Pining for the Fjords

Going on fifteen years ago now (ack! We're old!), Chris and I got married in November 2003, while we were living in Jacksonville, Florida.  At the same time, he was also serving his final days in the Navy, and the Navy has this cool deal where when you're done, if you leave in good standing, they'll pack you up and move you back to where you enlisted or any closer distance.  Since he enlisted in his hometown of Sacramento, we pretty much had a free move anywhere in the continental United States.  After looking at cost of living, employment opportunities, housing costs, educational institutions, and several other factors, we settled on Phoenix as our next port of call, and in January 2004, we made our move, driving several days across the country with two cars and just as many dogs. Specifically, these two dogs. Don't they look happy wearing our shirts? We rented an apartment in Mesa right off the 60, and for a year, we got jobs, enrolled in school, and gener

One of the things we've learned, living here in SoCal, is that there are tons of opportunities to attend tapings for a great variety of live television shows.  On one of Mom's visits, we got tickets to see The Price is Right  (we didn't end up going, due to the massive amount of time they want you to dedicate to the process), Dad and Risa have seen America's Got Talent and American Ninja Warrior , and I routinely get updates about audience announcements for shows like So You Think You Can Dance .  While these are cool events to attend, most of them are in Hollywood or northern LA, and particularly if they occur on a weeknight (or in the middle of the dang day), that's a bit too far away for us to see them on the regular. Imagine my excitement, then, when I got an email about a show we geekily love, filming right here in Long Beach, only 4 miles away from our house! That's right!  We went to see Battlebots! In talking to some fellow nerds about the up

Another week, another year overdue back yard update!  When last I blogged about the back yard, Chris and I built a pergola, and we'd been enjoying it for a few months while pondering what else to do to finish off the space.  We didn't want a yard full of grass (one afternoon spent mowing all of it convinced Chris of that), and although we initially pondered using decomposed granite (DG) on the other spaces, the cost and effort of putting it in eventually had us reconsider that, too (also, we have DG in the front yard, and the spots out there are a pain to keep up - see this blog for evidence of that).  We liked the rock we'd had in our yards in Arizona, but the fee to cover our space here was absolutely insane - around $1300 or so (it wasn't a big space, but rock is expensive here, like pretty much everything else)! Eventually, Chris hit upon a great solution.  Lowe's sells bulk, crushed up rock pieces at many of their stores - it's a gigantic bag of the peb

As I've written about in past blogs, when I have a full marathon on the schedule, I try to find a half marathon around 4-6 weeks prior to serve as a tune-up/status check type of race.  I'm a big fan of the folks at A Better World Running , as they hold races almost every weekend throughout the year, and they try to stick to using public access paths in this area, which allows them to keep their costs low - around $36 for a half marathon including course support, a medal at the end, and free pictures they put on Facebook, which is seriously a steal.  In perusing their site, I found a race on Sunday, March 25th in Santa Monica, a place we've visited but never for a run; I figured it was a great option and signed up! ...only to find out that the Orange County (OC) Heart Walk and 5K Run was scheduled for the day prior - Saturday, March 24th - and Chris would be taking part with his team at work.  His firm, Medtronic, was raising all sorts of funds for the American Heart Assoc