Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Hole In One!

My husband is playing in the 2009 Northwest Dodge Dealers Pacific Amateur Golf Classic in Oregon this week. Yesterday he got his first hole in one ever, along with THREE other guys. And the even more ironic thing? They all got a hole in one on the SAME hole. Insanity!

He was beyond thrilled and said the whole experience was surreal. After playing golf for 22 years, he finally got his hole in one moment. I'm so proud of him! You can read a short article about him and the others in the Bend Bulletin here.

And to add to the week's excitement for him, he ended up second in his group at the end of the third round today, which means he gets to go on to the final round tomorrow and play. He wasn't planning for that to happen....I mean, when there are 700 golfers, what are the chances you'll score above the majority? So, this means I could be stranded at the Seattle airport tomorrow night, but oh well. This is golf we're talking about here. I'm pretty sure I come second to that! Of course I'm joking...kinda...

See he was supposed to fly from Bend to Seattle tomorrow afternoon and then pick me up at the airport in the evening. But now that he's actually playing golf tomorrow, he's going to have to change his flight and he's hoping that he can get the last flight in late tomorrow, but we'll see. Otherwise I'll have to figure out a way to navigate to our hotel in downtown Seattle without a car. Sounds like an adventure!

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Monday, September 28, 2009

Monday Thoughts

Many thoughts were bouncing around in my head this morning as I drove into work. At a recent trip to the dermatologist for my annual skin check, my doctor decided to remove yet another mole because it looked suspicious and they wanted to do a biospy on it. I've been going through this process since I was under my mom's wing. I believe this is the 4th mole I've had removed over the years. I am their ideal candidate at the dermatologist for skin cancer--fair complected, tons of moles and my mom has had skin cancer. They are very careful about documenting the changes in size, shape and color of my moles, so much in fact that they actually photograph them so they can track them from year-to-year. When they remove a mole, they always offer reassurances that it will probably check out fine. And they're right. It normally does. And I'm not one to worry about something until I need to and therefore I haven't thought about it much since my appointment last Tuesday.


But for some reason on the way in this morning, I was thinking "what if." What if THIS is the time that something is actually wrong? What if they tell me I have skin cancer? What would I do? How would I tell my husband? My parents? What would this do to all the life plans we have laid out? It's scary to think that your life could change with one phone call. I'm sure I would be strong and resilient. And maybe it would turn out to be a minor surgery and things would get back to normal. But it could always be the other extreme too, you never know. Oh how our lives would change.


Maybe it's the fact that it's almost our 1-year anniversary (already!) that I was reflecting on life. Or maybe I had too much alone time this weekend. smile Regardless, it was a morning for being thankful for how wonderful life has been thus far, how healthy I've been, how lucky to marry the man I love. I know that so many people out there aren't as fortunate. And I know too that if a bump comes along in our journey, he and I will be able to tackle it together.


And wouldn't you know it, when I got to my desk this morning I had a message waiting from the receptionist at my dermatologist's office that was left on Friday (I had worked from home), asking me to call the office. Surely the receptionist wouldn't call me with bad news, right? They'd make the doctor do that. Definitely the doctor. I called. Good news...again. The test came back benign.


I could have known the good news already on Friday....FRIDAY! But I know today and that's just as good. I'm fine and will be celebrating my 1st anniversary with my husband in Seattle on Sunday...with an extra twinkle in my eye. wink

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Thursday, September 17, 2009

My new love...

My birthday has come and gone and with it a whirlwind of gifts and a trip to Music City. I'll post more about our Nashville escapades later, but I wanted to share with you the awesome-ist gift--I'm sure that's a word--my husband purchased for me.

I think I had mentioned on a prior post my wishes for a nice SLR camera. Well, I had spoken to my husband about it once--ONCE!--a month or two prior to my birthday. I was quietly doing research on my own trying to learn a little bit about the features of that sort of camera, comparing brands I was familiar with like Nikon and Canon, looking into what camera would be good for a beginner, etc. Lo and behold, the last gift I opened on my birthday, the ONE gift that my husband got me, was this baby:



Now I have to admit, I was onto him on this one. I had questioned him several times about birthday shopping for me and he was so nonchalant about it. As in, "Oh, birthday shopping for you was so EASY this year, I've already completely finished." So the combination of his nonchalance and my recalling the camera discussion we had made it all come together for me. I had a sneaking suspicion that he had gotten me one BIG gift and I gave him flak about it a couple of times prior. Must be womens intuition or something. wink

He bought this Pentax at a local camera store, Creve Coeur Camera, and according to him he spent an hour and a half there days before--yes, my husband is a procrastinator big time--my birthday. The salesman touted this camera as wonderful for a beginner, despite being not a brand a lot of people have heard of. And what really put it over the top was it's value--it came in a combo package with 2 lenses, a 18-55 mm and a 50-200 mm. He also purchased the lens filters and had the batteries in it and all ready to go when I opened it. Oh the joy!

I was able to use it several times in Nashville--I'll be sure to point out which pictures were taken with it in my Nashville post--and although I'm only using the "auto" function right now, I'm loving it already!

One benefit of purchasing the camera from Creve Coeur Camera is that they offer a wide variety of classes--some for beginners, some that are camera specific, others for those that are more advanced. With the camera purchase, my husband received a coupon so I could take their Digital Basics class for free! I'm signed up for the Monday, September 28th evening session, so I'll fill you all in as to how it goes after that. Here the description about it from their website:

Digital Basics
Do you have a digital camera and want to know more about what it can do? If you would like to use your camera to its potential, this free one-hour seminar can help you. We'll talk about the advantages of digital photography, some common terms, storage media, printing and about some simple programs to play with and manipulate your images.

They also have camera specific classes, so I've already signed up for one for my Pentax K2000 in October. This one should show me all the in's and out's for my camera and educate me on all the settings and when to use them. Now THIS sounds interesting:

Pentax K200D/2000
This user-friendly DSLR camera for the beginning digital photographer captures high quality images with either simplified operation or use of manual options. This class will show you the best options in different situations, even low-light conditions. Bring your camera, batteries, manual and questions.

Then once I get all that figured out and am comfortable with it, I can delve deeper into the manual functions of the camera and how to utilize those. One thing at a time, though. Can you tell I'm excited? [insert giddy laughter here] lol Hopefully you all won't get tired of my new photography obsession. Wahoo!

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