A Real Life Weekend!

So this weekend, Mat had the ENTIRE weekend off. I can seriously count on 1 hand the times he has had an ENTIRE weekend off since I met him 5 1/2 years ago! SERIOUSLY! I am truly loving fellowship! (Welcome to being a doctor's wife. Don't marry a man because of his profession - but because you seriously love him! Being a doctor's wife isn't what its cracked up to be. You don't see your hubby very much and when you do - they are exhausted. A story for another time....)

In the meantime, he has had a great time starting fellowship. He is really enjoying getting to focus on 1 organ, as opposed to the entire body. He really loves learning more about the heart and all of its intricacies. He comes home excited every night about procedures he has just done or new things he has learned. He has boards coming up in 1 month - so he spends a lot of time studying...I am very proud of his discipline. Lord knows, I don't have it!

Back to the weekend. So we were faced with an ENTIRE weekend off to play. We tried to make the most of it. Dinner at Kona on Friday with friends (Thanks Kyle & Jessica - I know you are blog followers - here's a shout out to you - We had a blast!) We enjoyed YUMMY sushi, great Saki and wonderful conversations=) Saturday we slept in, read the paper on the deck (We are green at the Good house. We are also yuppies, so we read it on our iphones), went for a great run and headed out to Crown Center to see the Lego exhibit. (pretty sure these lego kits didn't exist when I was 8!) Very fun. A dork's dream. That night we went to a KC Royals game with our good friends (and Big Sur marathon buddies) Lucas & Beth for our first Royals game of the year and had a chance to visit the new K. Very cool with the updates. If only they would move it downtown. We got there early, did some tailgating and just plain enjoyed the amazing weather.

Sunday was a little more low key with church, followed by pool time for me and study time for Mat. All in all we had a wonderful weekend. We were so blessed for a few days off just to enjoy each others' company. Here are a few pics of our weekend:

A tale of two colors...

So I have spent the past 3 years trying to convince Mat that we need to paint our master bedroom. It wasn't bad, ugly or hideous. It was livable. But it wasn't beautiful. It was blah. In fact, I am pretty sure that it had NEVER been updated since 1948 when our home was built. More on that later...

Mat tends to not like color change. He like neutrals... especially if they are on the wall already and require no painting. I, on the other hand, love color in homes! And I love to do the updating myself! This is why I love living in an old home - lots of room for change! The more colors the merrier. When we were first married and living here , there were a few rooms that HAD to be changed... and the sooner the better. After a year and a half of trying to convince him that we needed to update them, I lowered myself to just picking out the colors, doing all the work & "surprising" him when he woke up after a LONG night shift at the hospital.Yeah... After a few choice words and some time, he has come around to really like those newly painted rooms. This time I decided to change up my approach. I have been working on this plan full time since around March. I finally got him to the paint store last week and let him even pick out the paint himself -which I agreed with and loved. So promising to do all the work myself (come on - I am on summer break and have TIME for projects! Bring 'em on people) This is what happened:

1. BEFORE: so this is what it looked like before. (Well not EXACTLY - this is the Rikki Lake makeover version where they wake you up in the middle of the night, put mascara on you, make you cry so you smudge it, slap you silly and take your picture - no one ever really looks THAT bad!) We moved the furniture and I set to work on peeling the wallpaper border. As you can see - it is BIG furniture, too big to move out of the room, so it was real fun to venture around while painting.

2. WALLPAPER REMOVAL: Who really wallpapers anymore - really?! I have heard

rumors that it is coming back. I don't believe it. Kind of like french rolling jeans is coming back.

Yeah I'll go back to fourth grade again. right. This is what the wallpaper looked like. Again - not horrific - but not cute. And it was textured. gross.

3. WALL PAPER DOWN!! Mission accomplished! So with the wallpaper down we were ready to go! The original goal was to only paint our color - Santorini Blue (doesn't it sound amazing?! Like a vacation every time you look at it!) on the lower portion and insert chair rail between the blah cream and the Santorini Blue (again a compromise for me getting to change the color scheme)

4. THIS IS

WHAT HAPPENED!!!! Thats right. This IS NOT santorini blue. More like baby boy nursery blue. Lovely color that it is - it wasn't for our master bedroom. I slaved over measuring/leveling/marking the walls so they would be perfect. When we saw the end result - we quickly decided that we couldn't live with this 1 more day & I would redo it. By this time - Mat said I could choose any color in the world as long as it wasn't SANTORINI BLUE! (WOW! I could actually choose ANY color I wanted!) I spent over an hour agonizing over paint swatches in the paint store. (And FYI- since the wall was now 2 different colors - I had to buy extra special, expensive paint to fix it. I am too embarrassed to tell you how much 1 gallon cost. Ughhh. Mat if you actually read this - don't ask - just know it was WORTH it!) I am sure they have me marked in their system as "annoying girl with WAY too many questions." So I chose Water's Edge - the next color down on our original swatch.

5. Happy Ending: One color makes ALL the difference. We are very happy with the result. You can't tell the difference from the pictures. But TRUST me. Santorini Blue and Water's Edge are WORLDS apart in real life. They might be only one space apart on the swatch - but WORLDS apart in real life. I love Mat's reaction, "WOW! Pottery Barn just exploded in our bedroom=)". Well maybe not really - but I'll take it!!

6. Just for kicks=) So I had to throw in my favorite part of our bedroom. This picture was taken in colorado the day after we got engaged. (For those of you who don't know, we were engaged in a hot-air ballon at Sunrise in Boulder - overlooking the Rockies - spectacular. I'll save it for another blog) Anyways, Mat's dad snapped this the next day when we were up in the mountains and I have always loved it. It has a very special place in our bedroom.

So - a tale of two colors has a happy ending=)

This room is now my most favorite room in the house!!

4th de Julio

we had a great 4th of july! mat actually had the ENTIRE weekend off. this might be one of the first times in his career that he has had an entire holiday weekend off. we loved EVERY minute of it! (we got some runs in AND we even cleaned out the garage!!) on saturday, we enjoyed our pv block party. every year our little cul du sac shuts down and has our own party. neighbors walk up from all over the village to enjoy a low key evening of grilling, lighting some fireworks and enjoying each other's company. every year that we have lived here we have participated. this year was smaller, but still lots of fun. our good friends, brooke & adam walked over with their son carter & brooke's parents- whom we just love! we had a wonderful time grilling, eating some delicious food, chatting with neighbors and watching carter go exploring. I had no idea a bag of doritos & flower bed could provide so much excitement for a 1 yr old! here are a few pics of our evening...

Mat, Jim, Adam, Denise & Brooke

ready for the party to get going

I love this pic of these two -

this is how they are together 95% of the time

You can find these two at the village

starbucks most mornings...

Adam & Mat perfecting their grilling

"Hmmm.., nobodies watching, think

I'll munch on some yummy doritos"

"I know I look cute. The dorito

matches my hair"

"these adults are lame, think I'll do

my own exploring in aunt bethany's hastas"

"she caught me looking cute again"

"seriously boring grown ups...off to a new adventure...."

"roses! mama never lets me play in the rose bush at home!"

As you can see, I love little Carter and his red hair! He is so fun to take pictures of!

Dear Garmin Forerunner 301,

Dear Garmin Forerunner 301,

For the past 2 1/2 years I have had a love - hate relationship with you. When I first opened you up on that cold Christmas morning, I was so excited I could hardly stand it! I quickly tore open the packaging and began setting up my new running watch. Now I was a real runner. I could just imagine myself winning a race - a marathon perhaps? (ha! I'm not Kenyan - but you get the idea of the level of excitement!) Now I would know my distance, pace, calories burned, elevation, heart rate...everything...all the time. I practically sped out the door before all the presents were opened and the wrapping paper cleaned up!

Little did I know that our relationship would be so tumultuous. From the beginning you frustrated me. I would be running and you would just stop - out of nowhere - I kept running, but you didn't. You would shave miles off of my total distance OR add to it during the runs. All of which confused my total pace. If it is cloudy, you don't work; if it is windy you don't work; if the temperature is over 80 or below 60, you don't work. If it is humid you don't work; if the leaves are falling off the trees... You get the picture. My favorite letdown of yours is how my pace changes from a 4 minute mile to a 20 minute mile with in seconds...Neither of which is anywhere NEAR true. Imagine the irritation of the pesky little beep that again you can't acquire satellite and are shutting down - for the 10th time during a run.

Knowing Garmin to be such a REPUTABLE company that creates ingenious inventions...and HECK! is even right down the street from my school and HECK! even supports my school... I thought a simple phone call would do the trick. SO I called Garmin and was informed I lived near too many trees and should buy a more expensive watch. (REALLY?! Thats how you support your merchandise?) I called other times to be told random stuff - I would have to pay for them to fix you. No thanks - you sold me a bad watch for the beginning. Bottom line - you are a bad watch. Horrible. Awful. Disappointment extradorinaire. Others claim to have such good luck with you. But me - not so much.

So why do I take you with me on my runs? Why do I torture myself? Why do I let myself be disappointed when after a 22 mile run, you tell me I only ran 15? Good question. I am done. No more.

Nevertheless... I am a real runner, with OR without you.

Goodbye Garmin. Hello iphone. Yes, the iphone can really do ALL things. All I have to do is enable the map my run app on my iphone and it does all that you NEVER did and more. Plus it is voice activated. And I can listen to my music at the same time. I could even make a phone call if I wanted to (which I would NEVER do - I make fun of people who talk on the phone while exercising. but it would be there for emergency purposes.) So there. Farewell lousy friend. You have been replaced. Our love affair is over.

Thank you Apple for once again making my life so much easier.

Yours Truly,

Bethany, a former Garmin owner

The Cycle of Life

This week my sweet little 92 year old grandpa passed away. It was a sad time, but it was so special to get to be with him in the final moments before he passed on. As we were sitting around his hospital bed, holding his hand and comforting him, I got to learn more about him... I thought it would be fun to share a little bit about him.

Charles Artie Bell grew up in South Texas. He and his 9 siblings were dirt poor. They lived in a 2 bedroom house in the country. Boys slept outside and they girls slept inside. To the Bell kids, this was a mansion. These little kids ran barefoot, dodging copperheads, all over the sandhills of TX. He was born with a cleft palate and at the age of 8 or 9, his big sister paid for him to have surgery to fix it. The kids had to walk 5 miles to school and back each day. Maybe this is where his running began. He was very athletic, played football and ran track. His senior year of highschool he was named most athletic boy in the class.

Even though his family was poor, they didn't look for handouts from anyone. They didn't let a lack of funds stop them. Most of the siblings with to college, paying their way through. Grandpa went to Texas Lutheran, then decided to go out to Pepperdine in Malibu. He hitchhiked from TX to CA and worked his way through college where he excelled in track. His days of running through the sandhills, trudging to school paid off for him. He was strong. Not just big-muscle strong - but strong in heart & will. He lived through the depression and later went on to fight in World War II (which if you asked him later in life, after dementia set in - he won by himself) and marry my grandma. (This is my favorite story - she was 15 he was 25. He drove by her walking down a dusty road and said, that's the girl I am going to marry. And they lived happily ever after). He went on to raise 4 kids, moving them all over the world as he served in the military.

My clearest memories of him revolve around my grandma. She had polio when she was young and by the time I came around, she had post-polio syndrome. My grandpa took excellent care of her. Lifting her in and out of her wheelchair, doing all of the household chores - ALL with a smile on his sweet face. He loved her unconditionally, in good times and in bad. I remember going to their house for holidays and he would get up before any of us to do his "exercises" in the house (usually a bunch of calisthenics and would run laps around the living room / kitchen). I remember him making stew and cornbread for us. I remember him building the coolest treehouse ever and letting us walk on the roof with him (pretty cool when you are 7 years old!) A few years ago, while his second wife, Helen, was in the nursing home. He decided to walk 3.5 miles home from the nursing home on a blistering hot day just to see if he could still do it. The state of TX wanted to take away his driver's license and he knew he still needed to get to the nursing home each day.

It had been awhile since I had seen papa. I got married, moved away and with the craziness of life, hadn't made it back to Texas in about 4 years. He was suffering from dementia and the aches and pains of old age. I will forever treasure the last day and a half I got to spend by his hospital bed. While he wasn't lucid, I think he knew I was there with him. I am so happy for him that he is finally free and able to be once again with that girl he fell in love with on the dusty road in Burkburnett, TX.

On Sunday morning, my sweet grandpa went home. I think he probably stopped by South Texas on his way to revisit his childhood and take one last run through the sandhills. Due to his years of military service, we had full military honor at the funeral - which was stunning. The family asked me to take a few pics, which I included.