2009 - 2011, continued

March 2010
I know I already covered this, but I didn't remember anything. I do now. March was my first "hunt" for nail polish with my MIL. She has two boys, and she loves to hunt. So what did she get to hunt for growing up? The latest Hot Wheel collections. She also is a knitter, so she has gone on hunts for "retired" yarn colors before. But she was VERY happy to have the opportunity to hunt for nail polish, even though she didn't really know what she was looking for. :) We went to a local store called the Dollar Shoppe, lots of TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Big Lots, Dollar Tree, etc. Those types of stores have great old drugstore brand (Revlon, Sally Hansen, etc.) nail polish for about 50 cents a bottle!

Also, we started agility classes for the dogs. I thought it would be fun for Jax since he's so athletic, and Geoff decided to take Roxy too even though her legs are about an inch and a half long.

We already covered April, so I'll skip that.

May 2010
In May I came up with the genius idea to get inflatable kayaks. I have always loved kayaking, we live right on a river, and there is at least one place we camp that has a great river available for kayaking. Plus we were going to visit my sister in Monterey where there is fantastic kayaking. So I got two 2 man kayaks, complete with life jackets for the pups. They have proven to be SO much fun!! I spent much of last summer kayaking - there are several put-in points on the river, so I typically will just drive to one, kayak down, and pull myself out near where we live. I deflate my kayak, carry it back to my house (although later I got a little cart to carry it, way easier, cause they are heavy), and then when Geoff has time get him to take me back to my car (or if I went with someone, the second person just takes us back to the first car). In all honesty though, sometimes there is so little flow in our river I could just put in and get out at the same place!

We also did the Portland Doggie Dash in May... super fun event with vendors and dog contests. We did about a mile and a half walk - that's all Roxy can handle! Jax could handle the longest run they have as an option.

May was also when we took the camper down to California for my sister's graduation. We met up with my parents (they stayed with us), and my aunt, uncle, and grandmother rented an Airstream at the same RV park we stayed at. It had a great dog park complete with agility equipment and we had a fantastic trip. After the graduation, Geoff and I had an extra ~5 days and we pondered what to do - Vegas and Disneyland came up as options. Then we realized we could go to San Francisco and eat at really expensive restaurants and it would be way cheaper than either Vegas or Disneyland. So that's what we did. We found a nice RV park overlooking the Pacific and just drove into San Francisco for a fabulous dinner each night. It was GREAT. Plus, I was driving my sister's Civic back to Oregon (to store it for the summer while she went to NYC for the summer), so we had that car to drive into SF with - made it way easier than the giant truck. We had three fantastic dinners, each easily ranks among the top 10 dinners of my life. I love food. :)

June 2010
This is another month that I remember absolutely nothing about! Such a disappointment. I guess you can't have an awesome month EVERY month. ;-)

July 2010
In July I started playing BINGO!! The gal that manages our doggie daycare, Chelsea, and I got to talking one day about cruises and how she played bingo on her cruise and loved it. I had been secretly Facebook stalking Chelsea for months, convinced we would be good friends (creepy much?!). Anyway, she mentioned bingo and I asked her if she'd ever been to Sunset Bingo, a local bingo parlor. She said she hadn't, and I hadn't either. So we decided to go together. Neither of us knew at the time, there is a LOT to learn about bingo!!! It's not just straight lines and four corners - there are seven ways to "regular" bingo! Then there are specials and rules about when you can call BINGO and you have to figure out what to buy and all of this craziness. It was soooo crazy, but so much fun. We got really into bingo and were going once a week for almost the rest of the year. We have only been ONCE so far this year, but we're going again tonight. Bingo will never get old! And it's not super expensive either - $6 will buy you about 2.5 hours of fun! We've come a long way and know a lot about bingo now... we're pros now. ;-) Oh, and in every state but Nevada (except for at Native American casinos), bingo is non-profit! So when we play, we are contributing towards local ameteur sports (like my boss's kids are fencers and part of the money goes towards fencing!).

July also brought a BBQ with my friend Laura and some of her girlfriends. We are coworkers and she has a general "no friends that are coworkers" policy but she decided I was an exception. ;-) So she invited me over and we have become quite close since then. It helps that we see each other daily for work!

We also had our first agility trial in July. It was a VERY hot weekend, but we had a nice sun shade and great setup, and our dogs did their best in a "fun" match (not judged seriously). My MIL and SIL came out to watch it, it was a super fun day!!

August 2010
The only notable event in August was our 3rd wedding anniversary. Geoff and I follow the traditional wedding gifts, which is really fun and about the only traditional thing we do. It just makes it really fun to have to try to put a modern twist on traditional gifts. So the "theme" was leather. We actually came up with very similar ideas - he got me a leather luggage tag that contained a gift card for my favorite handbag "store" (there is only one store in the US and it happens to be in Vegas, where we were going to be going in September). I got him a leather wallet that contained a bunch of different gift cards - Chipotle, Best Buy, movie tickets, etc. It was really fun! And we went to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in Portland.

...Part 3 to come later....