CaseyAndKelly.Com

I tried posting this last night from my phone but for some reason the app wasn’t working (update?) so this’ll have yesterday’s date on it.

This isn’t a full on post but after the previous ones, you should be relieved. I’m still culling and removing red eye from pics I’m gonna post on here.  The good news is the house is looking halfway decent and the Christmas decorations have been taken down (although not yet put away).  It seems getting back on schedule is going to be harder than diverging from it.

12/18

• Arrived in CO and just took it easy for the rest of the day.

12/19

• Did some more birthday and Christmas shopping with Mom for Brady.
• Went to PAFB and purchased customized ornaments for Brady with the year on them for the years (2008 and 2010) I didn’t have for her.  Grocery shopped for the week and holiday dinner.
• Had dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant in Colorado Springs – Fiesta Jalisco.  Brady did really, really well and survived without incident.  She even tried guacamole again and liked it!

12/20

• Casey, Dad, and I took Brady to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo for Electric Safari.  In all of our years living in the Springs, none of us had ever gone before and it was a lot of fun.  Animals and Christmas lights together?!  Guaranteed to be a hit with Brady!  Her favorite thing was feeding the giraffes crackers.  It was so sweet and she had belly laughs when they got some slobber on her hand!  Too cute!  I only wish the pics we took had turned out.

12/21

• More shopping – went to Super Target and Kohls to finish things up!

12/22

• Happy 2nd Birthday, Brady!!!
• Baked another Cookie Monster cake that was an epic fail.  We’ll just consider the cake I made for my birthday to be her real cake.  Seriously, it was so bad I refused to take pics of it or make anyone other than Brady eat it.  I blame the altitude and a different oven!
• Casey met with Dave and played disc golf in the frigid weather – they only made it through half the course it was so cold.

12/23

• While I had plenty of eyes to watch Brady, I decided to get my hair done.  Mom and I went to the lady that’s been doing my hair in the Springs for years and caught up with her.  I had my cut evened out from all the thinning that’s been done to it (intentionally by stylists) in the last year and the highlights touched up.  It’s a couple of inches shorter, but other than that looks the same as before.
• We went to Fiesta Jalisco again and had dinner with Dave, Robin, and Rebekah! Again, Brady did really well eating out – shocking!

12/24

• The whole fam ventured out for breakfast at Mountain Shadows.  We forgot about the cinnamon rolls (how, I don’t know) until we were done eating so after our yummy breakfast, we ordered a few to go!
• I drove up to Castle Rock to meet Alison for lunch at The Old Stone Church.  It ended up being closed for Christmas Eve so we opted for Chili’s and went and hung out there.  It was so great catching up in person and not over Gchat!
• I started some of the Christmas baking/organizing.  I made a batch of pumpkin gingerbread but because of the leftover cinnamon rolls from Mountain Shadows, I don’t think it was touched.

12/25

• My family bought a Honey Baked Ham so that part of Christmas dinner was already done for the meal.  I did quite a bit of cooking aided by a little help from everyone else there.  We ate dinner around 4:30 with hopes that we’d have time to eat leftovers later.  That didn’t happen and in fact, we barely had room for dessert.  There was so much food including deviled eggs, a 14lb ham, green bean casserole, rice dressing, candied yams, rolls, macaroni and cheese, and oranged cranberries.  Then for dessert there were FOUR pies – three apple (Grandma bought me a lot of apples), and a pumpkin – and pecan pie bars.  The altitude effected the desserts again so they weren’t quite up to par with the ones I made at Thanksgiving but tasty nonetheless.  Yum!

12/26

• After waking throughout the night pretty much every night, Brady chose today to sleep in.  The day we planned on leaving for Kansas City.  We didn’t have anything prepped for our trip so after showering we started making a mad dash to clean up/pack up while trying to eat french toast in the process.  We said our goodbye’s and left around 10am local time.
• The trip to Kansas City was relatively uneventful.  Brady didn’t sleep very much at all, unfortunately, and each time she tried to snooze it’d be right before we’d have to stop for gas.  Combined I’m guessing she got maybe 45 minutes of sleep from this – she did it three different times.
• We listened to football along the way and that made keeping up with our Fantasy Football players much easier and the trip all the more enjoyable.  Casey ended up taking first in our league and I took third.  Not too bad for my first year playing!
• We made it to Nanny’s house in exactly nine hours (after a quick stop at the store for Brady’s provisions).

12/27

• After breakfast with Nanny, we stopped by Bryant’s to pick up some BBQ, before driving out to Casey’s parents house.  I made enchiladas for dinner, watched football, and then just took it easy the rest of the time we were there.

12/28

• Nanny watched our dogs while we were at Casey’s parents (they have 4 German Shepherds and combining our dogs would have ensured a fight).  We drove back in to her house to give her a break (apparently as soon as we left the day before, Dudey attacked her vacuum, she put him outside and then Stoli, who’s usually terrified of vacuums, attacked it.) and visit with the dogs.

12/29

• Happy Birthday Casey, Nanny, and Nicole (cousin)!!!
• After a stop at the Apple Store to buy Casey a case for his iPad that I won him and then another stop at Wal-Mart to pick up a gun case for the new shotgun Marvin gave us, we headed back out to Casey’s parent’s house (an hour between his parents and Nanny’s).
• Marvin wasn’t feeling well and so he and Sally offered to watch Brady while Casey and I met the rest of the (extended) family for dinner.  The plan was originally Texas Road House but with 22 people and call ahead seating, the wait was still estimated to be 45 minutes and we would be sprinkled throughout the restaurant.  We ended up eating at a Mexican restaurant nearby and all of us were seated together at one long table.  It was great to be able to see everyone and catch up at one time.  Brady did very well and after some initial fussiness (she skipped her nap), behaved for Meme and Hankaw while we were gone (even went to bed 45 minutes early).

12/30

• After stopping for Starbucks and Chick Fil-A, I dropped Casey off at the hospital to sit with Sally and Marvin while Sally got her second round of chemo.  Brady would not have survived long in a hospital setting so she and I went back to Nanny’s house to hang out there, visit with her and the dogs.  It was a really nice day (mid-60s) but the wind made it a little uncomfortable to be outside.  We did give Brady a walk in the wagon to the end of the block and back before putting her down for a nap.  I think this was her longest nap since we left Colorado – a little over an hour.
• Brady played for a little while longer and was fascinated by Rachael Ray and insisted on feeding Nanny and I num-nums of what Rachael was cooking.  We made the drive back to Marvin and Sally’s and played outside for a little while before the wind got to be too much and then headed back in.  I made pasta fagioli (ala Olive Garden but better) for dinner and we watched Dexter.

12/31

• Matt and Julie drove over from St. Louis to visit.  We hadn’t seen them since our trip to St. John in June 2008, so it was nice to catch up with them.  We spent the afternoon hanging out around the house, before heading out to dinner at Texas Road House (we were craving steak after we missed out on it Wednesday).  Brady refused to sit in the high chair, but did pretty well considering and had lots of fun playing with the water and straws.  She’s a big fan of the fried pickles (well, pickles of any kind)!  We said our goodbye’s to Marvin and Sally and headed back to Nanny’s house.  Matt and Julie were able to come with us and Matt was able to help Casey pack the cargo bag so he didn’t have to do it by himself in the morning (freezing cold that night and the next morning – single digits temps before the wind chill).  Then we just watched a movie and talked until around 11:30.  Brady woke up right before they left (I think it was the movie) and gave them some goodbye kisses!  Thankfully they were able to get back on the road to Matt’s mom’s house before the crazies left their New Year’s parties.  The fireworks started not long after we went to bed and Dude (who’s terrified of thunder and probably assumed that’s what it was) started trying to push our door down to get in bed with us.  Needless to say, we didn’t get that much sleep before our trip back home with a squirmy 2 year old and a 70 pound bulldog in a full sized bed with us.

And 2010 is over.

Like I said (I noticed I started the previous post with this phrase as well), we didn’t know when we woke up on December 17th that we would be leaving that day.  I had made some initial preparations like getting travel bottles filled and laundry cleaned but not actually packing.  We ended up having a hectic afternoon once we realized we had so little time to work with.  I bought some timers for the Christmas lights and interior lights a week or two before but hadn’t figured out how to work them.  We figured out how those worked and realized it might be a smart idea to find another timer for the regular exterior lights.  So Casey headed out to Home Depot and got those items and figured out how things worked while I worked on packing.  I read in one of the reviews on Amazon that duffle bags were the better (one user’s opinion) way to go when using the cargo bag we bought.  We only have one decent sized cargo bag so I ended up using that and every other smaller sized bag we own.  There were a lot of little bags up there in order to last us two weeks including birthdays and Christmas, not to mention a baby gate and pack n’ play.

Once I had all the bags packed, Casey went and laid down to try and rest up for our trip.  I stayed in the living room with the dogs and tried to keep Brady entertained and quiet the best I could.  I eventually had to rely on PBS for backup but Casey did get two hours of peace before we started off.  We originally intended to travel the route we took on our first trip down to Austin, but due to winter storms one of the roads we needed to be on was snow packed and the idea of being stranded in west Texas with the mutants was not so appealing.  I was looking forward to a change of scenery from our usual route but it just wasn’t in the cards.  We stopped twice to make some adjustments to the cargo bag and for gas and for some Chick Fil-A before actually getting on I-35 to head north.  Dude was still on antibiotics and so we decided to bring our small cooler along to keep some snacks for Brady and Dudey’s hot dogs.  We forgot about the cooler until we were in the middle of nowhere and forced to pay NINE dollars for a bag of ice.  Typing that disgusts me since we could have easily repurchased everything in the cooler again once we got to Colorado for half that.  Well, we won’t be stopping there again that’s for sure!

Our trip to Colorado ended up taking us 16 hours – our best time yet!  This is shocking considering how many times we had to stop along the way for various members of our crew.  Brady did amazingly well and only fussed for a short while where I in turn sang her loads of Christmas carols and she passed out to escape my terrible singing voice.  We were exhausted but relieved to finally be in Colorado and shocked the family there because they didn’t expect us until the following day.  In fact, as we were coming into town (maybe 5 minutes from my parents’ house) my mom called to see if we had taken off yet (this was about noon on Saturday, I think).  I told her we left at 8:30 (we did, just PM instead of AM as she assumed) and weren’t too far from the house (theirs, not ours but I didn’t mention that).  Casey and I were just talking when we called that neither of us could remember the garage code so I was grateful she called and was able to slip it in and get the code without her knowing how soon we’d be using it.  We managed to open the garage and get into the kitchen without anyone seeing us and they were all shocked/happy/excited to see us!

I’m going to take a break for now as I try and remember what we did each day of the trip.  We still didn’t take as many pictures as I would have liked but there’s some new pics to post as well.

Like I said yesterday, we returned last night after being gone for 15 days.  Casey’s boss owed him a week of vacation (for free) so we were able to tack on some extra days to the beginning of our trip that we hadn’t originally counted on.  We originally intended to leave on the 21st but started thinking about traveling and Brady’s schedules and our sleep schedule etc., and decided that maybe we should leave on the 18th instead.  The 18th turned into the 17th (on the 17th about 3 hours before we were to leave) and so our journey began to Colorado.

We had to take the dogs with us since they both would have died had they been boarded.  Stoli of stress and Dude of over excitement or some strange ailment he contracted from another animal.  Since space would be tight as we knew from our trip moving down here last October, we opted for an exterior storage solution.  Originally we were going to go with a tow hitch shelf type thing but after learning we didn’t have a tow hitch (shows how observant we are) or a place to install one (without going to a professional), we started looking at other options.  We have factory installed side bars but no cross bars.  I looked at the major players (Thule and Yakima) but they were both pretty pricey.  In fact just to get their crossbars installed would cost double what we paid for everything.  I found a top rated, 15cf roof top cargo bag and a slip-proof mat on Amazon and took a gamble with those.  Total investment was $60 and well worth the extra room we had inside the FX.  When the cargo bag originally arrived and was unpacked, I was certain the one I selected was way too large and overkill.  It ended up being perfect as more contents were added at each stop along the way.  After some initial issues with the bag (flapping straps and positioning), we figured things out and it worked perfectly.  Such a great investment and much easier to store than the hard topped alternatives!

First off, Happy Birthday Marvin!  I’m sorry we couldn’t spend your birthday with you, but am glad we got to celebrate last night.

This is going to be a very short post.  I have lots to say and pics to post, but after 12 hours in the car today and countless hours in the car over the last two weeks it’s time to unwind and settle back in to life at home.

It’s the first day of a new year and I have to say I’m relieved that 2010 is over.  There were good points but a lot of bad too and that definitely overshadowed the good.  Happy New Year to you all!  Here’s wishing us all health, love, happiness, and financial blessings this year!

Stoli’s vet visit was completely uneventful.  The staff was shocked at the difference in personalities between her and Dude.  They don’t have to put her in a room right away because she barks cries, I don’t have to lead her out to the car only to come back in and pay, she doesn’t try bolting into the back room at every chance, and she’s generally just a pretty laid back dog.  If only she was like that all the time.  Stoli would be doing a lot better for herself if she’d behave and not be so crotchety and temperamental.  We were in and out within 20 minutes and the vet didn’t see any issues.  Although he did have a hard time listening to her heart because she got herself so worked and was breathing really heavily.  Let’s see how long it lasts before she’s back in there though.  Neither one of them (especially Dude) can’t make it a year between visits.  Seriously Dude’s gone to the vet more in the last year than Brady has.

I did go and try to hunt down a septic filter wrench today to no avail.  The first septic place had no clue what I was referring to except for one specific filter that comes with a wrench.  Then I went to Home Depot and they doubted the size wrench I was telling them I needed.  The trip wasn’t a complete waste though because I got some light timers for while we’re on vacation.  Hopefully between the neighbor across the street watching and the light timers we’ll be in good shape!

Tomorrow is Stoli’s turn at the vet (hopefully, if they can get her in).  She’s fine for the most part and just needs her annual exam and vaccinations. She isn’t due until February but the increased scooting and smelling she’s doing is prompting me to take her in earlier.  No way I can spend 16 hours in the car with her doing that.  I’m hoping that everything else with her is fine and she won’t have to go back for another year.  It’s already been an expensive month.

Tuesday, Casey met Brady and I at the Infiniti dealership after I dropped off the truck for an oil change and state inspection.  We went to lunch at Panda Express (which wasn’t very good or much fun – Brady liked the bears and the balls on the ceiling but that’s about it) and then to Amy’s for ice cream.  Ice cream in 50 degree weather when we didn’t have coats probably wasn’t a good idea but it sounded good and I was hoping it would pacify Brady a while longer.  We hung out at the playground long enough for me to finish what turned into my ice cream (Mexican vanilla – yum!) before retreating back into the car and out of the cold.  We drove back to the Infiniti dealership hoping that they would call and say the truck was ready (it’d been an hour by this point which was the estimate they had given me) but it was nap time and Brady started getting restless so we started driving around for awhile for her to fall asleep.  While we were driving I told Casey I felt bad that he was driving around in a death trap and he said he felt even worse when Brady and I had to ride in there too because it just isn’t safe.  We made our way back to the Infiniti dealership waited for awhile longer and I finally had to call to check on the FX just as it was ready.  We made the car seat swap and headed home while Casey headed back to work (later than anticipated).  Well he ended up not getting back to work til even later because as he was turning off of Burnett onto Koenig, the car behind him rear ended him and pushed him into the car in front of him.  He’s ok – his neck hurt at first and he had a headache but since is feeling fine.  They waited on the scene for almost two hours for the cops to show and when they did, the cop didn’t even take a report, just gave them forms and told them they could mail it in or do it online.  A lot of help they were – ATX police department fail!

After filing an initial report with USAA, Casey was told that the guy he was speaking with was in Colorado and unable to finish processing his claim and he’d be contacted in the next 24-48 hours by someone in Texas.  Friday afternoon Casey still hadn’t heard from them and ended up calling them, then the rep called back while he was in a meeting, then he returned her call only to have her gone for the weekend.  Casey was pretty pissed considering how long we’ve been with USAA and all the business we give them and called someone else looking to get the issue resolved and ball rolling on things.  Apparently since we have liability only on the car, there’s nothing else that they can will do and we have to take care of coordinating with the other insurance companies separately.  Why couldn’t the guy in Colorado have said this?!  I don’t think being in a different state would effect the answer given.  So Casey made the report with Allstate on Friday night, three days after the accident happened so now it’s more waiting.  Casey’s planning to talk to a USAA supervisor tomorrow to get this issue resolved because they most definitely dropped the ball on this one.

Our thoughts are that Allstate is actually going to get off cheap on this one since our car is so old.  Our assumption is that they’ll consider the car totaled because the damage to the front and rear of the car (not to mention the weird noises the car makes) will cost more to repair than the car is worth (we estimate about $400).  Casey bought the car when it was 5 years old with 40,000 miles on it.  We’ve now owned it for 11 years and it has 170,000 miles on it.  That car has had a good run and I can’t say I’m sorry to see it go.  Oh and the bonus of them considering the car totaled?  They’ll tow it away!

I guess it’s Murphy’s Law that when things start looking up, be prepared for him to strike.  Fortunately we paid off the FX a month ago so we’ll only have one payment when we get a new car.  We’re hoping to hold off until after the holidays to save up some cash for a downpayment.  It looks like another Civic, Accord, or Altima is in our future!

Here are the pics from Halloween weekend thru Thanksgiving – enjoy!

[Show as slideshow]

My parents trip to Texas ended up flying by.  They were here for a week and by the time they were gone all I could think was, where did the week go?!  We had a really good visit and managed to get some cute pics this trip (which I’ll post separately – I’m too lazy to integrate pics).  Luckily there won’t be that long between visits and we’ll see them again soon!

Going to the vet has become part of the routine around here since October, unfortunately.  Last week, we went in twice to the tune of another $170.  The guess at this point is that Dude somehow got a staph infection from the tumor which was caused by the ringworm and that was what was causing the spots to stay so long and not heal up.  He’s looking good now though and I think the expensive meds (Simplicef – which he’s no stranger to) is doing the trick.  The vet is supposed to call back on Wednesday with the official results (she said it takes a week to read from when she does the swab).