I often wondered how it could be the best of times AND the worst of times all at the same time. Well, I wonder no more. This past week was truly one of the best and worst weeks ever. Read on and you'll see why.
Monday was such an awesome day! We spent our time in beautiful San Diego eating at our favorite restaurants and hopping from store to store. Since we used to live down there, we knew exactly where we wanted to go for lunch, so the first stop on our itinerary was The Greek Corner Cafe.
They have so many appetizing platters that sometimes it's hard to choose what you want.
But not for me! I knew exactly what I wanted - their famous spano-ko-pita platter. YUM!
Travis finally settled on the Gyro platter.
Needless to say, we were very full after lunch. After months of craving Greek, I was finally satisfied :)
The next several stops were all about scrapbooking and beading! I gotta say that Travis is so patient with me when it comes to shopping whether it be for paper or for clothes. While we were browsing at the scrap shops, he kept picking up items for me that he knew I would like. Now that's a good hubby! One of the stores we visited was called
Cool Scrapbook Stuff, and the name says it all, trust me. They had all the latest and greatest products in one HUGE store. I was in h-e-a-v-e-n. They had the biggest selection of stamps that I have ever come across in my scrapbooking travels. This picture shows just one small wall of stamps. They had much, much more than this.
I think they had every single stamp company represented in their store including my favorites like Hero Arts and Crafty Secrets and A-Muse and Stampendous and Unity and...oh, who am I kidding? They're ALL my favorites!
As if my heart wasn't racing from all the excitement of finding EVERYTHING I had been wanting for months at the scrap store, we then headed to another one of my all-time favorite places: The Container Store.
That drink in my hand is a cherry ICEE, by the way. I've become obsessed with these cool ice-flavored drinks. Flavor + Hydration all in a handy little treat? Count me in!
While we were waiting in line, Travis spotted this fun little sign. He said he wasn't surprised that both me and The Container Store were born in the same year. Obviously, it was meant to be!
After drooling over organizational products, we headed over to a store I had never been to before (*gasp*) called
South Sun Beads. OMG. Seriously. Other than
Shipwreck Beads up in Washington, this store was the biggest bead store I have ever been in. They had rows upon rows upon rows of gemstone hanks all arranged by color. I was completely overwhelmed, and that's saying a lot for me. It's hard to describe, and I really wish I had been able to take pictures, but everyone is required to lock up their purse in a secure locker before entering. Despite being overwhelmed, I did manage to find some beautiful beads. I can't wait to use these lovely aventurine beads.
And these fun glass beads are actually a much more vibrant shade of pink, but it's hard to pick that color up with the camera.
Once the beading extravaganza was over, we found our way to the largest running store in the world,
Road Runner Sports. Actually, going to this running store was the main reason for going to San Diego in the first place. My old running shoes were getting terribly worn, and I really needed a new pair. I'm sure I could have ordered a new pair over the internet, but running shoes really need to be tried on and tested out before committing to a purchase. Plus, at Road Runner Sports, they actually analyze your feet by taking a pressure reading of the way you walk and a video of you running on a treadmill so they can determine the type of shoe you need. I apparently need a stabilizing running shoe, and after trying on and testing five pairs, I decided on these Nike's:
The only thing I don't like about these shoes is the obnoxious colors. I'm not a fan of bling on my running shoes, so these loud silver and blue puppies didn't quite do it for me. Unfortunately, that's how all running shoes are now a days, and it's highly annoying. I feel like a Solid Gold dancer. Oh well.
The last part of our San Diego adventure was spent at REI and then at Fuddruckers for dinner. We were both so exhausted on our way home, and we couldn't wait to crawl into bed. However, life had different plans...
The first thing I do when I get home after a long day out and about is check on all of the critters. When I went to go get Keno for his evening medicine, I noticed something wasn't quite right. His eyes were bulging and he had this blank look on his face. As I held him for a minute or so, I knew what was wrong - he was having a seizure. A very bad, long-lasting seizure in which his muscles get very tense and he gets very stiff. He suffers from insulinoma, i.e., cancer of the pancreas. This type of cancer causes dangerously low blood sugar levels which is why he's on medication twice a day for the rest of his life. This medication is suppose to control his blood sugar level. Every so often, out of the blue, he has a seizure which indicates a need to up his medication dosage. No one really knows why this happens, but some vets speculate that a change in the tumors on the pancreas can cause abrupt blood glucose changes.
I tried all the normal remedies for getting his blood sugar back up, the most common being to rub some Kayro Syrup on his gums. That didn't work. I was able to give him is nightly medicine in between his seizures, but that didn't work either. I then frantically called over ten animal emergency clinics, some of which were over 100 miles away, and none of them saw weasels. My heart was broken, and all I could do was stay up with him and see if he would make it until the morning time so I could take him his regular doctor, Dr. J, and that's just what I did. I stayed up with him all night long trying to calm him during his seizures. I honestly didn't think he would make it through the night.
When morning came, I rushed him to the vet hospital where they immediately put him on IV glucose. He stayed at the hospital all day long until I picked him up that evening. They left his catheter in his little arm and gave me intravenous glucose and flush just in case he had another seizure over night. Dr. J wanted him back at the hospital the next day for observation. I took him home hoping that he would be the same little guy that I knew, but something was still wrong. He didn't look right to me. He kept getting up and running to the litter box then running back under the covers. He appeared uncomfortable to me, so I stayed up with him once again. I maybe got about 4 hours of sleep that night.
The next morning we were were set to go to Disneyland as it was Travis' official birthday. We had been planning this trip to Disneyland all year long, but now with Keno so sick, I was unsure as to whether we should go or not. Since Dr. J wanted Keno back that day for observation, we decided that there was no better place for Keno to be than in the care of the vet hospital staff, so we boarded him there for the day and night and headed off to Disneyland. I told the staff that he didn't appear to be himself and that I hadn't seen him urinate all night long. We headed off to Disneyland, but I was feeling horribly guilty.
Once we arrived at the Magic Kingdom, I tried my best to put on a happy face. There wasn't ten minutes that didn't go by that I didn't wonder how my little man was doing. I called several times that day to check in on him, and they said he was doing ok.
Since it was Travis' birthday, he was able to get in for free that day which is the main reason we decided to go ahead with our plans to go to Disney otherwise we definitely would have stayed home in case anything happened to Keno. Do you know it costs $69 just to get into Disney? Ouch. You can see why we only go on our birthdays :)
We took the obligatory self-portrait of the two of us. Travis joked that all of our pictures are going to be this same pose! I think he might be right...
So I took a picture of just him in front of the Disney entrance, you know, for something different.
The Main Street gas lamps were beautifully decorated with vibrant summer flowers. I wish I could have smelled them.
While waiting in line to eat lunch at the Carnation Cafe, I had Travis point to his birthday button. He said, "Being married to a scrapbooker sure is an adventure in picture-taking."
We took quite a few photos along the way.
It was a HOT and sticky day at Disney. I wanted to jump into the moat behind me, but figured that Disney officials would frown on that.
We rode all the rides except Splash Mountain. By the time we got there, the line was 90 minutes long and it was the end of the day. I really didn't feel like getting drenched at night. We did, however, ride my favorite ride twice that day. Which ride would that be? Take a look for yourself.
Yup, that's us in the front, and no, I don't have my eyes closed. We just had to get this picture to remind us of our Space Mountain adventure. The second time we went on, we used our Fast Pass ticket. Instead of waiting an hour to ride, we waited about 5 minutes.
We did the same thing with Indiana Jones since the line for that ride is always horrendous. Last time we went on my birthday, we waited a little over an hour. This time, we waited about 10 minutes.
Last but not least, we encountered a most beautiful visitor that day. We were both tickled he decided to grace us with his presence.
That's a snowy egret, and he was hanging out with the mallards and their babies in the moat.
The day after Disney was a stressful one. I wanted to pick up Keno at 8:30 am, but they were so busy that they couldn't release him until noon. Dr. J had called me the day before, but he called the wrong cell phone number so I didn't get the message until the next morning. Apparently, Keno was unable to urinate on his own, so they had to manually help him along. After that, he finally settled down and was able to sleep for the first time in three days. Poor thing. He's now at home with me and is definitely doing a lot better. He's on antibiotics for a urinary tract infection (who knows how he got that) and seems to be able to piddle on his own. If I need to help him along, I know how. Yes, the things I do for my babies.
I hope you all enjoyed a great week! As you can see, my week was both wonderful and terribly stressful at the same time. It truly was the best and worst of times.
Of course, I jumped in the pool with this cute little thing whom I've known since she was cooking inside her mama. She's quite the little water baby and enjoys spending time in the pool!
Just a few days before our BBQ, wildfires began to burn throughout our area. Actually, I wouldn't call them "wildfires" since that implies a natural event. These fires were set my mentally unstable individuals who have cost hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage, displaced hundreds of people and animals, and caused the death of at least two firemen. It's been a sad time here, but we're fortunate that the fires only caused minor disruption to our lives. We had smoke blow over us for a few days making my evening outside runs impossible. Normally when I run, I have a gorgeous view of some rocky mountains right next to our house. (Note: these are NOT the mountains with the fires.) This is the view I see as I start my run.
As I head back home, I usually see the much larger mountains in front of me, the mountains that are still being devastated by fire. To show you how bad it got over here, I snapped a few pictures of the smoke blowing in one evening. You can see the enormous cloud of smoke making it's way over the house (note the blue sky to the right of the picture).
Turning around 180 degrees, you can still see the smoke cloud moving toward us from the southwest (the smoke was moving from right to left in the picture).
Just a few minutes later, you can really see the contrast between the sunset sky and the dark ominous cloud of smoke on the horizon. The silhouetted mountains are in the range of the large Station Fire that has burned nearly 161,000 acres, and is the largest fire in this area in recent history. As of the time of this blog entry, the fire is 93% contained and is expected to reach full containment by Saturday evening. All of this caused by one individual. Sad.
Remember in my last post how I said I had done some scrapbooking recently? I finally snapped some pictures of my layouts! I'll share them over the course of the next few posts. This first layout is about one of my favorite parts of my trip to the San Diego Zoo last year with my BFF - the birds.
This past weekend, my mom and I attended our town's first annual Fall Festival. The town provided a bus tour of historical sites which was really a lot of fun. They had vendors of all sorts and live music. Unfortunately, by early afternoon the wind had picked up and we were baking. At least my feet got tanned this time!
Lastly, I want to share my movie-BFF's new blog: Staci Layne Wilson's Kix & Flix & Pix. Like movies? Like shoes? If so, this blog is for you! Staci is an entertainment reporter who happens to l-o-v-e shoes. She combines her two loves into one fantastic new blog. Seriously, who wouldn't want a pair of leopard high heeled shoes? (Yes, that skinny little thing is none other than Staci herself modeling her fab shoes.)
And you have to go check out the story behind these bad boys.
My weekend is jammed packed with errands to run and stuff to get accomplished. I WILL be back in a timely manner to show you the other scrapbook layouts I made as well as share with you an endeavor that's been months in the making. That post will include a giveaway that you won't want to miss! Blog at you soon :)
I made five of these cards. They were quick and easy to put together which is good since I had a lot of Thank You's to get out in the mail!
I designed the necklace with the focal bead in mind using cream seed beads and pink and crystal Swarovski's.
Great Scott! Look at the time! It's time to head out and have ourselves a much needed day out on the town. I may be scarce this week, but I can tell you that we'll be at the happiest place on earth for *someone's* birthday this Wednesday! Who says you can't have fun just staying at home during your vacation??
I really liked this quilted wall hanging. I think quilting might be my next endeavor.
The museum only had two rooms, one for local artists and one dedicated to the natural history of the area. Gotta love the critters!
That night we escaped the heat by going to the movies. Someone wanted to see the new Harry Potter movie, so I happily obliged to see it again. Sunday was another scorcher of a day, but we wanted to go see a very cool natural wonder.
Ever hear of the 
The Pinnacles are tens of thousands of years old and are made of tufa, or calcium carbonate.
They formed under 680 feet of water in what is now an ancient dry lake bed. Pretty cool, huh?
We didn't hike any of the spires since it was way too hot. Instead, we drove around them periodically jumping out to take a closer look. You can see that there are a lot of driving trails to explore.
I'm all pooped out from our weekend adventures, but we have more to come as we gear up for a ten day "stay-cation." I can hardly wait!
