Hoover Dam

Hoover Dam is a fun place. Although, we did find out that its a bad idea to go on the weekend. We weren't even thinking about it being Saturday when we left the base that morning. By the way, if anyone ever goes, make sure you have no food with you, they will take it and throw it away or make you take it to the car which is no easy walk from the area. Just an FYI. I took a ton of pictures but didn't want to bombard ya'll with them. 

Garrett checking out the damn from the side.

The turbines. These were just crazy. They were huge! Its crazy to think about just how much water pours through these things daily.

Side view.

There is a massive bridge across from the dam. We went up there later in the day. I'm not exactly afraid of heights, but this was seriously high.

Looking down from the dam on the Colorado River.

The Lake Mead side of the dam.

Looking straight down. Ekkkk.

We had a good time at the dam. I'm sure we will be going again when we have some visitors. Its a good place to see plus its just breathtaking. 

Until Next Time!

Lots of Love!!

~A

My New Guardian Angel

I am very sad to say that my grandfather passed away early this morning. Please pray for my family and I during this time of loss. My grandpa was a great man and we will miss him. 

Cinco de Mayo and Finding the House

We celebrated our first 'holiday'  in Las Vegas at the beginning of May. I just love Cinco de Mayo, whether you think its a real holiday or not. This year we got to spend it at the Cabo Wabo. I have been to a Cabo Wabo before but that was junior year at Mizzou and we were actually in Cabo! We sat on the end of the bar where the drinks are picked up by the waitresses and so whenever there was a mess up, we got it! It was very entertaining! We did order a few of our own selections. My favorite was the drink of the day, but now for the life of me, I can not remember what it was.

Gotta love pictures of drinks!

Blue yummy thing that I don't remember what it was called.

These are the drinks that we loved! They were huge and took a long time to drink because they were so sweet.

After having our fair share of drinks at the Cabo Wabo, we headed down to the street and over to the Bellagio to watch the show! I am in love with the water show they do there! You should go!

Probably should have done this part of the post first since technically we found the house and had everything moved in before we headed to the Strip for Cinco de Mayo.

We found the house of our dreams here! Its a monster!! It was a little scary at the beginning though. We didn't really want to look at the house because it was a little out of our price range but we decided to look anyway. As soon as we walked in, we were in love! Its huge and spacious! We thought about it for a little bit but by the time we decided that we wanted it, it was too late and the office was closed for the night. So we got everything together and were planning on getting there first thing in the morning. We got there right when they opened only to find there was a guy right in front of us who was applying for the same house. We couldn't believe our bad luck. We applied for it anyway but were not hopeful. We waited and waited. They said 3 business days but unfortunately that did not include the weekend. So after turning the application in on Friday, we finally got a call on Tuesday at 4pm. Talk about panicking.  It turns out that the company presented both applications to the owner and the owner had selected us. We signed the lease the next day and luckily the Air Force was able to get our things out of storage and delivered to the new house on Thursday! 

These aren't the pretty pictures yet, but they are in the process of moving in. 

This is the view from the front door.

The living room with mass chaos in it.

The kitchen with all the boxes in it. Looks a lot cleaner now.

The funniest/most annoying part of the unpacking was the amount of paper that we didn't know what to do with afterwards. I mean really, I know they are liable but this was a seriously huge amount of paper. We took it to the recycling center. We filled up the car without seats in it 3 times to get all the paper there. We ended up making $10 off of the paper which we used to get some much deserved Cherry Limeades from Sonic! 

We had about a week to get as much unpacking done as we could before it was time to head back to StL for the rest of the madness which was May.

Until Next Time!

Lots of Love!!

~A

Time To Start Catching Up...

Packing and the Big Move 

This all seems like it was forever ago now and in truth it has been nearly two months since it all went down. We have just been so super busy lately that I am just now getting to the point of being able to post! 

So the packers came on April 24th and the madness began. They packed and they packed and they packed. It took them a full day with three people to get all of ours things packed up. 100 boxes later, everything was all packed. Garrett and I spent the better part of two days hanging out in the bedroom being out of the way.  The second day, the movers came. One by one, they quickly took all of the boxes out of the house and before long the apartment was empty.

Here is the view from the bed is our bedroom after the packers were done.

This is the downstairs with everything all packed up.

This was probably the funniest room. In the storage room all they did was wrap our plastic bins in brown paper.

The two deer heads all packed up. The turkey was far funnier. It had a sling for the turkey's head and everything.

Day two the movers showed up with this epic truck! We knew ahead of time that we didn't have that much stuff, but it turns out that they were going to move more than one family's things in the truck. I felt better after that. 

All in all, the packing and picking up went smoothly and before we knew it, we were saying goodbye to our home in StL and heading west.

Until Next Time!

Lots of Love!!

~A

Grade School Friends and Les Miserables

Another weekend has come and gone. There sure are flying by! Now if only the work weeks would fly by, but who am I kidding? I only have 6 days left at this job before the packing starts. 

Friday night, I got to see my grade school girlfriends. Two of them I have known since 2nd grade and the other since 5th grade. Its crazy to think that we are hitting the point where we can say, yeah we have been friends for nearly 20 years. Its just mind-blowing! Julianna is expecting a little boy, to be called Noah, in August. Melissa had tales of her daughter Lily and Mary Beth is chugging along. We were having such a good time that before we knew it, it was 10 o'clock. Time does fly when you are having fun! It was good to catch up with the girls, as I do not think I'll be seeing them for a long time! *Tear* After we were done, I hung out with my parents for a little while before going home. 

Saturday morning, Garrett and I did some cleaning before he left to do some SCUBA lessons in the afternoon. He had a good time but now he's ready to go to the ocean. Some day we will do this. Don't know when, but some day. Saturday evening, I went to a friend's house and we watched Les Mis and had wine and cheese. We had a good time! And I just never get tired of Les Mis.

Sunday morning, Garrett and I got up early and went for a hike on a trail not too far from our apartment. We took Achilles! He needed a nice long hike! LoL! We had a lunch while sitting on a log that had fallen over the creek. It was entertaining. Afterwards, Garrett went to play golf with Ryan and I headed to my parents' house to hang. Unfortunately, I arrived at precisely the wrong time...Just in time to help my dad in the garage. Ha! Well we ended rebuilding the hydraulic something for the tractor. At least I think it was hydraulics. Whatever. Quality time with my dad in the garage is better than spreading mulch, in my opinion. I ended up spending the rest of the day covered in transmission fluid and rockin' out with my dad. 

We had a really good weekend! Sadly, the weekends are starting to be few in number! But on the agenda this week is Group Therapy $5 Buckets on Wednesday, dinner with my grandparents Thursday, Lunch with Lindsay on Friday, then hanging with Amanda and Ares as well as my other friend Linzi for the weekend! We are rapidly approaching the one week mark until packing time! So many things to get done!! Yikes!!

Wish Me Luck!

Until Next Time!

Lots of Love!!

~A

I'm Dead, I'm Dead, I Died, I'm Dead

That pretty much sums up my weekend. Don't get me wrong, we had a fabulous weekend, I'm just still wiped out and its Tuesday. Never fear, we are slowly recovering and gearing up for another of the last few remaining weekends in StL! Before we get to that, a recap of the past weekend.

I was so very, very excited to see these two crazies this past weekend! I'm only sad we didn't have the opportunity to spend more time together! However, we did still have a blast! The introduction circle that they did was entertaining. They asked for a story...which I think we were all frantically searching for a family friendly story! Lol! Something Steph said really is true. We have indeed come a long way since the pirate party that resulted in the cops pulling us over...and then letting us off the hook because we were smart enough to get a sober driver...and that's all I'm going to say about that story as the people reading this already know the full story and for those that don't, well too bad... :) Anyway, I was very sad to leave on Saturday. I think Rachel and I talked for another 30-45 minutes from the time I said I was going to go to the time I actually left. This is what happens when old friends get together and can't seem to leave...too much reminiscing to be done. :)

Then there was the other part of the weekend: the marathon relay/half marathon for Garrett.  I had all the shirts set out and ready to roll on Sunday. We woke up at 5 AM and Garrett sleepily said to me, "Who's idea was this again?!" Uh that's right...YOURS! LOL! By the time that Abby, Cyle, and Cameron arrived, we were very much awake and it was a good thing too because they sure were.We all suited up and took off on the adventure 3 months in the making.

It was dark when we left, but it was light in no time at all. Abby took the first leg for 6 miles, Cameron took the second leg for 7.5 miles, Cyle took the third leg for 7 miles, and I took the final leg for 6 miles. Abby and I decided a long time ago that the boys were going to run the long legs. :) Sorry guys! (But not really!) In the picture, Cameron had just finished the longest stretch and was still good to pose for a picture! Typical of Cameron! Can't wait to spend 24 hours in a car with this guy in June. Evidently Cyle was like gimme the belt, gots to go! 

Our trusty photographer was ready to take a picture as we ran by towards the finish line. My only thought as we ran towards the finish line was, "is it me or is that line not getting any closer?!" Finally, we all sprinted through the archway and were officially finished.

Team Huck: Relay Marathon 2013...Finishers.

"The Family Huck: The family that runs together, survives the zombie apocalypse together." ~Garrett Huck (He really wants to get shirts the next time we do this together that says this.)

After the big run, we headed down to Cyle and Abby's house to have some fun with the kiddos. We had a lot of fun but we were quite exhausted after our crazy day. I ended up switching my Friday off and took Monday off again as I was so sore. Garrett and I spent the day on the couch playing Lego Lord of the Rings and then finishing up season 2 of The Walking Dead. Garrett was all ready to buy Season 3, but I vetoed that idea since I really did want to sleep last night. It was a very chill day for us and we did need it!

On the agenda for this weekend:

Friday: Dinner with my grade school girlfriends

Saturday: Les Miserables night with Sarah and Rachael

Sunday:  Who knows?! Maybe a BBQ

Until Next Time!

Lots of Love!!

~A

Hoppy Easter!

Happy Belated Easter everyone! I just love Easter! Everyone looks so pretty and polished in church! And nothing says Happy Easter like the little girl getting sick mid-Mass!  Never a dull moment. Well at least it wasn't one of us.

We went to Garrett's grandma's house for Easter on Saturday and she made some delicious chicken and dumplings! Yes! Garrett made oreo cookie balls which were very entertaining to see. I didn't help him. I left him to it and the results were comical. I didn't take pictures, but I did laugh quite a lot. Saturday evening, we had a pretty epic Uno tournament with my family. Nothing like 8 people playing Uno plus another person adding on later! Never ending game let me tell you. We were already playing with two decks and were nearly out of the pile of cards. Always a good time! Sunday was church and my mom's cousins' house. Nothing better than honey baked ham and a slam dunk contest! All in all, Easter was a good time! We did miss the Kramp family due to my cousin being very sick and we also didn't get to see the Huck family. There's always another year! 

All the kiddos (minus Clayton, Levi, and Clarey) on the Arnold side.

The sweet picture that my sister in law sent of the nephews and niece! They were so cute!

So naturally, Garrett had to send one back! LOL! Everyone was wearing mint green for Easter this year! LOL! We eventually got a picture of my 16 year old brother in law wearing his mint green, but he was also wearing his pjs so that one won't make the blog! Lol! Plus in this one, KK is photo-bombing like a pro but she should have put bunny ears on Garrett. 

Happy Easter one and all!

Until Next Time!

Lots of Love!!

~A

Less Than a Month to Go...

Holy cow! Where has the time gone!? I was laying in bed Monday night when I realized that a month from then my bed would be gone! AH! The moving has slowly caught up with us. Before it was, oh well its a two years away, one year away, 6 months away and now we have officially hit the under one month mark. Its pretty scary. The biggest thing we have to accomplish right now is that cleaning of the apartment for the movers to do the walk through next Friday. In the next few weeks, we are going to seriously look at houses to rent and soak up the family time! Good thing this weekend is Easter! Lol! 

Last weekend was wedding weekend! Lara had to lovely showers (although the snow kind of destroyed the attendance for the shower on Sunday, but oh well) Both showers were fun and Lara got a lot of fun things for their future home! They are presently looking for a place to buy. I think they are looking in the more fun/young adult areas of town. I think my sister's exact words were 'a place they would never live again' So it should be interesting to see what they come up with! Not that we will probably be around to really see it! Lol!

Shower Gift for Saturday, and you can kind of see the other gift in the background but evidently I didn't take pictures of the wine basket! BOO!

My other big project was the dress cake! I thought it turn out really well! Along with the Marriage Advice book. My advice was, "Don't complain about the toilet seat being left up, but make sure you turn the light on in the middle of the night so you don't fall in." Pretty good if I do say so myself and practical! LOL!

Closer shot of my lovely creation! 

Well I hope everyone has a very happy and blessed Easter!! Oh and get those eggs!!

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Until Next Time! 

Lots of Love!!

~A

Beginning of the End

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That's what it sure feels like right now.  This upcoming weekend marks the beginning of the madness that is the countdown to Garrett and I leaving for Las Vegas and also to my sister's wedding. There is nothing major going on this upcoming weekend, but it still feels like the beginning of crazy. Garrett has to work over night Saturday night and Sunday night and rather than tiptoeing all around the house both days while he sleeps, I'm going to my parents' house for some quality family time! Cindy will be home on Spring Break and wants to have a margarita (or several) and just pretend we are at the beach. Mom wants to bring the beach chairs inside so we really think we are there! I am pretty pumped for an afternoon/day of silliness with my mom and sisters. (While the cat is away, the mice will play...aka Dad will be in Rolla for St. Pat's!) Now if only we can all make it through the work week/school week for Cindy and its game on! 

The last few weekends have been fun! Two weekends ago, I went to a bridal shower for one of Garrett's med school friends who is marrying on of his undergrad friends. It was a Pancakes and Panties theme, however, there were no pancakes. Hm. Interesting. We had a good time! After that Garrett and I played some disc golf (gosh that sounds snooty) Garrett had Monday off, so I took a vacation day and we got some things done around the house and then played in the afternoon. (That may have been when we played disc golf...can't remember now) Last weekend, we had fish fry on Friday night! Om nom nom! Seriously! Can't get enough!  Then Saturday night, we did our second (not really annual) Suit Up night. We went to Club 360 at the Hyatt in Downtown St. Louis. What a cool place! You basically have a 360 degree view of the city. In the picture below is the Busch Stadium view. We also took a picture with the Arch in the background but it was on another friend's camera so I have to wait for that one. It was a bit chilly out Saturday night but they had the fires going. As you can see, it was also a bit windy that night as well. My hair was flying everywhere!

The boys were looking pretty sharp Saturday night. And only Garrett and I are looking at the camera, and whatever Ted and Ryan were talking about must have been super intense based on facial expressions! Lol! Actually, Garrett is being a bit creepy! Gosh, we have picture issues. We really had a good time! After the bar, we went back to our places for a few more (already paid for) drinks. There will be a quite a few drinks that are the stay home kind of drinks in the weekends to come as we are stockpiling for Vegas! 

I've started to put together shower gifts for all of the various showers that are coming up! Lara's first two showers are in a week and a half, so I really better get my butt in gear! I am doing a practice round tonight/tomorrow for the cake and I have made the list of things I still  need to do. Garrett being so busy with this ER rotation is definitely allowing me to get a lot done.  

Ready to dive into the next few weeks here! Many fun and exciting events happening! 

Bridal showers, baby showers, marathon weekend, and then the big move! Crazy! I'm hoping to bombard ya'll with pictures in the next few weeks! Get ready!

Until Next Time! 

Lots of Love!!

~A

V-Day recap, Demolition Ball, & that Freaky French Guy

Holy moly! Hard to believe that February is nearly gone! Seriously, last day tomorrow. Its just crazy. It seems like time is flying but Christmas and New Year's seem like they were forever ago. That also means that this post is a little behind schedule. I don't want to brag, that is not my intent here. I just thought Garrett did such a good job for Valentine's Day that I just have to share. He got me a basket of booze. Haha! Yes, booze. Each bottle is for a very specific occasion, so I can't just drink them all as I see fit.  I can't remember them all at this moment, but here are a few: First Holiday Away from Home (Crown Valley Missouri Wine), First House Party in Las Vegas (He thought it was too funny b/c its called House Wine) Post-First Shift at New Hospital Job (Smirnoff Vodka), First Baby (Grape Juice and inevitably this will be in Las Vegas), Second Anniversary, and a few more other than that. He even came up with poems on the little heart labels. He did a fabulous job!! I just wanted to share! LOL!

So anyway, this past weekend was pretty crazy for us and at the same time, it was like the calm before the storm as this marked one of the last weekends in St. Louis that had absolutely no plans ahead of time. Friday night, we went to the Fish Fry at my church with my family. Oh so delicious! Nothing beats this fish fry. If you think you have been to a better one in the St. Louis area, you are dead wrong. They do everything. Hand cut, hand bread, fry! No fake fish here! So ready for this Friday night so we can get more! Lol! Afterwards, we met up with Ted & Sarah, and Ryan & Rachael to play laser tag and demolition ball. Laser tag was awesome, and I totally kicked butt and won! #1 of 9 people! That's right punks!! Don't mess with this! After rubbing it in everyone's faces, yes I had to especially with Garrett the hunter, Ted who shoots for fun, and the ex-Army guy...seriously?! How did I win?! We then played demolition ball. Basically, its bumper cars with those scoop baskets and you drive around and try and get the ball in the basketball net.  Its really fun and really painful the next day from all the bumping. If that wasn't enough fun for one weekend, the next day we went sledding on the ice/snow. This was a dangerous idea! Ted hurt his back and Garrett had to drive the car to the bottom of the hill so we could get him out. Did I mention that was his second time down? Yeah not good. Everyone else fared much better, but by the end my tailbone was hurting from all the bouncing and flying from the sled. 

Then we headed back to the Von Kramp Haus and spent the afternoon with the family. We had a margarita at lunch since we missed National Margarita Day on Friday (Although I thought Cinco de Drinko I mean Mayo was like National Margarita Day!) Later in the evening, we went to Llewellyn's Pub that just opened out by my parents house. We had a good time there. That is until the waitress brought my dad the littlest beer glass ever and then it was even more fun as he immediately turned into the Freaky French Guy. (See video below of Steve Martin and also think Oh ho ho in a French accent) Still don't think that even covers how funny it was. So then the guys spent the rest of the night making comments with similar accents. Good times with my family. Crazies!

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I have no idea what this one was about. Seriously, ladies and gentlemen, my father! I wish I could remember but I just can't.

The rest of the weekend, Garrett and I spent time together working on various projects. We are slowly starting to get together all of the things that we need to do and getting organized for the big move. Details flying all over the place right now for that but hopefully in the next week or so we get them all settled. I also have two bridal showers to work on as well as the bachelorette party for Lara, which I'm so pumped for b/c she finally gave the go ahead and plan away to me! Heck Yes! And there's Rachel's baby shower in April as well as the Relay Marathon. And packing and finding a house! Madness I tell you! But in the best way!!! 

My plans are to enjoy the next two weekends are they really are the calm before the storm of every weekend between now and the wedding being full!!! Ready.Set.Go!

Until Next Time!

Lots of Love!!

~A

Meeting Hunter "Patch" Adams

This week has been an interesting one for us. I began the week with high hopes for myself, but it go very far. I decided that since my boards were over, it was time to kick my work outs into high gear. I was going to keep the regular morning routine and add a supplemental evening one in. Monday was good and into Tuesday I was just fine, but Tuesday afternoon my legs started to hurt a lot. So I decided I should skip Tuesday night's workout because it wouldn't do to get hurt before the run here in April. Wednesday was more of the same. It seriously felt like I had old lady legs. They were so very achy. Today they are feeling better, but not totally. All I did was one Insanity workout. I did many of them over the summer and didn't have that kind of tightness and aches in my calves, but I also wasn't running in the morning as well. I'm going to give it another go, but its a lot of jump and moving so the calves get tired. (Obviously!) Anyway, I think I'm going to try again tomorrow and I'm thinking I need to do some more extensive stretching afterwards to avoid this happening again. Anyway, this part was just a side note. The real post is about meeting Patch Adams.

On Wednesday night, Patch Adams came to Saint Louis University and we went to see him. What a funny and passionate man! He spent a lot of time talking about different keys points but overall message was healing with love and humor. Some of the things he talked about were a little too 'hippie' for us.  (no communes for us!)   We really enjoyed seeing him and we got his book and had him sign it so that was exciting. And the chicky who took the pictures...did a damn terrible job. This is the only one I'll actually post, because she was just an awful photographer.  If you ever have the opportunity to see him speak, I would suggest that you go. Even if you don't agree with what he says, its really hard to not be affected by someone who is so acutely happy all the time. Its infectious! And its helps that he's quite the clown as well! I would also suggest watching the movie Patch Adams, even though its not a true account of his life, it still, I think, has the same message. And its a beautiful message at that.

Until Next Time!

Lots of Love!!

~A