Things That Are Making Me Happy This Week

1. My Robbie is home!

Pretty self-explanatory. Rob came home after 14 days on Sunday and it's been simply marvelous having him home again.  Yesterday he took me out to lunch at the Coyote Cafe which I'm pretty sure Jesus would've eaten at if he was in Santa Fe (some people here will tell you that he was, by the way). Jesus might not have partaken in the prickly pear margaritas that Rob and I had, but he probably should've.

Side note: I asked the waitress, and this color is apparently totally legit, as in no artificial colorings or anything.  Prickly pear puree is just this color naturally.

2. Caitlin and Rob Hammock Time!

Turns out Rob isn't a huge fan of the hammock because of his back, but we still got in some double-hammock time together which made me pretty happy indeed. Also, ignore how manly my legs look, please.

3. New Tattoos and Famous People and Things!

I told you in my last post about my new tattoo, which was pretty painful compared to the others (it's on my inner bicep) and is actually and oddly still painful several days later, but is nonetheless awesome and I can't stop staring at it.  Yesterday afternoon I sent a picture of the tattoo through Twitter to Dan Andriano, who wrote and sings the song "This Light" that inspired the tattoo and its meaning.  Last night we were watching TV and I got his response, which I think was pretty fucking cool of him.  I had a big-ass grin on my face all night.

4. The Olympics, I guess!

I've never been all that much into the Summer Olympics but I like watching them with Robbie. I told him that I want to run a race with one of those sprinters and just see from above how ridiculous it would look. We also make up words to explain things that the athletes do wrong to sound like we know what we're talking about. FUN TIMES.

5. Birthday Week!

As most of you know, Rob and I are strong believers in Birthday Week.  We decided last year to only do it when one of us reached the latter half of a decade (i.e., 26) or when we hit a decade (30), but now we're just doing it every year.  This week Rob gets to decide what and where we eat, gets out of doing most chores (especially the dishes), and can dictate any activities we do outside the house.  Plus we both exclaim at various times, "Birthday week!" It's truly a magical time.

What's making you all happy this week?

A Birthday Recap

I had a pretty awesome (and extended) 26th birthday this year.

On Thursday I drove to Albuquerque to pick up my sisters.  I get really anxious meeting people at the airport (who knows why) but I was super excited to see them walking into the terminal.  We drove home, lounged around, and walked Cypress.  It was really cool to see Santa Fe through their eyes; since I've been here for 3 months I've gotten pretty used to the scenery and sort of take it for granted at this point.  When I came home from a walk they had pretty much conked out with jet lag so we napped, snacked, watched 30 Rock and had some drinks.

Friday and Saturday were spent hanging out and checking out downtown Santa Fe, along with Netflix and lots of yummy food.  We also visited my dad's alma mater, which Ashleen hadn't seen yet.  My dad's stories about the College of Santa Fe (now the Santa Fe College of Art and Design) were a huge reason why I wanted to come here when Rob decided to be a Hotshot.

On Saturday my sisters were kind enough to take me to P.F. Chang's for a birthday dinner because, as you all should know by now, I love me some Chang.  We even got all dressed up because we're awesome like that.

In the next photo I'm wearing Ashleen's hair extensions.  I totally think they work.

As we were getting on the highway to go to Albuquerque, a cop pulled up next to us and told us we were getting a flat tire.  To my (happy) surprise, I didn't freak out or cry at all but very calmly called our 24/7 roadside assistance program through our insurance (thank goodness we sprang for that).  I think we definitely looked like stereotypes when the guy finally came because we were all three in dresses, standing on the side of the road completely oblivious as to what to do with a flat tire.

Apparently I had driven over a bolt at some point because it was firmly lodged into my tire.  

In accordance with our stereotyped selves, Ashleen and I totally asked the mechanic, and the bolt was not supposed to be there.

Anyway we got the donut on the car, rented a car from the airport, and made our way to Albuquerque to ride the Chang.  It was a lot of fun and the food was delish, as always.

They left early in the morning on my birthday to head back home and I miss them already.  I had a lot of fun having fun and bullshitting with each other and it was a welcome distraction from the stress of fire season.

Later that day I ran errands and got the house ready for Robbie to come home. Natalie came over and took me to a yummy lunch at the Coyote Cafe to keep ourselves busy.  While there we found out that though the boys were home by 1 or 2, they had to work until 6, which was a bummer but a few hours doesn't really make that much of a difference when you've waited 14 days.  

Finally at around 6:15pm Robbie came home.  And it was awesome.  I had missed him so much, and the last few days before he got home had been rough on me in a few ways.  Mostly my stomach was in absolute turmoil from Wednesday until this morning and I couldn't eat without feeling crazy nausea.  What can I say, things are just easier when he's home.

Anyway Rob has 3 days off, so we're having an abbreviated birthday week.  I'm sad that he'll have to go back out so soon (most likely as soon as they go back to work) but I'm really thinking and hoping that it'll get easier each time. 

I hope you all had a good weekend, and thanks for the sweet birthday messages you left on my last post.  You're all amazing!

Day of Birth!

Today I am 26!

 

I'm spending the day driving my sisters to the airport (sad) and then snuggling the absolute shit out of my husband when he comes home (happy).

I hope you're all having a great Memorial Day weekend.  Along with my birthday we will of course be celebrating Rob's comrades that were lost.

Cypress's Fourth Birthday

I'm going to go ahead and warn those of you who aren't pet people that this post might seem a little nuts.

If you saw the end of my post yesterday you would've noticed that Cypress celebrated her fourth birthday yesterday.  In this house we take dog birthdays very seriously.  And you might be thinking that it's just me but Rob is just as much if not more into it than I am. This is why we are perfect together.

 

We began the day with early-morning bed snuggles. We have a double bed so Cypress doesn't usually sleep with us, but I called her up this morning to wake Rob up.  He loves it, don't worry.

 

The rest of her day was pretty normal. Rob took her on a few walks while I got some work done, and later we went to the grocery store to pick up her birthday staples--tuna fish and vanilla ice cream.  We might be somewhat broke from moving but dammit, our dog still eats well on her birthday.

After we came back we took her to her new daycare/boarding facility to check the place out. It seems like a really good fit, which is great since she'll be spending the majority of the summer there assuming I start traveling again.  She made a very good impression on the owner so we were proud pet-wranglers that day.

At night we ate tacos and then gave Cypress her second helping of tuna fish for the day, and finally some ice cream as dessert. Of course we sang her "Happy Birthday" despite the fact that I hate it and always have. What can I say? She's cute.

After dinner I was putting around on the internet when she jumped on the couch and demanded to be snuggled.  Since it was her birthday I put the computer down and obliged...then I dropped my phone on her head and she wanted no more of my snuggles.

I know that those of you who have/appreciate pets will understand me when I say what an important part of our family Cypress is.  Today I could sort of not really see why people who have children get sad at birthdays; this is the first year that Cypress's age indicates that she is certainly an adult, and since she's a dog, our time with her is extremely limited and frankly I can't imagine life without her, as morbid as that sounds.  

Earlier Rob was reading a little pamphlet the doggy daycare lady gave us that has "Love Notes from Your Dog." The last one is "Go with me on difficult journeys.  Never say, 'I can't bear to watch,' or 'Let it happen in my absence.' Everything is easier for me if you are there.  Remember, I love you." I can't even read it without tearing up a little bit.

Happy Birthday little beastie! And I say that knowing fully that you literally can't understand a word I say.

Birthday Week with pictures!

First, thank you all for the sweet words about my blog's new appearance.  Rob told me that my last post should've been titled Look at Banner, Michael! so I really dropped the ball on that one.  My apologies.

Last week, as you know, was Robbie's birthday week.  Since his birthday week coincided with his no-more-Army day, I decided that he deserved a whole week of birthdayness rather than just a day or two.  We've now decided that we'll each have a birthday week when we fall on the wrong side of a decade (Rob turned 26 this year) or when we hit a decade.

The central theme of birthday week included (1) Rob getting to choose what we ate for dinner every night, (2) Rob getting to choose what activity we engaged in, and (3) many mutual exclamations of "It's birthday week!"

On Monday, for example, we had a fun cafe night.  First, we made banana-berry-honey smoothies.  For himself, Rob made falafel balls and popped them into a pita with avocado, sprouts, and tomato.  I had a sammich with provolone, avocado, tomato, sprouts, and locally-made dijon mustard. Quite yummy indeed! We also saw Crazy Stupid Love which we really enjoyed.  Still gotta see Cowboys and Aliens though.

On Tuesday we made homemade Chipotle meals. We mixed rice with cilantro, cooked some chicken and peppers, and added cheese, pico de gallo, and guacamole.  This has become a favorite in our house the last couple weeks.

On Wednesday, we went out to eat with Rob's dad, brother, sister-in-law, and sister.  We went out to our favorite restaurant, which we patronize so often that they call us by name and treat us really well. I mentioned that it was Rob's birthday (not the actual day but you know) and they brough us ice cream and other fun desserts and sang to him, without me even asking!

Pardon the crappy cell phone picture.

 Thursday, as you know, was the day that Rob officially got out of the Army.  When he was in Iraq, I sent him a canister filled with 365 slips of paper, each of which had a memory, inside joke, song, or quote that made me think of him.  We found it in his box of Iraq letters and realized that he didn't read through all of them; so on Thursday, we read through the remaining slips together!

 Finally, on Friday we invited Rob's coworkers, Amie, Sara and Sarah, over for a End of Summer Work/Birthday/Out of the Army party.  I bought snack food and booze (Rob specifically requested Grey Goose vodka), and also some flowers because I'm nice like that.  I took everyone out to eat at the aforementioned restaurant and we came back here for gift exchange.  The girls made really sweet cards for Robbie and tie-dyed shirts for each of them (and me too!).

Along with the very romantic air conditioner I bought for Rob's birthday at his request, I bought him the 30 Rock original soundtrack and a mustachioed Octopal from this awesome shop.

I'm more or less sure that he's more excited about it than this picture conveys.

But one of the best parts of the evening was when we took Rob's Army contract into the yard and burned the sucker to commemorate his freedom from the Army.  It was a good feeling.  This was also the point at which Rob informed me that his risk of getting called back into the Army had actually been far higher than I had realized, so needless to say I am pretty excited about this day finally coming.  Plus I'm pretty excited about how amazing the fire pictures came out.

 We had a really awesome time with everyone.  I did learn a valuable lesson, which is to not mix a downer (like vodka) with an upper (a 5-Hour Energy I took to stay awake).  I ended up getting really sick and sleeping for a total of about 3 hours the entire night because I was so wired.  Fail on my part.

Hope you enjoyed hearing about birthday week, and I hope you all had an amazing week and weekend!

Happy Weekend.

Things that are making me smile this weekend:

 

• Seeing my husband gaze and smile at me while I told some guests about our time apart/the deployment and knowing that he was looking at me with all the love in the world.

• Watching episodes of Mad Men on Netflix.

• 85 degree days spent walking by the river.

• Taking a 2 1/2 hour nap after getting approximately 3 hours of sleep last night.

• Laughing with Robbie and his coworkers at his birthday/work party.

• Taking a shot together using our geeky test tube shot set from Urban Outfitters.

• Watching my husband's Army contract burn and knowing that we don't ever have to worry about him leaving for war again.

• Everything about this picture. 

I have a big photo-heavy post all about birthday week I can't wait to share with you next week.

What are you all doing this weekend?