Hey Strangers!

It has been many moons since my last post…sorry about that. Let’s recap the past 2 ½ weeks, shall we?

Two weeks ago:

• Pretty busy work week.
• Pest control/Snake handler came for monthly check-up. No snakes found.
• Didn’t do anything with the busted concrete pad in the backyard.
• Hung out with Kel and Austin on Friday night at her gorgeous pad, drank too much and got home really late.
• Did a TON of yard work on Saturday, which consisted of shoveling probably 75 wheel barrow loads of left over mulch, refreshing the mulch that we had already laid, cut the grass, pulled weeds, and moved some of the pinestraw bales to the backyard. That was BEFORE the monsoon came and put a halt to our work.
• Sunday – We left for Key West!

One week ago:

• We had a fantastic time in Key West! We flew into Miami very early on Sunday morning, picked up our rental car, and started our four hour journey to KW.
• We made a few stops on the way, including the Miami-Homestead Speedway, where a security guard let us go into the track to watch a MOTO GP race. Shane was obviously more psyched about this than me – here he is:



• We then made our way through the keys, stopping in Islamorada at the World Wide Sportsman in Islamorada. This is apparently the ONLY thing on this island.
• The Seven-Mile Bridge was pretty cool, but I thought that it would be longer…I thought that the name was a bluff.



• The island was awesome…it reminded me of a beachy New Orleans (beach + history). The beaches weren’t great, very rocky and a lot of seagrass, but it was still nice to be able to see the ocean, lay out and just be at the beach.





• Shane and I rented bikes to make our way around the island…so much fun. We were inspired to buy bikes back here at home. We’ll see if that ever happens.



• We went to a different local place every night for dinner, and hung out at a different bar with live music every night. So nice.




• Our five days seemed to fly by, and on Friday we made our way home, and rented another car in Key West to drive to Miami. We were so sad:
• This return trip didn’t go quite as smoothly…we get to the Avis counter and they tell me that I can’t pay with my check card, although I could with Alamo, and that if I did they would immediately deduct $400 from my account as a deposit. Well, at this point we had no other choice so FINE. We get to our little Subaru and it is filthy – nothing compared to our cute little Ford Focus that we drove to KW in. We turn the car in in Miami, and the attendant meets us with ‘Did you get in an accident?’ ‘WHAT?!’ is our reaction. We go to the front left of the car and there is a huge dent, scratches and yellow paint on the side of the car. Fantastic. Shane kicks into work mode and gets us through the ‘accident report’ and says that they will more than likely wait a few weeks and send me a letter telling me that I owe a ton of money and that I should file it against my insurance. My response will be ‘Get in line…right behind Breckinridge Medical Clinic.’ No money for Avis.



• But before we turned the car in, we did some exploring around Miami. Not impressed. And Ocean Drive/South Beach was definitely not what I imagined…
• We got home really late on Friday night and our boys were here waiting for us! (Grandma Debbie picked them up from the vet early and brought them home for us). They were so sweet and so excited to see us. I must admit that I cried when we dropped them off at the vet for boarding, cried when I got home, and cried twice while we were in KW – it was very traumatic for me.

This week:

• Happy late 4th of July! Shane and I went to our friends Mike and Mandy’s for the 4th, hung out at the pool, and made some new ‘interesting’ friends. I’ll leave it at that.
• Sunday was a decompress day, where neither of us did anything but lay around and watch TV.
• No progress on house stuff, but I’m sure we’ll get at it this weekend.

I know I need to update on goals, seeing how it is already eight days into the month, so look for my superb results tomorrow!