STOKED!

I really don't know what to say at this point about this as it still doesn't feel real. Either way, we finally got the call that we've been waiting for since the beginning of our home buying journey, we're home owners! At 12:54 PDT my phone rang with our Realtor on the other end letting me know that had just gotten word that everything was a go and completely finished. Whew...what a relief, we don't have to sign anything else, find a W2 from 3 years ago, figure out what our address in Boulder was, find a pay stub from the week of 2/1-2/7, or any of the other nonsensical hurdles we've jumped through to purchase a house. I can finally say, it's done. We're really excited to get started on projects tearing the place apart. So get ready for what should be nothing less than hilarious home renovation tails. Don't worry, I'll take pictures of everything.

I kick it root down

So anyone who follows my Twitter page or Facebook page knows that I've been getting to spend a lot of time in the dentist chair. This is mainly because I was so stubborn and had no dental insurance for the past 6 years. So the only time I would make it in would be Thanksgiving when my mom would schedule me an appointment. It also doesn't help that I don't floss unless there is something stuck in my teeth, which really only happens when I eat popcorn. If you know know me at all, you know that I never eat popcorn.
What was my price? 6 cavities and 1 Root Canal. Yeah, Root Canal. Now let me tell you, that was awesome to hear from the chair as they were writing down the work I needed. Since these were my first cavities, a fact I've always been proud of, I was terrified to have them filled. I mean petrified, in fact, I was more nervous to have my cavities filled than I was to get married. Well everything has been filled and my root canal was today, as you can guess, I slept great last night. Interestingly enough, my fillings were much more painful and uncomfortable than the Root Canal. I couldn't believe how quick it was and I didn't feel a thing. It was great! In fact, when it was over, I said to the dentist, "wow, if I had known how easy that was going to be, I would have let all my cavities get that bad!" For some reason he didn't see the humor in that. Oh well.

Mission Trails

A couple of weekends ago it wasn't too hot so we headed a little bit inland with Tom, Kasey and their new pooch Mana. There is a park called Mission Trails where people go to "hike" and do some rock climbing. I don't know if I'd really refer to this as hiking. It's more walking than anything, but then again, all hiking really is is walking. So I guess we went for a hike. Either way, I could help but think to myself, that even the peak at 1500 feet was lower than any other "mountain" hike I'd ever done. Either way, it was nice to get the dogs out and off leash although this was against the rules. Luckily we weren't caught and they were able to return to their free range nature.

Mana, Tom and Kasey's new pup


You know this guy


Them too


A view from the top


On the way up

Locks for Love

A couple of weeks ago I was watching the news when on came a story about the people that donate their hair to Locks of Love. There was a local high school that was doing a charity event where the girls and parents would cut the required 10 inches off and mail it in to be made into a wig. I didn't think too much of it as I've known about this for a while since we've got a friend who's been going through rounds of chemo therapy. A couple of weeks later Chris mentions to me that she's getting her haircut in the a few days. Her hair has been super long since before the wedding, so I casually mentioned donating her hair. I didn't think she'd really consider it but when she started putting her hair into a pony tail, we realized that it was definitely long enough. So last night, off she went.

There it is, 10 inches measured out


1 down, 2 to go


Whoa, where'd the hair go?


It's definitely a cool thing that she was able to do for someone she'll never meet. Now the pony tails get dropped into the mail and will be made into a wig for someone who really needs it. Here's the site again if you are interested in doing something like this.

Locksoflove.org

Are you experienced?

According to the loan person at USAA, I must be. As we were going through exactly what it meant to buy down a loan and what points were, he stops in the middle, and says, "wow, you sure know a lot about this." I said "yeah, let's just say, I've done this before." What exactly does this mean? Well I'll tell ya, were back in the housing game. We put in another offer a couple of weeks ago and it was accepted a few days later. One interesting thing about the house stuff, there always seems to be some sort of disclaimer on every place. On the first place, we would say "well, it's so close to the water." With this one it's "we're stealing this place from her." What happened is her agent decided to tell us that she was a "very motivated" seller. When we got that info, we dropped our offer a substantial amount, which lead to her countering us at what we were originally going to offer. It was close to hitting a snag when she realized that she'd sold her house for less than she should have, but luckily her agent was able to talk her down and nothing negative happened. We're stoked, we are getting a great deal on a place that's just east of the 5 and only a 1/4 mile from the water. We're stealing this place from her! It definitely needs some work but I feel very prepared thanks to Chris' new found obsession with HGTV and all the remodeling shows. Hopefully we close and everything works out better so I can start working on my Norm Abrams beard!
So long story short, everything is coming together. Luckily we had everything together from the first place and now how to get everything sent in quickly. So it's been fairly easy, we submitted everything quickly, we're hearing back quickly, and this has been relatively painless. Our hope is that it stays this way, so we can get in there and start working.

Still going and going

I was just sitting here thinking that there has been no marathon update. Those of you who've forgotten or had no idea, I'm still planning to run the Rock 'N Roll marathon on May 31st here in San Diego. Adam is running with me and has been training back in NYC. I'm super impressed with the updates I've been getting and that he's keeping up with the training program. When I've been cruising along in 65 degree weather for the past couple of months I can't help but think of how terrible it would be doing a 7 mile run on a treadmill. It takes a lot of drive to run outside when it's been snowing and raining so much. So, I'm really impressed with anyone who train's for something like this in any place that doesn't average at least 60 degrees year round. Good job Adam!

For me, it's been a fairly easy undertaking so far. My longest run was Saturday where I travelled 15 miles. I'm ahead of my sub 4 hour goal. If I keep the pace I'm at right now, I should clock in somewhere around 3:30, which would be awesome! People have asked how my body is holding up and if my knees or anything hurt. Nothing has been bad at all, ::crosses fingers:: but there are still a lot of tough runs ahead. So all in all, I'm pretty happy with the decision to do this but I am definitely ready for it to be done.

Here's the link to the training program that we're on. I'm on week 11, so I'm running 4 miles tomorrow morning at 6 and will cover 32 miles in total this week. We're doing the program on the left.

Hal Higdon's Marathon Training

Bro-muda Triangle

Now that we're living in the Bro-muda triangle here in BroCal we decided it was time to take in some of the local doings. On the 28th we headed up to Huntington Beach to take in some of the Pier Classic, which was Jack's was a partial sponsor of. We've never been to a surf contest so we had no idea what to expect. We assumed that it would be just like all the other action sports related scene's we've frequented. Guess who was right? We took in more "hey bro(s)!" and "oh man, that was siiiiiiick!" than we thought possible. Even this guy made it out...



But seriously, we really had a great time hitting up HB on a semi-warm saturday. We watched from the Pier for a little while then went to the beach where it was much warmer. Here are some highlights









This was a small event and nothing like the U.S. Open of Surfing in July. That is an insanely big event with a ton of money up for grabs. So the level of surfing goes way up and the amount of ridiculous people watching opportunities go up as well. Should make for a good time!

Happy Birthday!

March 13th marked another tremendous day in the life of Christine. She said goodbye to 28 and is now staring down the barrel of her 30's. We figured the only way to celebrate adding another year would be to do something that would make us feel young. When we were down in Mission Beach with her parents, we discovered the Wavehouse. For those of you unfamilar, this is a bar that has 3 fake waves in it. Basically you stand on a board that is nothing more than a skateboard deck with no trucks or wheels. The water rushes over a sort of soft surface, I'd liken it to feeling of a gym mat. So we climbed on this thing and gave it our best shot.

The birthday girl goes first




Things get ugly quickly



And it's over


Now it's my turn


This did not feel good


Seriously, my neck hurt for 4 days after about 5 falls like this


Big boy wave


When we got there, we swore that at least Chris had to do this thing, but after an hour on the little one, we threw in the towel. It wasn't that we didn't want to try the big one.....we were all so sore and beat up, that we couldn't. I guess we all got a little older that day.