The long weekend awaits!

For some reason, my mind doesn't seem to be functioning tonight, so I'll just update briefly :)

Not much new around here, but recently we've been trying to get out and about more. So we've been doing things like trying new restaurants and finally using some of our free movie passes.

 And having mini-golf competitions before devouring tasty Russian food.

And bowling and Indian food dates.

Meanwhile our little buddies still haven't gotten tired of each other. Abby's getting bigger each week, but manages to hold her own against Daley's rough play. They love each other.

 Speaking of growing up, Daley turned 1 today! So for his birthday, we gave him his new Zack the Duck toy. He got pretty excited.

 Then for dinner, we went to Taylor's and picked up some chuck steak and chopped it into little pieces for the pups. It lasted like 2 minutes before they inhaled it all. Best treat ever.

And now for a lovely 3-day weekend! Happy Labour Day!

Thankful Thursday

So much for consistency in posting - oh well. Luckily, today is Thursday, and therefore merits a little thankfulness. Which I need. So let's do this with some pictures, okay?

1. I'm thankful for my first niece! Odessa was born the day after my birthday, and is a sweet, beautiful girl. I'm already plotting ways to steal her away and do fun things with her as she grows up. I love being an Aunt!

On that note I SUPPOSE I should document in here somewhere that I turned 30 since my last blog post (yay?), and never ever have I felt so confident and ready to be my age. I didn't do anything particularly big that day, but in general I felt entirely loved and ridiculously happy. #IsThis30?

2. I'm thankful for our newest addition! I know we're crazy...but we got another puppy. Two Sundays ago we drove to Napa to pick up Daley's cousin from a new litter, and we instantly fell in love. Abby is already so different than Daley - mellow and lovey, and even fell asleep  like this on the way home in Nolan's lap.  

And Daley LOVES her. She is his newest obsession, and he spends a lot of time either wrestling her to the ground, licking her ears, or cuddling with her on their futon. Super cuteness. 

Milo, on the other hand, has been somewhat irate since she arrived. He'll get over it.

3. I'm thankful for Nolan's new bike! We used to love exploring new places on the motorcycle and driving windy roads for a day trip to some beautiful place. It's been a few years, and I'm super excited to do that again! Even though the maiden voyage was a somewhat hot and sweaty freeway experience.

4. I'm thankful for good friends. Even though I know my friends are keepers, it's still nice to realise how awesome they are. I've been so deeply grateful and warmly surprised at how truly incredible my people are.

5. I'm thankful for my job/flexibility. This one is tough, and I don't have a picture for it unless you desperately want to see a picture of the rings under my eyes. I've been working roughly 8am- 2am every day for the last couple of weeks (with of course, some small breaks!), and it's been wearing on me...but I know that it's temporary, and only strikes a few times a year. And it balances out with the fact that my commute is 30 seconds long and I get to be here watching my pets during the day while I work. Also, I really love what I do, and I genuinely believe that I'm doing something meaningful. So for that, it's totally worth it.

What are you thankful for?

When you start monitoring your cows' activities with drones.

Milo turned 9 yesterday...and we totally forgot to celebrate, as we always do. One year, we had a birthday party for him and people brought him catnip and Hello Kitty cards with pictures of a cute girl cat for him. This year, he spent half the day laying on our newly growing creeping fig and being chased out of it by me with a hose, and the other half doing this. Birthdays are hard as you age.

For Father's Day, we went up to the ranch to spend time with my dad. Luckily, my aunts and most of the cousins were there too, so we got to spend time with them, which is rarer than it should be. My dad loved his new drone for about 30 seconds, until it crashed into the pool. Tragedy ensued, but abated once the drone was revived a few hours later. Nolan probably thought the slow-mo version of the drone crashing was funnier than he should have :-\

You can extol your own praises as much as you want on Father's Day. Just kidding. All those things are true.

As usual, there was much game-playing and weirdness. Games as shown below, and weirdness...well. See for yourself in the video. 

 My mom was deceived by Pinterest's claim that putting a very brown banana in rice for an hour then blow drying it will turn it yellow again.

I tried to take a picture with the cows and inadvertently got Daley in it...chasing them. As he does. After he chases them though, they realize he just is being friendly, and they sniff noses with him. Pretty cute. He then spent most of the day chasing around the other dogs, swimming in the pool, and generally being annoying.

Which was a nice change, because burning off his energy recently has been a challenge. This is pretty much what he does...always. When I try to walk him. Walks take a ridiculous amount of time now due to all the coaxing. This is what happens when your dog is born in the cold and thinks that heat shouldn't exist.

This morning, I'm feeling extra grateful for friendship. I started my day with a sweaty hot yoga session and this girl...who is pretty awesome. I wish every day could start with yoga, coffee and sweet friendship because it only starts the day off on the best note possible.

Everything.

A friend of mine recently remarked on the fact that we've stopped writing in our blogs, and how that's made it difficult to keep up with all the day to day things that make up our lives. So here I sit, on a Sunday morning over a year after my last post, and a little bit stumped on how to recap the last year. How can one cram a bazillion tiny things into a super nerdy blog anyway?

There are so many things I could say about all of the huge changes in my life in the last year, but I've decided that the best way to capture a period of time is just to summarize. Try not to be bored to tears overly excited with my lackluster narrative.

After 7 looong years, Nolan finally finished his road through med school and residency. We celebrated with MANY World Cup festivities (Oranje!), and squeezing in all the time we could muster with all of our dear friends in the Bay Area.

Quakes vs. Galaxy game. Landon Donovan was sad panda on the field after his US team rejection.

Then, we packed up everything, like...two days before our lease was up, and moved to Sacramento. I don't think I've EVER hated moving and packing as much as this time, and we've done it a fair amount. I said goodbye to our sheep pasture in Redwood City, my desk at Corporate HQ, and really excellent Indian food. 

And then...a few days after moving, I got a call about a project in Atlanta for work. After just going from New Jersey to India/Nepal to Scottsdale, I was a little travelled out. But I packed up again and spent a few weeks living and working in Atlanta, while Nolan was in Italy having a solo trip during his month between residency and work. I was a tiny bit jealous, but he DID stop in Atlanta on his way back to visit and spend a weekend eating ALL OF THE BARBEQUE we could find in Georgia and the Carolinas.

And then I got home and went straight to Napa for a leadership team meeting. In which my colleague made me take pictures every 5 minutes. Like this one.

And then the fall happened, and my life was basically consumed with Sacramento...I found an amazing CrossFit box that I was totally in love with, found a church and a community of pretty freaking rad people, spent lots of time biking to incredible coffee places...and even found bomb Indian food.

Of course, as anticipated for SO LONG...we added a little buddy to our family :) Daley Blind Caldwell is super cute...and an absolute TERROR. But we love him. And so does Milo. Instead of putting up a thousand pictures of my puppy, I'll only relegate you to three that shows the sweet little friends together.

Waiting for treats. When Milo was still marginally taller than Daley.

Waiting for shots together at the vet. Milo's an old hat at this but Daley's obviously concerned.

Sleeping on the futon. Daley was still only 40 lbs here and he is 51 now so...

Then we had our annual Christmas extravaganza, which was even more exciting this year because we closed on our house on Christmas Eve! We spent much time negotiating with the sellers and finally were able to move in on December 26. We L O V E our new neighbourhood.

The men in my life being forced onto one couch Christmas morning.

Moving was...exhausting. And would have been totally impossible without our army of friends to help hoist things over balconies and carry endless boxes. So that was time-consuming for many weeks. Then I ran my first trail half-marathon (so fun!), ate lots of carbs, did my first CrossFit Open (SO nerve-wracking but SO fun!), and spent many hours chasing Daley away from tearing up our drip system.

Finally after getting mostly settled into the new house (this picture was still pre-furniture), we celebrated Nolan's big 3-0 with, what else? A Rijsttafel. And many friends and full hearts.

Post-Rijsttafel hanging. Table looks like crap because we aren't technically fitted for so many people.

And here's where I insert the obligatory cute picture of us from a wedding we went to...

NBD, just my smokin' hot husband.

These days, my life is pretty much comprised of late working nights, early workout mornings, constantly chasing Daley, sitting on a train to San Francisco for meetings, finding new ways to appreciate my girlfriends, and trying to convince Nolan to bike to Vic's ice cream with me. Doesn't get much better than that!

And don't worry, future posts won't be as dry, so you can put away that pencil with which you were about to poke out your eyes.