Baby Boy and Christmas

My 18 week ultrasdound was today and everything looked good. We found out it is definitely a boy! My placenta is sitting on my cervix so I get to have another ulrasound in 4 weeks to make sure it's moving. We will be naming him Michael Patrick McGowan III. I know it sounds pretentious, he'll be called Mikey. Unfortunately I can't call anyone with the exciting news because I caught a nasty cold the day after Christmas :(
We spent Christmas in Crystal River with Mike's stepmom Karen. We really enjoyed spending time with her and hope we lifted her spirits a little. Mike's dad (big Mike) passed away in November and I know it's been a rough holiday season for her. Mike is working on a memorial website for his dad so I haven't really posted about it here (wanted to link to the website).
Karen is always so creative with her gifts and gave us personalized M&Ms with our picture and possible baby names on it. That was super thoughtful! Mike's mom had a great idea of all of us sending 2 of our favorite movies to each other. We've been seeing new favorites :) As usual my folks sent money which is always appreciated! We've been low on the gift giving this year between the economy and my lack of energy. I did send gift subscriptions to Ranger Rick to the nieces and nephews which I hoped they recieved.
We always enjoy the time with family and joy that comes with the holiday season.

Baby Room and Belly Pics

So here's the first step in converting the office into the baby's room. For those of you that don't know (or remember) our office was black so this is a huge change. The desk wrapped around two walls and is now just in the closet where I think it will still be very useful as a changing table. We moved a portion of the desk into the guest room closet to become our mini office. Since we don't know the sex yet we thought yellow was a good neutral color with lots of options.


And for those of you that are curious to see how big I am so far here's some lovely pictures, acne and all. I'm 16 weeks pregnant, 3 1/2 months for those of you not obsessed :) So far I'm 2 lbs heavier than pre-pregnancy (lost some weight the first couple months but have now gained that back).

Thanksgiving

I know I've been a slacker with posting. I'm still feeling pretty sick and have no energy... We had lots of fun over Thanksgiving. My parents flew in the week before and spent lots of time with us. My mom and I went shopping for maternity clothes and I found lots of cute things. On Monday of that week Mike's mom and stepdad flew in and it was really busy from there on out. On Wednesday we went to Fairchild tropical gardens which is huge and just full of beautiful flowers. It was perfect weather and just the right amount of exercise for those of us with lower energy levels ;)
For Thanksgiving we had the two sets of parents as well as my mom-in-law's best friend Mary. We had a wonderful fried turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams, green beans, rolls, pecan pie and pumpkin pie. It couldn't have been better!
The parents have all gone home now so things have quieted back down. Now I need to start getting out my Christmas decoration and making my holiday cookies. Anybody want me to send them some? I'll be making fudge, caramels, shortbread stars and biscotti this year.

Meet the Sea Monkey

Today was our first ultrasound. Here's the little guy's profile. He didn't want to get in the right postion to be measured but we think we finally got a good measurment of about 40mm. Based on his size they changed the due date to June 2. We won't know for 7 more weeks what the sex is so for now it's a sea monkey :)

Hubby Tag

I don't normally respond to tags but this one might actually help some of you get to know Mike since he doesn't post on here. Thanks Jamie for sending it along!

5 Things Mike Loves
Me!
Scuba Diving
Boating
Rock Climbing
His Job

5 Things On His To Do List
Remodel baby's room
Build new equipment for work
Climb the 7 summits
Create his own TV show
Make more money

5 Foods He Enjoys
Mike is really picky so this is challenging
Filet mignon
Cherry Garcia ice cream
Pizza
Avocado eggrolls (cheesecake factory)
Really spicy food (if he has no taste buds left at the end it was just right)

5 Things You Might Not Know About Him
He's OCD about certain things
He never finished college
He can talk a customer service person into anything
Heck, he can talk anybody into anything and make them glad they did it
He's the easiest going person you'll ever meet

5 Places He's Lived
Miami
Redondo Beach
Los Angeles
San Diego
Connecticut

5 Quirky Things About Him
He likes to wrestle on the floor with our dogs
He has to have the best car out of all his co-workers
He has no sense of fashion
He giggles when he's nervous (it's weird, but cute)
He gets obsessed with one hobby at a time

Oh the Exhaustion

I haven't posted in a couple weeks because I'm just so tired... I do have a lot to write about though. My little belly is sticking out enough that my pants don't button. I'm trying to hold out buying the maternity clothes as long as possible though. At least until my mom and mom-in-law come to visit and go shopping anyway :) I've been really queasy and moderately pukey so that's not fun. I finally completed 6 weeks of working 60 hour weeks in an effort to help save some money and pay off the porsche (sigh).
In our family it has been a rough week. Mike's dad has been in the hospital for over a week with a kidney infection that went septic. He was critical for a while so Mike spent last Thursday to Monday with him. I think Mike was able to distract him some and help the hospital staff with all his care (Big Mike is a large stubborn man when feeling well so with kidneys failing he was even larger and grumpier.) We hope he will be able to recover but he will be in the hospital for the next several weeks.
On Halloween I only had 3 groups of trick-or-treaters come to the house. I had 2 huge bags of candy all ready :( What I really find ironic is that a neighbor came to the house on Monday selling candy bars for a school fundraiser. This same neighbor did not visit us on Halloween. So my money is good enough for them but they don't trust my candy? Hmmm.
I did go vote last week in early voting. I had to wait 2 1/2 hours but I think it is worth it to have my say. I'm pleased that our candidate won :)
Hopefully working less this month I can keep this up to date a little better. Or maybe I'll just take more naps :)

A Bun In The Oven

Luckily we weren't planning to keep it secret (j/k Jamie). Today I had my first doctor's appointment for my pregnancy. I'm about 9 weeks along with a due date of May 27. Needless to say we are very excited! And apparently the blood tests aren't always right since I got pregnant that same month :) The first ultrasound won't be for 3 weeks and it will be quite some time before we know the sex. I'll keep everyone posted with belly pictures :) I always said I wanted to be pregnant before 30 (even if it was only by 9 weeks)! Happy birthday to me!

I Love Books

As you all know, I love books. The picture of my first baby steps shows me carrying a giant picture book with a grin from ear to ear. When Brett was a baby I used to "read"to him from those picture books. I won every year in elementary school for most books read in the year. Everyone has things they are passionate about and mine is books.

I currently belong to 2 book clubs down here in Miami. Last month a girl in one of them asked if we would like to participate in a book club chain letter she'd recieved. Once I read through it I was excited. Everyone sent the letter to 6 of their friends and 1 book to the person 2 levels behind them. I eagerly sent off my letters and my book. I figured $2 to send a book that I enjoyed but wouldn't read twice was a great deal. My mom and mom-in-law called as soon as they recieved their letters. They were also excited.

So here's the best part. Today I recieved my first book! It was one I had seen and thought about in the book store. I can't wait!

Time to start my garden season

Contrary to most of you, it is now time to start my new gardening season. Last week I got a big bag of Miracle Grow and started my new seeds. I start a lot of the plants in pots before moving them to the garden. The actually garden will get tilled under this month and then replanted with all the new stuff.

I Just Need To Vent...

I've been sick with a nasty cold all week so I haven't been doing anything exciting but work has had me in a tizzy. I guess it's just the nature of my field but there are some clients that I love to see and others who make me shudder whenever I see their name on the appointment list. The latest drama at work involves one of those. This woman is extremely high maintenance and her cat is not a happy kitty. That alone would be enough to make things difficult. Last month said kitty decided to go into acute renal failure. We had him hospitalized for a weekend trying to get his kidneys working again. This kitty is grumpy enough that we had to sedate hime each time we checked him. So his owner wasn't happy about that... She also wasn't happy that she couldn't sit next to his cage 24 hours a day in our ICU... Nobody at work enjoyed that weekend. After 3 days of no urine formation (yes, you saw that right) I told the woman there was nothing else I could do to start his kidneys going. I recommended she take him home to die rather than he be miserable for his last couple days at the clinic. After he had been home for 2 days he started urinating again. Rather than be grateful for her miracle (I'm a doctor, not God, I'm glad he made it against the odds), she has decided we tried to kill her cat. Really?! On Friday she got a local station to listen to her and come film about our bad clinic. Needless to say I am not feeling nicely towards this woman.
The plus side of this is the outpouring from many of our clients that are outraged. One client is a local humane society director and she actually called me to say how mad she was at the station and that we should sue them for liable. An employee at the station who is a long term client also called to say she would help us fight this. And 3 seperate clients who were thrilled with how their pets current treatments were going brought us snacks.
It's just so frustrasting that a miserable person who likes to make everyone around them miserable can have so much influence in your life. AAAARRRGH!!!!!

Swimming With The Dogs

Lately Mike has been taking the dogs to the lake across the street to swim every other day. Both of them are getting older and have some arthritis. The swimming is great because it works all their muscles without having any chance of injuring themselves. And in our hot weather it sure feels good :)

Another New Car

Last Saturday on my way home from work the porsche decided to spring a leak in the radiator and dump all my coolant onto the road. So there I sat at the bottom of the freeway exit ramp with no way to move. A kind man helped me push it to the side of the road until Mike could arrive but it wasn't good. After that we realized that as much as we like the porsche we need a reliable car to get me to and from work while we continue with it's "project" status. So on Wednesday we went and bought this...

A bright yellow 2008 Chevy Aveo. It has auto nothing and cost a whooping $11,000. It gets great milage, approx. 40 mpg on the freeway, and will work very well for getting me to work. I'll still drive the porsche around here but it needed way too much right away to make it my only car. And the Aveo does seat 5...

Continuing with the baby conversation we did find a problem with my last blood test. I don't seem to be ovulating. A normal progesterone level after ovulation is 4 or greater and mine was 1. So starting next month my doctor is going to stick me on Clomid to induce ovulation. It does increase the risk of twins but what do you do? If we have no results after 3 months I get to start seeing a fertility specialist. Cross your fingers for one baby right away :)

Water Bill

So we just got our first water bill since we put in the rain barrel. They bill for every 3 months here so this bill was from May 27 to August 26. Our bill ending in May was for 17,204 gallons at a grand total of $106. That bill covered the first part of our growing season for our plants so it was at high consumption. The current bill is also during our high consumption time and is for 9,724 gallons at a total of $61. In 3 more billing cycles the rain barrel will have paid for itself and we really feel great about what a difference it has made. We have also been making small household changes as far as showers vs baths and leaving water running less when doing dishes and brushing teeth. It just makes us more excited and motivated to see just how much we can do!

Waiting for baby...

Well everyone we decided to get up close and personal this week. If you get queasy hearing about medical procedures or have no desire to hear about our efforts to get pregnant I advise you to skip this week’s post. That being said, here’s the details.
We stopped our birth control the first week of January. My cycles seemed to be pretty regular right off. They are a bit long (30 days) but the doctor said that’s okay as long as we don’t hit 40. So we expected it would take a few months for everything to sort itself out. In March I went to my annual doctor visit and she said things seemed good and to let her know if we weren’t having success after 6 months since my cycles were already regular. After that we started taking ovulation tests and they consistently said I was ovulating right in the middle of my cycle. So in July we thought we finally had made it happen. I was late and was having some pregnancy symptoms. But the home pregnancy tests kept saying negative. My period finally hit at day 50. I went to the doctor the next week and she said it seemed I hadn’t ovulated that month and it seemed like a good time to start some basic testing. So this month I’ve already had blood drawn twice to check hormone levels- it all looked okay. I also had a lovely test done called a hysterosalpingogram. Basically you lie on an x-ray table while they force dye from your uterus up into your fallopian tubes. It is incredibly painful. My right tube looked great but my left had some adhesions. The tubes themselves were open so they should be okay. My doctor said just the flushing can sometimes help if you have any adhesions or small blockages.
Next week I have another blood hormone level test and we’ll see where we go from there…

The Porsche Is Finally Home!

We finally picked up the porsche yesterday. It has a few issues still (obviously not painted yet) but runs great. We've been driving it around our neighborhood to get used to it and find all the last little issues. It's good to have two cars again even if one is on limited use right now. The dash lights don't work, the turn signals don't work, the larger tires hit the wheel wells in back when you turn but compared to before these are pretty minor things. I spent last night cleaning all the dirt out of the interior and it was impressive. It's never been in moisture though so there is no mold or mildew. Mike is realizing that this car is never going to be as smooth and quiet as his newer car so he's not sure about the whole project but I love it. I don't mind taking a long time getting it the way we want it so it may be more my car than his. I'm okay with that :)

Quick Survey

My sis-in-law Jamie had this going on her blog and I thought it looked short and sweet :)

Copy and paste this into a commentand then fill in the blanks. Try not to look at other people's answers. I can'twait to read the comments... and make sure to post it on yours too so I can fill in your blanks. :)

Where did we meet:
Take a stab at my middle name:
Do I smoke:
Color of my eyes:
Do I have any siblings:
What's one of my favorite things to do:
What's my favorite type of music:
Am I shy or outgoing:
Am I a rebel or do I follow the rules:
Any special talents:
How many children do I have:
Describe me in three words:
If you and I were stranded on a desert island, what is one thing that I would bring:

Computer Addiction

This whole blogging thing has started a computer addiction for me. I have recently joined facebook as well as started digital scrapbooking. I'm about to take my blogging to a whole new level... :)

Too much work again...

Both Mike and I worked a lot this week so I don't have anything very exciting. That being said we'll give a basic update and plans for the future.
We are still working on getting the porsche in street driving condition. It runs great but there is no knob to turn on the headlights. (I refuse to drive another car where tools are needed for everyday functions, the sentra required a screwdriver to open the gas tank.) The center console piece to turn off the check engine light is missing. The gas gauge doesn't work and the windshield wipers aren't on yet. As I told the mechanic that means I can't drive it yet because it's always dark or raining this time of year. Hopefully next week we can take it home. I now call it our money pit.
The solar panels have been ordered and should be installed anyday. The permits for our very strict county were approved 2 weeks ago so it's finally happening :)
The garden is doing great at producing eggplant, basil and limes. Anyone have a good recipe for this combination?
This week I worked 60 hours. As most of you know I'm an emergency vet, which means I work both day and night shifts. This week I had 3 days shifts and 2 night shifts so my body is all screwed up. We do have an adorable 2 week old bottle fed kitten right now at work and he's just at the age that he wants to play after his bottle. It's cuter than I can describe :)
Mike has been working a lot this week also. He did stunts for Burn Notice 1 day, a music video yesterday and is just leaving to go do a Honda commercial.
As far as future plans we are getting ready to have some of the family come down here for Thanksgiving. I really enjoy cooking and having people come visit. For Christmas we'll go see Mike's dad and stepmom in central Florida. They always have great food and it's so relaxing there on the river. We'd like to take a vacation to one of the national parks this year but haven't figured that out yet and are a little short on money right this moment (see the car part above). And for all of you still wondering, yes, we are trying to have a baby but have not yet been successful. I think that sums it up :)

The Florida Keys

Our 2 year anniversary is this month so we thought we'd take a couple of days to get away from the big city. We went to a resort called Cheeca Lodge in the Florida Keys. As Florida residents we got a pretty good deal and were able to get an oceanfront room. I don't think I've ever stayed somewhere with such a wonderful view. We spent a lot of time just sitting on the patio.

On the day of our arrival we took a walk along the ocean, played in the pool and enjoyed awonderful dinner of Florida lobster. The second day we did a spa day with both of us getting facials and massages. It was wonderful! I guess the spa treatment worked because on our way back to the room I stopped at the tiki bar for a margarita. The bartender actually asked me for ID!!! Needless to say it wasn't on me because at 29 I tend to be past getting IDed. It was great! :) After a lighter dinner that evening we took a walk of the grounds. They have beautiful landscaping and tiki torches and small lights along their paths. It was so nice!




Jill in her new vacation dress by the walk through to the tub.

The room was really nice. It had a colonial carribean type feel to it. There was a king size bed. Palm frond looking ceiling fan, dark wood furniture and a tub and glass shower. The best feature was the walk through to the tub. It really opened the whole thing up and was a neat way to arrange the room.

It was only for 2 days but it was a really great and relaxing 2 days. You can't help but slow down when you go down into the keys!

My "New" Car

Well, yesterday Mike picked up the new car. It is a 1982 Porsche 928. As you can see it needs some work. Mike has a work buddy who inherited it when his father passed away several years back. This man had bought it new and only drove it occasionally. Unfortunately he did get in one crash with it so it needs some new paint. Most of the other stuff is from sitting in a barn for 10-15 years. Today we dropped it off at the repair place and hopefully we can get it running. We figured it was a great project for us :)

Working too much...

We haven't had anything exciting happen these past couple of weeks so I thought I'd just give a general update...
I worked 60 hours this past week so I'm pretty exhausted. I can always tell the warmer times of year because we have so many dogs come in with problems giving birth. In the past 3 days I've seen two dogs that weren't able to give birth at home. The first one was a yorkie shitzu mix (cute but strange mix) who hadn't had any puppies after 12 hours of labor. After checking her we found she was pregnant with 6 puppies and none had yet moved into the birth canal. Her calcium and glucose levels were okay so we just had to increase her contractions. We gave her an oxytocin injection and all 6 puppies were born in the next 2 hours. All did very well. My next case was a miniature pinscher mix. She had already had 4 puppies (2 dead, 2 live) and still seemed a little swollen. We checked her and she still had 1 remaining puppy who hadn't descended. They were a little tight on money so we went straight for the oxytocin injection. She had the last puppy (alive) about 15 minutes later. That dog wasn't nearly as healthy so we talked a lot about her nutrition and perhaps supplementing the puppies with puppy formula. I have to say there is nothing more rewarding than being able to send a dog home with live puppies. It really is the miracle of birth.
Mike has also been working a lot these past couple of weeks. He's shot several rap videos recently (he does a lot of those) and has been doing 2nd unit for Burn Notice. For those of you that don't know, 2nd unit is the stunt shots in a show or movie. Last season Mike shot 1st unit (all the dialogue and basic shots) for Burn Notice, a USA network show. This season he's just doing some of 2nd unit. He likes the adrenaline rush of all the stunt shots. I don't go to watch on those days :)
Hopefully we'll be posting about the solar panels and new car soon. We're just waiting on the phone call to install the solar panels and we just have to coordinate picking up the new car.
Stay tuned...

My Car

This month my 4 year lease on my Nissan 350Z is up so I thought I'd share some fond memories. When I first got it all of you thought I had gone off the deep end (except my mom who still fondly refers to her Camaro). But I thought, Why not? I'd driven a sensible, economic Sentra for 10 years and was ready for something with more power than a golf cart. For anyone that missed the story of the Sentra's demise... I made a U-turn while going 70 mph on the freeway. Obviously it was not on purpose and the suspension as well as the body had considerable damage. I was not hurt (nor was anyone else involved) so Mike viewed it as Christmas (he hated the Sentra). We went to every type of car dealer, told them we wanted to buy a car that very weekend and they were all very eager. I would have preferred the blue color but there wasn't one available in south Florida. So I ended up with a red Z!

I am proud to say I have only gotten 1 speeding ticket in it and have only had to change 1 tire. The most interesting story doesn't even involve me driving it. One evening it was parked in the driveway and the fedex man came to deliver a package. As he went to pull out of the driveway I heard a horrifying crunch. He had managed to slowly back into the left front corner of my car. I immediately called the police to come make a report and the driver was very apologetic and worried about his job. I told him that it was an accident and there was nothing to do about it now but that I did want a report due to the amount of damage. So I got my report and started calling my insurance company as well as fedex.

The next day Mike's good friend Mack dropped me off at the body shop where the car had been towed to and I got my rental car. It was 3 weeks before I would get my car back. It had a total of $2500 of damage. The entire front bumper, side panel and mirror all had to be replaced. The fun began with trying to get fedex to pay for it. Even armed with a police report saying the car was parked in my driveway they still didn't want to pay. I couldn't even get them to return my calls. Eventually my insurance company had to sue them and I got my deductible returned about 5 months later. What a mess.

I will miss this car but it just doesn't seem like a good plan to buy it with the miles on it and it not being a very sensible car to haul anything larger than my purse. But I'll always have my memories of my little red sports car...

Going Green part 2

We also like to grow our own fruit and vegetables. I've been working with composting and other things like that this year to see what I can come up with. Mike says we grow about 1 % of our food. I'm not really sure how to calculate that but we do grow about 75% of the fruit and vegetables we eat.

This peach tree was planted in February when it was 3 feet tall. I guess it likes our watering schedule.

This lychee tree is my second attempt at lychee. My first one died from overfertilizing :( It's a slower grower (about 3 feet each year) so I'm not sure when I'll have fruit from it. I love lychees! They are a red, round asian fruit. they are very sweet and moist. For now I buy my lychees from the roadside fruit stands every June but I can't wait to have my own!

These are the oranges growing on the tree we planted 2 years ago. The orange tree had issues with mold and leaf miners (pests that destroy leaves) but is doing well now.

The lime tree is trying to take over the backyard. It was 3-4 feet across when planted 2 years ago. It is now about 10 feet across.

This is a lemon on the Meyer's lemon tree also planted 2 years ago. It also had issues with mold but is now thriving.

This is the fig tree we planted this February. It was also about 3 feet tall and is now 6 feet.

This is one of the many avocados on our 2 trees in the front yard. Both trees were planted 4 years ago but 1 broke off at the ground during a hurricane 3 years ago. Proving just how hardy they are both trees are now equal size and about 15 feet tall and 10 feet across.

This is the strawberry patch that grows in the planters on the new deck. They add a really nice garden feature to the deck as well as being super tasty! So far it has only given us miniature strawberries (about 1/2 to 1 inch) but they have lots more flavor than the store bought ones.

My garden has a rotation throughout the year. We have to adjust our planting schedule back several months to account for the extreme heat in summer. These 2 pictures are of our many tomato plants. This year I planted seeds for Roma, Pear and Cherry tomatoes. All are doing very well. I put down the red tarp to reduce the weeding I have to do and it's supposed to increase yields.

My eggplants are also all started from seed. I always get good results with these :) I know most of you have no idea what to do with eggplant. I'm pretty simple about it. I slice them and either fry them coated with corn meal or broil them with just a little olive oil. I like the flavor but Mike doesn't really.

My herbs do pretty well. This is a basil plant that started from seed in February. It's about ready to be cut down completely. There is also dill, oregano, and chives.

One of my new projects this year is composting. I always had a lot of plant material that was piled along the fence as well as paper documents that should have been shredded. So I got myself a kitchen compost bucket to put fruit and vegetable remains in (only fruits and veggies so as not to attract rodents to the composter). I bought a shredder for the office and then the big outdoor composter. This composter is small (comparitively) and spins to mix. About every 2 weeks I add new vegetable remains and shredded paper. There is also additives that the manufacturer sells to help things along. With this type of composter I'm supposed to leave it alone for 6 weeks but then what would I do with my vegetable reamins? I haven't yet got any good compost from it. The first batch dissolved completely and my second ongoing batch is really moist so I'm not sure what to do. It's a great experiment and if nothing else keeps us from throwing more stuff away.

The gardening and composting is always a work in progress and each year brings new challenges as far as pests and moisture levels. It keeps me busy and is very relaxing. The time I spend in my garden is uninterrupted, no phones or anything else. It gives me a chance to forget everything else and just focus on each litle plant and what it needs :)

Going Green Part 1

Since we've been concentrating alot on this topic at our house I thought I'd highlight some of our more interesting efforts. I won't even pretend that we are doing all we can. We still drive our gas guzzling cars and are a bit wasteful with our trash (although we do recycle some). Some of our efforts are more driven by money savings but I think it's good to make an effort no matter what the reasoning. Oh, and Mike has a little bit of that self-sufficient apocalyptic think going on lately...

First off we have our well and water pump. This 30 foot deep well serves our sprinkler system. We run the sprinklers for 30 minutes daily with no city water. We also have a couple of faucets that run off of it. The pump turns on when you ask it to only (so it does use electricity but not much). In most areas of the country this may not be an option but it's perfect here where our water table is high. (Have I mentioned our house in 5 ft above sea level.)

Next we have our rain barrel. This is a recent purchase prompted by our plants and other landscaping needs that aren't hooked up to the well. We bought this from Gardener's Supply for less than $200. It is attached to a piece of raingutter that drains about 1/4 of our roof. With the Miami rain it fills up in one good rainstorm. I've been using it constantly to water strawberry beds, herbs, peppers, rinsing outside messes and washing the dogs. Now that we know how effective it is we are planning to get a couple more for prime spots in the yard.

Our inside the house water saver is our tankless hot water heater. We love this thing... We obtained this about 2 years ago and have been enjoying it since. It cost $850 to have installed which included removing our hot water heater tank. There are several reasons to get one of these. They save space (that box in the middle is about the size of a sheet of paper). They are healthier because no bacteria is living in them, when not in use it's empty. You don't have to shut it off when you leave town because it only uses energy when you are running hot water. Also, there is an endless supply of hot water. And of course it saves on your electric bill. We have been saving about $40-45 each month.

Soon I'll do posts on our other toys and efforts but they were too long for just one post :)

Camping in Tennessee

This week we decided we needed a break. On Sunday night after I finished work we drove to the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee. On the day we arrived we went through Gatlinburg. I'd never been there and didn't realize how touristy it was. It's like a mini version of Orlando. In case you're wondering what that means it's like downtown Jackson Hole but bigger and with theme parks. After finding our campground we decided to take a nice little hike. We chose something not too long because we had the dogs with us and Vasco is getting old and Tibo is not much of a hiking type of dog. We ended up going on a 6.5 mile loop of old growth forest. Vasco was exhausted by the end and Tibo was limping from a raw spot from his harness (I discovered the scab a couple days later, oops.) But not bad for an 11 year old German Shepherd and a little dog who had back surgery.

Monday night it rained so we decided that was enough sleeping in the tent. Did I mention it's a 2 person tent and we had all 4 of us in there? After packing up that morning we decided to head down into the national forests in Georgia. We ended up taking a road in the middle of nowhere that led to a lake in the Chattahoochee National Forest. There was only 4 other groups of people there and it was just beautiful. It was a great chance to relax. That night we drove down to Macon, Georgia and stayed in a hotel there.

On Wednesday we continued driving through Georgia and decided to go see the coast. We stopped for lunch and a park break in Savannah. We took a drive down the streets with the old houses on them. The houses were every type of fancy architecture there is and were so neat. The streets had a median with trees as well as the sides of the street so it was a corridor of oak trees with moss hanging from them. It was really nice.

As we continued down the coast we stopped at St Mary's, Georgia. It's the second oldest town in the US (keep reading for the first). It was very small but pleasant with a nice oceanside park that we took a stroll in. We were to late in the day but they had a ferry that goes to Cumberland Island where they have wild horses.

After St Mary's we got on to A1A in Jacksonville, Florida. A1A goes along the coast and is the last road next to all the beaches. The beach houses were really fun to look at. The was no one else on the road (it had been raining and it was dusk) so we took a leaisurely drive enjoying all the types and colors of houses. When we reached St Augustine, Florida (the oldest town in the US) we stopped at a hotel and found dinner.

Early Thursday morning we went to Castillo de San Marcos which is the old Spanish fort at St Augustine. The fort was constructed in 1672. It was really interesting and had a lot of thought and detail that went into each piece of it. This fort was never taken and only switched hands with treaties. For that length of history I think that is just amazing! St Augustine was first colonized by the Spanish in 1565. They built city walls and gates and a lot of the old structures still exist. It was interesting to drive down the narrow streets and think how long ago that was. I still think the Spanish had a very sneaky plan. They sold Spanish Florida to the US with the plan to just take it over again later for free :) Anyone that doesn't think this is true can just visit for a couple days :) After seeing St Augustine we drove back home and collapsed into our own comfortable bed. You never appreciate your own bed as much as after a vacation.

New to Blogging

You finally talked me into it Mary! I'm not very good with computers so it may be a while before I have everything up and running how I want it but you have to start somewhere, right?

So where do I start...

Mike and I live in sunny Miami. I've been here since 2003 and Mike was born here (although mostly grew up in California). We've been together since 2004 and married since 2006. We have no kids (yet) but 2 very spoiled dogs. Vasco is an 11 year old German Sherherd. He was a schutzhund dog (police dog sport) and national champion. He currently enjoys his retirement and extra dog biscuits. Tibo is an 8 year old Tibetan Spaniel, also called a fuzzy goldfish on crack. If you've ever met him you understand that statement. He has too much energy for one being.

We bought our house new in 2005 and have been making lots of improvements since. I have a 20x30 ft vegetable garden that I grow beans, peas, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, beets, carrots and herbs in. Mike built by hand a pergola in the side yard and a screened patio out back. We have a concrete boat slab (no boat yet but hopefully soon) and redid the front tilework. If I can get all the pictures to work you can see the landscaping that we did. Hurricane Wilma 2 1/2 years ago was a mixed blessing in that it took out all our trees and made it necessary to rip out our whole front yard. It's been a lot of hard work but we're very proud of our little home.