Tribute to Mickie

Today was a really difficult and hard day- we said goodbye to Adam's best gal Mickie. As we mentioned in a few blog posts ago, Mickie was diagnosed with cancer. Over the past several weeks she has gotten weaker and on Monday we got a phone call from Adam's parents that Mickie wasn't really eating much and was having a hard time getting up and walking. We immediately got in the car and headed to Albuquerque. On our drive to New Mexico, Adam talked about his favorite moments with Mickie. He talked about when he first picked her up at the pound almost 16 years ago. He didn't see her during his first walkthrough and almost picked out a beagle, but when he walked back through again he saw her in the corner he knew she was the one. I remembered my first time seeing Mickie (on our prom night)- she was barking at me and I was so scared of her! I soon learned that she was just the sweetest dog and definitely Adam's number one gal. She loved getting pet and always gave you an extra nudge if you forgot to keep petting! All of our trips back home always started with Adam going straight to Mickie to say hello and give her a big hug.

Needless to say, today was a very sad and emotional day. It is never easy to say goodbye- but I hope that we are able to celebrate her life and remember her when she was healthy and happy. We love you Mickie and we will really miss you.

Adam and Mickie about 15 years ago

A similar picture from October 2010 (I couldn't get Mickie to turn around!)

A picture of us in front of Adam's parents' Ridgecrest house in February last year

Adam with Mickie in February this year...a little over a month ago

And here are a few repeats from the blog-

A digital scrapbook page I made about Mickie sometime in the past few years

Lots of tears were shed today...but I hope that we will always remember her when she was full of life.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is my mom's birthday, and I am seriously so happy to be able to celebrate it with her in person! We had an eventful and fun-filled day, starting with the delivery of a brand new dishwasher to replace the one that never worked! Hooray!!

Before: The original dishwasher to the house that my parents have NEVER used!

After: A brand new, sleek, shiny, quiet dishwasher that we hope they'll use regularly!

Look at all those options! Delay, steam clean, light load, heavy load, etc. etc. etc.! We purchased this Maytag Jetclean Plus dishwasher from Sears (because they did delivery, installation and haulaway). We had found a great price on this dishwasher at Home Depot for the price of $448 but because they don't do installation, we were able to receive a price match from Sears! So it went down from $599 to $448! We still had to pay for the dishwasher kit (new tubes, etc.), but we saved a lot!

We had lunch at Pho Grand, a fairly new restaurant in town, for my mom's birthday. Adam and I shared the grilled pork and egg rolls over vermicelli noodles dish....yum! I am going to see if I can make that at home one of these days! Lots of recipes on the web!

Other pictures from Mom's birthday:

Fresh flowers

 Making a wish and blowing out the candles!

Project Life- Week 7

Week 7 (Feb. 12- Feb. 18)- We wrapped up our visit to Boulder by picking up bread at Great Harvest (we ended up having to get the cinnamon swirl bread in Albuquerque). We spent our last few days in Albuquerque eating yummy food (Olympia Cafe, huevos rancheros at a restaurant that I can't remember the name of, red chili burgers at Little Red Hamburger Hut, Rudy's BBQ), playing with the dogs, and running errands around town. Before we flew out, we made sure to get a photo of Adam with Mickie...too cute! When we got to California, Jennifer so kindly picked us up and took us to Wholesome Choice for some gyros! Thursday and Friday was car hunting and running errands for our camping trip- but we were able to meet up with Betty & Carlos in Long Beach for some Tom Kha soup!

Project Life- Week 6

Wow, I can't believe how fast time is flying! Yikes! Adam and I have been busy! The past few weeks we were painting the kitchen and preparing for our garage sale! I am just getting around to posting the Project Life Week 6-11 so that you can see some of the photos of what we've been up to!

First up, Week 6! We were still in Albuquerque- watching over the dogs, hanging out, etc. Adam's parents got back from Taiwan, so we were able to head out to Boulder, CO to visit the CU Boulder campus. And check out those gas prices in Boulder- at the time, that was super high! Can't believe in a few weeks' time the prices shot up so quickly.

Project Life- Week Five

Unbelievably, we are already into Week Ten of 2011! Shocking how fast time is flying! Adam and I are back in Ridgecrest doing more work around the house and awaiting news from the grad schools Adam applied to! I've been playing catch up on scrapbook pages, and Project Life is totally helping me get my act together! Printing lots of photos and trying to remember to also take photos too!

Two page spread of PL Week Five- January 29-February 4

Left hand page that I already posted

Because this week was filled with us visiting different car dealerships and test driving tons of cars, I wanted to include that as an inserted page (on the other side is a brochure of one of the cars we looked at, the Scion XB)

Right hand side- freezing cold temperatures in Albuquerque, taking the doggies out to the park before getting freezed out, Chinese New Year, and the cupcakes I made (recipe here)

Updates

We just got back from Albuquerque a few weeks ago and headed to Death Valley for a camping trip. It was my first trip to Death Valley, even though Adam and I grew up only 2 hours outside of the national park! Adam's been a handful of times and when Jennifer said she was open to going to Death Valley, it was a done deal. We had a great time- the views were stunning (Jennifer said she was expecting blah desert and instead it was like being on another planet with the surreal landscapes!) and we had a lot of laughs on the trip. From the ordeal of getting the rental car to putting up our tent in what must have been 50mph winds, we have lots of memories from the trip. It was absolutely gorgeous and if you haven't been, you should check it out!!

Yes, we did see a roadrunner!!

After a stopover in Ridgecrest, we headed back to Irvine with Jennifer so that Adam and I could continue our car hunt. Last week we finally decided on a car. We had been looking at used car options but ended up getting a new one. We are now proud owners, once again, of a Toyota Matrix.

In sad news, last week we found out that Adam's dog, Mickie (who is 16 yrs old), had a large growth in her head and today it was confirmed that she has cancer. It's been really hard on Adam because he's worried about her- he was really sad because he doesn't want to think about her hurting or suffering.  And of course, I cried because she is just such a sweet dog and we had just gotten back from spending a month with her and Cuba. We are going to try to make it back out to Albuquerque again (right now Adam's parents said she is acting like herself and seems to be doing ok). I'm hoping that even though she has cancer, that she doesn't have to be put to sleep and that she won't suffer at all during her last months.