to get a tow truck, the customer service person informs me that they only cover 11 miles of towing and that the nearest dealership is about 20 miles away… meaning that I will have to pay for everything over my 11 miles. No problem…what else am I going to do I am in this enormous city and we only have one car! . So there I am on the side of the road in sweats in 87 degree weather telling myself how dumb it was that I didn’t bring a water bottle and how grateful I was that I had at least put on a little makeup, and playing solitaire on my phone for at least and hour…

Once the tow truck guy gets there he informs me that it is not just 20 miles away that it is 31 miles away and that my total will be $163 and some change. I paid the bill and walked home, by now I had just enough time to get home and do the dishes and catch a bus up to UCLA for Greg’s birthday dinner. As I am getting ready I realize that my knee is swollen and bruised vary badly and I remember my knees going into the dash when the car stopped. However it is too hot to wear my beloved jeans so I put on some sparkly grapefruit lotion and a pair of shorts and hope that no one notices this hideous bruise on my knee. Once I get to Greg’s office he notices right away. Needless to say after all of this Greg and I both get sick and spend several days in bed. Now that we are both feeling better we are going to pick the car up tomorrow. Turns out it was a warranty issue and our clutch did not go out! The bad news is that I talked myself up saying that I was going to make them come pick us up and ask them to pay for the tow. However their shuttle only does a five mile loop, so we will be taking 2 buses to get to the car dealership… I know I should have pushed that one a little more. I have not asked about the towing bill but I know that they are also expecting $98 for figuring out what was wrong with our car…I will post later as to what happens on our journey tomorrow until then thank you for letting me vent! Oh and here are some recent pictures of Pico and some flowers I bought at the farmers market!

Apparently we have never taken a full photo of the car on our digital camera...although thanks to Greg's grandma we have several on film...but it is late and I didn't feel like scanning them in!


Precious!!!!!!!!


They smelled fantastic!


What an amazing life! Food, sleep and playtime...plus I am pretty sure he loves his feather bed!

How did this happen?

It has recently come to my attention that I am old…and not just me but also my husband. Some how over night 24 years old is old! While sitting in one of my classes I overheard a girl saying how excited she was to turn 18 and then she proceeds to let me know that I have laugh lines. So while Greg and I were home this weekend we started thinking about it…here are some of the things we discovered:

1) We like 8 hours of sleep.

2) We are in bed by 10 every night.

3) If we go to Burger King we know exactly what we want…without looking at a menu, here is a conversation we had at Burger King a few days ago. Keep in mind that this is 10:30am and we hadn’t had breakfast. Also only the breakfast menu is up at the drive through.

~ “Hello welcome to Burger King may I take your order?”

~”Hi are you serving lunch?”

~”We are serving breakfast and lunch.”

~ “We would like two number 6’s off of the lunch menu, both with diet coke and both without mayonnaise.”

~ “Off the lunch menu?”

~ (Greg didn’t understand her so I yell across the car) “Ya off of the lunch menu!”

~ We then get to the window and ask for 3 different kinds of sauces.

4) I have started clipping coupons… in fact I am rather obsessed with this new hobby.

5) We use denture cleaner…it is to clean our night guards but still we buy and use denture cleaner!

6) Greg is going bald…or at least his hair is not quite as thick as it once was.

7) We don’t know any of the songs on the music countdowns.

8) Our backs hurt…and my hip hurts…and any given moment something else might hurt.

This is just eight of the many examples we came up with. Wait one more last night before bed the last thing that we talked about was writing our wills and what to do with our remains…yup that about covers it. We are officially old!

The old couple...

Easter Weekend....

Whew! Well we are back from another whirl wind adventure to Joshua Tree. Unfortunately on my last post I was trying so hard to get the post up that I left out some important details. The first being that, that particular trip was Greg’s and my first backpacking adventure, the second being that we were only out there for one day but we learned some very important lessons on backpacking. Some of these include that you can survive on granola bars you just don’t necessarily feel that great afterwards. Also try to camp when it is a new moon…the stars are unbelievable. On our most recent adventure to Joshua Tree we went with some friends of Greg’s from work. They were gracious enough to do the driving and picked us up around eight in the morning. It took us about two and a half hours to get there and we were very glad that we had our annual pass to get into the park…the line was very long but we showed them our pass and got to pass a lot of the cars that were in line! Once we were there we all put on our gear, as you can see below apparently Greg saw the pictures of the last trip and decided that I wasn’t pulling my weight… We hiked for a few hours and noticed clouds rolling in and decided we should set up camp just in case. Once camp was set up we ate some lunch and decided that if we were going to get any more hiking in now was our chance. We hiked for six miles and decided to turn back as we were running low on water. Once back to camp Ian and Betsy (Greg’s friends) pulled out their handy dandy camp stove and proceeded to make Thai food for dinner! After seeing their fancy set up Greg and I are definitely considering getting one of our own. After dinner we made an Easter dessert…bunny peep s'mores, and we also drank hot coco! It was a fantastic evening! We went to bed early as it got quite cold (below freezing) and woke up the next day and hiked back out. Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter and enjoy some more pictures of Joshua Tree National Park!



I promise the only thing more that he is carrying that I wasn't was the tent...but I do appreciate him carrying that!


Well this pack is a lot bigger than my last pack. Plus that strap around the middle does nothing for my recent weight loss! What a great time though!


Our campsite!


Getting ready for lunch!


Some of the beautiful desert blooms.


A cluster of Joshua tree's.


Tent sweet tent...and the sleeping bags went to the right people this time!


Ian and Betsy making our Thai food...yum!


He skinned his bunny peep! But seems to be enjoying his s'more.


Waking up I found this...a mummified Greg!


The view of the Joshua Tree forest from the trail.


Keys View...This picture does not do the view here justice. Breathtaking!


Whew! We made it...it looks like someone pulled the hat all the way over my head!

Last week...This week and whatever was in between!

We had a wonderful trip to Joshua Tree. It was basic and quick but very fun. We hiked in set up camp spent the night and hiked out. However as many of you know, or maybe you don’t know Greg and I really get a kick out of each other. During this trip we found ourselves in one of those situations. Believe it or not it was very cold that night and so Greg climbed in the tent first zipped up his mummy bag and then I climbed in the tent and got into mine. He kept saying how cold his nose was and I was commenting on how I could move all around in mine, due to all the space there was. About 45 minutes later after chit chatting about various other things going on in our lives I sat up and turned on my headlamp and just happened to glance at my sleeping bag tag…”Why is my bag an x-tra long,” I asked at which point Greg sat up and realized his was a Wshort…women's short! On one of our trips our bags had gotten mixed up and neither one of us noticed. Needless to say we switched and he was able to cover his nose and well I didn’t have nearly as much room. We both got a good laugh at that. The next day we hiked out and headed back to our busy lives. I had mid terms this week and Greg was busy grading and observing on Keck. This week I have spring break and I am so happy about that! I am exhausted and need a break. The fun thing is that Greg and I are headed out tomorrow back to Joshua Tree for some more camping! I checked this time though and both our sleeping bags are in the correct bag. Till next time!!! (Yes, I know this one took a long time to write...I am really trying to get better at posting on a more regular basis...thanks for sticking with me!)

The flowers were blooming and they were so pretty!


Home sweet home!


"hmmm, maybe we passed it?"...he is so cute with his little red beard!


Wow! I lucked out...


Got the "mule" loaded up and ready to go!