Chiropractor

I have spent most of my life going to the chiropractor to try to get my spine in line and trying to feel better.  I've gone to a few different chiropractors and never been 100% impressed, they always have a preachy feel about them and how what they do will cure everything.  I'm not really a fan of being told everything will be all better if I just go visit someone 3 times a week and do what I'm told. 

That being said, I started to go to a new chiroprator earlier this week, he is the same as the others in terms of his preachy views.  But I am hoping that his techniques will help.  I looked at my xrays today and it's no wonder my neck hurts something horrible, not to mention the rest of my body.  I do believe that chiropractic care helps, and I'm trying to get healthier this year.  I'm not looking forward to the cost of it after my initial insurance coverage is gone, but I think it will be beneficial in the end.  At least I sure hope it is.

To the Oregon coast we go!

For one reason or another this didn't end up getting posted when I was planning it... but here is what we did and some pictures from our trip to the Oregon coast in December.  We went to Oregon celebrating our being together for 12 years! It's hard to imagine it's been that long, yet at the same time it really does feel like it's been forever.  I really can't imagine my life without Richard, he is the love of my life and the most wonderful guy I could have ever hoped for.

We drove down on Saturday.  We didn't leave our house too early as we had no real plans and didn't want to feel rushed.  We stopped in Olympia and had dinner at Casa Mia, it's an incredibly little italian eatery that we found about 10 years ago now and we try to stop by when driving by.  I absolutely LOVE their minestrone soup!  Apparently check in was about a half hour before we got there, thankfully they left keys for us and I was able to check in the next day.  This is the website for the hotel we stayed at - http://innattheshore.com/.  I really enjoyed the room we had.  There was a fireplace, jacuzzi tub and it was pet friendly which was a HUGE plus!  The room had pet bowls and it even had a separate towel and sheet for the floor that were labeled for pets.  We took a quick walk along the prom that evening and then headed to bed.

On Sunday we got up, checked in to the hotel, and then proceeded to find breakfast.  We went to a little place called 360 degrees or something of the sort.  It was decorated incredibly eclectic and the food was pretty decent, nothing too exciting but pretty good.  After breakfast we headed over to the Seaside aquarium, it was freezing but I enjoyed walking through and looking at all the fish!  And as we were leaving someone fed the seals which is always fun.  They do all kinds of fun tricks for the food!  We went back to our room, enjoyed the view and then went for a sunset walk on the beach.  The sunset was beautiful, but it was literally FREEZING!  Since the beach was so empty we let Rosco run on the beach without his leash, he absolutely loved it!  After that we went to Chinese food for dinner.  Then it was back to the room where I enjoyed a sea salt jacuzzi bath, sat in front of the fire, and headed to bed early.  Vacations should be relaxing and you should get some rest after all.

Monday was the designated shopping day.  Before we went shopping we stopped for breakfast at Pig'n Pancake, I had some very tasty Swedish crepes!  We then proceeded up the coast a little and went to Costco and Fred Meyers and got most of our Christmas shopping done.  Two good things about that, one we could shop on Monday when everyone was working so it wasn't all that busy and two we were in Oregon so there was no tax.  We then decided to do a little geocaching, I didn't plan the caches out before I left so I missed an important step to the last cache we were doing.  We ended up walking about a mile along a very rocky beach.  We did find a very large squid on the beach, which we thought was pretty cool. After that we went and checked out the Carousel Mall.  I really wanted to do those old fashioned pictures they had there but they were a bit more then I wanted to spend, maybe next year, though I've been saying that all my life.    After that we headed back to the hotel, ate left over Chinese food, read a bit and then went to bed.

Our last day we packed everything up, turned in the keys and then went and enjoyed the beach one last time.  Rosco really enjoyed running on the beach without the leash.  After the beach walk we headed home.  It really was an enjoyable trip.  We had beautiful sunny days but it was very very cold. 

Seaside Aquarium:

The view from our room:

Sunday beach visit:

Our hotel is the one just to the left of the log with the three peaks.

Tuesday beach visit:

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a wonderful New Years weekend, I know I did.  I started out the weekend getting to sleep before midnight and missing all the fireworks, I did it on purpose as I had a full weekend ahead of me and wanted to be well rested!  I would say it was certainly worth it if you asked me.

On Saturday we went over to visit with my parents and get our Santa pictures with my Dad before he cut his beard back to a more managable length, I know it's after Christmas but things just didn't work out to get there earlier.  Don't worry he will be growing it out again for next year!  We got a few good pictures which I'll post below.

After visiting with my parents we headed down to Vancouver to spend the weekend visiting with the Hoppers.  We ate good food (Salmon, Spaghetti Pie, Biscuits and Gravy, yummy!), had good company and played quite a few video games (Wurms, DDR, WiiFit, and some Game Show game that I can't remember the name of).  It was a nice relaxing weekend spent with some really good friends.  I took a couple pictures of Dereck and his parents, he was so much fun this trip.  It's amazing how fast the little ones grow.

Santa Pics:

The Hoppers:

A broken arm...

My mom fell on Thanksgiving day and broke her arm.  A spiral fracture of her humourus to be exact.  She spent a few days at the hospital thanks to it being a holiday weekend and no one was working at the insurance place or doctor wise.  She has since been in a rehabilitation facility where she is doing physical therapy and occupational therapy so she can be strong enough to go home and go about her day to day activities.  Two weeks later she now has a new cast, is still at the rehab place and will hopefully be coming home next Friday if all goes well. 
It's just weird not having her around for the holidays.  I've gone over and helped Dad decorate the deck and various other things.  I have no clue how mom manages to do all that decorating. When I do it, it just feels cluttered, she makes it look like it is meant to be there. 

Another thing this has made me realize is that prior to her fall, I really wasn't going to visit her half as often as I should.  She isn't THAT far away.  How is it that life feels so busy that I can't drive over and visit?  I mean really, we all know I spend WAY to much time playing on the computer anyways, some of that time could actually be used visiting my mom. 

Yikes!

Wow, Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away, and my house isn't anywhere close to ready for that.  I had better get off the computer a bit more and get to working on that!   I have a couple blogs started for last month about our hike and trip to the zoo. I just haven't gotten around to finishing them... I'll work on it as I can between cleaning and keeping up on the way to many apps I play on facebook.  Nothing new to report really... I just figured it had been awhile since I blogged.