The Furminator!

Amy and Jasen let us use a fantastic brush! It's called the furminator for a reason! This is only part of the pile of hair we pulled off her! Crazy!

Viva Las Vegas!

Happy bachelor(ette) party Brenden and Charlotte! We had a blast in Vegas! It was so great to see everyone and hang out! Alex learned how to play craps and did pretty good at it too!! We went to see Mystre- a cirque de sole show! and just tooled around Vegas in general! The pictures tell it better!

There's a monster in that bush!

Ned found a new place to soak up the sun... the compost pile!
He's just so darn cute!

I want one!!

Another fantastic sunny day today! We took the pups out to the mouth of the Mad River!


There was a large group of sea lions just on the other side! They are so fun to watch because they are so interested in the dogs! They swim around and pop their heads out checking them out! This time they mostly stayed on the beach soaking up all the sun, but last time Ned got a run for his money! They were all out swimming around and of course Ned had to go see what they were all about! So he goes trucking out there swimming upstream trying to catch them! They were just as interested in him and got pretty close too!



Today there was a new born baby that was hanging out on the beach waiting for momma to bring back some goodies! It was SO stinking cute- all fuzzy and fluffy!


I want one! lol!

my tush is sore

The weather was SO fantastic this weekend that we took the mountain bikes up to Trinidad state park and hit the trails! Some sections were a little steeper then I care for.... but once you see the views its all worth it!

another day at the beach!

I grabbed Mayday earlier this week and took all 3 of the monsters to the beach! They had a blast.... as usual of course!

How much are YOU paying!?

Spring blooming...

We're starting to bloom all over the yard!

Our artichoke plant

massive calla lilly's

The Front barrel

I can't wait for it get warmer and we get more flowers!

Ski, Skiing, skud...

We have had 2 jam packed weekend of skiing in a row!! I however will vote for the 2nd trip! Who wouldn't it involved SHOPPING! haha!
First we went up to Shasta... unfortunately just for the day.... so that involved waking up at 4am so that we could get on the road and cross the mountains to be there for a full day of skiing... well at least till 4 since we still had to drive home! It was 60 degrees.... 60! in February! We were not expecting spring skiing! It was packed and the snow was heavy, but we were skiing! HAHA! We drove out there with some friends Mike and Matt, and we all had a great time! The town of McCloud at the base was just hammered with snow (i guess the mountain was as well) check out those pictures... the snow was WAY over our heads!!! It was so cool! There were a ton of houses that you could barely see because the snow slid off the roofs and met the snow on the ground and totally covered the whole house!


This past weekend we drove up to Ashland/Medford area!! It was alot of fun! Ashland has a super cute downtown area, we also ventured off to some of the outlying towns. The one was totally decked out for Chinese New Year! I've never seen a town decorate for it before! Hell if my didn't work involve China and Thailand I probably would have no idea it was going on! Alex even got to try out a segway! Anywho... we also went shopping- in a real mall! Alex was a champ! He barely complained! haha! The skiing was good as well! It was warm... but not too warm! I wasn't a fan of the mountain at first... but it grew on me!


Unfortunately it was a miracle for Alex to get 2 weekends with no duty in a row- especially since one of them was a holiday weekend! So I'm not sure if we will be having any more weekend getaways... till Vegas that is! We'll see what we can work out though!

goodbye January

Man January just FLEW by!

Only 2 things really happened that are worth writing about- and they both involve snow! First, it snowed in EUREKA! Of course we’ve only been here 2 years… Locals say that we get hail here about every winter, but it hasn’t actually snowed in Eureka for YEARS!! Alex got to spend a week skiing in Tahoe! The lucky bastard! He actually brought the snow back with him… the day he came back is when it snowed here! He had met up with John and his girl Katrina at the CG station A-frame condos. Bobby and another guy from San Fran met up with them later in the week for some weekend skiing! Boy the snow gods were sure looking down on them! They got fresh powder every day and just had a blast! Thankfully (I think at least) Katrina was there to pull back on those wild reigns these boys have! She kept them balanced between backcountry/trees and regular groomed slopes! Alex was sore enough when he got back who knows how bad he would have been if it was just the boys tearing it up out there!

You are now looking at (or reading about) the new Humboldt Bay CG ombudsman! The Capt asked me to lunch early this month to ask if I would be willing to take on this duty since the old ombudsman is transferring out this year! I was reluctant at first…. this is our first duty station; we are relatively new to the guard (when you don’t count the academy); I work full time… etc. But he assured me that I will be fine and it’ll be a good time! I’m very excited and nervous starting this! I will get to know a lot of people as well as a lot of resources the CG offers! I’ll let you know how it’s going in the next few months!

Other then that I’ve been busy at work as well as planning Charlotte’s bridal shower and plans for our big Vegas party! The siding project in housing is going pretty smoothly…not sure how long (when all this rain stops) it will be till we get the outside painted! But at least they’ve got the inside done! The neighborhood is starting to look really good!

Ok I will leave you with a few of Alex’s pictures from Tahoe! Hope all is well!

We went to the snow again!!

Although it was quite soggy out today we decided to drive up the mountain in hopes that all this crappy rain would turn into wonderful SNOW! And we were right! Horse Mountain was just covered!! We had our doubts at first if it was a good idea to drive to the top given how icy it already was... but geared with tire chains and a tow strap we trudged upward! We had no trouble getting up and had a great time! We had the Zappens pup Mayday with us- it was his first time in the snow and he just loved it! He was a natural! He also will follow Ned to the ends of the earth.. so anything Ned can do he can better! Alex had his telemark ski's and skins and I had some snow shoes! Good thing... the snow was just about up to my knees with out them. So Alex had fun hiking up the hill and skiing down. With nothing but my legs to bring me back down... I only hiked up once... which was enough for my sorry ass out of shape muscles anyway! LOL!! Now our decent down this mountain was anything but as easy as it was to get up it! It started not even 50 feet from leaving when Alex went to pull over for some crazy guy who was in some souped up truck doing doughnuts and driving over snow mounds. Now I'm looking over the pictures on the camera and... BAM! Wanting to get out of this guys way turned into us locking up the wheels and sliding into a snow mound! Thanks to family on their way home from sledding we got to make use of that tow strap!! After getting free we slowly started heading down! Apparently our 4 wheel drive was not enough because we start sliding again!! This time headed toward the edge!!!! yea insert Nell freaking out!! As Alex turns it away from the edge we start going sideways and then he realizes the cars stalled!! He starts it back up and recovers gracefully! We slide a bit around one more turn (nothing too terrible!) and slowly but surely make it down to the bottom!

We had a fabulous time!! Here are some pics and videos!