Dear Kansas highway department,

Please put a curve in the highway so Bob doesn’t have to hold the steering wheel straight for 8 whole hours.

Thanks, Jen

The trip was long, as we expected. We packed up all 3 pets and headed to Rochester for Christmas. The dogs were actually amazing and slept all cute and cuddled up the entire time.

Our only issues came with Paco.

Senor Paco does not enjoy car rides and tends to go to the bathroom in his cat carrier. We knew this already and I packed a “diaper bag” with towels, rubber gloves and wet wipes. Paco had 4 baths on the way to Rochester. The most eventful was when he pooped and we took an hour to find a family bathroom to give him a bath in. The sink was not made to bathe small animals and Bob was not happy about it.

Paco had a few more baths on the way back to Colorado. One time he pooped in the corner of his crate and didn’t smear it all over like he had before. I know it is gross, but Bob was very excited that it was a “clean” poop! He praised Paco for getting it all neatly in the corner of his crate to make clean-up easier. Then Paco got wiped down with cat wipes… for cats that bathe with dignity. I’m not kidding.

Paco begs to differ about the “dignity” part. He was still very embarassed.

During our first full day there we went to Universal Studios. As soon as I entered through the gates my manager called my cell phone. She informed me that 20% of our employees were laid off, including her, but I was safe. I thought it was a shame to hear that news, but managed to suck it up in half a second to ride on the Incredible Hulk roller coaster.

Universal had a lot of rides geared towards grown-ups, so we got to go on a lot of fun thrill rides there. We went on a Superman ride which happened to be semi-motion-simulated, which means I was very nauseous and did not enjoy it at all. I took about 20 minutes to recover in the air conditioned store area after that ride!

Partway through the day Bob got a call from someone offering him a nice new job. Although he loves his current job, the offer was too good to turn down, and counter-acted my dreary phone call from my manager.

We spent a full day at Universal Studios, slathered in SPF 85 sunscreen. At the end of the day, I enjoyed a margarita directly from Margaritaville. And it was strong.

On day 2 we met up with our friends Anthony and Katie at Magic Kingdom, Disney. Bob and I got special pins to wear, indicating that we were on our honeymoon. The employees kept congradulating us. We went all over the park and I even managed to drag Bob on the Dumbo ride and It’s a Small World. The lines weren’t bad at all since we never had to wait more than 40 minutes.

Katie was determined to meet Pooh bear and that was actually the longest wait, but worth it to meet him and Tigger. It was hot in that line and we were thankful that the little girl behind us was using a spray bottle, so we were able to catch a cool mist from her once in a while. Bob dared her by saying “I bet you can’t spray me!”. Bob lost that bet, but in the end… did he really lose?

Our last day started at Animal Kingdom where we only went on a few rides, then made our way to Hollywood studios. We spent a lot of time there to go on the Tower of Terror and the Rockin’ Rollercoaster (my two favourite rides).

Then we took a ferry over to Epcot and got dinner in Mexico. At that point we were all exhausted and didn’t want to walk around much more, so we sat around and watched “Cheesy bird”. He was running around with naco cheese on his feathers and looked silly.

We caught a 2nd wind and went back to Hollywood studios for more thrill rides and we went with Anthony’s parents this time. His mom is a hoot and was screaming her head off. We convinced her that the Rockin’ Rollercoaster was a smooth ride with only 1 loop. Maybe we should have told her it goes 0-60 in 2 seconds flat and there were actually 3 loops.

Overall, we had a nice trip to Disney with our friends. I’m ready to plan my next vacation…just not in the middle of a humid summer season. Katie and Antz are already planning to come visit us in Colorado. Say… Octoberish?

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So to get you up to speed, yes we moved again after only a couple months in Highlands Ranch, CO  to Broomfield, CO.

Here are pictures of our place.

Yes it stunk to have to move again, but I got a great job offer out of a company in Boulder, CO that just seemed like the right move to make. Its a small startup company (25 people or so) in a fast-moving market of the internet (social networking for enterprise companies) called Hivelive. Its a company with a whole lot of really smart people, and we already have a great product. Essentially my job is to help make the product even better and take it to a whole new level. Its great to find myself smiling during the day for no reason other than I enjoy what I’m doing. Its also cool to have a stake in the company’s success.

On to other things.

Coda is doing well with his surgery. We had xrays done and the bone is filling in and healing where its supposed to. He shows basically no signs at this point that he ever had surgery as far as how he behaves. He is actually pretty frustrated that he still isn’t allowed to play. He has another 6 weeks before we can start playing with him off leash at all… and probably another 18 weeks until he is considered 100% back to normal. So hopefully he’s right on schedule.

Paco was neutered today, and since he has got home he has been absolutely crazy… literally bouncing off walls, bouncing off Coda, and crashing into things. We figured the less testosterone might mellow him out! Watch Paco’s Movie… click below:

Jen also had her first day of work today, and so far so good. She has an office with a view of the mountains (lucky) and she says all the people are extremely nice. So she’s excited. She’ll be doing very similar work to what she was doing at Trout… customer service type stuff for their members. The company is called Nita which stands for National Institute for Trial Advocacy. They are kind of continuing education for lawyers… they do a lot of seminars with mock trials to train lawyers on the right way to do things.

That’s about all that is new around here!

Catch ya soon!

Most of our drive yesterday was through Kansas. I have no idea why Dorothy wanted to go home so badly. The largest town we drove through had a population of about 500. We saw wheat fields, silos, cows, and the occasional farmhouse. The most eventful things that happened to us were when Bob hit a bird, and when a piece of tumbleweed rolled into my car while driving. We had walkie-talkies the entire time and would flip through radio stations and tell each other if a good song was on another channel. I told Bob to turn to 101.1 which had “Livin’ La Vida Loca” by Ricky Martin. He wasn’t thrilled with that. 

Jen catching some Z’s, but no flies.

It must have been a long 3 days of driving, because at one point I told Bob I was going to “pack un-boxes”. 

We got into Colorado around 7 pm, and Bob had to drive to the airport right away to get his friend Doug. Doug flew in from Seattle to help us unload the truck and unpack. Thank goodness for Doug because I am a wimp and would have been little help unloading big pieces of furniture.

Today was spent unloading things from the truck and finding their proper place in our condo. I volunteered myself to go to Target to get more cleaning supplies.  It is still a mess and there is a lot to do!

She usually fights me when I try to stick her in her cat carrier, but under the hot circumstances, she was thrilled to be back in the air conditioned car.

Several hours later we were coming up to Kansas City, Missouri which is actually a very cool looking city. Shortly after we passed that, we entered Kansas. Almost immediately a warning came on the radio with a severe thunderstorm alert, possible hail the size of quarters, and tornado warnings.

There was lightening all around us, and the sky was constantly lit up. I actually got several pictures of lightning bolts because there were so many. At one point, the lightening got so bad I felt even the tiniest hairs on my face stand up, and I knew it was time to pull over. We found a rest stop and as soon as we pulled over, it started down-pouring. Horizontal rain with 70 mph gusts of wind. Our truck was shaking from the wind and from the loud thunder right above us. We were listening to weather updates on the radio and suddenly the radio went to static.

Bob’s Best Scared Face

I called my mom to say goodbye in case the opening scene from the Wizard of Oz took place and I may have ended up like the wicked witch. After waiting the storm out for half an hour, we started heading to our hotel about 15 miles away. So much for the 4 leaf clover bringing any luck…

We arrived at the hotel, but it took 30 minutes to park the dang truck and trailer. I wasn’t exactly the best navigator trying to tell Bob where to go to back-up to park. Luckily, a dude with a mustache came by to assist. I knew Bob was in good hands because in Kansas, a mustache=trucker, which means he knows how to navigate big vehicles. I had the guy at the front desk of the hotel promise to notify us if a tornado was really coming. He probably thought I was a big baby but assured me that alarms would sound if an emergency took place.

What a day. We’re alive and sleepy and excited to get to Colorado tomorrow!

It should have been about 10 hours of driving. First we had the wonderful fun of traveling through the “mountains” of maryland and PA. Going up and down the steep grades was one thing, but doing it in a seeminly underpowered truck and a wide trailer (which was limited to 55mph) in a massive downpour with semi’s still flying by us made for quite the white knuckle ride. Jen played wing-woman, and helped me get in and out of lanes, and assured me the civic was still there.

So we stopped to rest my clenched hands. We stopped to let the pets out (Lola walks around on a leash like a dog.) We stopped to eat. We stopped to nap because we were so tired. We stopped for bathroom breaks. We stopped to make sure the burning smell from the truck was only my heavy foot-on-brake syndrome.

Somehow we turned 10 hours of driving into nearly a 17 hour day. We are stopped for the night just past Indianapolis. If we’re lucky, all the tornadoes and hail will be north of us tomorrow. That would be swell.

Exhausted, but excited.

We leave at 5am. (Hopefully) Colorado or bust!

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