Merry Christmas!

Our little trip to Vegas was fun, but man, were we pooped when we got home. We're not used to that much walking after sitting at our desks and typing all the time. So we opened our presents from each other on Saturday night and I also had a present from B's mom to open and we'd gotten a box from B's brother in NC. B's mom got me these cute Vans:

I'm totally not a skater girl, but I like Vans, so B suggested these to his mom. I'm not sure if he picked these out specifically or just suggested some kind of Vans, but either way I like them. Unfortunately, there's a piece of fabric inside the right shoe that gave me a blister when we took a walk yesterday. I tried to cut it out, but I couldn't quite get it all because it's way down in the front of the shoe on top. I'll have to figure something out, because I want to wear these.

B got me an Ayumi calendar for 2009, some things from Sephora that I asked for, some cozy fleece pajamas and a fleece robe and a little Ayumi purse that I actually already bought for myself a few months ago, but I don't mind having two. I think I'm forgetting something else, too.

We had some serious snow here recently, which came as a surprise. We figure we got about 4 inches. This is a picture taken looking out our front window:


I don't remember now what day this was, but it was snowing when we got up that morning and it snowed all day. It took a few hours, but it eventually started to stick on the plants and trees and then on the roads later. Then it mostly melted the next day, though there is still snow on the mountain tops now. There's no snow on the ground today, though, so no white Christmas for us.

We left for Vegas on Sunday morning around 9:45 and got there around noon, I think. We decided to have lunch at the Wynn first, which was good, but expensive, then we went to Bonanza Gifts, the worlds' largest gift shop. I've seen this place many times and it looks kind of kitchy, so I never really wanted to go in, but then I saw this thing about it on TV and turns out they have some cool Vegas junk in there. I found what I wanted, which was a pair of big fuzzy dice pillows, and a few other things.

Next we went to Sephora and dropped some cash. I had my makeup done while I was there and the woman did a nice job. She suggested some products to use for my melasma, but B just got me something for Christmas that's supposed to treat melasma, so I want to try that first. He got me this stuff by Dermadoctor called Immaculate Correction. I really hope it works. It's gotten some good reviews online. When I mentioned this product to the woman at Sephora, she didn't seem to know what I was talking about or recognize the brand, which is funny because they sell it. I guess you can't know all the brands, though, because they carry a lot of different ones.

So far, we haven't gotten anything from my dad and his wife or my mom and her husband, not even a card. That's kind of disappointing. I'm hoping they got their gift certificates in time.

Oh, speaking of gift certificates, and back to the Vegas story, we ate dinner at a place called Envy on Sunday night. I found this place online and read lots of good reviews, and several of the reviewers also said they were able to use a coupon from restaurant.com, so I looked into it and got a coupon for $25 off. This was a steak place, so we both got the filet mignon and it was perfect. My mouth waters every time I think about this meal. I like sweet rather than dry champagne, so I asked which of theirs was the sweetest and the waiter brought me one that's not on their menu, because they don't normally have it, and it was perfect, too. We ended up getting there a half hour early because we gave ourselves extra time to find the place, but they seated us anyway. I thought that was really nice. I took my leftover steak with me and heated it up in the microwave the next day and it was still delicious.

We were planning to eat at the Orleans breakfast buffet on Monday morning, but B's stomach was a little upset from dinner the night before, so instead we went down to the casino and I found a little place selling coffee, donuts and muffins. We went back to the Bonanza store because the sweatshirt I bought was too small, so I exchanged it for a bigger one, then we went over to this mall off the strip called the Boulevard Mall. B's mom sent him some money to buy a new pair of gym shoes, so we found a Foot Locker in the mall and he was able to find a nice pair of shoes there. I went to the Claire's next door and got a couple pairs of earrings.

Before the mall, we also went to the Bellagio to see what kind of Christmas display they had, and we took some photos there:

Parts of it were closed off because they were still putting it together, apparently. This was really the only place that had nice Christmas decorations up. After we finished at the mall, we had a little lunch in the food court and then left for home. Fortunately, we had no rain or snow to deal with on the way there or coming back, but it's been super cloudy and gloomy for the past few weeks now. I was hoping it'd be sunny, but we did get to see some snow here, so that was fun, and fortunately we didn't have to go anywhere that day.

Happy Holidays to everybody!

Christmas time

We've seen a couple of these guys in the neighborhood recently:


Coyotes! I saw one in front of our house across the street this evening, just trotting along ver casually. B and I both saw two walking through our back yard, not at the same time, and we saw another one about a block away from us when we were out taking a walk a few weeks ago. Pretty neat.

It seems like every time I make an entry here, it's about some doctor's appointment, so...this one will be, too. I didn't go to the appointment with the general practitioner because they called me the day before my appointment and said they'd have to reschedule AGAIN because the doctor wouldn't be in that day. This is the same place that cancelled on me because I wasn't exactly 15 minutes early, so I'm done with them. I gave them two chances and I'm through trying to get in to see a doctor there. I haven't found another doctor to see yet, and I'm feeling pretty discouraged about the whole thing right now, so I haven't really looked for anyone else.

Today was my monthly visit to the pain management doctor and I had to wait almost an hour to see the doctor. Usually they aren't that slow and I've only had to wait a maximum of a half hour. I don't know what was going on today. I had kind of a psychic moment after finally being taken back to the exam room. B was waiting in the car for me and I knew he must be wondering what was taking so long, and I imagined he might come in looking for me. Just a minute later, I heard B at the check-in desk asking about me, so I poked my head out to show him I was back in the exam room. I felt really bad about taking so long because he had to adjust his work schedule to take me to this appointment, but really there was nothing I could do about it except sit there and wait. Then as usual, I saw the doctor for all of 20 seconds; he gave me my prescription refills and I left.

My hand has been feeling better, but I haven't been getting a lot of work the past couple weeks because this is typically a slow time of year. Course, I have plenty of other aches and pains to make up for that. Seems like when the weather changes, I feel worse. We were having lots of sunny, mild days here until last week when it suddenly got cloudy and we actually had some rain during the past few days. Isn't this supposed to be the desert? There's some snow on the highest mountain peaks in the area too, but there was no snowfall here in the valley. I wouldn't mind seeing a little snow.

Next Sunday is when we're going up to Vegas for a couple days and we're going to open our Christmas presents from each other the night before. B actually talked me into opening one present each early, last weekend. He wanted to give me some coffee that he ordered from my favorite coffee place back in NC, so now I have 6 pounds of fresh new coffee flavors. I really need to freeze some of it now so it stays fresh. The box the coffee was in smelled so good when I opened it up. My favorite is probably Sumatra Mandheling, but he also got a bunch of flavored coffees for me like Hazelnut, Chocolate Fudge, etc. And Mel, if you read this, my tried-and-true method for making coffee is one ounce of ground coffee to 6 ounces of water. I'm a fan of General Foods International Coffee, too. They make some instant chai tea that's very good in addition to the coffee flavors.

B and I enjoy watching The Dog Whisperer, even though we don't have any dogs, and last night we saw an episode where Cesar went to Vegas and helped various members of Cirque du Soleil with their dog issues. That was pretty cool because one of the people he helped was one of the main characters in Ka, which we saw back in 2005. That was our favorite Vegas show out of all the ones we've seen, I think. We've talked about going to see it again, in fact. Maybe one of these days my dad will come out to visit, like he keeps saying he wants to, and we could take him and his wife to see Ka.

We got the last of our Christmas stuff taken care of yesterday by going to the mail store and mailing our Christmas cards and also a box of presents to the store B used to co-own back in NC. I guess technically he still does own part of it, but only a small percentage. Anyway, we filled a small box with little presents, like a Route 66 mug, some Arizona keychains, candies, chocolates and toys, and then put a card inside telling them to divide up the stuff however they want. I think they'll enjoy getting a box of treats from us and hopefully won't feel guilty or obligated to send us anything. I ordered a set of nice-smelling body butters from Sephora for B's mom and I ordered gift certificates for my mom and her husband and my dad and his wife, and I've been finished with B's shopping for a couple weeks now, though I do plan to get him something else when we're in Vegas.

My mom's birthday was earlier this month and I sent her some things from Sephora and she sent me a nice email thanking me for the present. She invited us to come visit next summer and stay with them for a couple weeks, and I appreciate the invitation, but it is just so misguided. Several years ago, she and her husband were going to come visit us, but her husband was really rude to B on the phone and has never apologized or tried to make amends for it at all, so there's no way we're going to go stay at their house with the possibility of more hostility from him. This is something I know mom must understand, yet she still thinks we can come visit like nothing ever happened?? I don't think so. So when I answered her email, I simply thanked her for the invitation and conversely invited her to visit us, too. Frankly, I don't think either visit will ever happen, but I guess we have to be polite and ask.

I added a new Ayumi gif on the right side of the layout today using some more recent pics of her that I thought were especially pretty. I keep waiting for her to put out a cool video that I can use for a new gif, but none of her videos lately have been that great...just sort of average. I know she went to Shanghai to film one that was very expensive recently, but I just thought it was okay. Here it is, if you'd like to make an assessment for yourself:

Another doctor visit

So yesterday was the day I had the doctor's appointment with a general practitioner and it was not a good experience. My appointment was at 8:45 a.m., so B and I had to get up earlier than we usually do, since we don't start work until around 10:00 on work days. They'd asked that I get there 15 minutes early to fill out paperwork, since I'm a new patient, so B and I tried to leave early enough to have time for that, but we actually got there closer to 8:40. I didn't think it would be a big deal since you always have to wait to see the doctor anyway, but as soon as I got there, I was told they'd have to reschedule my appointment because I didn't get there early enough.

I was standing at the check-in desk and I turned around to see if B heard what the receptionist had said, because I knew he was going to be pissed. He was reading a magazine and wasn't listening, so I stood there and waited for the receptionist to give me another appointment and she was kind of snotty with me. She had a look on her face like oh-my-gosh-you-are-so-stupid-what-is-wrong-with-you, but she did give me the paperwork they need filled out so I can do that at home and bring it back with me to the next appointment.

I still haven't decided if I'll go to this appointment or not because frankly I was really upset about what happened. I've never had that happen before and it makes me not want to go back, but I really need a primary care doctor and I need a refill for my Yaz soon.

In better news, I have our little trip to Vegas to look forward to and we decided to open Christmas presents from each other the night before we go, so if there's anything from Sephora, for example, that we really wanted and didn't get, we can get it while we're in Vegas. We got our white fake tree up on Sunday and it looks really pretty. I'll try to get a picture of it. Because it came with lights on it, we have a bunch of extra lights and I put one string of them outside on the front porch. If I feel up to it, I'll put some more up outside later on today. I'm actually waiting right now to see if I'll get any more work today. I had a little from one place earlier, but I've finished that, so I'm hoping the other place will send me some more while my hand is holding out. It's doing okay so far today.

Oh, just got the email that work is ready for me, so back to work!

Doing OK

Just a quick update to say that my doctor's appointment went fine today and he gave me my prescriptions (with hardly a word to me) as usual. My hand seems to be feeling a little better today, but I only worked a half day, so I'm sure that has something to do with it. I didn't know how much I'd be able to type so I only asked for about half the work I normally do.



Yesterday I made hotel reservations for us at The Orleans in Vegas for December 21. We're only staying that one night and will be driving home the next day. The Orleans is where we stayed when we flew to Vegas last year during our house hunting trip and we were pleasantly surprised by how nice it was, especially since it was so affordable. Basically the room is a suite with a bed, a sitting area and a bathroom.


We had a nice view of the strip from our room last year, but I don't know if we'll be as lucky this time or not. I probably could've requested that, but honestly it's not that important to me. We'll see enough of the strip when we're on the strip. The Orleans is actually several blocks west of the strip.

We're not planning on seeing any shows during this trip. We're just going to look at the Christmas decorations, hang out and probably go bowling. The Orleans has a nice bowling alley that we didn't have time to go to last time we were there. I imagine we'll go to Sephora, too. That's a place we both enjoy going to, although I've already gotten B some Christmas presents from their website, so there may not be much there we'd want to buy (right).

Ouch

I got a picture of Spice lying inside my computer desk. I had my computer tower there for a while, but it turned out to be an inconvenient place for it, so I moved it back and then put a blanket in there, hoping the cats would use it as a bed. So this is one of the few times either one of them got in there. I like when they come in my room with me while I'm working, except when they get on my desk and stand between me and my monitor, which Miki likes to do.

Spice was sick for a few days this past week and threw up probably 6 or 7 times. All I can say is thank goodness for Resolve carpet cleaner. It really works on tough carpet stains, plus the carpet in this house seems to be stain resistant anyway, which is great with these cats barfing all the time. It seems like all cats are prone to barfing frequently. At least all cats that I've owned. Maybe it's me.

B and I wrapped some Christmas presents today after getting some wrapping paper at the store yesterday, so I busted out the Christmas music to listen to while wrapping and I'm still listening to it now. I guess it's a little early, but I'm the only one hearing it. We're going to put our tree up probably next weekend. We got a fake tree this year since I doubt anyone sells real trees out here and we got a white tree with lights already on it. I think the white trees always look so pretty when I see them in stores and stuff, so I'm hoping ours looks just as nice. We got a great deal on it from W@l-M@rt via their website. You can order stuff and have it shipped to your local store with free shipping, so that's what I did since we go grocery shopping there every weekend anyway.

The pain I have from fibromyalgia seems to move around my body and for now, it's in my left hand. It's been a tough week for me because it's been hard to type with my hand all wacked out like it is. This has happened before and I know that it will move out of my hand eventually, but I sure wish it would get a move on. Several weeks ago, it was my legs that were hurting, and before that it was my lower back/butt. This just seems to be the way it goes; one area will hurt for a while and eventually feel better, but then another area will start hurting. The worst part is, I ran out of my pain meds this month and I'm afraid to say anything to my pain management doctor because, for all I know, he may take them away completely. This is the same guy I've been seeing for about 6 months who is a real jerk and so obviously doesn't care about his patients at all (Dr. Boo).

I did call his office and ask about getting a refill just to hold me over between then and my next appointment, but I was told he would only give me a refill if I came into the office, and even then, there's no guarantee he'd give me a refill. So I said screw it, I'll just wait until my regular appointment, which is this Wednesday, but now I'm afraid he may give me crap about wanting a refill. Honestly, I don't even know if he knows that I called about a refill and hopefully he doesn't.

Needless to say, I'm nervous about seeing him on Wednesday. I'm really going to make an effort not to run out of my pain meds again, but the good news is, I'm seeing a general practitioner in a couple weeks and maybe this doctor will be a little more willing to talk to me about my options. Since B does medical transcription, he tells me all the time about what doctors are prescribing their fibromyalgia patients, so I'm going to ask this new doctor specifically about these things.

If B can get the time off, we're planning to go up to Vegas for a couple days in December. We thought it would be fun to be there around Christmas time and see all the decorations, etc., and as it turns out, the hotel rates are pretty cheap right up to Christmas day. That surprised me.

My hand is telling me to quit for now, so I better lay off the typing.

End of the trip

I've been dealing with a lot of photo uploading while making these last few entries, and can someone tell me why, first of all, blogger puts them in the entry in the opposite order that I uploaded them, and second, why does it sometimes put extra spaces between the pictures in the entry? So annoying.

Anyway, last part of the trip. First we have me getting sunburned at Natural Bridges National Monument, Utah. This is where we drove to after camping in that really remote area near Lake Powell. I think it only took maybe an hour to get there. We were really close.

There was some pretty strange looking landscape here. The light-colored wavy-looking rock is called slickrock and is made from petrified sand dunes. You can hike all around here, but we were exhausted and chose instead to have lunch, stop at all the viewpoints and then leave.

Below is one of the natural briges in Natural Bridges. :) They are formed when streams cut new paths through the petrified sand dunes.

After we left Natural Bridges, I drove for a while. We saw some signs saying that the road was unpaved, steep and curvy ahead, and wow, was that an understatement. The road became a gravel road that snaked down the side of this huge butte down into a valley. You can see the road way, way down there in the two pictures below and that is the same road we were on, just much farther down.

This was pretty scary for me because I don't like heights and I don't really like driving, but it was perfect for B because he busted out the camera and got to take lots and pictures on our way down. The road was basically deserted, too. I only remember seeing two other vehicles, one ahead of us going down and one coming the opposite direction.

The road led us back to some places we'd gone through earlier in the week, like Mexican Hat, below.

Eventually we were back in Monument Valley and we camped there that night at a nice place called Goulding's. They had everything there. I said to B that it should've been called Goulding's City. In addition to a campground, they had a gas station, a grocery store, several gift shops, a retaurant, a hotel and cabins. We thought about camping there when we originally went to Monument Valley on the first night of our trip, but it was too cold. It was still a little chilly the night we did stay there, but we were comfortable in the tent. It was really, really windy that night, though, but we sat in the tent and played cars and basically relaxed after having dinner in the restaurant there.

The next day we had breakfast at the campground, packed up all our stuff for the last time and headed for home. That was on Friday, Oct. 10th. We had to be home no later than 2:00 p.m. on Saturday the 11th because this was going to be installed:

We actually bought this about a month before it was delivered and installed. We were supposed to go to this hot tub and spa show in Vegas, but we never received the tickets they were supposed to send us, so we went to the Mohave County Fair here in town instead and we bought a hot tub from a place that had a booth set up there.

This is something we'd been talking about since before we moved to AZ and we finally made it happen. It was SO nice to have this after our trip because we were still sore from our hike to Delicate Arch on the first day (or at least I was). We've been using it every day since we got it. We were told that we may be able to get a tax writeoff for it, if I can get a note from my doctor saying that I need it to treat my fibromyalgia. B still needs to ask our accountant about that, though.

We have some blue rope lights that are up on the ceiling above the hot tub that we use when we're out there at night. The hot tub is sitting on our back porch to the left of the sliding door and underneath the kitchen window. The lid is attached and it's really easy to swing it open. I can't say that I've felt any improvement in my fibromyalgia symptoms from using it, but I sure do enjoy it anyway. I'm always cold, but after being in this, I'm warm for a long time.

Trip continued

The first picture is from the evening of Oct. 8, the third night of our trip, and this is where we camped. Our tent was actually over to the right and not visible in this picture and the Colorado River was to the right of that. You can see a vehicle belonging to the people who were camped at the sit next to ours and then way, way down there is the bathroom. The road was very close on the left at the bottom of that slope, but it's hard to see.

The following day we went back to Arches and I wanted to get some photos of the Delicate Arch trail that we'd hiked on Oct. 6. I've outlined the trail in pink and the arrow is pointing to Delicate Arch, which I have a picture of B standing underneath in a previous entry. This was a long, steep hike, but really neat.

I also got a picture of Delicate Arch from another angle at another trailhead. You can see some people hiking up this second trail where the white arrow is pointing and the pink arrow is pointing to people up at the top near Delicate Arch who took the first trail. Delicate Arch is circled. I'd like to try this second trail if we ever go back.

We went to one last place in Arches that day before we left and that was a place called Devil's Garden. Here is B on the trail standing in front of Landscape Arch (I think). We didn't make it all the way to the end because we were pooping out.

Next is another picture of B on the same trail. I think this was on the way back to the car. We tried to come here the day before, but there was no place to park because it was so croweded, but we got there earlier in the day the next day and were able to park there.

We left Arches that afternoon and drove south down to Lake Powell, which is in the picture below. This picture was taken from an overlook looking down onto the "city" of Hite. It's barely a city anymore. Apparently it used to be a mining town, but the mines went out of business and now there are just a few mobile homes there.

Not far from there is where we camped for the night. We ended up wasting a lot of time driving around looking for a camp site because our map said there was camping in the area, but none of the signs around showed where exactly it was. We finally figured it out after looking at a map in Hite and then picked out the spot in the picture below. There was absolutely no one else around here. That's me putting the sleeping bags in the tent and you can see someone built a fire ring with rocks on the left. We bought some firewood before we left the Arches area earlier that day, so we had a nice fire there.

Last is another picture of this camping area that I think B took the next morning. You can see Lake Powell way down there and you can see how absolutely desolate this area was. We slept better there than we had the night before, where the road was right next to us.

More next time!

More from the trip

So stupid blogger uploaded these pictures in the opposite order than what I intended, so I'll have to explain them backwards. Anyway, this first picture is from the third evening of our trip after we spent the night in the nice hotel and had done some more hiking in Arches. This is B standing on the road up to Fisher Towers, the big rock things in the background. There's a little camping area up there, but we camped at another spot right next to the Colorado River.

The next picture is from a short hike earlier that day to some arch I can't remember the name of. Landscape Arch? I don't know. Anyway, that's me. The weather was a little cool, but it was warm in the sun.

Next is me again on another hike into . . . I don't remember the name of this either. It was very shady back here and the temperature dropped like crazy in the shade.

Next is a picture of B and I during our first hike of that day at . . . I don't remember the name of this arch, either.

And last is me at the head of the trail that lead up to that last arch I can't remember the name of.

We took three hikes that day, I think, and then we camped at our neat little spot next to the Colorado River that night. We had to pay $8 to camp there and we had to put the cash in a little envelope and put that in a box near the bathroom (outhouse). There were 6 or 7 places to camp in that little area and I think they were all taken by dusk. We took a spot all the way on the end where we hoped no one would bother us and would be the quietest, but we were right next to the road and the traffic kept us from really sleeping well. But we did have fun having our dinner there and we also had a nice fire later on. Someone had left several bundles of firewood there, so we used it and stayed nice and warm until it was time for bed.

More in the next entry.

Way overdue

I've been a terrible blogger for the past few weeks (months?) and have not been writing anything in my own blog or reading any other blogs. I don't know what happened. I do know that B and I spend a lot less recreational time on our computers since we've moved. I guess it's because our computers are in separate rooms now. We used to spend time "together" on our individual computers in the same room, but now our together time is spent outside or watching TV.

Anyway, lots has happened since I last wrote, as you might imagine. I'll start with recent things and work backward as best I can. I'll have to make a second entry with more pictures because this one already has a lot. First is a picture of a lizard hanging on the wall outside from a few months ago. This was maybe 6-7 inches long and is one of the biggest we've seen. They like to hang around the front porch and sun themselves and do this funny bobbing-up-and-down dance, though we haven't seen them around much in the past few weeks.

You may remember that I had some back pain after our last camping trip, when I slept on an air mattress, so B and I set up the tent inside the house so I could do a test run with a foam mattress B had from his rolfing days. After setting it up, both cats got inside to have a look around. Here's Spice making herself comfortable.

The foam mattress worked out just fine for me, so we did do some camping on our trip to Arches National Park Oct. 5 through Oct. 10. On our way there, we went through Monument Valley. Here's a picture of our approach from the south.

This is how it looked when we actually got there.

It was a little windy there that day, as it was when we came back through on our way home.


We stayed in the Monument Valley area on Sunday night, Oct. 5, and it was pretty cold there that night, so we decided to stay in a hotel rather than camp. There was a place there called the Weatherill Inn where B had stayed years ago, so that's where we stayed. They had a gift shop there where B had seen a pen knife that he'd always regretted not getting, so of course we went to the gift shop to see if they still had it or something like it. They didn't have the exact one, but they had lots of nice looking pen knives, among other things, but B still didn't get one because he felt they were too expensive (and I agreed). He did get a very nice mug and T-shirt and I got a few things for myself.

This next picture is on our way to Arches and approaching the La Sal Mountains, which are very close to the Utah/Colorado border and are visible from Arches. This picture doesn't really do them justice because they were huge and pretty spectacular looking.

This next picture is driving into Arches National Park. You may notice that we're on the wrong side of the road. That's because they had just put down a layer of oil or tar or something on the other side and we were being led up this steep cliff into the park by a park vehicle. We initially had to wait about 10 minutes to go in because they were leading people down the one open lane from the other direction first.

That was on Monday, Oct. 6 that we arrived in Arches around lunch time. B found a nice spot near Balanced Rock where we set up our gas stove and made lunch. This picture is driving further into the park.

After lunch, we decided to hike up to Delicate Arch, below. This was a butt-kicking hike. I was somewhat prepared for this, having been doing squatts and lunges at home for weeks beforehand, but what was really sore afterwards were my shins. Here is B standing under Delicate Arch. You can see the La Sal Mountains in the background on the left.

You probably can't see just how steep this was from the picture, but that's me going back down, and that's where my shins got so sore. You can see the road we took to get there snaking downhill in the background and other people doing the hike on the right.

That night we decided we weren't quite ready to rough it yet, so we stayed in a hotel again. In fact, we were already so tired and sore from hiking to Delicate Arch, we decided to get a really nice room with a jacuzzi tub and we both soaked in the tub for a while that night, which I think probably helped a lot with our soreness the next day (though I was sore to varrying degress the rest of the week anyhow).

That's it for now, but I'll write again about the rest of the trip and include more pictures.

Camping and birthday

Since I last wrote, we went on our little trip to Bullhead City/Laughlin and also camping at the Grand Canyon. The trip over to Bullhead City/Laughlin was the same day as my last doctor's appointment, and that went fine. I did have to see the doctor rather than just being given my prescription and sent on my way, but he actually seemed to be in a good mood this time. I should've taken the opportunity to (try to) talk to him about my fatigue, but I just wasn't prepared to do it, and frankly I just wanted to get out of there and get on to the fun part of the day.

Here are a few photos from that day:

This first one is driving west toward the mountains between Golden Valley, where my doctor's appointment was, to Bullhead City/Laughlin. Bullhead City is in Arizona and Laughlin is right across the Colorado River in Nevada.
This is a picture of the casinos in Laughlin. I think there were about ten of them.

The third picture was on way home going back over those same mountains.

We went to a couple places that sold hot tubs to see what they had on display, but the first place we went to was actually the wrong place (they'd moved to another location) and the second place only had two hots tubs on display, neither of which looked like what we want, so we got fed up and went to one of the casino's to have lunch. We ate at a small restaurant inside the Aquarius Casino. The food was good, but man was it freezing in there. We didn't stick around and play the slots or anything; we just went home after that. I think all together it probably took about an hour to get there from our house, if I'm calculating right. We didn't go straight there because we had my doctor's appointment in Golden Valley, which is between Kingman and Bullhead City/Laughlin.

Last weekend was my birthday (thanks, Heather!) and our camping trip. Overall I had fun camping, but unfortunately I got one heck of a backache from sleeping on an air matress in the tent. I guess I need something firmer to sleep on, like our bed, which is made of furniture-grade foam. Here are some pictures:

This is B at Meteor Crater, where we went first on Sunday. It was boiling hot out there that day, but there were big thunderclouds and rain not far away. We didn't stay outside long. There was a museum and gift shop right there on the edge of the crater.

This is me at our campsite on Sunday night. We only had a fire that night because it rained the next day and everything was too wet to burn. We didn't cook anything on the fire; just had it for warmth because it was a bit chilly after the sun went down.

And this is the two of us at Grand Canyon on Monday. I got sunburned that day on my arms and the part in my hair. I didn't think I'd need any sunblock. >:( We didn't stay very long at Grand Canyon on Tuesday because my back was hurting so bad that I didn't feel like doing much, so we had lunch there and then got home around 3:00 or 3:30.

It was fun using our camp stove and eating outside. There weren't a lot of bugs there, except for one place where we stopped to make lunch on Sunday afternoon. For some reason, that particular spot was crawling with flies, but where we actually camped for the night was much better.

We heard a lot of coyotes on Sunday night, but then didn't hear any Monday night. We camped at a different spot Monday, so I guess the coyotes weren't around there. We saw a deer as we were driving on a very crowded road who was eating right next to the road, totally unphased. We also saw a family of turkeys with little turkey babies crossing the road while we were looking for a campsite on Monday.

Here's what B got me for my birthday:




The pink shoes are plastic like jellies...remember those? I love jellies. They're so great for wearing to the beach or the pool. Not that I ever do either of those things now, but they're cute nonetheless. And the other shoes are comfy like gym shoes but a lot cuter. The pink shoes were only $15. Get them now while they're still on clearance at $ketchers dot com.

I hate bugs

Yesterday morning when I got up and stepped out of the bedroom, I saw this on the floor:

The good news is, it was mostly dead, but the bad news is, somehow it got inside. This was the first time I'd seen one of these and I much rather would've seen it outside. This morning I found another one, and this time it was IN the bedroom right next to the bed. I think it was mostly dead, too, since it didn't move when B sprayed it with alcohol, but still....eeewww!! It was on my side of the bed right when I put my feet when I get up. As you might imagine, I'm going to be looking at the floor very carefully when I get out of bed from now on. I've been wearing shoes in the house all day today because I do NOT want to step on one of these things in my sock feet if there are more around.

Like I said, this is the first time I've seen one of these, though I have seen lots of these in the house before:

These are a type of spider and aren't dangerous, but I'm pretty sure the former creatures are scorpions. B and I were thinking they might be these things called vinegaroons, which we'd heard are less dangerous, but they look quite different:

That's definitely not what we had here in the house today. Blech. I saw some kind of big, hairy, brown spider outside last week. I'm not sure what kind it was, but I'd say it was about three inches across. Not quite as big as a tarantula, but close. It might've been some kind of tarantula for all I know. I was over on the side of our house cleaning up our ex-neighbors crap that he left out in his driveway that got blown all over our yard the last time it rained, but after seeing that spider, I decided to just leave the stuff alone. Maybe it will blow out of our yard the next time it rains.

I got my hair trimmed this past Sunday because I wanted to have it done for our camping trip coming up, but she really chopped it this time and it's shorter than I wanted. I think it looks kind of awful, not cute like the first time she cut it, especially my bangs because she cut them way too short. I think they look best when they're just touching my eyebrows, but they're waaay above my eyebrows and it looks dorky. Hopefully it'll grow fast. I'm hoping by the time we go camping in a couple weeks, it'll look like it did the first time she cut it. Or at least the bangs. I'll probably be wearing hats all the time anyway.