I'm moving!!!

So, it's official. . .I'm moving out of my cursed apartment! Yippee!!! The duplex came through, and I'll be able to move in sometime after getting back from Kansas City. I've already had tons of people offer to help move and let me use their trucks (no U-Haul for this move :) ) , and there is word going around of a barbeque to kick off my new little backyard. I'm VERY excited! Plus, since it's on ground level DDR will live again. Just wait till the LC Valley gets a taste of the master :) So, our Seattle friends will actually have room to stay with me now. Just ask my family how much room there is for everybody in my current dwelling!

This weekend we began our Washington Sonic experience, and it was fabulous. I found two more pillows for my couch and two pairs of sunglasses (hoping that with two I'll make it through the rest of the summer without losing or breaking them). Then we came back and played poker with some of my friends from work. I may not play poker very well, but I was sure lucky!! I almost took it all but lost on the last hand--an all-in round to finish off the game. Sunday we ran tons of errands to get ready to leave on Friday. We have also been watching the "Into the West" series that was on TV last year. It is really good and gives a more in-depth perspective of how white people basically decimated native american culture. Sad, very sad. It also portrays Quantrail's raid on Lawrence, and I must admit I got pretty pissed and a little teary-eyed. How dare those horrible people come into a town, kill everyone, burn it down, and enjoy every minute of it? Sick, very sick. We saw Nacho Libre last night. . .not exactly my type of flick, but wondering what Raoul's bro thought of the movie?

Tomorrow is an exciting, much anticipated night. . .Superman opens for a 10:00 pm showing in Lewiston, and Raoul and I are going! There is much else to do--lots of laundry, packing, continuing my dedication to exercise, having dinner with my boss's family sometime this week. . .so much to do, so little time. Too bad I don't have multiple personalities :)

Another weekend excursion ahead!

So, as you've all probably read from other blogs by now, we returned from Seattle after a quick weekend of fun with Matt and Emily. Since their stuff actually arrived while we were there, we got to lend a hand helping unpack. Well, I unpacked a lot. . .I think Raoul became the regular "take the empty boxes outside" guy. Plus, we visited Ikea, Target, and other wonderful locations that I am not able to frequent as much as I'd like. Sometimes living in a smaller town is really nice. . .but I definitely miss the conveniences of a big city. So, I informed Raoul that he'd just have to work really hard so that he could get a job in Seattle after he's done in Pullman :) Overall a great weekend, and I'm excited to get to spend more time with our fellow Washingtonians in the future.

After having a couple of weeks of being slow at work, things have decided to pick back up again. We got 8 home health referrals this week, with 3 more on the way this weekend. That pretty much doubles our existing patient load and puts us back to our more "normal" number of patients. Good thing I took advantage of the "slow" time when I had it because otherwise there would be an insane stack of papers on my desk that I would have never gotten through. We're prepping right now to get things set up so that everything is covered while I'm gone after next week. Thank goodness Chris is coming back soon. . .July 10th! I celebrated my 11 mo. anniversary in the working world a couple of days ago. It's hard to believe that things have flown by so quickly!

In housing news. . .I checked out a duplex for rent a couple of days ago. Raoul and I are going to check it out again on Sunday, but then it looks like I'll be getting out of this cursed apartment. This duplex is definitely stuck in the '70s (aka gold appliances, a pink shower, dark cheap wood cabinets) but it does have a garage, all appliances (including a garbage disposal. . .yippee!) and a small fenced in yard. That would be perfect for the corgi puppy that might be negotiable according to the owner of the property. I'm not trying to get ahead of myself, though, so I'll fill everyone in more after a decision is made one way or the other.

Raoul and I are going to Spokane on Saturday so that we can go to (drumroll please) . . .SONIC!!! Yes, Spokane is the first city in Washington to have a Sonic drive-through. And yes, it is completely reasonable to drive 2 hours to partake in this fantastic achievement! I haven't had a cherry limeade in SOOOO long. In fact I may have to write a poem to put into words the love I have for this wonderful drink. Stay tuned for more. . .

Back to Work Again!

To pick up where I left off in my last post, my parents, brother and I spent our last day together taking a nice drive up the clearwater river to check out some rafting places for their next visit out here. It was a beautiful day, and we found a neat little tea room in Kamiah (pronounced Kam-e-eye) that had soups/salads/sandwiches and makes there own homemade bread. Yummy! Then they left to drive up to Spokane and fly home to Kansas. Overall it was a very fun trip. . .too short, but fun.

Then it was back to work again. I worked last weekend, so it was like I went straight back to working a whole week. Working on the weekends can be a bit challenging (since that means we work 12 days in a row) but it does give me some extra money to pay for all those plane tickets to come home to Kansas! Things have been rolling right on, but Raoul and I are off to Seattle this weekend to see our friends Matt and Emily who just moved there. We love Seattle!

So I have finally resolved to stop putting it off and start getting healthier. I've started doing 60 minutes of cardio 3-4 times a week and add in some weight training a couple of days a week as well. I haven't had a soda in over a week, and I am attempting to weed out a lot of my usual fast food and dessert runs. Summer is definitely the time to do it. . .I'm usually not as hungry as in the winter, and it's nice enough to exercise outside. Starting a habit is definitely hard, but it's time I buckled down and did it.

My new TV obsession is "So you think you can dance". Yes, it's like American Idol, and yes it can definitely be cheezy at times, but there are some really talented people out there! Plus, since I can't dance to save my life (except for line dancing) it's really cool to see what others can do! In other entertainment news, Raoul and I watched "To Be or Not to Be" with Mel Brooks last weekend, and I really liked it. It was definitely more serious than his other films, but maybe that's why I liked it so much. We've also checked out "The Breakup", which I really don't recommend. The beginning is pretty funny and then it just gets. . .really awkward :( The ending leaves much to be desired, and Vince Vaughn stops being funny after about 45 minutes. If you have to see it, wait till video. I'd like to see "Prairie Home Companion" and "Cars" sometime soon, so hopefully they will be a better flick than that disappointing waste of money I saw last weekend. Also, something to look forward to. . .Garrison Keeler and Prairie Home Companion is coming to WSU in October and Raoul and I are definitely getting tickets!!!

That's all for now. We're off to Seattle on Friday, back for two weeks and then it's off to the east coast! Looking forward to seeing everyone there!

Fun with the Family!

Things have been busy. . .very busy! Once we got back from Portland things just kept going and haven't stopped yet. First, I helped out with the first aid tent at the NAIA world series. . .which Lewis Clark State College won! Go Warriors! I had a goodbye party to attend for a co-worker and New Membership class at church to attend. Then my sister and her boyfriend came into town. They got the grand tour of the clinic and we showed them around town. . .which takes all of 10 minutes. :)

Friday, things really got started. We left early in the morning for Wallowa Lake State Park. Upon arriving, our bad luck with weather began. It drizzled all day, so we did a couple of short 3 mile hikes to stay close to the base of the mountain in case the weather worsened. We stopped off at a waterfall that had overrun the bridge due to the high water level from the snow beginning to melt. After a few pictures we returned to make camp. My sister just happens to be the camping expert (which is funny since she never liked camping as a kid) so she helped direct setting up the tent and building the fire. Well, it was more than a fire. . .more like an 8 hour long inferno! It was cold and rainy, so the fire was a very welcome addition to camp. We cooked burgers and made s'mores before heading to bed pretty late that night. We woke up to damp sleeping bags after shivering all night. . .not exactly ideal camping conditions. We tore down camp and went to begin our day's activities. We had planned on riding the tram up to the mountain peak for some fantastic views, but fog and snow ended that idea. So, we took an hour horse trailride. It was pretty cool, and I was definitely impressed at how good the horses were at navigating the tough rocky inclines. We took a quick ride on the go carts, and then we headed into town for a late lunch. By the end of all of this we were exhausted so we left for home to meet my parents when they made it into Clarkston.

Sunday my whole family went to church and then spent the day checking out the Lewis and Clark and Nez Perce museums. Both were very interesting, and I learned that navigating through Idaho was a nightmare for Lewis and Clark due to the Bitterroot mountain range. Good to know that our area contributed to the worst pain and sufferring on their entire journey. :) We had cake to celebrate both Karen and Joe's birthdays and then went bowling with the family. We set up girls vs. boys and although the boys eventually won out after 3 games, we held our own pretty well. Then we pretty much crashed because Karen and Joe were flying out at 7:00 am Monday morning.

I dropped them off at the airport early and then went into work for the morning. I met up with Raoul, my parents, and my brother for a jet boat tour of Hells Canyon at noon. We had done the tour last summer with just my parents and I, but Raoul and Preston had never seen it. Definitely cool to see again, and a very relaxing boat ride. We even saw some mountain sheep! I took them all by the office so that they could meet my co-workers and see where I spend the majority of my time and then came home to clean up so my parents would have a decent place to sleep. Tonight we are going to have dinner with my boss and his wife, so I am excited that my family will get to meet them.

Pictures to come soon on my facebook and more posting on the end of family fun in a couple of days.