Finn the Human Climbs!

St. George decided to be quite mean to us this weekend. It rained on us for three straight days. Those of you in snow can stop laughing at me now. I have become very accustom to sunshine and warmth all day every day. 

We had made plans this weekend to climb our little hearts out and you really can't climb wet, slippery rock. It's hard enough when it's dry. So we had a Friday date night at home instead that basically included handstands, learning new knots and teaching me the basics of lead climbing.

 

Saturday continued to pour on us so we turned to cookies for comfort. We had two visitors that were more than happy to play video games and eat cookies.

 

Then blessed Sunday rolled around with all it's sunshiny glory and we headed out to the rocks! We made up for being inside all weekend by climbing for 7 hours. We were one of the first people out there and one of the very last to leave. We started in multiple layers and hats, stripped down to tank tops and then ended in all our layers again.

 

Chad climbed a ton of pitches since he has to set up a top rope for me and then clean it after I climb. I climbed my first little overhang and crack. It was amazing and exhausting and I can't wait for the long weekend to get here so we can climb some more!

 

After we hiked out of the gorge we saw this beauty. It was a gorgeous way to end our day. We really are lucky to live in such a beautiful place. 

 

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

Chad may have not learned the whole "wear shoes" lesson. Clearly his toe is feeling better.



 

Awkward:

• An 85 year old man loved my scrub top so much he challenged me to dual over it. Specifically, a wrestling match.
• A dad having his little boy pee outside.... our office building.... next to a 5 lane highway. We have public restrooms dad, and if you didn't think we did, there is a gas station right next to us, and an Arby's next to that. All kinds of options besides making you kid pee onto a highway with absolutely no tree/bush/rock cover.
• The same man who wanted to wrestle me told me to "stay sweet" as he was leaving. Another woman kept going on and on about how pretty I was. All this made up for the old lady who called me an M*#%* F#$^&ing Son of a B*^#. Woah. Just Woah. What did I do to deserve the wrath of the Crazy Lady, I said hello.

 Awesome:

• Rukia's haircut. We no longer have our big bear of a dog. She's been replaced by a skinny, little petite thing that has suddenly become very agile and very snuggly. I guess it's cold without that fur coat.
• I climbed my first 5.9 last weekend and then climbed another one yesterday, twice. I know that you all have no idea what that means but I'm super proud of myself and can't wait to go climbing this weekend!
• Candy Drawers. Restocked Candy Drawers.
• Wearing leggings as pants and not caring at all about if I should or not. They are awesome, end of story.



Another one bites the dust

  

2:30 am Tuesday we both woke up. Not from the yelling and screaming coming from next door, but more from the doors slamming and our entire house shaking like crazy. The force with which our neighbors slam doors is as impressive as it is infuriating.

Granted, this is really nothing new. The neighbors love to slam doors and bang on walls and generally just try to shake our house until it falls down, usually between the hours of 2am and 6am. Thanks guys. So Tuesday morning we had had enough. Chad called the police. We figured they would show up, tell them to calm the freak down and shut up and all would be well.

As usual when it comes to any of the neighbors we have ever had here, things got a little crazy.

After the police showed up it took Paul 20 minutes to answer the flippin door. 20 minutes. Police are not known for their quiet knocking/banging either. Needless to say we were awake and waiting to see what would happen. The officer finally called Chad to see what was going on and that's when Paul decided to answer the door. And that's when the horrible lying began.

Here is when we learn one of our first lessons of the night: If your going to lie, learn to do it well. Because if your going to lie to the police, it better be believable.

Paul had asked who was knocking at the door after the very first knock, but opened it 20 minutes later because... he had gotten in the shower. Breanna couldn't come to the door because she was.... naked. He didn't have his ID with him at his home because.... his Grandma has it. He doesn't know the last names of any of his roommates because.... he has ADHD. What?

After a while the police manage to get themselves in their house. And here's our second lesson of the night: Don't invite police into your home when you have drug paraphernalia all over the place.

Breanna tried unsuccessfully to hide a needle cap that was sitting on the couch by sitting on it. At one point she explained that sometimes she smokes weed, but only when someone else is smoking it and offers some to her. But she's never shot up a day in her life. Literally, that's what she said.

Some time later they got a warrant to search the entire house. Because, let's be real honest, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going on here. I've been saying it since they moved it. And if we are still being honest, I'm actually just a tad bit pleased that I was right, although again, didn't take a genius.

Chad heard them rustling around in the bedroom where he over heard them find marijuana plants and a rolling machine. Due to the fact that there were needle caps in the living room, I'm assuming that there were probably some other things found as well. At this point in the morning, it was now 5:30 am. I was long asleep and Chad finally went back to sleep as well.

Other lessons we learn from this evening: Maybe just don't do drugs. Maybe don't sell drugs. Especially out of your apartment. Your neighbors all know what's happening. Or if you're going to, at least attempt to be less obvious about it. Maybe try to be a bit more sneaky about your illegalness.  Maybe answer your door when the police show and just apologize for whatever they are there for and leave it at that instead of acting like a lying drug addict. Just some of my thoughts.

Obviously we were more than curious as to how the evening ended so we googled it. Thanks to our watchdog neighbor (whom we love) we know that St. George posts all of the arrests that are made online. You already know how it ended due to the lovely pictures above. We really didn't mean for it to play out like this. We just wanted some quiet, and for the doors to stop slamming. Unfortunately for them it ended in arrests, a count of drug possession and paraphernalia possession for each of them, and two bonds of $12,000 each.

Last lesson: Go hug your neighbors and be grateful that you don't have ours.

And that is why you always wear your shoes.

Chad decided to try and fall apart this weekend. And by the time 5am rolled around Sunday morning, he had pretty much succeeded.

He started off the weekend with a dentist appointment to finally get a cavity fixed. After the dentist really got in there though he gave Chad the awesome news: He needs a root canal. That dentist, of course, doesn't do root canals so he sent him to another place. Until the main event in about a month, we are hoping the temporary filling holds strong.

On a separate note, I had a horrible dream about my retainer breaking and falling apart in my mouth and my teeth were a hot mess. Unlike normal people most of my nightmares consist of my teeth falling out and my contacts being the size of hula hoops.

Friday merely seemed to serve as a warm up to our main event on Saturday. We headed over to Pioneer Park to get in some climbing and rappelling. After spending the whole morning and afternoon climbing and hiking Chad decided to do one last rappel. We were just wearing our flip flops around and changing into our climbing shoes when needed. Since rappelling doesn't require any sort of climbing we had just been kicking our shoes to the side and going for it... barefoot. Unfortunately this rock face was much meaner than previous ones and sliced open the bottom pad of Chad's big toe and flipped up the whole bottom callous part.

Oh the blood. I have not seen so much blood in a setting where there should be none. I was still on top of the rock he rappelled off so I threw his flip flops down to him and then scampered down the rock. We got some amazing looks as he hobbled all the way back to the car with his bright red, bleeding foot, and me with a unopened energy drink sticking out of my bra so I could carry other things. Little bit of a freak show.

We've got a first aid kit in our backpacks that were in the car so we cleaned him up and headed home where we really cleaned him up. Finally after a couple hours of denial and when the throbbing kicked in, we headed to the Urgent Care. We caught them right as they were closing. Like we thought, it was nothing too serious, but it was a good idea since Chad could get a Dr. note to excuse him from Kung Fu classes and something to get kill the throbbing pain.


To get the prescription filled was a whole other mess. FYI there is only one 24 hour pharmacy between Las Vegas and the Salt Lake area, super convenient.

Finally we were home and relaxing! We had some dinner, brownie sundaes and watched a movie. Everything was good. For a while... Then Chad started feeling sick. This continued into the night until he finally gave up on sleep and tried to relax in the shower. Then the puking started. 5am puke fests in the shower are no bueno. I'll leave out all the juicy details of that splendid event, your welcome. After that settled down and we cleaned everything up we both climbed back into bed and Chad was able to fall asleep after a few more trips to the bathroom.

Clearly Rukia was just as exhausted.

Lucky for us this all happened Sunday morning, so we were able to sleep in all morning and relax the rest of the day. Because boy, it was sure needed.

Chicken Shoes

We picked up a rotisserie chicken from Costco Sunday night. There is nothing easier and better than that! Chicken sandwiches Sunday night, for lunches, and more chicken for dinner this week!

Rukia was even more excited about it than we were. We opened up the lid and she came running, sitting pretty with her tail wagging. Apparently chicken smells better than the carrots she ignores. Who would have thought?

Penny was equally ridiculous, sniffing and licking the chicken thoroughly before inhaling giant pieces all in one bite. After getting Rukia to do a number of crazy tricks for a bunch of chicken we sat down and ate our dinner. Then we noticed Rukia and Penny laying down next to each other, very strange for them, near Chad's flip flops. A lone piece of chicken had fallen on to his shoe.

Penny was too afraid to eat it with Rukia sitting there and Rukia knows that she's not allowed to touch shoes. It was hilarious. They just sat there staring at it and each other. Finally we told Rukia she could get it.

About a half hour later we see her doing the most ridiculous thing. She's all the way in our pantry closet sniffing around. Is there a bug, is Penny in there, what is she doing? Ooooohhh. She's checking all of our shoes for chicken! After checking the closet she went around the whole living room inspecting all the shoes for more chicken. No such luck pup, we don't usually misplace chicken in our shoes.

In other news Penny now throws a giant fit every time we make something in the kitchen. Apparently she is also wanting some more chicken out of us. Heaven forbid we use the can opener, all hell breaks loose because we are obviously opening a can of tuna fish. Cry all you want fur babies, the chicken's gone.

Weekend Climbers

I bet you're all shocked that we went rock climbing Friday afternoon.

We grabbed some subs so we could hike, picnic and then climb. It was a great day. So great in fact that we repeated it on Saturday. After the ritual pancake brunch we went back out in the early afternoon, along with everyone else in St. George. The three day weekend led to everyone from the Salt Lake area coming down to good ol' St. George, where the sun is still shining and we are all still playing outside!

Most of the climbs were already being climbed on, but Chad found a ridiculous one to attempt. Everyone was avoiding that climb for a reason, it was a beast. It was nice to watch him struggle a little bit for a change ;) He figured out the moves on his first climb and then soared up it the second time around. What can I say, he's good.

I may not have made it to the top of my climb, but almost. I've got one that I'm working on and I'm getting better and better. I just need my arms to beef up a bit more! After an afternoon of climbing we headed up to Pioneer Park so Chad could boulder a little bit. He likes to follow up his climbing with more climbing. Then we rappelled!

The park has a few stations for it, and I had never done it before. It was horrifying.... at first. It was starting to get dark, so we were basically rappelling into a black hole, super comforting. And from the picture above you can see how jazzed I was to be trying this, not at all. But we kicked off our shoes and did it! Once I wasn't walking down the rock and was just hanging in the air it was even more fun. Whoever is down here visiting us next, get ready, we're doing this! We each went twice before packing up for the night.

After a sleepy Sunday morning we went back out again. When you can climb 5 minutes from your house it's easy to go everyday! I attempted my climb again, I was determined to be able to do it, but my forearms had other ideas. I made it about halfway before my arms refused to even reach out to the rocks.

Chad conquered the climb where he had his first fall while lead climbing. Needless to say we are both a little afraid of it. But he went ahead and lead climbed (led climbed?, oh grammar) it, shaky hands and all. And then when he was done, he did it again.

We followed up all of our climbing with donuts and cider on Friday and more cider and an apple crisp on Sunday. It's required, it's Fall. After devouring dessert last night we both promptly passed out. Also a requirement after 3 days of climbing.

Five {Things} Friday

1. I'm finally feeling better. After lots of McDonald's shakes, Benadryl, vitamin C, and SLEEP, I am finally over whatever hell of a cold I had. I am also back to staying up later than 8:30, which makes Chad happy.

2. What Not to Wear is on Netflix. It's only one season but it's a season I haven't seen and I am blowing through them and loving every minute. Also, who wants to take me shopping?

3. My toilet attacked me this morning. Aaaaand the downstairs toilet is having it's own set of problems as well. Yikes.

4. Chad finally found a Christmas sweater last night at TJMaxx. We've only been looking for one that was cute and affordable for two years now, no biggie. Now to find one for me...

5. It's hot cocoa season!!!! And since we are, season wise, a good month or two behind everyone else right now, it's also finally looking like Fall, apple cider season!!! Game plan for the weekend: Homemade Starbucks apple cider with as many donuts as we can find. Maybe an apple crisp as well, just for good measure.

Where are we, Vegas?

It was a whirlwind of a weekend. Chad and I drove up to Provo as soon as I got off of work on Friday. Not only did we get to play with Pat and Ash, but my dad was there too! He was on his way home from visiting his parents in Idaho and was going to fly home Saturday morning. So we got to hang out all Friday night and Saturday morning. It was awesome! We ate way too much food, burgers and ice cream, and had a good night just hanging out!

I was still trying to get over my cold and unfortunately Chad caught a little of it. So we weren't the most peppy over the weekend. I was more of a zombie. The boys managed to jump off the platform at the BYU pool and the girls went scrub shopping and were the big winners at the Nicklecade. Ashley channeled Grandma's good luck and hit the jackpot twice! Now to channel that luck for our next Vegas trip... We threw in some Mexican food for good measure and some delicious lettuce wraps, just to off set all the donuts and ice cream.

Just in case anyone else is in the same cold boat as us, Ash and Pat introduced us to the most fabulous cough drops ever. They are called Cepacol and they have Benzocaine in them, so they seriously numb up your throat. They were a dream come true for Chad. You won't be able to feel your itchy, fiery throat any more, because you won't be able to feel your throat. Again, perfect for Chad but panic inducing for me. If you have any sort of weird issues with feeling like you can't breathe these aren't for you though. But they work SO well if you don't have some sort of weird anxiety about that.

Classy pictures of us eating some Classy Candy.

Sunday morning we were back on the road headed home. Provo decided to send us off in style. We couldn't wait to get home and out of the horrid snow. Our tires aren't really equip to deal with snow, they don't particularly like the rainy roads we occasionally get in St. George. We made it back safe and sound, then promptly spent the whole afternoon/evening sleeping and watching Netflix. Which is the very best way to end the weekend.

Awkward and Awesome Thursday, ahem... Friday

Since there were no amazing Halloween pics this year I thought I'd give you an oldy but a goody. Remember that time when Ash and I convinced everyone to dress up as Peter Pan characters? Yup, good times.

This year was especially sad considering I've been sick all week. We did have one glorious moment yesterday for dinner though. We headed out to Cafe Rio for soup and a burrito, we knew we would be waiting in line forever, it was 6:30. But it was 6:30 on Halloween, and everyone was out trick-or-treating. No line for us.

Awkward:

• Trying to have civil conversations with patients about health care.
• Trying to have civil conversations with patients about President Obama.
• Saying "excuse me" in the middle of a patients irrational rant about the above topics and walking away because it just wasn't going to end well for anyone, and I need to keep my job. Can't we just go back to talking about the weather?
• Yelling at the people who swooped in front of us to use the air pump at the gas station. We were clearly waiting for it and they were taking their dear sweet time. Maybe they kept looking over at us, not because they were trying to hurry (clearly they weren't), but because my window was open and they could hear all my crazy.

Awesome:

Chad.

• Chad taking care of me when I'm not feeling well. Getting me pillows, blankets, and as much vitamin C water as I could stand.
• Chad deep cleaning our car. It's impossible to take that little Focus off road and not get the red dirt everywhere. Rukia doesn't help either.
• Chad's homemade hot cocoa. Made with Ghirardelli chocolate and cinnamon. It was insane. Bonus: he let me drink his share.  
• Chad stopping and getting me and energy drink on the way to work so I could make it through the dreaded nursing home. Maybe some day I'll have a job where I can call in sick to work. Until then, NOS to the rescue!
• Chad fixing both tie rods on our car. $30 a pop and 30 minutes later he was done. So much better than dropping the quoted $350 at the mechanics. The second one gave us a bit more of a headache, and was slightly longer than 30 minutes, but still a giant win.
• Chad running out and getting me McDonald strawberry shakes, nothing is better when I'm sick. 

I hope you all had a very merry Halloween, full of costume goodness and a full on sugar coma!