spring cleaning

in light of the beautiful weather we had this weekend, i got in a huge spring cleaning mood. i cleaned a ton this weekend. i cleaned out my truck, al's truck, my room, living room, outside then proceeded to al's house. there i cleaned their outside, their porch, al's room (including getting rid of a bunch of his clothes that he doesn't wear and/or have holes in them), their living room a bit and a bit of thier kitchen. it feels so good to have things organized, although i know al's room and most of his house will be a disaster again by next week...

my cousin kayli got engaged last week!! so happy my cousin's are finally getting engaged! mary and travis are getting married in august and kayli says she's thinking about next spring or summer! i love weddings and more importantly, wedding receptions! especially with my family!

i went to the batting cages this weekend as well. it felt so good to swing a bat again! i am so ready for softball to start! i miss my ladies and my brother is playing full time on my co-ed team so it will be good to see him every week. i hit 39/40 which is a good start, but thought i'd be able to hit a little stronger since i've been lifting, but i'll just have to practice more before the season starts at the end of april.

i am dog sitting this week. kream should be here soon. a little anxious to see how him and jackson do after a couple of days. hopefully, they won't be so spazzy and wrestle so much after a while together, cuz that could get exhausting. excited to have a dog for a week tho. i am hoping to have kream drop a few pounds by the time i have to give him back. :)

wow, it's been 10 days...

can't believe it has been 10 days since i blogged last. where does the time go? here are a few last pictures from texas. the first is the best day we had, and of course it was the day we left and had to spend 5 hours in the car all the way to the airport.this one is the day we walked the beach. it was gorgeous out but really windy, so it was a little chilly. there were tons of birds and shells and huge jellyfish washed up on the shore.
this one's of the ripple marks the waves created in the sand when heading back into the gulf.
i was a little sad to head back to work on monday but have made this a week of change. i have made it to the gym all 3 days and today i had "boot camp" with my personal trainer and friend shane. he kicked my butt but it was good!! i have made a point to not buy any food if it's not at the grocery store and healthy. and especially no snacks at work because i tend to keep eating while working and not even notice. i have been good so far, hopefully i will continue. and hopefully i won't be too sore tomorrow... ;)

last night i got to meet the dog i will be dog sitting for next week. it is my co-worker nicole's dog. he's a black lab/pit bull mix, but he looks like a huge black lab. he's soooo big and fat and such a lover! i can't wait! and he actually got along with my roommate's dog jackson. those two are going to be a handful! jackson is almost one and kream is 7, so due to kream's size and age he got so tired playing with jackson. he was so funny he'd plop down on the floor but still try to wrestle. i'll have pics next week i'm sure.

fort worth zoo

here are some pictures of some of the animals at the fort worth zoo. it was such a big, cool zoo with some animals there i have never seen in real life before. i just posted some of my favorites starting with the hippos, they were huge! they were kind of hiding, but i did get a picture of one of them yawning. it's a cool pic but you can see the hippos in this one much better.they had soooo many birds, it was cool. here are some beautiful blue macaws. i couldn't get them to whistle for me tho.
here are al's favorite deer things called kudu. they have cool stripes and the guys have sweet spirally horns.
here is a dwarf crocodile. he was cute but not so cuddly :) i like this pic because of the above and below water parts.
ooohh a jaguar! he was cool looking! and huge!!

texas, y'all!!

made it to texas on what felt like the shortest flight ever! got to my cousin molly's house in arlington and then went to the fort worth zoo which is one of the top 5 zoo's in the country. then we went to the "stock yard" as they call it where we saw the daily cattle drive down the main street in fort worth. it was super cool to see and i got to ride "big jake" (pictured below). we also got a bonus while down there: after the cattle drive there was a st patty's day parade with a ton of horses all decorated in green paint and things. it was lots of fun, and i'm exhausted, but i got some color already even though i have sunglass tan lines.

big jake

molly and i holding the "texas sized" 100 dollar bill that some guy was giving out

a picture of the road the cows walked down.

march? already?

i just switched over my calendar to march, cannot believe it's march already, where did february go? i feel like it was just my birthday last week not last month....goodness. anyway had to put up a pic of my calendar to emphasize this post and cuz i leave for a hopefully warm texas vacation with al in 13 days!!!!! can't wait, it better be warm!! we're flying into dallas and visiting with my cousin molly there, then driving down to houston to stay with and visit some of al's friends. i have never been to texas so i'm hoping to do some site seeing, relaxing, hit the beach, take a bunch of pictures and maybe have some fun. can't wait to be warm and get away!!!

cleaning with jackson

i have been cleaning and cleaning today. i have this odd thing where i get in a cleaning mood and just go go go! in these moods i clean anything and everything and don't usually want to stop until i'm physically hurting or there's nothing else to clean. i cleaned our laundry/recycling room which was completely covered in card board and bags full of cans, glass and plastic. jackson (pictured below) my roommate amy's puppy's food is also in there along with amy's bike and other random things. the washer and dryer no longer work so we really don't use this room, but it was getting bad. our recycling bin is covered in snow somewhere in the backyard and thus we have not put any out since i moved in in october. it was a large task but is much better now and i am attempting to do my part to save the environment! i also cleaned our porch which was messy when i moved in and i have been trying to ignore the mess, until today...

well, 8 bags of garbage later we have a clean laundry room, porch, kitchen, landing, bathroom and my room. only thing left amy's room... dun dun dun... :) i wanted so bad to go in there and clean but didn't know how amy would feel about that so i didn't, but her room is crazy messy which is unlike me. it's not bad as in smelly or anything, there's just stuff everywhere. but i feel good having everything clean and organized and i enjoyed it the whole time!!

here are a couple of pictures of jackson that i took a couple of months ago. he has sooooooo much energy and is almost a year old. he will chew on anything, his favorite being cardboard right now. he always wants to play and is finally learning to chill once in a while. he's so smart and loves the puppy park we have here in eau claire. he was watching me the whole time i was cleaning and just waiting to see if i'd find anything for him. i did find his treats and a couple of toys. so he got a treat but the toys were already too chewed up to let him have in his kennel. he's my little (well big) monster!!!!

the "grubby's cabin" crew

got to see a bunch of awesome people that i haven't seen in a long time last night. we went to a little hockey bar in st. paul, which was cool (i had never been there before).

i like to call these people, collectively, the "grubby's cabin crew" because i get to see them annually and met some of them at the week vacation in the summer we used to take to grubby's cabin. some of us still do take this vacation in august, we just switched to a different lake and resort.

the majority of them are like family to me and it was so good to see them! below is a picture of my short brother and very tall kim!! ok so that is clearly not the case, but this is kind of the typical picture that my brother always has to take when around kim, marsha or michelle because they are all of the "vertically challenged" group :) i giggle every time i see one of these pictures! kim is about the size of my brother's leg.
this is my mom and her long time friend cammie. the hauers are one of my favorite familys!! and i got to see all 4 of them last night (a rare occurance!)

good friends=lots of laughs!!!!