Christmas tour 2014

It's crazy to think this could possibly be the last Christmas tour in this house. We won't know until late spring/summer time where we are going next (or if we will stay here) or when exactly we'd be moving. All we know is it could be sometime in December or January.

 

I got to add a few new items this year which made me happy, I had hoped for a few more.. but all in due time! I did have to get a little creative with the few figurines I have since I did not have the book case in the spare room to put them on this year.  

 

This guy made his way to our bedroom. First time we've ever had Christmas decorations in our room since I was a kid and would put up my own lights.

 

I swear this mirror was made for hanging holiday wreaths :)

 

One this I have been wanting to change out is our stockings. I have been on a search for really nice ones that we can have our names embroidered on. Problem is I don't want to spend the money so I'm hoping to find some online after the holidays on clearance.

How awesome is our new bench? I'm in love! After months of searching for a shoe bench that would ship here, and then finding one at Ikea that I didn't care much for I finally found this on Targets website. It is not an actual shoe bench, we decided to just keep our shoe rack in our room on Frank's side of the bed and we put our slippers or whatever pair of shoes are being worn the most under the bench. There is enough room for both Frank and I to still on it at the same time and the space between the tansu and bench make for the perfect spot for his backpack and work boots. I've been a little too giddy over it ha.

Ellie didn't care much for the pictures ha. Another new item this year is the tree skirt I got from Costco. Since we no longer have a rug (two little 4 legged girls think they are for peeing on!) the girls love laying on it since it's pretty thick and soft. I also decided not to wrap boxes as decoration under the tree since they love laying there so much. I also was lazy and didn't get around to doing it at all ha.

 

Look closely and you might be able to see another Santa and Mrs. Clause...

 

This isn't Christmas related (Although I was hoping to add Christmas pillows this year) but we finally got pictures hung over the couch. For YEARS I have wanted to put canvas' up like this, but since those are crazy expensive and these pictures will be changed out in a year or so I decided to just do framed pictures. Yet another thing I am in love with :)

Our trusty security we've had since our first Christmas together.

 

Ahh love the new table runner!

 

Let's be honest... this is what the table normally looks like. We still haven't fixed my laptop so the desktop is still at the table : /

Cookies and drinks for Santa : )

Ahh I just love looking at the tree all lit up at night!

 

This picture has to be my favorite. So festive and warm with all the colors : )

Another new item I was able to add this year... lights to the garland! My neighbor informed me that there was in fact a plug in outside, it is just hard to get to. 

 

And that concludes our Christmas tour 2014!

The damage

Well I got a little busy! Mostly just with the gym (I might as well live there) and NOAH. With the holiday seasons starting I've been enjoying it all as much as possible. I just got warm weather clothes and shoes so I'm not as miserable as I have been.
A few weeks ago Frank emailed me pictures of his X-rays. People have been shocked at what he did. His mom just laughed and said him and his brother can't just scrape their knee! ha.

As you can see he completely broke off the bone and then snapped that other piece. The end result is 9 screws, a plate (I believe it's only 1) and 25 staples.

He now is down to some strips since getting the staples out. He's much happier.

He says the being broken part sucks, but the scar is pretty cool haha. Such a boy.

Update: The first look

Well Frank had his bandage changed today to a water proof one so he can shower (ironically when he got home the water was turned off for maintenance haha. Poor guy). He had his doctor take a picture for me since I want to see what all he did. I'm a curious one :]. Apparently Frank is laughing because he was wondering how often any of his patients ask him to take a picture of the incision. No new news on it right now. He goes back Wednesday to have the dressings changed again. 

25 staples later....

Between it healing and his hair growing back.. man is that going to itch like crazy!!!

Update: Surgery

Frank went in at 6:00 this morning for his surgery. I had him call me before he was picked up at 5:30 and he was ready to get this over with. I don't know too many details, but his doctor called me at 8:30 west coast time so it was 11:30 eastern time. Not sure if that meant he was in surgery the whole time or part of it... he had just come out of surgery at the time though. The doctor said the break was more/worse than they thought so surgery was his only option (apparently some people don't do the surgery for whatever reasons so it was an option they gave him in the beginning). So now he's put back together by a plate and screws. He will be in the hospital till tomorrow so I'm not sure when he will be coherent enough to call himself, I'm guessing late tonight or tomorrow sometime.

Lucky Frank gets to go home to boys taking care of him ha. I am really grateful for his roommates and friends who will be helping, I've already told them how much I appreciate it. Thankfully for them Frank is a pretty easy patient!

That's about all I have for now, prayers for a quick recovery would be nice :]

Update: Frank

For those of you who hadn't heard yet, Frank will be having his surgery Thursday morning. He will be staying in Cuba so we're pretty happy about that. He wanted to stay to finish out his deployment and I didn't want him to have to be flying all over and packing when he should be laying (sitting/perched) down. I do wish I could be there to take care of him though. His roommates are being helpful though so I'm happy about that. I think I'll bake them some goodies as a thank you... hmm.

After Frank told me he was staying I was relieved to know that I wouldn't have to use our savings account money. But on the other hand I was so very grateful that it was there to be used if needed. It just made me want to work harder at paying off our debt so we can build our full emergency fund. That got Frank excited as well and he told me to have Ricky (his cousin who has Frank's car while he's gone) just sell his car to the highest offer. He was wanting to set the price a little higher at first because of the car, but now he just wants to get the loan paid off. He really wants a new motorcycle when he gets back but he knows we have to have the cash for it first.. so that's really been his incentive at selling his car ha ha.

Wow I feel like my mind wonders much more these days.. I can't even remember the last time I wrote an actual post that made sense! Guess that means it's bed time :]

The waiting game...

Since I cut out processed foods it has me looking at what exactly I'm eating and how much of it I am eating. I already knew I was eating too much fruit and grains and not enough protein, dairy and veggies. I eat them, just not enough. To help me out I decided to make up a chart of how much I am eating daily from each food group. So much easier than it sounds! For the first time I got criticized for eating healthy because apparently people get too thin. Never do I want to be considered too thin. I do this and eat this way because I feel amazing and want to be healthy. There is a first for everything though!
It's super windy out right now and all the dogs are barking at the wind and all the stuff that is being tossed around. It's pretty funny but getting really old!

I had a much bigger post to write up but my mind is all over the place. Frank called this morning at 6:30 to tell me he just got back from the hospital, he broke his collar bone in two locations and needs surgery SOON! He goes back tomorrow morning to find out if he's staying in Cuba or if he's being sent home for good, or just for the surgery. We'd both prefer that he stays down there (he even told his master chief that he wanted to stay) that way he doesn't have to travel or even try to pack while in immense pain. That and he can't even move his left side except for his hand really.

If he comes back to the states I'll be leaving ASAP, either packing up the truck in a matter of minutes and making all my calls while heading south, or booking a plane ticket to be where ever he is. But for now... we wait! ha If you are in the military or married to the military you understand why I'm laughing ha.

I'll try to update everyone on what's going on, but don't be surprised if I'm all of a sudden nowhere to be seen.

Update part 3 {The last one!}

Yay this is finally the last update and then I will FINALLY be all caught up. About time ha.

Saturday our neighbors Mike and Katie got married here in La Mesa. Frank and I loved that the wedding was less than 2 miles away. We were able to leave at the last minute. It was a small fun wedding, my favorite! We met quite a bit of nice people and couples, one of the girls was from Germany (and the only girl I know who can rock a sexy shaved head!) so we had a great time learning the German culture.

After the wedding Mikey joined us and we headed to Fashion Valley Mall so I could finally use my gift card to Mac for some eye shadow (Thanks Nicole!).

Once the jeep was gone we were down to one car for the first time ever. No motorcycle or crappy old truck. Just the SI. Oy! We hated putting the dogs "car cage" in the car all the time because, one it's a large pain and takes forever, two it was damaging the interior of the car. We had been looking around.. somewhat.. for an SUV for quite a while now but nothing seemed right. The day after Frank had his tooth pulled we were out and about running some errands and decided to stop by the bank to see what kind of used car loan we could get. We were surprised to be approved and given a check right on the spot. I know my credit is close to excellent but we weren't sure about Frank's, and being military we keep everything in his name. He found out his credit is just as good, or possibly better (I can't remember what mine was) than mine. It's nice to know that all our hard work to pay off debt has made a difference.

We knew we wanted to be smart about this purchase so we stuck with our limit of $13,000 rather than going higher with what the bank offered. A few days later we met this guy who was selling his 4runner on craigslist. We liked the car, it was what we wanted but he wanted WAY too much for it. We were offering more than Kelly Blue Book but he still wanted a few thousand more than what we were offering. Nor would he come down to our price. It just wasn't meant for us.

We went around to all the Toyota dealerships near us looking for used 4runners, but couldn't find anything as old as we wanted. Like older than 2006 ha! The last one we went to the salesman asked if we wanted to check out a 2004 Ford Explorer that was in great condition. We figured what the heck sure. It was in better condition than our 2007 car! And had lower miles. For being a 2004 it only had 53,000 miles. We fell in love. The dealership didn't want to come down to our price, but we worked them and in the end after it was all said and down we got the Explorer for $13,000 even : ] Meaning we got a pretty good deal. We were pretty proud of ourselves.

The dogs are LOVING having the cargo/trunk space all to them now. Know more having to cram into there little cage in the car. They can now share the back with there friends when we head to the beach. Which we have done twice now, once to Mission Trails and once to Cowles Mt. We're all loving it!

Something I almost forgot to mention.... WE FINALLY HAVE A KITCHEN TABLE! While walking through Target last week I saw this folding table (like a card table) that looked so nice. It doesn't even look like it folds up. They have matching chairs that fold up as well. We only have two chairs for now because I thought the prices of it all was $10 less than it was. Oh well we'll get the other two chairs later.

What a great site : ] Now to my FINAL update. I finally have an appointment with a physical therapist! I'm pretty sure it's just regular P.T. rather than the spinal physical therapist my doctor wanted me to see. However, Tricare won't cover that. Boo. Either way I'm super duper excited. My first appointment is next Tuesday!

Whew I'm glad all these updates are done with! Back to normal blogging tomorrow.

Decision Time

Well folks we've decided what we're going to do about Hawaii in September. I was the one holding out hope that we'd be able to go, it was going to be the honeymoon we never had. And the timing worked out since my cousin was getting married on the big island at the same time. We decided to go with the smart route and not go.

We've been doing so good with paying off our debt and working towards getting an SUV, so booking a trip that cost that much wasn't the best of idea's. I'm sad, but we still have summer 2011. Not sure what island we're going to since Frank's parent's are booking the trip, we're just tagging along.

In other decision making times I think I'm ready to start looking for a job! The cymbalta seems to be helping with the pain, as in I haven't had any since starting it. This weekend Frank and I are going to go to the gym, so I'm hoping it goes good. I guess if it doesn't then finding a job will have to wait a little longer. Think pain-free thoughts :)!

So at night before we go to bed we let the dogs lay on top of the covers since it's there favorite thing. I also like that they warm up my spot! Anyways, last night I went into the bedroom to grab something and see a normal sight around here...

They LOVE to cuddle together. They have the whole bed to lay on, but they snuggle up as close as possible. How can you not love this?!

Drum roll please...

We've finally decided when we'll be making our yearly trip home. Instead of coming home this summer like we normally do, you all will be graced with our presence at Thanksgiving! I have a "no going home for Christmas" rule but I have no problem with Thanksgiving. We love having a low key quiet Christmas, I don't want to have to rush around being busy and not fully enjoying the day. That's why we don't spend the holiday's at home. So make sure you all leave room for us :)

The other reason we are coming home then is because we are going up to Whistler for a few nights. Neither of us have ever been there and would love to go, the closest we've gotten is Vancouver. But who in Washington hasn't been there!? We're making it an open invitation for whom ever wants to join us up there. I'm not sure when we'll be booking anything.. either during or after summer. When we do start planning we'll see who wants to go and we'll try to get a house to rent and everyone can just chip in. It will be fun!

Now that we have our trip home decided on, we can start looking into Hawaii for September. We're {I'm} really hoping it still plays out, we should know in about a month or so thankfully.

In other news I started taking Cymbalta today. No I'm not severely depressed, I'm mostly taking it for my nerve pain. Yoga isn't helping anymore so I know I need more help than what I'm doing now. My doctor is sending me a referral to this spinal physical therapist at a hospital here. I haven't heard anything from him about it yet so I might need to get a hold of him soon. He {my doctor} asked if I would want to try taking something to help with the pain for a short time so I can have somewhat of a life back. He knows pills are a last resort thing for me.. but that's kinda where I'm at for the time being. So he sent me home with a list of 4 different medications that help with pain/depression {if you've had a injury that has lasted for a year a more.. you're going to be a little depressed. I swear they just go hand in hand!} to look up and see how they work and there side effects, and I decided on the cymbalta. I wont notice a difference for another few weeks... however I'm crossing my fingers hard I'll start to feel better until I can see a physical therapist.

Any one ever take Cymbalta before have any good/bad things to say about it? Hearing what others think about it would be awesome!

YOGA

Well folks I have now completed two days of Yoga! I give myself a pat on the back for that. The DVD I got has two "work outs" the first being a 30 minutes quick start. I'm going to continue with the beginners short session for the rest of the week, then add in the second one next week. EEEKK! I was surprised at how easy it was and how fast it went by. I can hear my mom saying something about "You've always been so flexible, of course it's easy for you.." There is one pose that makes me sciatica hurt just a little bit, but it isn't held for long so it's not too much of a problem. I also realized my tailbone still hurts when I have to roll over it. I was a little disappointed about that, but I've able to work with it still which is a HUGE plus. Something yoga needs to teach me is to slow down. I personally am more of a cardio person. I want to go go go get that heart rate up sweat everything out. So who knows, maybe I'll center myself ; ) ha.

This morning I invited Mikey over to yoga it up with me before our walk. We both agreed it was a nice way change things up. And now that Frank is taking the bike to work every day, I am able to make it out to 32nd street to hit one of the gyms a few days a week. YAY! I don't think I'll do that till next week since I'm trying to save as much money as possible for Vegas.

It's just amazing to me think I am FINALLY able to get back into working out, it has been long awaited. Many days laying in bed or the couch in endless amounts of pain just wishing I could go for a jog or lift a few weights. It seems unreal that it's finally happening again.. and not just a few times a month, but every day.

Now my next task is to get Frank to do some yoga with me... he could use it!

A look back at 2009

2009 was a busy year for Frank and I, so I thought a walk down memory lane would be fun...

JANUARY
Well January definitely gave me a painful look into what the year would hold. I quit Bally's after a week of working in the new year.. oh that's a story in it's self ha. Frank and I took our first vacation alone since being married, all our other trips had been with people so it was nice finally going somewhere just the two of us. We headed over to SnowShoe in West Virginia so Frank could snowboard, and his hopes of teaching me. Within a half hour of being there, and within 5 minutes of "learning" to snowboard I fell and slightly fractured my tailbone. Needless to say I came to hate snowboarding and spent most of our vacation in bed. Along with the rest of January and most of February. Can you see the pain in my face? I needed one good picture from our trip.

FEBRUARY
Following the fall from January I spent most my time laying around trying to get comfortable.
We had a nice Valentines Day dinner at The Melting Pot. Man oh man was it good! We had a special menu for the night so we didn't have to worry about deciding what to get, but it wasn't cheap that's for sure. It was worth every penny.

{Sorry for the poor quality it was taken with my phone}

Around this time is when I somewhat starting cooking and baking. I made a heaping amount of sugar cookies and then took them over to our friends house and had there kids decorate them. Leiian had a bast with this, Julyssa slept through most of it.

MARCH

Nicole made her way out to Virginia and what a trip we had in store : ] We headed up to DC for a few days to see Britney Spears in concert {AMAZING!!} and to sight-see around our Nations Capitol. This was Nicole's first time there so I acted as tour guide as best as possible.

I can't get enough of DC! I absolutely love it there. I can't wait to go back with a nice professional type camera that I hope to own one day.. and maybe I'll make it there in the spring rather than the winter, which we managed to do twice. After DC we went up north.. ohh we couldn't wait... NEW YORK HERE WE COME!! This is something both Nicole and I have always wanted to do, so the fact that it was happening was a little surreal to us.

We got a good laugh from this, the captain of the boat was going around having people take pictures like this.

The only thing that we a bummer about our NY trip was that it was overcast about the whole time. I've been planning a week long trip since we left.. now when will we take it? Who knows ha. Before Nicole left we took her down to the Outer Banks in North Carolina, we wanted to show her why we love it so much.

APRIL

 After almost 3 months my tailbone was starting to feel better, enough so I could get back into the gym a handful of times. It felt SOOO GOOD to be back! It came at perfect timing. Frank was going to Panama City Beach for 2 1/2 weeks for a yearly mini DET his squadron does. Since it was going to be right before my birthday I headed down a few day's after he left. I spent 2 weeks just relaxing and soaking up the sun :] This trip was a first for both Frank and I and we both came to love Florida. It's somewhere we'd love to be stationed in the future. I have to say for the both of us, our favorite part was when we went para sailing! It was unbelievable. I wish I had a water proof disposable camera so I could have gotten some pictures.

MAY

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! We also added a new member to our family, Ellie, Molly's sister. Our friends Erik and Haysel who had her weren't able to keep her anymore with all the problems she was starting to have {which by the way she has not stopped, she's only added more!} They were moving to Texas while we were in Florida so she spent a few nights with some other friends. Then became a part of the Longley household. Molly and Ellie are inseparable.. and both have been a pain for us, but we love them just as much! May was mostly spent at the beach with the pups. We could easily go everyday.. and we tried. I also started going through all our stuff getting ready for our big move to come. May was also the month I passed out and damaged my sciatic nerve. Unfortunately this is going to be a long long road to recovery. Many more months of pain to come. YAY!

JUNE

Being the beach bums we are we spent as much of June at the beach as we could. We were also full swing into organizing, donating, and packing. With the pain in my leg and back it made packing much more difficult, Frank being the amazing husband he is helped me with quite a bit. We donated at least 3 car loads of stuff to the Salvation Army, it's amazing how much we got rid of considering how much of an anti-pack rat that I am. Since we were moving ourselves I wanted to move as little as possible.

Sisterly love after a long day

JULY

Moving time! My mom came out at the end of June to help us drive across country. We were towing the truck behind the U Haul so we needed another driver for the car. The pain from my sciatica was pure torture so I was grumpy the whole way. I did try driving for a short time to give my mom a break, but after trying to hide the pain for so long I couldn't take it anymore and stayed as a passenger the whole way.

Our new home.. for the next 3 years. We spent a total of 3 days in California before we packed the car back up {the dogs were NOT happy about this!} and drove up to Washington for our yearly visit. Nick threw us a BBQ. This was also the first time we saw Nick since he started losing weight, I had him not put any pictures online so it would be a surprise for us. He looked great at that point I believe he had lost 70 something pounds!

Then the trip we were waiting for.. HAWAII! We were going with Franks parent's, his brother CJ and his girlfriend Kimmie. Cliff and Rocky {the in-laws}have time share so they invited us to join as long as we pay for our flights. We jumped at the chance as soon as possible. We had a great time while there, we were on Oahu so I got to visit with Carlee a friend from high school. One thing I was looking forward to the most was Dole Pineapple farm! We also went to The Polynesian Cultural Center, Hanauma Bay, Pearl Harbor {though we didn't get to go out to the memorial}, the beach! And lots of walking around soaking in our surroundings.

I swear we're not that out of shape, we just had to stand really weird with our guts out so we wouldn't fall over!

AUGUST

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FRANK! Starting August we were exploring San Diego and seeing what our new home had and what it had to offer. Like normal we spent lots of time at the beach, getting used to the Pacific Ocean again. Thankfully we had friends {Ashley and Tony} from back home who have lived here for a few years to show us around and let us know what to do. I went searching online to find places to go and found out about Sunset Cliffs, it's a must see if visiting the area. August is also the month I started this BLOG!

SEPTEMBER

We spent A LOT of time at the dog park this month! Frank started at his new command, and we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary! Since we didn't have money I made us a nice meal and we relaxed at home.

OCTOBER

My favorite memory of October was paying off our personal loan! That was something we really enjoyed. October was also the month of my worlds famous PUMPKIN PIE. We also started going for hikes, I started going for daily morning walks with Molly, Ellie and my friend Mikey and her puppy Willow. I was getting better and better with cooking and baking. You can check out the food HERE.

NOVEMBER
My mom made her second actual visit to San Diego. The first time she has been here on vacation was 30 years early! Our neighbor had told us about Mission Trails so we spent a lot of time checking out the different trails to go on. My mom was visiting during Thanksgiving so we had to cram lots in before places closed for the holiday weekend. We took her too Balboa, The zoo, Hotel Del Coronado, Mission Trails, and Cowles MT.

DECEMBER
While my mom was visiting and we went to Cowles MT. Frank wasn't able to join us since he was working. I knew he'd love it so it was a must see for him! We also went to December Night's at Balboa Park for the holiday festivities, and we decorated our teeny tiny apartment for Christmas.

To check out all the other stuff we've done in the last few months browse through the blog.

2010 should be another fun, busy, exciting year for us. To start our year off we'll be going to Vegas for a few days! Make sure to check back to the blog to keep up with us.