A little BONUS

Today at work I got awarded with a little bonus which included; theater gift cards, lots of candy, a nice bonus for my paycheck and most importantly....my very own PARKING SPACE. The closest to the entrance. Usually I wouldn't care much for a parking spot but after waking up to this last Saturday...

I'm totally excited. It's no trip to Hawaii like Sam and Kyrsten but I'll take it.

I'm not a killer

A couple of days ago our good friend Beav went missing. For those of you who don't know about Beav he is a friendly frog who has been living in our basement for the last couple of months. I panicked after realizing the last time I saw him was before doing two loads of laundry both containing clorox. I've been avoiding using clorox so as not to hurt Beav since he lives in the drain for our washing machine. But I added the clorox without thinking. And for two days Beav was missing leaving a slight fishy smell behind. I thought for sure I had killed him.

He's a trooper, he survived the clorox and he's back to his usual spot and doing great.

not again

This is the second time we've been locked out of the house. The first time was my fault and the windows were painted shut so I took my bike to DMU in search of Brad, lucky enough he was walking by as I was pulling in I got his spare key and was good to go. The second time neither of us had the key. This time the windows were no longer painted shut but I had locked all but the bathroom window. Hopefully it doesn't happen again because we are running out of ways to get in.

Official Countdown

I can't believe how fast September flew by. Brad and I have been busy spending every spare minute thanks to medical school Brad has very few spare minutes celebrating our Birthday's. Thank you for all the birthday wishes.

And now we get to look forward to DECEMBER, only 81 more days until Christmas Break. Thanks to Brad I almost have everything I need for our Christmas vacation, more specifically for our one year anniversary in the mountains.

NEW SKIIS CHECK

AWESOME BINDINGS

FOR CLIMBING AND SKIING CHECK

SKINS also for climbing CHECK

BACKPACK FOR ALL MY GEAR

INCLUDING AN AVALUNG

THIS COULD POTENTIALLY SAVE MY LIFE INCASE

I GOT CAUGHT IN AN AVALANCHE, CHECK

STOVE MY DAD IS BUILDING

THIS WILL KEEP US NICE AND WARM IN THE WALL TENT

CHECK

And now I just need to get in shape so I can keep up with Brad

And start reading Brad's books about avalanche training and saftey.

Trapped in my own house...

It all started as a typical saturday morning. Brad and I made some delicious puffy pancakes, played a couple rounds of wake boarding on the wii, then went for a bike ride down town. I stopped at the library and picked up a couple good books I'd been wanting to read and we made our way back. I went home and Brad continued to DMU hoping to get some studding done. I was eager to start reading so that's what I did instead of finishing the rest of the stuff I needed to do around the house. I was enjoying the new book I had gotten from the library when suddenly I heard voices outside. I didn't think much of it. Maybe it was our neighbors or maybe just some people walking by. But the noises continued so I finally looked out side to find the workers our landlord had hired were finally back to finish a job started five months ago. Four men started walking around investigating the house. They never tell us when there coming and I hate the feeling of people lingering outside the windows.

A couple weeks ago I called our landlord hoping he'd clean the mess he'd left in our garage and we could have things back to normal. I hate complaining about all this but it's gone on all summer and now that it's cool outside we can't even open our windows to air out this old ghetto place because the screens are gone and the windows painted shut. When the last guy came to do some painting he left buckets all over the garage and a huge mess, blocking our bikes and everything else in. Brad has cleaned up after them several times. Our garage is also full of storm windows and other tools and ladders they decided to store in there. I could go on forever with all of these annoying things but I wont.

You would think I'd be happy to have them here since they haven't made any progress for a month, but I'm not.

Our duplex is already too small. Now I have creepy men going around every window looking in and banging on everything they see, thinking of new things they want to fix, might think about fixing and in the end they'll probably start working on but never finish. Did I mention my car is blocked in so I can't leave.

So here I am listing to crazy voices wishing I had gotten everything done I needed to do so I could go to a nearby park and read my book in peace.

New Pet

I've had mice, spiders, crickets and all those other typical unwanted guests in my basements over the years. But I can honestly say this is the first time I've had a frog.

I'm not quite sure what to think.

If you can't tell we have the most annoying washing machine set up you can think of. The land lord stuck the washing machine in there with an open pipe that drains onto the floor of the basement into our floor drain with another hose going in. I'm not sure what the other hose is for but of course the water splashes up from the washing machine so we have to keep anything we have stored down there far enough away it wont get wet. I'm sure our new pet loves our washing machine arrangement and I can't complain because at least I don't have to go to the laundromat.

So any suggestions on a name?

Thinking about....

How wonderful it will be when I have trucks and grip tape for my newly made longboard.

Or when I finally get my bindings mounted and can enjoying a beautiful day of fresh powder. It's such a tough life having all these amazing new toys and not being able to use them.

I'm already counting the days until we get to go home to IDAHO and UTAH. I can't wait to see the mountains, family and play in the snow. But until then I'll enjoy this beautiful sunny Des Moines weather and go for a bike ride.