Entry 540: Five Blissful Years

Friday we celebrated our five year anniversary, and anyone that knows us won't be surprised to read that we  celebrated by going to a Royals game.  Some really good friends of ours invited us to go with them and we always have a good time with them, so we decided to go.  We sat back and thought about everything that had changed for us in the past five years and it was amazing when we thought of all the life changing moments we have had.  We both have lost a parent (Lance's mom and Julie's dad), we both have changed jobs, we have become an aunt and uncle four different times, we have seen two of our sisters get married (Lance's sister Jacque and Julie's sister Mary), and we have had family members move closer to us.  All in all it has been a great five years and we can't wait to see what the next 50 have in store for us.  Here are some of the videos we watched to remind us about that day.





 

Entry 539: Hectic

As most of you know from a previous post, Julie's mom has bought a house in the Kansas City area. She has been having some work done to it; such as taking out all of the wallpaper, painting the entire house, and having hardwoods installed throughout the house. The good news is that the house will be all done this weekend, the bad news is that now we need to make sure that everything is ready for her to move in. Now that we are back from vacation, we have been spending a lot of time over there helping make sure the house is ready. Thursday was an especially hectic day and let me give you a small breakdown of the day:

• Nancy has been paying a really high price for her cell phone, so we decided to go to ATT and see if we could decrease her plan or even if her contract was up.  Upon getting to ATT they told Nancy that they could not help her and that this was the cheapest plan that she could be on.  It is scary that they are charging her this much and she does not even have a data plan.
• In the morning Lance took measurements of all of windows, so that they could go and look at blinds for the house.  We checked prices at Lowe's, Home Depot, and Sutherlands and found some blinds that Nancy liked.  The only problem is that the windows in the living room have a length of 88 inches, and that is not a standard length.  Now Nancy is going to have to decided if the wants to have them custom ordered or split the window in half leaving the very top portion unshaded to let more sunlight in the room.
• Our next stop was the cable company to schedule an appointment to have cable boxes installed in the house and have wireless internet installed.  Believe it or not that was a painless process, but it was a good thing Lance was there to answer the cable guys questions because Nancy would have been paying over $200 a month if he wasn't there to answer the questions.
• Nancy hired a handyman to do some final work around the house (hang up lighting fixtures and install the trim up above her cabinets).  Lance stayed around to make sure that everything went well with that  meeting and it was a good thing that he did as you will see below.
• When Lance got to Nancy's house in the morning, Nancy took him to the basement and showed him a  where some water was leaking from a pipe.  Lance is by no means a plumber (Julie can attest to that from the busted pipe), so he said to wait until the handyman showed up and let him look at it.  Lance didn't think that it was a big deal, but when the handyman looked at the pipe he noticed that for some reason the pipe was pretty much butted right against the ceiling.  This was a no-no, but made even worse when it was discovered that when they were stapling the padding down for the hardwood floor that two of the staples punctured the pipe which was causing the drip.  This was bad, so Lance called Julie and she gave him the name of a plumber who could come out that day and fix the problem.  An hour fifteen minutes later, the plumber fixed the problem and it ended up being 4 staples puncturing the pipe.  It was a good thing it was caught because if that pipe burst from the puncture, that would not have been good.

All in all it was quite a long day and it will only get longer until Nancy is fully moved in.

Entry 538: Days Four and Five

We decided to combine both days four and five because we spent those days with Julie's Aunt Pam and Uncle Dennis. Those two are such gracious hosts that we really enjoyed spending time with them. They also had a big secret that they asked us to keep and in future blog posts we will reveal that secret. We spent our days swimming in the pool, sitting looking into the canal, playing cards, and just catching up.

Entry 537: Nature Connects

Today we decided to go to Powell Gardens and see the new exhibit, Nature Connects. Nature Connects is an exhibit that has Lego creations all over the garden. At first Lance thought it would be boring, but we were both amazed and how neat the sculptures were.

Entry 536: Day Three

Today we did a lot of traveling and sight seeing. Even though the hotel was not the greatest, the bed was fantastic which caused us to sleep a little later causing us to get a late start. We drove back to Cape Coral and while going through alligator alley we stopped a few times and looked at the gators in the swamp. Lance always enjoys alligators for some reason, so he enjoyed this and Julie stayed in the car. When we got to Naples we decided to grab a bite to eat and do some shopping at the mall. We got back in time to have dinner with Julie's aunt and uncle and relax for the evening.

Entry 535: The Hotel From Hell

We are members of Choice Hotels and whenever we stay at one we get points. We decided to cash in our points to get a free stay at a hotel in Miami. We chose this hotel specifically because it said that it was only 4 miles from the stadium and boy did we ever make a mistake choosing this hotel. There were many reasons why this was a big mistake and here are a few of them: - yes the ballpark was only three miles from the hotel, until they built the new ballpark downtown. Lance figured this out once he checked in and punched the address into the GPS. The GPS told us that the hotel was 15 miles from the ballpark and that completely changed our plans because we were going to take a cab to the game. That would have been a huge and costly mistake. Instead we drove to the game and even though it scared Julie, Lance loved driving there. - when Julie walked in she said that she smelled mildew in the room. It did have a faint odor of mildew, but once we shut the bathroom door the smell became much better. - the floors were gritty and we both had to wear shoes whenever we walked on it because it just felt disgusting. - whenever you flushed the toilet the pipes made a loud, gurgling noise that went on for about 10 minutes. Trust us when we say that it was really annoying. - we got back from the game around 11 in the evening and just as we were settling down to sleep, the alarm in the room next to ours started going off. It was really loud and Lance had to eventually go and tell the front desk (actually you had to knock on the bullet proof glass to get them to talk to you)that it was going off and to have them stop it. The lady was nice and turned it off immediately. Your probably asking why we didn't change rooms, well the answer is simple. We spent approximately 20 minutes in the room before leaving for the game and didn't notice any of it until we got back at 11 in the evening. By then we were so exhausted that we really didn't care. We did both agree though that the bed was exceptionally comfy.

Entry 534: Day Two

Today was the day that we went to Miami to see the Miami Marlins play the New York Mets. This stadium was one that Lance was excited to see because it was just over a year old and he was curious to see how they built this differently than the other domed stadiums he had been to. We left Cape Coral early in the morning and made the 2 1/2 hour trip to Miami and got to drive through the Florida famous alligator alley. The call this alligator alley because it is about a 70 mile stretch of road where there are no gas stations or exits and on either side of the road you can see alligators just sunning themselves. We got into Miami about three hours before the game and grabbed a quick bite before heading to the stadium. Here are Lance's thoughts about the stadium:

- he loved the fact that as soon as they got to the stadium entrance they had an entrance for ADA only which really made Julie's entrance easier.

- the stadium was so nice that it didn't even feel like you were in a dome. The temperature and sightings were just amazing and Lance was comfortable the entire time.

- the stadium store actually had some great deals. Lance was able to get a real nice Marlins hat for only $10.

- the part that Lance enjoyed most is that as you walked in they were playing salsa music and they had live bands playing which really got you in the mood for a ball game.

- the colors in the stadium were so bright and lively that Lance just loved it.

- the stadium was also so easy to get in and out of.

All in all this has been Lance's favorite stadium.

Entry 533: Day One

This morning was a little hectic to say the least. We had packed the day before, but Lance still had to take Bella to our great friends house to use as their "practice puppy" for the next 11 days. Did I mention that they are great friends!!! Julie has been worried about the severe weather we had been having lately and didn't want to risk the car getting hail damage, so we were able to get another great friend to drive us to the airport. We got to the airport and as we were waiting the counter called our name and we were worried than that they were going to bump us from the flight. Instead we were pleasantly surprised when they said that they were trying to make more room for people in coach, so would we mind be bumped up to business class. Lance, of course, made sure that it wouldn't cost any extra money and then obviously we agreed. Two great flights and when we landed in Ft. Myers we got our rental car and were on our way. Tonight we stayed at Julie's Aunt Pam and Uncle Dennis's house in Cape Coral. It was great catching up with them, but it was off to bed early for us because we were heading to Miami tomorrow to catch a Marlins game.

Entry 532: A Weeklong Vacation

Julie didn't want us to post anything until after the trip, but surprise we took an 11 day trip to Florida. Remember those free plane tickets that we received when we gave up our seats on the Pittsburgh trip last year, well we traded them in for some tickets to Florida. It took a lot of planning to get ready for this trip, but we found some great people to watch the dogs and even got a ride to and from the airport. Now you are going to see a day by day synopsis of our trip. Enjoy.