A rainy weekend- video update!

After a long week apart, we had the perfect weekend! David spent most of last week in San Diego for a work conference and I spent it at home being a stay at home dog mom. My current job is waiting for more funding and patient assignments  which means I am waiting to head back into work at a moments notice. Unfortunately, I am still waiting for this notice but trying to make the most of my time off. I’ve even gotten to the bottom of my “to do” list! Needless to say, David was ready to spend some time together and I was ready to get out of the house. Here’s to some exploring!

There has been a long standing drought in California. Since we moved it has only drizzled one or two times in the 7 months we have been here. But alas, the drought has lifted and it rained for 5 straight days. Which leads us to our first activity of the weekend…Uvas Canyon hiking! We went specifically to see the waterfalls on the one mile waterfall loop and added on some other trails to complete a nice 2.5 hour hike. It was raining the entire time we were hiking which meant since we were already wet we weren’t afraid to get up close and personal with the waterfalls. Even Teddy came along and embraced the wet dog smell as he lead us on our adventure.

It was awesome, and even David was impressed! I’m glad we saved this one for after a good rain, there were sad photos of dry falls from just a week earlier. We will definitely be back on another rainy weekend to explore the other side of the canyon and see some more falls.

This was also the first time the chicken coop was put to the test in a rainstorm. It keeps the chicken’s surprisingly dry and is completely water tight so they can stay nice and cozy…if they make it in the coop! On Saturday night we accidentally shut a chicken out and we found her Sunday morning, soaking wet and squawking around in the backyard. We both felt a little guilty about our accidental mistreatment of our little chick but she seems to have recovered after a little TLC and salon treatment, see video below!

And the final activity of the weekend….a racquetball match! To make up for working on Sunday, David offered to meet me at the Stanford Racquetball courts for a dual! I am awful at racquetball but love to play so every once in a while David comes down to my level and humors me  by bringing his intensity down a notch. It’s been hard to justify indoor activities since the weather here is always awesome and you want to be outside constantly, so we used this rainy Sunday as a chance to enjoy something indoors. Thankfully there is no video of the activity because you would witness me with more than a few missed swings at the ball and a score of 21-3, resulting in a big “W” for David. I’ll let you use your imagination as to how this went down…

Hope you had a great weekend as well!

our new roomies

Move over Teddy, the ladies have arrived! I have always wanted backyard chickens. With our new living arrangement we have a great set up to have the clucking machines in our backyard without bother any of our neighbors. And our neighbors all have chickens as well, so I don’t think they mind! The chicken hobby was born after I successfully passed boards and don’t have to worry about studying anymore. I spent a day reading all things chicken and learning things like, ‘Do you need a rooster to get an egg?” (the answer is No) and ‘if you have rooster can you eat the fertilized eggs?’ (the answer is Yes as along as a hen didn’t incubate the egg for a couple days). Did you know there are different breeds of chicken? Well after spending a day doing my homework, I recruited David to accompany me to the east bay where we could buy our one week old chicks! We decided to get four total, all different breeds. We brought them home and but them in a cardboard box with a heat lamp, gave them some chick food and water, and sat back to watch them grow!

little chicks in a box!

Hazel, the friendliest in the group.

Teddy gets acquainted with his new ‘chicken sisters’. He was surprisingly gentle with them when they were chicks and would beg to go into the laundry room to have a peak at them!

The chicks were very cute at one week old, small, soft, and making pleasant chick peeping noises. But boy was I ready to get those boogers outside! They were messy ladies who needed frequent litter, food, and water changes. They don’t start laying eggs until they are 20 weeks old, and have to have a heat light until 8 weeks old or until they loose their down and are fully feathered.  Once they outgrew their box (aka started hoping out of the box), I moved them into Teddy’s old dog crate. Besides the girls scratching out their bedding, this worked great as an intermediate house. The girls now only needed the heat lamp at night and were starting to look like overgrown pigeons! They were also learning to ‘perch’ and loved to try and make their way to the highest post.

“The Grower Pen”

Now it was time to get serious about moving the girls outside. I had searched and searched on pintrest, craigslist, and chicken forums about coop design. I finally decided I didn’t have it in me (nor did David) to construct one myself. So while it wasn’t necessarily economical, I paid extra for someone to bring everything to our backyard and construct the coop for me. It was oh so convenient. I moved the girls outside only a few hours after the coop was finished and they took to the outdoors right away! I decided to keep their heat lamp on them at night while they adjusted to the lower temperatures.

The Coop, not too shabby for a couple chickens

Teddy acts as the surrogate Rooster

We did end up constructing an automatic waterer out of PVC pipe, a 10 gallon bucket, and copper fittings. This was a lifesaver, holding almost two weeks worth of water and stays very clean. I HIGHLY recommend this method for anyone with chickens. I also bought a baby pig feeder for their food, holds about one weeks worths of feed. These two items made the chickens very low maintenance. I normally spend about 30 min on Sunday refilling food and water, changing the bedding, and washing out the coop. Otherwise their daily routine just includes letting them in and out of the coop in the AM and PM. (and David almost always does that part for me!)

Exploring the yard, the love to drink the water from Teddy’s bowl.

Fast forward 8 weeks, the girls have just been eating and growing. David was wondering when they were going to start earning their keep around the house. Well, today someone proved their worth and we have out first brown egg! It was small, but we scrambled it up and it tasted delicious, can’t wait for more to come!

“farmer megan”

From Hazel, Rosie, Anna, & Winnifred

gainfully employed

Quite the delay in blogging for the past 8 weeks, but that’s because we have been busy (kinda) doing what I am going to blog about…working!! After all we are here for David’s fancy Stanford job so let me fill you in a little but.

– DAVID: the living legende

David started work almost immediately after we moved here back in July. He is working as a Post-Doctoral Scholar (the official title) at the Hagey Lab doing plastic surgery research at Stanford. Im not in the lab, so I don’t completely understand is this was a given or chosen by David nickname, but the spot above his desk reads, “The Living Legende”. That’s my husband everyone.

Working at the lab!

How exactly do you do plastic surgery research? Well, I wish I could say that he was giving tiny mice tiny boob jobs, but he is actually doing something much more, eh shall we say advanced and meaningful. In the lab they harvest fat cells from recent liposuction procedures and use the fat stem cells to do all sorts of cool things. Like turn into bone cells and repair a broken mouse leg or jaw. Think back to the last time you took a general science lab class. Now imagine David spending 10 + hours per day making microscope slides, plating different fat cells, and doing microsurgery on mice.

Microscope Man!

Surgeon at work!

So far, David has really enjoyed the work. It helps to be working with awesome people and we have meet some good friends through the lab. While they work hard, the schedule is still much more relaxed than compared with residency and David can go out to lunch with his co-workers, be home for dinner with me, and have some fun out of lab time on the weekend.

Being at Stanford this year has been fun, we have explored the campus and cheered on their football team. The campus is really different from other colleges I have been do because it is so spread out, they have a lot of space and every  courtyard is lined with bricks leaving you feeling like you are walking through Spain or the square in Florence, Italy. Oh, and there are palm trees everywhere.

Palm Trees on a College Campus?

Is Dad ready yet?!?!

Is Dad ready yet?!?!

-MEGAN: mizzou super nurse living it up in California 

For the move out here I took a Travel RN job. No this does not mean that I am traveling all over now, just that I “traveled” from Kentucky to California to fill a temporary  hole at a hospital. This means I still have a Kentucky drivers license and pay Kentucky income tax. But while I am away working I also get a housing and meal stipend. I was placed at a Kaiser Permanente in Redwood City in their Neuro ICU for 13 weeks. Hard to believed I am in week #12 already, time flies!

Nursing in California is very different than anywhere else. First, the nurses here are unionized which means there are a TON of rules everyone has to follow regarding staffing and work conditions. My nursing friends from elsewhere will find this hilarious but in addition to each nurse only have 1 or 2 patients in the ICU, there is a dedicated charge nurse, relief nurse, resource nurse, and RRT nurse.  Sometimes there are as many nurses in the unit without patients are there are those with assignments. It’s a little extreme, and while it is nice to have extra hands to turn or walk patients, it really seems to me like everyone is sitting around without much to do. The other thing that’s nuts is the break schedule. No more shifts where you skip lunch or your nursing colleagues  sticks a straw in a coke can and holds it through the curtain into the room where you are working so you have keep your blood sugar above 10. Nope, everyone gets 1 hour and 15 minutes worth of breaks in a 12 hour day. They are serious about their breaks, someone comes and gets report on your patient and will be completely responsible for them while you are away. Meaning the nurse on break is free to leave the hospital, go out to lunch, take a nap, whatever you fancy! I still have a hard time with this, I really don’t like to be away from my patients for one hour at a time and I still remember my first job where I would eat lunch in front of the monitors and could abandon my turkey sandwich if something went bad and a patient needed me. Not here, if you try and come back from break early, you will get sent back to the break home to ensure you took your full 75 minutes.

The other thing that makes nursing here different is that the nurses are predominately Filipino. Apparent this is a norm for California and sometimes when I am at work I am the only Caucasian nurse there. While I haven’t learned any Filipino words, I have sampled almost all of there dishes and types of food. It’s a carry in every day with everyone making their lunch ‘family style’. The break room is filled with all different kinds of Filipino favorites, I prefer their dessert dishes but the seafood noodles aren’t bad either.

While my contract comes to an end I am looking for more permanent job opportunities.  While in route to California I graduated from NP school and have since taken and based boards so I am looking for a Family Nurse Practitioner job but nothing has come up yet. So what I will be doing a week and a half from now is a mystery, if I am unemployed you can expect a blog post daily. But I have faith that something will come along!

on being a Californian

California does things differently. Somethings good, somethings…not so good.

*Smog check for all vehicles prior to getting plates. Didn’t think it was much to worry about until the girl in line ahead of me at the shop had her car FAIL! Luckily the 4runner passed. We have embraced the California lifestyle and downsized to one vehicle for our family. David sold my Camry back when we were visiting California in May. We used some of the money from the sale to purchases a Genuine Stella for David. He scoots to work like a pro. I’m still a little weary of the manual scooter and only give it a go on the grass at our house. David seems to love his new wheels and we are definitely saving money in the gas department. Not to mention all the awesome parking spots you get when your ride is a scooter.

*Recycle, Recycle, Recycle. I am all for recycling but it’s plain intimidating to publicly recycle in California! So many bins! Not sure if my paper plate goes with cardboard items or the compost bin. Sometimes I save my recycling for home where I can happily put all of my items into one bin. Way less stressful.

Starbucks straw wrappers go into the compost bin, not the paper bin. Just FYI.

*BYOB. Bring your own bag! I think this just started right after we got to town but stores no longer offer free bags. Paper bags are available for an extra 10 cents. It really works though, and I am always stocked with my reusable bags in order to save my self half a dollar, ha! I do always feel like I am stealing something though when I grab a feel items, don’t have a bag, and walk out of the store with my arms full of merchandise after paying.

*No Smoking and definitely NO DOGS! The peninsula has not turned out to be as dog friendly as we expected. We have heard that SF and the East Bay are better. But in the Palo Alto area doggies better not hold their breath for a walk through a public park. Thats right, most city parks and all State preserves are dog free. They normally post the no dog sign right next to the no smoking sign at the entrance. Apparently the presence of dogs and cigarette smoke are on the same level. The Atashroo’s do not approve but are abiding by the rules. I don’t think it would bug us as much if horses weren’t allowed on almost every trail leaving messes everywhere. We have found one place that allows dogs, and it’s close to our house. Will post on hiking at Pulgas Ridge soon!

Sorry pup, this is not the place for you 😦

Our new ‘Home Sweet Home’

We have been living the California life to the fullest the last two months (hard to believe we have been here that long!) Our families know all about the drama surrounding us finding a place to live hear in California so I will spare all of the emotional drama here. To sum, we made a connection with someone in the area who knew a family with an extra guest house on their property. They graciously offered us a temporary stay at their place while we continued to search for housing once we arrived at the end of June. After just two weeks at their place, another rental had come available and we were making plans to move out the beginning of August when the family asked us to stay and said we were welcome for the two years we would be at Stanford to live in their extra house….FOR FREE! We eventually convinced them to collect at least a small amount of rent money from us to cover basic expenses but all in all we cannot be more thankful to this family for making our transition to California less stressful. We are definitely getting a steal of a deal for what we are now paying in monthly rent for what we are blessed with. A quant little two bedroom home with its own fenced in backyard for Teddy. The whole estate has four different houses on it and is probably over 10 acres. Our little place is set back about 300 feet from the main house, across a bridge over a small creek. The house was actually one of the first buildings in Woodside, a historic monument and everything with a plaque on the side reading, “Old Woodside Schoolhouse, C. 1902”. We see deer daily (and have already watched a few fawns grow up), soak in the serenity of our wooded surroundings, and rejoice that we have grass for Teddy! A luxury in this landlocked Peninsula that is overcrowded with apartments.

Our little two bedroom home, set back in the woods!

A recognized historial building.

The bridge over the creek leading to our house.

The creek is dry now but apparently during the rainy season will be more like a rushing river.

Big front yard! Teddy’s favorite place to roll in the grass.

So now we have found ourselves moved into Woodside, California. The house is only about 5 miles from each of our jobs and while the town of Woodside is small, it has a lot of character! Woodside is one of the ‘horse capitol’ towns of the Bay Area. Sometimes I feel like we never left Lexington, because every other house has a barn and paddocks. Instead of sidewalks, there are horse paths. The downtown strip has a post to tie up your horse while you shop and dine. I think I might actually see more horses here than I did in Lexington. Who would have thought. Woodside also is a popular cyclist spot and its not uncommon to see 100 or more cyclist in the morning on a weekend. Being bike enthusiasts ourselves you would think we would embrace it, but we haven’t even been on one ride around our town yet! It’s on the list, I think we both wanted to look a little more ‘official’ before we get out there with the serious crowd.

After about a month in our new place, we received an offer on our Kentucky house for sale. We are so fortunate to have had the house sell so quickly but its bittersweet to let it go! Here’s to 614 Price Ave; Our first home as a newlywed couple, where the front porch sittin’ was good, and the company even better (Lexington neighbors and friends- YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!). The house and all people we met in Kentucky will be dearly missed, and our time in Lexington forever cherished.

Goodbye to one place, and hello to a new one.

5 days, 8 states

Day 1: (Kentucky and Tennessee)

Moving day arrived! It came a little to quickly for us and while we had packed up as much as we could before our vacation to Mexico, we came home to a house needing a lot of work before we could roll out of town. Luckily, we have awesome Kentucky friends and family that helped us through the worse part of moving! Dustin, Shelly, and Danesh were like pros and before too long, the trailer was full. Unfortunately it filled up a little too quickly so we ended up leaving quite a bit behind. We only took two pieces of furniture and the rest of the truck was filled with our clothes, kitchen appliances, and outdoor gear. It seemed hard at the time to pick and choose what we were taking vs. leaving, but now that we are on the other end I realize we could have left much, much more and been fine.

Our original plan was to pack in the morning and in the afternoon drive to Memphis and stay there for the night. Boy did we overestimate our packing abilities. At around 7pm it started raining and we were still packing up last minute items. It seemed like the only stuff we had left out were trash bags, paper towels, and a bunch of ‘trash’ piles scattered around the house. Hence the poncho below:

David rocks the trash bag poncho.

Just as it began to get dark, we finally rolled out of Lexington. We abandoned our Memphis plans and just drove until Midnight and stayed at a hotel in little town along the highway. It was an exhausting day but we were starting on our new journey. As said by David’s cousin, Danesh, ” What a feeling to be on the road with the one you love and everything you own on your back. Such a great feeling.” He was right, it felt good and I couldn’t imagine embarking on this adventure with anyone other than David.

Loaded with everything we have to our name!

Day 2: (Arkansas and Oklahoma)

The next day we woke up with new energy and got an early start. In honor of our trip across the country we listened to This American Life, Episode #162: Moving. This would be the first of many TAL episodes we would listen to as we firmly believe a road trip is not the same without the presence of Ira Glass, but it seemed fitting with our current circumstances. I also begin playing David state anthem songs (as chosen by me) every time we crossed a state line. First, there are no songs about Arkansas, so that state doesn’t count. But for Oklahoma we listened to the theme song from the musical, “Oklahoma” and “Okie from Muskogee” by Merla Haggard and the most recent version performed by the Swan Brothers on The Voice. We even drove by the town of Muskogee 🙂 And then we drove past the sign for ‘Home of Carrie Underwood’ which inspired me to listen to ALL of Carrie Underwoods albums. While David complained about that one I did see him secretly singing along with ‘Jesus Take the Wheel’.

This was the part of the trip that started to get fun because we had planned our route so we could see some friends and family along the way. Today we stayed in Holdenville, Oklahoma with my grandparents and my parents who were also still in town from the weekend before. I love my grandparents house and all the memories I have there from spending holidays and summers at their house with my family. Tonight, we got to eat an awesome home cooked meal, desert, and spent a few hours playing Canasta, one of my favorite card games.

Day 3: (Texas and New Mexico)

After a big breakfast prepared by my Grandparents, we said our goodbyes and got on the road. We continued West on I-40 headed to Albuquerque for the night. Today was a big day because the 4Runner hit 180,000 miles. Picture proof:

180,000 miles…hope it keeps kickin’ for another 100,000!

Songs of the day included “Oklahoma-Texas Line’ by Rascal Flats once we reached the Oklahoma-Texas Line. And ‘Albuquerque Turkey’, a youtube video about a cartoon Turkey that a five year old once sang for me. In Albuquerque we stayed with our good friends Scotty and Amanda Robinson who just moved there themselves after we all went to Costa Rica together last winter. They took us out to a delicious Mexi restaurant for dinner and we spent the night catching up with each other. They also informed us that there is another song about Albuquerque by Weird Al that we listened to as we were leaving town. They failed to mention that it is 11 minutes long. I don’t recommend it. If Scotty can forgive me for showing him the Albuquerque Turkey song, I will let it go. We are hoping to see more of these too if they ever travel up to SF.

Day 4: ( Arizona and California)

We had hoped to end this day in LA visiting with David’s grandma and other relatives but the trip ended up being too far and we were getting fearful of LA traffic with the big haul we had on our backs. So we ended up taking a more direct path to Palo Alto and took it a little easier today, having lunch and dinner at some fantastic roadside restaurants recommended by the truckers that took the route frequently. By this point we have been slowly adding songs to a ‘California’ playlist to be debuted upon on entrance into the state! Some of the best songs on the list include ‘”Californication” by The Red Hot Chili Peppers and “California Luv” by 2Pac. Our playlist soon proved that all quality California songs were written in the 90’s.

Day 5: (DESTINATION!)

The final day! We drove late into the night before and couldn’t sleep past 6am when the sun came up because we were so exited to arrive! The best part of today was that we were going to be reunited with Teddy! He made the trip out to California almost a month ago and has been staying with a DogVacay host and her chocolate lab. I know he was having a blast and getting super spoiled with all the attention. The host is a stay at home mom and her husband is a long distance runner who often took Teddy on 7+ mile runs! (Hope he doesn’t expect that from us…). And after 22 days away we were greeted by a 80 pound pup bounding towards us followed by a tackle and a lick attack. Then he sat in the front seat on David’s lap for the 30 min drive to our new house. Guess he missed us too!

Finally we arrived with enough daylight left to unload the trailer and unpack the essentials. It feels good to be in California! More to come on our new house!

Beach trip

My apologies for such a delay in blog posts, we haven’t been MIA, we just moved to California ( more on that in a future post). But before we made the big move, we took a trip to Akumal, Mexico with the Atashroo Family. This was a trip planned long before we knew we were moving and I am glad the timing worked out so we could still go. All five of us stayed at a house on the beach where we had access to our own pool and private beachfront. David wanted to test out this type of vacation instead of doing the all inclusive thing, and it was AWESOME! We bought groceries to have at the house and occasionally went into town for meals. Ali, Shahla, and Diana spent a day at the Myan Ruins and David and I had the opportunity to go on two different scuba dives. Overall it was a very relaxing trip and we are already planning in our heads a return trip!

We spotted a Lionfish

60 ft under

Everything is A-OK

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.

puppy dog tails

Anyone who knows us knows that our dog, Teddy, has become one of the most important things in our lives. Teddy made the trip out to California a few weeks ago and is staying with a terrific DogVacay host in California while we pack, go on vacation, and move to West Coast. It broke my heart to have to leave him in California for 22 days, but I know he is having a terrific time with his host and her chocolate lab Bageerha. But now that I am back in Lexington, it is obvious that the house is extra quiet and feels a little empty without the pitter patter of our rather large four legged dog child. A few things that really brought it home that our house was ‘dog free’:

1. I dont have to guard my food while eating, or keep one eye on the stove and one eye on Teddy while cooking. 

2. I drop crumbs, think Teddy will get it, and then realize I better go get the broom.

3. The mailman comes and goes without any dogs body slamming themselves into the front  door. 

4. I have the whole bed to myself. No 75 pound dog laying RIGHT in the middle.

5. I have never seen so many birds hanging out in our backyard. I guess the big bear was keeping them away. 

6. The baristas at Starbucks don’t give me free coffee when I hang my head out the window and slobber all over them. (This one is probably the worst! Teddy was my money maker pup!)

Missing you big boy. Can’t wait until the whole family is back together in California. And the best part is we have temporary place to stay located on 10+acres for Teddy to run around on. 

the brown couch

The brown couch. A very large, 6 piece sectional that my parents bought shortly after they were married 32 years ago. This couch was in my parents life before I was. It lived on Radner Street and Cardigan Court in St. Charles and then made the move to Omaha, Nebraska. Easter eggs were hide underneath it’s cushions when we were little. It was there when the Hall family sat around to open Christmas presents. I am pretty sure I even watched the first  episode of the Bachelor while sitting on the brown couch. In high school, my sister and I argued over who would get to take this couch to their own home once we were grown up, and alas, I won! So eventually the couch even moved  down south to Kentucky.

It has been enjoyed by the entire Hall (and the new Atashroo) Family, Grandparents, pets (Jingles, Mittens, and Teddy) and numerous friends who always fought over who got to sit in the very desired corner seat. But with our move to California, we have decided to sell almost all of our furniture and it was time to retire the 27+ year old couch. After a day on Craigslist and $100, the couch is sold! Luckily it moved onto a new home just right down the street 🙂 

While it was a little heartbreaking to see the new owners pile it up in their truck and drive away, there is still a small piece of the couch in the Hall household…The sleeper section was too big for our home so we never moved it to Kentucky. My parents now have it in the basement of their new lake house. I’m glad it’s there because I think Teddy will finally forgive me for selling “his” couch if he is allowed to sprawl out on their portion of the brown couch every once in a while. 

Inspiration from 61 inches

Never was I ever granted permission to blog on this site, but Meg sleeps softly in Kentucky once more, so I will capture this opportunity to be honest and brief.

There is great strength in the little lady I call my wife. She endured much anxiety and frustration these two weeks past, and yet daily she woke, and coffee in hand, smilingly gathered our family and pressed my conflicted soul ever forward. Never a complaint left her lips (well…maybe a solitary one), and though she was beset with failure upon failure, with cut fingers and bashed in noses, with Teddy monster’s and husband tom foolery, she patched the holes and kept us afloat. So I want to say this: I am learning to know my wife as my best friend, and I am proud; I am grateful; and I am hungry for her and home.

I look forward to seeing you all soon. We were blessed today with a most timely gift: free temporary accommodation until a more suitable permanent home can be found. This is truly an answer to prayer. So keep your chin up Bug; He has taken us thus far, He will carry us home.