Miracles

I know I haven't even begun to catch up with the events of the past month and I am leaving out blogs from the Spiers Family trip to Myrtle Beach, Scott and my one year anniversary, and a weekend visit from Kyle and Janelle. However, in the spirit of trying to keep my blog current, I feel it's important to make a recent update.
Matt and Amanda's precious "little" Oliver is home from an 8 day stay at the vets office. It was pretty scary and I can only imagine how Matt and Amanda felt. He went in almost two weeks ago for surgery to take out little tumors in both of his ears. When he came out of being sedated and was sent home, he couldn't hear, walk, or eat :-( Matt and Amanda force fed him for 2 days which was a huge struggle and had to take him back twice to get fluid boluses and have the medications adjusted. In a nutshell, what happened was they think he had vertigo from the surgery which caused him to not want to eat or move. Because he didn't eat for 2 days, and is slightly overweight to begin with, he got fatty liver and that prevented him from getting any medications for the vertigo. Basically a vicious cycle with no positive endpoint so they took him into the vet, placed a feeding tube, and monitored his liver enzyme levels for 8 days. I went over to watch SYTYCD and Glee last night and Ollie had come home yesterday afternoon. He was opening his eyes, purring, eating, and walking. It was such a blessing to see him up and about and happy. He still has the feeding tube, but has an appointment tomorrow to hopefully get that removed if he's eating well. It was so wonderful to see him home and doing better!!!!
Our other little miracle, Callie, is continuing to grow and develop both physically and mentally and is so much fun to play with and watch!

Girls Weekend in Raleigh

On our way up from Charleston, Scott dropped me off in Raleigh for our annual HT weekend and he headed to Wilmington for a few days to see a high school friend and Staunton for the rest of the weekend for a wedding.

Krista always does a fabulous write up of our girly trips that we hope to one day make into a book. Here is the first paragraph from her writeup:

"This year we decided to take our annual HT trip down to Raleigh, NC, the home of our very own Nadja Young. Most of us had never been down to see Nadja, and since she and Tones just had their baby girl, Gabrielle, three months prior…we decided this was the perfect place to go.
To summarize this trip quickly I’d say that we ate a lot of great food for not a lot of money, laughed constantly, got little sleep (especially Nadja), and left feeling even more blessed for the amazing friendships that we have."

The detials:

We all arrived at different times on Thursday and since I was the first, Scott and I got to fully take in Nadja and Tony's guest room called "The Young Hall of Fame" and spend some quality time catching up with the Young family. I could see Scotts eyes light up and the wheels start turning when he walked into the hall of fame (see picture below). By Thursday evening, everyone had arrived, we caught up briefly then headed off to bed.

Friday morning started with a yoga class where Amanda rocked our instructor to the point that the instructor was asking her what some of the moves were called. After going home and changing, we went to lunch at a famous BBQ spot called "The Pit" which has been featured on food network. In true HighTech style, we stuffed our faces and ordered pretty much everything on the menu, down to the grilled tofu. We then headed to the most wonderful farmers market I have ever seen. There were stands upon stands of fresh produce and they even had a pork shop with any part of the pig fixed any ways you could ever need it to be sold.

We all went home and slept for about 2 hours. When we woke up we headed to the Red Room for a wonderful Tapas dinner with sangria and then went to a bar down the street to do some dancing. The style in Raleigh is different than anything I have ever seen and I felt like I was at an 80's prom (but trashier). After Krista and Nadja made their radio debut with an MC that was broadcasting from the bar, we decided to call it a night.

Saturday started with a wonderful family breakfast where we all chipped in and Tony bossed us around in true polygamist style. Diva continued to sleep since she was his "trophy wife".

After breakfast we got ready for our hilariously yummy food tour of Raleigh where we saw houses of distant relatives of famous people and heard the history of the three presidents that North Carolina MIGHT be able to claim ;-)

The best part of the culinary tour was when a single male approached our table of -in his words-"attractive women" hoping that one of us would "be able to accompany him to The Sound of Music that evening". Being that the sound of music was amanda's favorite growing up, we nominated her to go and she happily accepted. When he arrived at the house we had a formal interview where we found out his last name, age, profession, family history, dating history, license plate, and even facebook friended him before he left to make sure our friend was safe. Long story short, the night went great, they still talk often, she has met his parents, and he is flying out to Texas to see her next weekend- seriously!

That night, while Amanda was on her date, we had a bonfire, smores, pizza, and played games at the house. We had a blast and stayed up until 2:30 or 3 catching up, watching old dance videos, and being silly.

Sunday morning was a magnificent brunch and baby shower for Krista who is expecting a little boy the beginning of January. After tearful goodbyes, we all headed separate ways to be followed by many emails, pictures, stories and plans of our next trip.

It was a wonderful weekend and we all missed Lauren, who wasn't able to make it to this trip, tremendously. It was not the same without her and we all look forward to spending our next trip together all healthy and happy.

Charles Town

Sorry for the delay in updating. I know the reason for a blog is to let everyone far away know what you have been up to, but it's hard when there is sooooo much going on that you can't even find time to update the blog. I will try and post things in the order in which they occurred.

Scott and I went to Charleston at the end of July. He finished his step 2 of the boards (which he passed with flying colors) and we decided to get away for a mini vacay.

We stopped in Richmond Saturday evening for Drew and Lindsey's Engagement Party. Drew is one of Scott's medical school friends as well as a Hokie HNFE alumni (same major I did at Tech).

We left on Sunday to make the drive down to Charleston and arrived just in time for the daily wine and cheese reception. After taking in the beautiful surroundings and unpacking, we went to a late dinner at Vendue Inn's Rooftop bar with a view of the Cooper River.

Monday was our tour day. We started out with a harbour tour, followed by a carriage ride, and then concluded the day with a walking ghost tour. We went to dinner at Slightly North of Broad which is a must for anyone traveling to Charleston that enjoys food!

Tuesday was on the hot side so after a little shopping, sightseeing, and lunch at an Irish Bar called Tommy Condons, we headed to see a movies and visit the outlet malls. We went back to the hotel for our wine and cheese reception and then out to dinner at Southend Brewery for pizza and beer. We decided to do a walking tour called "The Darker Side of Charleston" which ended up being the highlight of the trip. Our tour guide had been doing tours since he was 16, had keys to all of the churches and graveyards in the historic area, and just told story after story after story from 10:30-Midnight. The tour ended slightly before midnight in the graveyard of The Circular Church and I made Scott book it out because I don't particularly get the warm fuzzies being in a graveyard at the stroke of midnight.

The next day was filled with shopping at the market place, lunch at Charleston Cooks (a mini williams-sonoma where they do cooking demonstrations and we racked up some fun new kitchen items for both Scott and I), then happy hour at High Cotton. After getting stuck in a downpour because I HAD to stop and get ice cream, we went back to the hotel to drop off our purchases and then headed out to a cute wine and cigar shop we had passed a million time. Scott taught me how to play chess while waiting for our dinner reservation time at Fleet Landing.

The trip was absolutely perfect, relaxing, and filled with wonderful memories. I would go back in a heartbeat and am secretly hoping it will be on the list of potential locations for Scotts residency :-)

Trip quote.....

Women were made to carry babies, men were made to carry football.

My b'day on the beach :-)

28 years and 1 week old

I can't believe I have been 28 for a full week now, it's flown by!!!!! ;-)
The Toby Keith concert with Mom and Scott was a blast. Trace Adkins has such a fantasticly low country voice and I think Scott got a kick out of my "that's what he looks like?!?!?!" comment when Trace walked on stage with a long blonde mullet, tight white t-shirt, jeans, cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. In my opinion, I would take the crowd at a country concert over any other genre. It's such a mix of people with all different wardrobes and some very interesting tattoos.
On Saturday, Scott surprised me with a "cake" filled with candles to blow out in the shape of a 2 and an 8. He got me the perfect gift...... a Garmin nuvi for my new car with traffic updates and rerouting. Plus, it has all different voices (american english male and female, british english male and female, and australian english male and female).
Now I won't get lost or stuck in traffic........ but he told me I had to be careful not to get into an accident if i'm fiddling with it on the road. Matt also thought it would be funny to change it to the Cantonese language without my knowing!
After giving me my gift, I played with it all the way to dinner (which was a surprise) at Vintage Kitchen in Norfolk with a table by the water overlooking their extensive herb garden. We had a fabulous slow 5 course meal with a 5 cheese plate, spicy ceasar salad, mushroom pot pie, entrees of duck and filet, and an apple tart dessert accompanied by a pinot grigio and merlot. It was perfect!
I went over to Matt and Amanda's to watch SYTYCD last night and had a great time playing with Callie and trying to make her grin. She is getting so big and I will have to take my camera over next time to take pictures. I will even throw in a photo shoot with Chester as well since he was trying to win all of the attention last night.

Scott and I start our vacation next Friday!!!!! We will be going to the Brad Paisley concert Friday in Virginia Beach, then heading to Richmond on Saturday so Scott can go to a friends engagement party, leave Sunday for Charleston, SC and stay through Thursday. Then I will go to Raleigh Thursday-Sunday to hang out with my girls from VT, and Scott will go to Wilmington Thursday to be with HS friends and then Staunton for a wedding Saturday. It's going to be a fun filled week away from work for me and a celebration of Scott finishing his step 2 of the boards which he takes on the 23rd.

So much to update......

It's been forever since my last post and so much has been going on since our trip to Detroit.........

My parents came into town on Father's day and we were able to all spend the first Father's Day with Callie and my brother..........
My Great Aunt Pat turned 95 and we celebrated with a cookout/family reunion in Richmond with my dad's side of the family. My Aunt Peggy and Uncle Don from Missouri came into town for the week leading up to the cookout and they were able to come to the beach with my grandfather for a day to explore..........
While I was home for the cookout I got to catch up with my BFF Shelley which was fantastic. It always nice to have those friends that, even when life gets crazy and there is barely time to keep up, you can still get together and talk with like no time has passed.......
Scott and I went to Siesta Key for the 4th of July for 5 days and had an amazing time laying out on the beach, going out to eat, spending time with his parents, watching Wimbeldon, and attempting racket sports and bean bag tosses on the beach. While I was down there I read the book "Mistaken Identity" which is a true story from the 2006 accident involving 2 Taylor University students whose bodies were mixed up after an accident where one survived and one did not. The true identities were realized 5 weeks after the accident and the book is written by the two families. It is an easy read that I highly recommend!!!!!
THEN......... Yesterday I celebrated my Birthday. It was an amazing day filled with text message, phone calls, and emails from all of my favorite people :-) My parents came into town and we all went out to dinner at Mahi Mah's at the oceanfront and had brownies, pecan pie, and blueberry lemon bars at my brothers afterward while watching SYTYCD. Scott gave me a dozen beautiful red roses and we're continuing my birthday celebration through the weekend by going to the Toby Keith concert with my mom tonight and going out to dinner tomorrow. My roommate, Mary, also decorated my door for when I got back from dinner.
It's amazing to think of all the wonderful things that happened over the past year. I have a new home, car, wonderful boyfriend, and adorable neice...... I can't wait to see what 28 has to bring and pray it will be equally as fantastic as 27.
Here are some pictures...... I'm off to get ready for my date with Toby ;-)

Ollie giving himself a "bath"

My B'day flowers from Scott :-) Dad with Callie at the cookout

Scott and I at the condo in Siesta Key

Pa and I at the oceanfront

Four men and a baby :-)

Donnie, Matt, Pa, Callie, and Dad