New J-O-B and a vacation!

Oh you know it might maybe have been three months since I have written anything. Well it’s pretty much been three months since I have done anything but work and sleep! Back in April I accepted a new position at a new hospital an hour away from where we live. This was the ideal position I have been waiting for! I get to work less days a week and still make the same amount of money! I now work two 12 hour shifts a week instead of four 8 hour shifts a week. The catch was I was taking a medication that was very expensive without insurance coverage. So for the past 3 months I have been working two full time, six days a week!! Needless to say this has been hard on my body, our family, and most important our relationship. I have now passed my 90 day probationary period and have insurance coverage! I am officially Per Diem/on call status at my original job and full time on my own at the new one. YAY!!

We kicked this off by a camping trip to eastern Washington. Now in the 12 years that Ron and I have known each other we have never been camping together. We spent 4 days and 3 nights at Potholes, WA, The Mardon Resort. Ron and his dad used to come camping and fishing here when Ron was just a little boy. It was really special to Ron that he was able to bring the kids back here and give them a piece of his childhood.

At The Mardon Resort they have a doc structure with many places to tie up your boat which makes many places to fish for fun little fish like, perch, crappie, and blue gill. The kids had a blast. They both caught their first ever fish alone without any help from the two of us. Many it was hot as heck over there though. The difference between western WA and eastern WA is that there aren’t any shade trees, Eastern, WA is almost like the desert during the summer. We spent a lot of time swimming in the lake to help cool off.

On our last full day there we rented a 14’ boat to take out further and explore the lake more. This was amazing to the kids! The three of them caught some big catfish and I caught nothing! The kids thought it was pretty funny I didn’t get anything. We first got on the water about 8 that morning and I had packed some sandwiches and chips for lunch so we ate on the water. We headed back in around noon because it was so dang hot! We hung around the swimming hole floating around and having fun till dinner. After dinner we went out on the boat again for sunset. Have I mentioned the sunset? It was beautiful every night we were there!

We had such a great time. It was nice to get away from home for a few days but we were so glad to be back in our own bed and our own shower.    

Home again, Home again.

Holy wow it feels like I haven’t written anything in so long! Really there just has not been time. It has been over three months! Let me tell you these three months have been a whirlwind. When I wrote last we had gotten back from visiting Ron in San Diego and having a blast.

In March I actually went back to San Diego by myself to drive home with Ron because his TDY was over. He was actually working when my plane landed so a good friend picked me up from the airport and dropped me off at the apartment. When I got there Ron had left me a note and instructions on what to make for dinner. He has purchased all of the ingredients ahead of time and had them waiting for me. Chicken and Rice one of the fave fives.

When dinner was done we packed it all to go and we went to one of the most beautiful places, The La Jolla cliffs, to watch the sunset. Something we had done before. I was nice to eat and watch the sun go down. We cleaned up and when we got up to fold the blanket Ron got down on one knee and purposed! I was so surprised and didn’t see it coming. It was the perfect evening, dinner, sunset, and a proposal!!!

The next day he had to go back to work for a half day to wrap up everything there and I got to stay home and relax. When he came back home we went to the store to get a few things for the ride home and then came home to get ready for dinner at The Melting Pot. Which Ron had made reservations for and had wine waiting on the table! My I was spoiled. Dinner was delectable and I couldn’t have asked for better.

Dinner at The Melting Pot wasn’t even the end of it though, Saturday night we went to dinner at a traditional Brazilian steak house, Rei De Gado. There was about 10 of us including Ron and I. The others were some of Ron’s co-workers. I have never been to anything like this and neither had Ron. If you have the opportunity to go to a traditional Brazilian steak house I highly recommend it. At Rei they offered 20 different cuts of prime meats for dinner service and I think we sampled all of them. They also offer a full salad bar of traditional Brazilian dishes as well as a full bar. I have never eaten so well in my life!! These were the best cuts of beef, chicken, lamb, and pork, so juicy and tender. I have never had better. The drinks were amazing as well as all of the salad bar items. We only made one trip to the salad bar as the meat service is non-stop and all you can eat. I’m telling you, unimaginably amazing.

We woke up super early Sunday morning to start our drive back to Washington. We had about ten hours ahead of us until we got to the resort, Gaia, Hotel, restaurant, and spa, that we were staying at that night. So we loaded the last few things into the truck and off we went, Bye San Diego.

The drive to Anderson California was pretty uneventful. We stopped a couple of times here and there for snacks and such. The last hour of the drive though one of the wheels on the truck started making a funny grinding noise. We left it for the night to check into our room and head to our massage appointments. After our couples massage we had dinner at the resort and the food was again amazing. I had apricot stuffed chicken with garlic mashed potatoes. We also had complementary cheesecake for desert. After dinner we didn’t waste any time going back to our room to the huge comfortable king sized bed.

In the morning we got up early and set out to find a repair place for the truck. It was Sunday so shops that are open are few and far between. We went to Walmart tire center and they told us that sears auto center would be open and luckily for us it was! Sears could fix the problem as soon as the part arrived from the store. It was about a three hour ordeal but we were back on the road as good as new. The rest of the drive was uneventful stops for gas and snacks. We made it home that evening around 10pm. The kids were very excited that dad was home to stay, and so was I.

Engagement night.

The most perfect ring

Reo Drinks!

Before Reo De Gado

On the drive home

Voodoo Doughnuts, of course we stopped.

San Diego vacation

I know I keep saying that I should be better about blogging but life just gets away from me way to easy. Especially when you’re the only parent to two little kiddos, man single parenting is hard! I’m going to be glad when Ron comes home in March. I might actually get to sleep for 8 hours, and the gym I can go to the gym and not have to worry about toting the rugrats along! I do love all of the time I get to spend with them though. I enjoy every bit of them. They are wonderful.

Ronnie is speaking so much more and he is so intelligent. Every day he surprises me with things he says. Miss Evee will be 7 in what seems like a matter of days. She as always is Ms. Mother Hen. He school is doing a spell-a-thon and she is collecting pledges, she has 25 words to spell. She is so much like me and doesn’t much care for spelling.

I’m going to sign both of them up for swimming lessons in about two weeks. They will start when Ron is home so he will get to participate in those. He is going to be so happy.

The three of us went down to San Diego January 11^th-21^st to visit him. It was really nice to get away from rainy Washington for a while. WE all had a blast. Ron was so happy to get to spend time with the kids. While down there we took the kids to Legoland for the second time, of course a great time was had by all of us. They had the sets from the Lego movie set up to walk through and all of the rides with the exception of one roller coaster were up and running.

A good friend of mine lives in San Diego as well so we got to spend a bunch of time with them too, we haven’t seen them in two years but picked up right where we left off. She was so amazing and offered to watch the kiddos for us so that Ron and I could go see one of our favorite country artists, Eric Church, perform. We had such a great time and the show was amazing!! But before the show our Seahawks played an amazing game to clench a spot in Superbowl 49!! For the second year in a row repete!! So of course we were already on a high from that. It really was an amazing concert and amazing game.

We were all really sad to leave Ron and the nice weather but we had to come back to real life. Oh what fun it’s been. Coming back to real life, luckily I scheduled it so that I had a day off at home before I had to go back to work to collect myself from my “vacation.” I will always schedule vacations with the extra day at the end it worked out perfect.