Fall Classic, Movember and Thanksgiving!!!

I'm not even going to apologize for hardly ever posting. I promised to be better last time. The only thing that happened was another month went by without a post, and I look like a liar. My bad.

So this past month has been full of good times, cold weather, and good friends. I'll start off with things as they happened chronologically. This time of year is usually my most favorite for a number of reasons. It's starting to get cold (I love the winter), and I also love Thanksgiving being with friends and family.

There's also one more reason I love the fall. The baseball postseason. It's no secret I love baseball in general. Carissa surprised me earlier this year with a trip to San Francisco to catch a couple of Major League games. Carissa had never been to a Major League game before, and so we had only planned on going to an Oakland A's game one afternoon and a Giants game on a different night. Carissa had so much fun at them that we ended up going to another game the very next night. (To be honest, I don't know if she had THAT much fun, she probably saw how much joy it brought to me, and so she suggested we go another night). Regardless, the point being she knows I really love baseball. Well since Carissa's first full game was the S.F. Giants, we had been rooting for them during the playoffs (my favorite team, the Milwaukee Brewers suck, and have only made the postseason once in the last 20+ years).

Well as the postseason kept going the Giants were doing better and better. Long story short, they ended up making it all the way to the World Series, and they were going to be playing the Detroit Tigers. I have attended a lot of baseball games, and it's even a goal of mine to go to all of the Major League stadiums, but I haven't ever attended a World Series game........... or been to Detroit's baseball stadium. Now if you have half a brain at all, you know exactly where this is going. If you haven't connected the dots yet, I'll also give you another tid bit of info, my best friend growing up, Gabe, also lives in Detroit.

The first two games were in San Francisco, and the next three were going to be in Detroit. So naturally I mentioned to Carissa how awesome it would be to go to a World Series game and see Gabe. I may have used the excuse that I wanted to see Gabe's 6 month old boy Cannon as well. Gabe has always been a great friend to me and he also made time last summer to step away from dental school to come to our wedding. I may have also tried telling Carissa it had been a long time since we had hung out, and pretty much any and every other excuse/reason to find a way to get her to give me the green light to go. (I was getting desperate). After hearing my many plea's and lame duck excuses, she finally relented and gave me the go ahead.

I immediately called Gabe and made sure he wasn't going to be out of town or have a previous commitment. After getting off the phone with him, it was game on. I had to fly out of Minot and leave here at 4:30 Saturday morning, and arrived in Detroit around 1:00 PM. We went to the game that night at 7:00 PM, it ended around midnight, and after a quick power nap, was back at the airport at 6:00 AM Sunday morning. I wasn't in Detroit 18 hours, but had the time of my life.

I'm a firm believer that if you are going to go to a game (especially a World Series game) that you need to have good seats. There is a huge difference in experiencing a game from the nosebleeds as opposed to sitting close. So, since it was both of our first times at a World Series game, we splurged. If you ask me, it was money well spent, if you ask Carissa she might sing a different tune. All in all, it was an awesome little trip, and I can't wait to go to another. (I may have also used the excuse that it was a once in a lifetime chance to go to the World Series, but I may have fibbed...... Carissa needs to experience it......... and I'm sure my unborn kids will need to at some point as well). There is no describing the feeling and the energy at a high profile game like that. It was unreal! I'm definitely thankful to Carissa for putting up with my shenanigans to allow me to go. My brother Preston said it best when we got married "There is definitely a special place in heaven for that girl"

My nephews getting their World Series Care Packages in the mail courtesy of Mimi and Papa. I may or may not have gone around getting some "extra" towels for the kids!

 This is Gabe and Adriana's little boy Cannon. He has the biggest and brownest eyes I have ever seen. This little dude will be a lady killer! His lip may have quivered a few times when he saw the Walrus Mustache coming his way, but he settled down when he realized I was an alright dude.

Speaking of the Walrus 'stache. Unfortunately my job doesn't allow us to have full grown beards, but they allow us to have mustaches. If you know me, that's kind of a big deal. I can't remember a winter in the last 10 years when I haven't had a beard. So I grew the next best thing..... the Walrus. When I used to work at the airport in Salt Lake City, all of the dirty ramp agents, the guys who lose your bags when you travel, grew beards. Then in March, we would all shave the beards off and just have our mustaches for Mustache March. It's no secret I have a great 'stache (if I do say so myself). I mean, who else do you know that can grow a full on push broom on their upper lip? Well the last few months I've been growing my mustache and it's starting to get long enough that I can curl the ends, but you can't just curl the ends and hope it sticks. You have to know the secrets of the trade..... and I'm going to let you in on it.

Yeah, that's right..... Moustache Wax. Apparently if you are sophisticated enough and coincidentally man enough to have to use the wax, then you will realize it is no longer called a mustache, but a moustache..... (notice the spelling, it's now pronounced MOOstache) I think it's french. At any rate, it is awesome and is an ABSOLUTE MUST for anyone with an untamed caterpillar on their upper lip. I no longer have hair getting in the way of my food, and the best part is, I can now curl it down the side of my lip and then flip it outward. It's a complete game changer in the facial hair department!!! If you want to harness your inner Wyatt Earp, I would highly recommend this product to anyone.

Now after seeing my manly 'stache I think it's completely understandable that one would think "Tanner is a man's man" and while that may be the case, I hadn't truly earned my "man card" until I passed the ultimate test...... Clare B Niederhauser's Karmel Corn. (with a K).

My Dad is a great man, and there is no arguing I look up to the dude with the utmost respect. He has busted his butt our entire lives so that we could grow up with everything that we did. As we were growing up, there was an unwritten tradition in our house that Sunday Night was popcorn night. Most of the time it was your standard salt and buttered popcorn, other times it was chocolate popcorn (don't knock it until you try it), and then other times it was Karmel Corn. Now his Karmel Corn is unlike any you have ever tried..... it's not the Ooey Gooey sticky finger mess like everyone else has experienced. It's crisp, crunchy and delicious to the taste. My dad usually makes it for all of the neighbors for Christmas because, well it's awesome!!! And once you've had some of it, you long for the moment that you are blessed for it to touch your lips again. Well being the Christmas season, my brothers had sent out text messages of them making it. Since my brothers were doing it, I too decided it was time I became a man.

As you can see from the pic, I think I did it justice. I made a batch and took it to Carissa at work, all of her coworkers were ranting and raving how awesome it is. I wish I could say it was all me, but truth be told it's all in the secret recipe. If you're lucky enough to be considered a friend, then you may experience it at some point in your life..... if not, then you need to step your game up and become better friends with us!!!

This past week was Thanksgiving and we are very fortunate to have good friends up in North Dakota whom we spent the day with. Carissa made some killer homemade yams, and a very good banana meringue pie. It was awesome. My dad always used to joke "You can marry more in a minute, than you can make in a lifetime" and while I didn't heed his counsel and married someone in more student loan debt than most people have on their homes, I definitely married a dang good cook. So I consider it a win!!!

We are definitely blessed and we feel so grateful to have the friends and family we do. We can't wait to see you in less than a month.......

While this has absolutely nothing to do with the previous topics in the post, here is a sweet little parting shot I took the other day on my way to work..... North Dakota doesn't suck that bad!!!

Farewell fair weather

Holy moly I can't believe we haven't blogged for 3 weeks.  We are slackers.  It kind of has been a wild month but also I'm starting to wonder if we're actually getting used to the chaos and crazy that is Williston - so things don't strike us as "blog-worthy" as much anymore.  That's a terrible excuse and it won't happen again.  I honestly don't think too much new and exciting has happened.  I did get to go home to Utah for a week which was a quick trip and pretty busy.  Got to do a lot of fun stuff with both families which was great - only bad part was the other half of MY family was stuck working in North Dakota.  Next trip home we'll all be together, 3 &4-legged kids and all!  So excited!  And just less than 9 weeks to go :)

I took a few pictures awhile ago that I've been meaning to put on here.  

One afternoon I took some lunch (and medicine - he was a sicky) out to Tanner on one of the locates jobs he was doing.  It was a rather lovely field he was out in and I'd never really seen him and his fancy gear in action - so I snapped a few photos.  We enjoyed lunch together on the back of his work truck and it was a pleasant little 20 minute break.

I spent a lot of the lovely fall afternoons at the park with the dogs - and sometimes when the weather was just right - I pulled out my summer blanket and did a little reading.  Glory.  Oh how we are going to miss those days.  Williston was quite pleasant in the summer and fall and Tanner and I are both wondering just how miserably cold it's going to get and mostly I'm just wondering if I'll survive.  He got to experience some nice 60 mph winds last week.  I fortunately was getting the tail end of beautiful fall in Utah so I have yet to have that pleasure.  I'm sure I'll get my chances.

Tanner has been wanting me to post some pics and updates about work.  Things have really slowed down there in the last couple of months.  Maybe a lot of the summer workers have gone back home or something.  I'm not really sure why we've had such a decrease in patients.  It's nice to be able to sit down occasionally and breathe.  I seem to miss some of the "best" trauma's though.  Rather unfortunate.  Take this for example - I guess last week some guy got his foot caught in an auger and it popped it clean off just about.  Well - the x-ray looks clean.  The actual pic of his foot didn't!  I'll spare you weak-stomached folks that picture.

It doesn't really look that bad at all.  I felt pretty bummed that I missed that one. Also bummed for the guy that lost his foot but if it's gonna happen anyway - I'd like to be there.  I guess wherever he was at called a few hours later saying they had found his foot and wondered if we wanted them to bring it in.  I think it just got sent to the pathologist. 

A couple weekend's ago was actually one of the busiest I can remember.  It was NON stop action - and not just like a bunch of people with colds or sore throats - like all day legitimate emergencies and patients stacked to the brim constantly to be seen.  It was exhausting.  There was a gal who stepped off a truck accidentally while loading straw and feel on her leg and absolutely crushed her tibia and broke her fibula...

It was in so many pieces.  I don't even know how that could have happened but apparently it's one of the worst fractures you can have by way of length of recovery, complications and amount of surgeries.  That was sad.

Ok this picture might gross people out - but it was an interesting case.  A lady was outside cutting some plants up maybe - I still am unsure of what exactly the tool was and what she was "composting" - but it was some automatic slicing thing and somehow she got her hand caught in it and it just exploded the tips of her fingers.  When I took the dressings off she had a couple arterial bleeds that gushed all over my shirt and pants and stethoscope (an aside: that was the first time I ever got blood on myself - as gross as it was - I felt kind of like it was a rite of passage or initiation into ER medicine that I had finally completed).  Anyway - that's the ortho guy taking care of her.  He had to tie off the bleeding arteries - which was a difficulty and then try to piece back together as much of the skin as he could - which wasn't much.  She had some broken fingertips as well...

And with all the construction and building we have going on, we have our fair share of nail injuries.  The first pic is from awhile ago but I just never got around to posting it.  A guy somehow shot his foot with a nail gun, just missing his protective steel toe :(
Went right through the bone...

And last but not least - this genius did this without the aid of a nail gun.  Just his own two hands...brilliant:

Luckily that one didn't go through the bone and I was able to numb up his whole finger and slide the nail right out.  That was kind of a fun patient.  That was just last night even.  So - even if it has slowed down there's still a lot of good times.  For me.  Not the patients.  And I'm sure there's tons more but I can't get pics of everything and it's just not as fun to tell about it unless there's good photos to supplement with, ya know?

Stay tuned for more scenes from the ER.  I'll try to take better mental or literal notes as well about the cool and stupid stuff we see :)

That will be all for now.  Happy Halloween!  Don't do stupid things...

Bob Dylan..... and Regina, eh......

This is Tanner posting, and I know I've apologized in the past, and this one is just as sincere as the last apologies, but I'm truly sorry we haven't posted lately. I contribute it to a couple of reasons. First, time seems to fly by and I don't think much time has passed since the last post and before I know it a month has gone by. Second, I keep thinking nobody in their right minds wants to hear the crazy crap we do, or see up here. Turns out I'm wrong on that last one because I'm overwhelmed by the people asking about our posts or when the next blog will be. So here it is.......

This past weekend we went to our friendly neighbors to the north, Canada. Not just any place in Canada, but Regina. I'm just going to address the elephant in the room and get all jokes out of the way now. Yes, you read that right. REGINA. No, it is not pronounced like REGEENA. Sorry. It is pronounced very similarly to a certain part of the female anatomy. What they were thinking when they named the city I'm not entirely sure, but apparently they weren't too concerned about being made fun of for all eternity.

We have been hearing a lot about Regina and how it is a bigger city with some fun things to do, but we haven't ever found a good enough reason to go there. We really haven't had many weekends together, and that was part of the problem as well.

A month or so back we went to Minot for a half marathon. Well while we were there we went to the only mall in Western North Dakota, and stopped by the Barnes and Noble. While we were in there I picked up a Bob Dylan cd that was on sale. I have a number of his cd's and really enjoy his music. For those of you that know me, I take after my Dad in a lot of things, and if he taught me one thing, it was to appreciate the "oldies" and some good ol' folk music. I think the first concert I ever went to was the Kingston Trio with him. I still listen to John Stewart, Gordon Lightfoot, Lyle Lovett and Peter, Paul and Mary among others. I really despise that crap on the radio nowadays, and I guess it's safe to say, I'm a little old fashioned.

Well long story short, as we were listening to the cd on the ride home, Carissa asked if I had ever been to a Bob Dylan concert. I hadn't and to be honest, I had looked into it a few years ago, but the prices were $300 plus a ticket. I don't care how popular people are, but no concert is worth $300. That's ridiculous. Well when we got home later that night Carissa and I were sitting on the couch and she just randomly looked up his concert schedule. It just so happened he was going to be in Fargo in a couple of weeks, and then two weeks later, he was going to Regina. Regina is closer to us (about a 3 hour drive) as opposed to driving to the other end of North Dakota (about a 6 hour drive). The ticket prices were right, so we decided on Regina.

We took off from here Saturday morning as Carissa had to work late Friday night. We decided that we weren't in any hurry so we went up through a few small towns in Montana. I do some work up in these towns, and I kind of wanted to give Carissa a taste and understanding of some of the little places I go to. It was a fun little drive, nothing too exciting as it was unbelievably flat and barren.

I've posted a few pictures on my Facebook of some of the surrounding areas. It's very beautiful in it's own special way. We have both been pleasantly surprised at the beauty of it. Granted it's definitely not the Wasatch Front by any means, but it will do for now. I do think this is one of the places that might rival Utah with sunsets though. Very pretty and when the wheat fields are blowing it's just an awesome sight. But enough about that.

We got up to Regina and checked into our hotel. We stayed at a Holiday Inn. I know Carissa is going to be disappointed, but I'm not going to post a picture of the hotel room. It surprisingly enough looked EXACTLY like every other middle of the road hotel room you've ever stayed in. Bed, desk, desklamp, another lamp, tv, and a bathroom. There wasn't anything out of the ordinary, so just know you aren't missing much by not seeing the pic.

After we got checked in, we went and found some food, Mr. Sub, which is exactly like a Subway, except for the fact their migrant workers weren't from Mexico. They were from an Eastern block country somewhere. The food was about as comparable to a Subway though. After we ate, we went to the Science Center, which was kind of like a Children's Museum, so the little immature kid in me had a great time. I think I embarrassed Carissa more than anything, but we had a lot of fun. They had an IMAX theater there as well, so we caught a cool video about Tornadoes. It was pretty informative. Here are a few of the highlights......

Here we are racing our wooden blocks. Mine is the one winning, just in case anybody was wondering.

Our sweet 3D glasses for the Tornado flick.

 Carissa wearing and flapping bird wings. She had to see how fast she could "fly" I think her flaps per minute was right around 45. They had some machine/scale that calculated how big of wings one would need to be able to fly. She needed to have an 18 foot wingspan in order to fly, mine was over 19 feet.

 They obviously had a bunch of hockey info and different things you could try. This was a fun simulator to shoot at and have a goalie try and block my shots. I found it was more fun to ditch the hockey stick and just throw the pucks like a baseball. The old lady waiting in line so her 3 year old grandson could give it a try, wasn't as impressed with my skills as I was. Oh well, you can't win them all.

 Here I am running 10 meters. You had to do it from a stand still and I was impressed with my 1.41 second time. (That was my best time. Naturally, I had to try it a bunch of times)

After we left the Science Center we still had a lot of time to kill before the concert, so we went to this little park/pond and walked around for a few minutes. The cool looking building in the background is a Parliament building of some sort. It was a beautiful day and just really nice out. Carissa was kind of bummed that we didn't get to enjoy the nice weather more than we did, but I guess we will have to next time. 

 After we walked around we went and found us a nice place to eat. We had heard they had great sushi up there, and we both really like sushi, so we thought we would give it a try. I don't know as if I would call it great, but considering we were smack dab in the middle of Canada and no ocean in sight, I guess it was the best they could do. All in all, it was just fun to get out of Williston and actually go out to eat at a restaurant that isn't set on blocks, or in an enclosed car trailer (like they have in Williston).

After dinner we just went and drove around and kind of saw the surrounding area. To be honest, it was really nice to be in a city that actually had trees and felt more like a city you would like your kids ot grow up in. We have both made mention that we feel more culture shock going into different cities, than we did when I came home from my mission in Mexico, than when Carissa came home from Niger with the Peace Corps. It's weird to explain, but it just feels so nice to go into a town that isn't ran by a bunch of heathens and their jacked up trucks.

The man, The Myth, The Legend

After we drove around we went to the concert. My boss and I were joking that since we were going up to Bob Dylan and to Canada that he was going to drug test me on Monday. He was certain I would fail just from the second hand marijuana smoke alone. The funny thing is, the second we got out of the car, you could totally smell it, and there were definitely a lot of people openly smoking it in the parking lot. We both had a laugh at that. The venue was a really small arena and I honestly don't think you could have had a bad seat in the place. We had GREAT seats on the floor. The people watching as one can imagine was unbelievable (please refer to past posts about my ability to make fun of most anyone I see). We were definitely the youngest ones at the concert, and I'm also pretty certain we were the only two that have never dabbled in drugs. There were some definite winners and losers, and hippies and anything in between. It would actually probably be a pretty effective anti-drug teaching tool. Just take kids to a concert, and tell them "Don't do drugs or you'll end up like them" The concert was more than amazing. A guy by the name of Mark Knopfler opened. He used to be the lead singer of the band Dire Straights. He's now a solo artist, and we both really liked him. He played for well over an hour and a half and was great. Dylan came out and completely killed it. For those that don't know him, you should. He wrote the song "Blowin' in the Wind" "Like a Rolling Stone" "Hurricane" (about wrongfully accused prize fighter Ruben Hurricane Carter) among many other great songs. I must say that he actually still had it at 71 years old. He sounded pretty good, and he can wail on the harmonica. It was so cool to see a living legend do his thing. He is and was an unbelievably influential songwriter. SO COOL to see. After I see Jimmy Buffet and Willie Nelson, I think I will be able to die a content man. But Dylan was definitely on the bucket list.

Man I suck at this blogging thing. No, I'm not trying to be creative looking, but I can't figure out how to get these stupid pictures centered, so you get them looking like this. As you can tell, this is a Temple. (the little gold dude blowing his horn on top gives it away). It's the Regina Temple and it's smack dab in the middle of a neighborhood. Kind of like it was meant as a house lot, and the church just bought it and put a Temple there instead. Kinda felt like it was out of place. Cool little building though.

 


This pic is of me screwing around as we were stopped back at the US Customs while our vehicle was getting searched and we were in between the water boarding and needles under the finger nails. Man it seemed like they really give you a harder time getting into your own country than they did as we tried getting into Canada. They ask 30 questions and they all seem to be repetitive. I guess they have to make it hard for people doing it legally, because we all know they make it too easy for those who come to our country illegally. Gotta have balance somewhere right?


The weekend was a definite success and we are both so glad we were able to go. As fun as it was, it was good to come home and see our pups. They are doing well and they both make us laugh. Hope everyone is doing okay, we look forward to coming home soon.

"Motor" boatin....

So it's been a little while since we posted last.  I'm finally taking a minute to sit down and catch up on the fun of the last couple of weeks.  Pretty much everything is still going the same - good :)  So we can't complain.  Tanner is really liking his job and I still like mine.  And best of all I start working 12 hour shifts next week so instead of getting 5 or so days off a month I'll be getting 10 plus days.  That is going to be glorious to my heart and mind and marriage!  I had last Saturday off because my friend Larissa and I decided to do a half marathon out in Sidney, MT.  So we've been doing a lot of running together while her littlest guy is in preschool.  It works out awesome and it's so great to have a running partner.  Made those long runs fly by for sure!  So the "race" was really just a walking to wellness thing.  There was a 5k, 10k and half marathon option.  They handed out random numbers, had a little timer thing at the start - and basically just said go at it.  I think there were maybe 50 entrants - 48 of which were women.  And the course consisted of a 5k loop and a mile victory lap - or something like that.  So for the half we had to do 4 loops and then the victory lap.  It pretty much sucked as far as I was concerned.  I think my mind does better with NOT multiple loops and a little more competition and organization and such.  So I wasn't really feeling it and it wasn't my best race - but I think I still did just about as fast or a tiny bit faster than last time.  Really it's impossible to tell because my gps malfunctioned before we even started and I have no idea how long we really ran.  It was close enough to a half, though.  Larissa did awesome and beat her last time by like 15 minutes!  She's a stud.  And another guy from our ward ran it too and he took first.  But his wife and two little kids were there cheering us on as well.  So after we all went to Sunny's cafe for breakfast.  It was kind of a hole and took FOREVER to get our food and they brought out burned, rock hard caramel rolls and our waitress had nasty meth mouth - but it was actually really fun just sitting around talking and laughing and enjoying the morning.  And my blueberry pancakes were awesome!

The anti-climactic finish line

My faithful support crew

Sam Merkley, me and Larissa

 After that we went home and got our things ready for the lake.  We have been meaning to take our dogs out there forever and it just has not worked out for us.  But the weather was perfect and we had the day to do it so we hooked up with the LaPierre's (Larissa and her hubby and 3 kids) and drove out to the lake.  There was this special spot that they liked - kind of away from people but down a bit of a hill.  So Brent decided to take a boat with us so they could boat all the gear over to the beach and not have to hike up and down the steepness multiple times with all manner of food and such.  So we drop them off with all the stuff and the oldest boy, Weston...and Larissa and I and the two younger kids drove to the beach.  We were over there for quite awhile and still had no sign of a little boat poking around the bay they put in at.  Come to find out, they had actually made it quite a ways out when the motor died.  And in trying to fix it - the fuel line broke.  So then, they were at the mercy of the wind.  And the wind fortunately did not blow them further out into the lake, but unfortunately did blow them to the opposite side of the bay where the cars were not.  So we finally got a  hold of them and ended up driving back to where they parked, and walking all the way around to meet them on the other side.  This probably doesn't all completely make sense and it helps if you could see the lake and beaches were we were, cars were and where they ended up - but regardless...it's still funny.  And when we were walking around - this is what we came upon...

 Tanner pulling the boat with a rope, Brent pushing it along with some huge stick he found, and all just like it's the most normal thing in the world.  Oh man.  Funny.  So once we met them, we just  hung out on that side and dealt with the wind blowing there and made a fire and it still turned out to be an AWESOME and beautiful and fun filled night!  Proof is in the pictures...

Really...who even needs a motor??

Wyatt having fun with the doggies - our dogs were in HEAVEN out there!!

Weston having his turn with the dogs

Momma and Maci

Love this shot of Weston!

 So all in all, even with the motor boat malfunction - it was so fun and the memories are that much more memorable :)  And this week has been good too.  I've worked a lot less and been able to hang with Tanner some more.  I went golfing with him twice - Tuesday we went with Sam and his wife Amy and we just hung out and rode along while they golfed.  Then we had dinner and dessert with them.  Fun Andelin day!  And Tanner got his bowling on again at the league Wednesday - Larissa and I made cookies and took them to the boys.  We got lots of weird looks walking into a smoke filled MAN dominated bowling alley with a plate of cookies and three kids.  Our husbands are so lucky is all I have to say :)  Yesterday I golfed with Tanner again because we were both off kind of early and I even played a few holes.  I think I could maybe enjoy the sport.  The more I go and just watch the more I want to actually play - and I think if I gave it some more dedication I might be able to have some fun!  Who knows...

So life has been good and the weather has been awesome and I just want Fall to hold out for a few more months!  I don't think we will get that lucky.  But it's been fun to enjoy every minute that we can of it!

Medora...round 2

Before we get to the heart and soul of this blog, and the reason for the title of this particular entry...I just want to say that Tanner and I had a momentous Labor Day.  I worked in the morning so we could have the evening together.  And guess what crazy exciting thing we did!?  Went out to dinner.  At a restaurant.  In Williston.  That was big for us.  We had heard so many bad things about all the restaurants here that it just never seemed like an option.  Tanner had been a couple times to some in town with work people, but we had never done a dinner date.  We went to Don Pedro's and it was actually pretty good.  And I took one photo documenting it (mostly for the blog) but I also think Tanner looks super hot, so you get to view it now...

Mmm...salsa!

 

 

 

 

 

So now the good stuff.  Many of you may remember how we went to Medora for our anniversary a few months ago.  (woah crazy it's already been a FEW months).  And also how that trip got cut short just shy of the much anticipated golf experience due to Rozzi running away.  Well, we got a voucher for the golfing, and had been talking about how we needed to go back down so Tanner could golf and we could hike more when it was cooler.  So, last weekend ended up being that much awaited time.  Tanner was so excited to golf - and it was later in the season so it was cheaper and they had a cheap play back price too, so he was going to get to golf twice, I was gonna do a big long trail run during his first 18 holes and it was just going to be perfect.  Well, the musical had ended the weekend before so we figured it was going to be a ghost town there, and so we didn't make reservations anywhere.  The first hotel we went to informed us that they, and every other hotel in town was booked.  Turns out there was some big conference down there, and they had extended the musical one more week.  Lame.  So...we committed to a covered wagon something sleep quarters.  Bathroom 50ft away and no electricity and cold.  But better than nothing.  Okay, great...sleeping arrangements...check...let's go golf.  So, we drive to the golf course.  PACKED parking lot.  Turns out there was a big tournament there too.  Tanner went and talked to them and found out he wouldn't be able to golf till 4:30, and it was gonna be with a huge group.  Oh well.  Better than nothing.  Gosh dang we're gonna make the most of being here.  Well, while he was in securing his golf spot, I hopped in the back to change into some running/hiking stuff since we didn't have a real "room".  Ummm...where's our bag!?!?  NOT IN THE CAR, is where it was.  I had told him not to take it out when he was going to so I could put my toothbrush and last minute stuff in it.  So then we were both doing our final bathroom runs and grabbing purses and keys and he thought I grabbed it and I thought he grabbed it.  But NO ONE grabbed it.  So I went in to the golf shop to share the fantastic news.  I just wanted to cry.  It was so unbelievable to me.  We were both SO excited for this weekend and I rarely get a whole weekend off and the weather was perfect and I just wanted T to be able to golf his little heart out and on and on and on.  I went out and sat on a picnic table trying to wrap my mind around what was happening.  And he came out and kinda laughed when he asked if we should just go home.  He was so upbeat and not blaming me for forgetting the bag (it really was my fault), and just like...there's nothing we can do about it so no use in getting mad.  That helped a lot.  He's so dang awesome.  So we bought him a golf shirt from there, went and got lunch and then drove the 2.5hrs back to Williston. Side note: we had previously decided that I would be in charge of odd year anniversary's and he would be in charge of even ones.  I basically failed with our first Christmas and failed at our first anniversary (x2)...so he gives me some good crap about that.  I just say that there's nowhere else to go but up!

So we came back and were able to squeeze in 18 holes up here.  Tanner just recently bought his very own golf cart and it was delivered Friday night.  So this was its maiden voyage around Eagle Ridge.  I decided I'd let him drive.  It was still a nice day, he played well, and really - the beauty was we still got to hang out together and we pretty much cherish those times seeing that they are few and far between these day. 

 On our way home we had gotten in touch with some friends in our ward to see if they wanted to do anything.  Luckily they did.  So after golf we headed over to the Williston bowling alley - another first time event for us.  It was Tanner and I, Larissa and Brent LaPierre and their 3 kids and Keisha and Kameron Nelson and their 3 kids.  They are awesome.   (This blog is being funky today and is moving things around to weird places when I don't want them to be moved - so below, Larissa is on the left and Keisha is on the right.  I've been running a lot with Larissa and that has been AWESOME!  And her husband Brent is the guy wearing the hat).

 After that we headed over to the LaPierre's for a dutch oven peach cobbler with fresh peaches that I made and yummy dip provided by Larissa.  We hung out there for a bit chatting the night away and when all was said and done, it didn't seem like our weekend was ruined at all.  We're so grateful to have such fun and great friends.  Makes being up here completely doable!  

And the only other excitement that happened this weekend was we got another roommate :)  Simon told his friend how amazing and wonderful Williston is and apparently he had to see for himself.  So he drove up from Virginia and got all moved in Saturday.  His name is Justin.  Seems like a nice kid.  Guess we'll see how it all goes.   We had a good long Monopoly game yesterday.  It's great cause now we can play all the games we couldn't with only 2 people :)  And even better because I won!  If it stays like that I guess we'll keep them both around for a bit...