Cancun anniversary trip 2011

For our trip we decided to try an all-inclusive resort instead of a cruise just to see the difference. It was kinda a last minute trip since I could tell that John was getting burned out from work and I knew he wanted to get away. Since it was only a couple months of planning we wanted to go somewhere cheap, but warm.
I did so so SO SO much research for resorts, so much that I thought my eyeballs would melt out of my head. We used bookit.com and I highly recommend it, it was our first trip where something didn't go wrong and ran so smoothly.

We stayed at the Fiesta Americana Condesa Cancun and it was wonderful. We were upgraded from a lagoon view to an ocean view room for no extra price and the room was very clean and updated.

The view of our resort from the beach.

This is the view lagoon side of the lobby of the resort, it's all open and beautiful!  You can have that kind of stuff when it's never below 80 degrees year round. 

The whole resort is open, so you're inside and outside at the same time...make sense? This is what we saw when we opened our door to our room. The gardens were beautiful.

This is the ocean view from our patio.

This trip was planned for more of a relaxing getaway, so we didn't want to spend much time away from the resort. 

Monday the 12th we arrived and were done with check-in around 5 PM. We ate some dinner and waited for the evening show to start, a recreation of Micheal Jackson. 

Tuesday we spent the whole day on the beach. My idea of a perfect vacation.

 John's the one in the middle fighting the waves. 

Wednesday we went para-sailing, something neither of us had done before. It was very fun, but really windy.

Like I said, it was WAY windy!

Looking down at the boat!

Then it was back to the beach to soak up more sun!

Thursday, our anniversary, was our busiest day. We took a submarine ride to see the fish in the morning, it was very nice even though half the boat got sick. We got a lot of pictures, but the fish are hard to see so I won't post any.
After the sub ride, we walked down to some ruins on the hotel zone strip. It was a 45 minute walk, so we took the bus back to the resort.
The ruins were really cool, but my favorite part was all the iguanas roaming the grounds. John is scared of them and I wanted to take one home!

When we got back from the ruins, we got ready for our splurge of the trip. We set up a couple's massage and dinner on the beach. This was my favorite part of the trip and oh, so relaxing!

This is where we had our massages, but it was in the evening.

After the massage, we had our dinner. It was magical! This isn't us eating since I forgot my camera, but this is exactly what it looked like. We watched cruise ships sail by and enjoyed the sea breeze.

Coming back to our room greeted us with a nice surprise. Happy anniversary to us!

Friday was our shopping day. Just a little note, stay away from Lapis Jewelry if you don't want to be suffocated. We got complimentary shuttle into the shopping district from them so it's not like we could just leave and we did spend some money there.

Saturday we got up early to get to the airport and traveled home. Our house sitters and good friends, Jonessa and Derek, picked us up from the airport and took us home.
When Jonessa let the dogs out to see us they were more happy to see Derek and her. :) looks like Makoa added two more people to his little circle.
Winston was picked up from the boarding kennel later that evening.

It was such a nice, relaxing trip and John and I want to go back so badly!

New furniture

Santa made an unexpected stop at our house on the 22nd and brought us new furniture.
Furniture Warehouse is going out of business and since I HATED our table (more like patio furniture) and was having a hard time finding a table I liked for a price I liked we decided to see what they had.

We came out with a new table. I love the fact that it's not round and that the seats don't have cushions so Sophi hair doesn't get stuck on them. We have more room now and the table could be more centered in the room, but John wants it against the wall.

We also bought a new rug, I had huge buyers remorse on the way home. I was worried that it wouldn't match our chairs and since they're going out of business I couldn't return it if I decided I didn't like it. Once John rolled it out I was in love.

John finished the coffee table and put the glass in, I won't mention that he broke the glass and I was furious...

I promise Cancun is coming, all the pictures are at home and these pictures were on my phone so I could type the post while at work.

Our bedroom has gone to the dogs

Winston seems to have caught a cold from boarding, so last night when he looked so peaceful in the dog bed I decided to let him stay the night instead of having to sleep in his crate.

Enna, of course, was pissed that her bed was taken by the big lug and was NOT going to share. She kept trying to curl up on our bed, so I brought up the small bed from downstairs. She laid on it, but was giving me the death stare.

Makoa loves to cuddle with whoever will have him so he tried next to Winston at first.

After he kept getting kicked he decided that he'd rather sleep next to the much smaller Enna and that's where everyone stayed the rest of the night.

So it looks like my "big bed for all three dogs" isn't panning out they way I'd like it to, mostly because Winston doesn't curl up like the other two. Oh well.
It took two years for me to feel comfortable letting Enna and Makoa sleep unconfined, but with how clam and well behaved Winston is I wasn't worried. He was a champ and didn't move all night. I thought that he'd for sure follow John out in the morning, but he stayed put with the other dogs. Even when I got up he stayed in bed for another 10 minutes. This all could be because he's not feeling well though....

I promise that Cancun pictures and post are coming, I've just been pretty busy getting ready for Christmas.

New desk

John was a busy boy last weekend and finished the computer desk and our coffee table. I'm waiting to post pictures of the coffee table until we get the glass top in, that should hopefully be this week.

The desk is pretty big, even bigger looking since my lap top will not be on it 90% of the time since I use it down in the family room. Maybe one day I'll get a desk top computer and it'll fill up some space. I lost some of my storage since it has no shelving under it. I'll be heading to Ikea to remedy that.

Here are my adorable "Wookie The Chew" from James Hance art. I've had it for almost a year and framed for about 6 months, but they just barely went up in the office last weekend. John is very particular about how pictures are hung espesically if they're in sets so I had to wait for him to pull out his levels and tape measures. That little, messy desk in the corner is my old computer desk that has been with me since the college days. I'll be selling in on KSL when we get back from Cancun.
 Oh did I tell you? We'll be in Cancun next week and out of this darn cold! My good friends Jonessa & Derek will be house/dog sitting for us while we're gone.

New Bedding...again

You may be feeling like I bought new bedding for our bedroom about a year ago and you'd be right, I did. A piece of crap bedding set that I hated before I even got it in the mail because of the negative reviews that weren't posted until after I bought the non-returnable set.
I was finally done with it, it was falling apart so bad that the bed looked just as awful made as it did unmade.

I did want to change the color scheme in the bedroom to grey and white, but changed my mind and stayed with tan and chocolate. I picked out 8 sets I liked after looking through reviews and making sure they were machine washable and then had John narrow it down.

 

I really like it so let's hope it actually stands up to two people, 2 1/2 dogs (Winston can't get up on the bed yet and I hope he never does) and 1 cat. 

The hope chest in the picture is from my grandma's house, once I get around to it I'd like to reupholster the seat, paint the chest black and update the hardware. I've wanted a bench at the foot of the bed for a while and this fits perfectly, just doesn't match to well with the rest of the room right now.

Enna's puppy update and the shipping debacle

It has taken a long time for Pup pup's (AKA Kuma) owners to get me pictures, I had to finally start begging. Since I'm a pictureaholic when it comes to my pets it's hard for me to realize that others aren't. But now that I have finally pictures of Pup I'll post the story of how I got him to D.C.

I told Pup's new owners that I wouldn't book a flight for him until I had their check and it was cashed, so they sent the check and I got it the night before they wanted him shipped. When John went to deposit it he got funny looks from the teller and she left to the backroom not saying a word to him.
She brought out her manager with him and they told John that the bank the cashier's check was from no longer existed and thought John was trying to pull a fast one on them. After explaining the situation to them they realized that John wasn't trying to screw them, but then worried that we might get screwed over. They tried to call the bank that bought out the no longer existing bank, but weren't having much luck since it was Thursday night and everyone on the east coast had gone home for the day. It was really crappy calling Anita, Pup's owner, to tell her that I couldn't put Pup on the plane without the check going through. She understood, but was kind of upset. I would have been too.

Friday the bank called and said that the check was okay to cash and everything was in the clear, so I started trying to book Pup's flight. With dogs being shipped you have to call the cargo department of the airline to book. You have to have the address, phone number and name of the person picking up the dog, the weight of the dog in the carrier, the flight number you want and know the airport code for the destination. You also have to have a flight health exam done by the vet and bring the papers with you when checking the dog.
Luckily I knew all this from shipping Garner and Enna to Texas, but finding an airline that did a non-stop flight that could be booked only hours before the flight was the hard part. After calling multiple airlines and being put on hold numerous times I got the flight booked and was ready to roll.

John was going hiking up the Aspen Grove Trail in Provo/Orem and to do so meant that he needed to leave the night before Pup's flight and stay the night at his grandparents. I was not happy about spending the evening alone with 4 dogs since Pup would go into a barking frenzy at Winston who would then try to play and then Makoa had to police the playing and would get into a scuffle with Winston. It was a nightmare trying to keep everyone apart, but somehow I managed. I probably lucked out and everyone just slept, but it's been so long that I don't remember since I sent him to DC September 3rd.

Saturday morning came and I had to be at the airport at 6AM so pup could get to his flight on time. I wasn't too worried since I knew how to actually get to the building and when sending Enna it only took a matter of minutes so I could back into bed in no time.
When I get there the guy behind the counter was new and the billing machine was printing in Chinese. Nice. At one point the poor boy was on 3 phones at once trying to get it to work. It was getting really hard to say goodbye to Pup Pup the longer I stood there and heard him crying in his crate. 45 minutes later he charged my card the old fashion way by running it under one of those sliding boards, I didn't know they still had those, and I was finally on my way home.

I then waited very nervously for the phone call from his new owners to say he arrived safely. He was suppose to be there at noon our time, that time came and went and I thought maybe they were driving home, then they'd call. When 2:00 rolled around I was getting nervous and tried to call all the numbers I was given to get a hold of someone to tell me this puppy was safe and no one was answering. I then started calling the airlines, but they were no help. I was in a complete tizzy by 3:30 when Anita finally called me to tell me that they had Pup pup, she said that she emailed me right after, but it went to my work email. I was just so relieved.

So I finally thought everything was hunky dorry, but then after a couple days I checked my banking account and the airlines charged me twice. Calling someone to deal with this is the most rediculous thing I have ever had to deal with and was transfered at least 8 times where I had to leave a voicemail. I still didn't get a call back the next day so I called the final number I was given where I was rudely helped by Ms. Grumpy Butt. She told me that there was nothing they could do until the billing showed up in their system which would be at least a month, I even offered to have my bank call then but that was a no go. I was furious and was going to have John call them the next day, but when he checked the banking account then we had NO charges for the airlines. I figured that I got free shipping since dealing with that airlines was such a pain and I wasn't going to call them to tell them their mistake. I did send a nasty email to the airlines complaining about the situation, but I have yet to hear back from them....

Anywho, here are pictures of Pup at 5 months old. He looks so much like his mama and I'm excited to see him grow! I'm told that I'll get more soon, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm not sure why everything Klee Kai related in my life has to be so difficult! Winston's breeder is a dream to work with, but of course I never have to contact her!

Here are pictures of John and Makoa on the hike they took that day. Makoa was so exhausted after the hike that he didn't move except from dog bed to dog bed for two days.



They were almost done with the hike in this last picture. John said that everytime they stopped to rest Makoa would lay down and then when they started walking again he'd have to call Makoa a couple times to get him to stand up and continue. What a little trooper. He was also so muddy that he wasn't really white anymore, but I felt so bad for him I didn't want to make him stand in the bathtub for a bath so I let him stay dirty.

Opertion Clean-up Craft Room

I hunkered down Saturday night and cleaned up my craft room that hadn't been touched (except to put more crap in it to store) for over a year.
It really wasn't that bad since I've never been much of a "keeper of things" so it didn't take long to get it back into livable status, only about 2 hours or so while watching 28 Days.

I found the cheapo DVD player that I swore on Halloween was stolen in the last break-in, it was really just hiding under a puzzle John started years ago. John also started working on the puzzle again while I cleaned :).
I found WAY too many cable TV cords, how in the world did we get so many when we only have two TVs? What do you do with an abundance of cable cords?
I found a few dead spiders (no alive ones), less that I actually thought I would, but two big buggers that got sucked up into the vacuum. I came prepared though and was wearing long sleeves, long pants, socks and gloves, no brown recluse bites for me!
I threw away a really big bag of trash and finally vacuumed up the glass from the broken window. I gathered up all the old gaming systems, put them in their own plastic bags and posted them on KSL.

Now before you look at these pictures don't expect the best craft room you have ever seen. I don't have enough storage for all the fabric so it's still in plastic bags and I have a lot of unfinished projects that got moved to my sewing table. Yes my sewing table is a folding table, I like it and don't plan on changing it any time soon. It's easy to sew big quilts on and it's only a folding table so I don't have to be super careful on it. I'm still pleased with how the room looks now, too bad I didn't take before pictures.

Back when Makoa was going through his bad separation anxiety he chewed the corners of the couch's decorative pillow cases when we left him alone in the family room for 3.2 seconds. First order of business is to fix them and get them back on the couch. Also Winston sleeps down here because he's a loud sleeper.
 

I'm getting a bonus at work the end of the month and I've decided that I'm going to use some of the money to help get this room in better condition. I'm excited to get the window molding fixed, some colored paint on the walls and better storage.
Some further down the road dreams are to get a small flat screen TV mounted on the wall and a cute chair and side table under it. Carpet might go and be replaced with the Pergo that's in the hallway, that's only if I can beg John to do it.

Happy Halloween 2011

This year for Halloween we did a lot more than we usually do. My work takes Halloween very seriously so I've dressed up the last few years, but John never does. This year my friend invited us along to a radio station's Halloween party and John didn't want to be the only one not dressed up.
He borrowed his cousin's mad hatter costume and really rocked it.

 The guy next to John is 10 variations of Johnny Depp, we guessed 8.

Here's John, myself and my friend Mindy as a flapper.

I made my black swan costume by gluing feathers and rhinestones onto a leotard and made my tutu from tulle. It was really fun and very easy. I was the only black swan at the party and at work which really surprised me.

The house was decorated, but my hanging lanterns didn't reflect the light really well. John said that I should try lining them with tin foil for next year.

We also got an uninvited Halloween guest. A black widow spider made her home in my craft room window well. My mom invited me to join her quilting club so that actually gives me a reason to clean out the craft room that hasn't been touched since the break in last September. I was going to start tonight, but the spider was creeping me out so much that I had to stop and told John that he needed to kill it. I guess his parents' house gets a lot of black widows so he knows the best way to kill them. Out he went with a can of WD40 and a box of matches and fried Ms. Spider to a crisp.

The little fuzziness on the inside of the window is wood splinters from where the molding had to be pulled off to install the new window. Like I said, the room hasn't been touched.

Halloween was pretty fun this year, but I'm glad it only comes once a year. It's a lot of work to get all that dressed up. 

Who wants to come stare at my fence with me?

You know you're an adult when you get excited about washing machines, dishwashers and fences. I'm loving the new fence and if it wasn't so dang cold I'd just sit out in a lawn chair staring at it.

Like all our projects, it's not completely done. There is still an 8 foot section on the other side of our house that needs to be put in and then we need to remove the nieghbors' chain link fence and tie the rest of their fence into ours. Who knew fences could  be so glorious? A big thank you to my dad, father in law and brother in law for all the help they've put in. They hit a few snags while trying to install it but nothing too major.

It must look pretty legit because the neighbor behind us asked John last night if she could get his business's phone number so she could get a quote to re-do her fence :) that made John feel pretty good.

We'll be having a fence starring party one of these days, BYOLC (bring your own lawn chair).