Busy Being Big Kids

Well the last month has gone by so fast! We have both been busy being "Big Kids" working like crazy!

Kyle has been at the police academy for almost 2 months now. We've started to fall into a routine with him being gone during the week and coming home for the weekend. It's been hard for both of us to only see each other on the weekends, but at least time is going by fast! He is home this week as the academy is closed for Thanksgiving, but he is still working at the police department here in Florence during that time.

I am now working at two different dental offices, one in Newport and the other here in Florence. I'm so happy to be working and finally earning a paycheck! I feel all grown up now! It's been a lot of fun settling into both offices, especially in the Florence office where I have my own room to make my own. I also ordered a special light for my loupes (my magnifying lens) that clips right onto it and I'll no longer have to use the overhead light attached to the chair. I'm so excited to get it! I know I'm a big nerd, but it will make life at work easier as well as saving my back and eyesight.

We've had a lot of family and friends come stay with us during the last month or so, which has been a lot of fun and kept us pretty busy!

Kayla & Austin came down from Portland for a couple days and went crabbing with us! Read Kayla's Blog Here

My grandma rode the bus over from Bend to spend a few days with me while Kyle was gone.

We had a lot of fun at the beach and of course doing some gambling at the casino!

This last weekend we went to Bend to spend an early Thanksgiving & Christmas with my side of the family. My sister lives in Idaho so her family met us at my aunt & grandma's house in Bend! It was a lot of fun spending time with everyone; I can't believe how fast my niece and nephew are growing! I hate that I only get to see them a couple times a year, but no way around that until I can get my sister to move back over here! While in Bend my sister took some family photos and photos of Kyle & I (can't wait to see them!). My sister Samantha is an excellent photographer, she took some great photos this weekend! If you're ever in the Boise area hit her up for pictures, or occasionally she is in Oregon as well. Sammy Jean Photography

Sunset at my grandma's house (also where we got married!)

That curious look on Tessa's face is her deciding to make a break for it while she was off leash. We spent about 10 minutes chasing her after this picture was taken. It's a good thing she's so cute.

Goofing off with my sisters holding up mom!

Unfortunately Kyle has to work on Thanksgiving day, and his mom works this weekend so it has complicated being able to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family. This just means we will have to do some extra celebrating when we see them for Christmas (which unfortunately can't be on Christmas because poor Kyle has to work on Christmas also!). We are going to make the best of it by having an early Thanksgiving dinner with just the two of us before he goes to work. I'm going to roast a chicken instead of turkey since it's smaller, and of course have mashed potatoes & gravy,  cranberry sauce, fresh green beans, deviled eggs, and my fave: chocolate pie. Then on Friday we are going to get up bright and early to do some shopping here in town at Fred Meyer and Bi-Mart, but luckily with this small town we shouldn't have to fight many crowds :)

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving, thanks for reading! 

Life in Florence

Well we have officially lived in Florence for exactly one month now! It feels as if we've been here much longer as we've settled in so nicely. I've gotten nearly everything unpacked and organized, except for the office which is still an organized mess unfortunately! It's been so nice to have a lot more room for storage and not feeling like we've got to "squeeze" around our furniture to move around like we did in the apartment.

Tila & Tessa have certainly settled in nicely. They love their new house and new town! They spend hours and hours outside each day just sniffing, exploring, and barking at the neighbor's dog. They also get to go to the city dog park and the beach at least a couple times each week!

Washbourne State Park north of Florence has a beautiful quiet beach area!

Singing Pines the dog park

Kyle has had his first 2 weeks of work at the police department, and this last Sunday he left for the Police Academy in Salem! He's been gone all week and will be home this evening for the weekend. He will be in the academy until the end of February, which is going to make for a long 4 months! We won't have spent this much time apart from each other since he was in Afghanistan. It's made for a lonely week (and many more to come unfortunately), but it will be worth it in the end for us both! I'm very proud of Kyle for how hard he's working at the academy, it involves a lot of early mornings of PT, long class hours, and then more homework in the evening.

This isn't Kyle's class, but its a picture of one like his at the DPSST Academy in Salem.

While Kyle has been working hard at the academy I have been job searching like crazy. I didn't get a job I'd interviewed for in Coos Bay, which was very disappointing, but I did get offered a job in Newport! I will be temping for their hygienist for 4 days, and then after that they asked me to continue on permanently every Tuesday! I'm very excited for this opportunity, the office seems like a wonderful place to start. Hopefully it won't take me long to find another office I can work in 1-2 days a week (it's common for hygienists to work in multiple offices).

Because I have a lot of time to myself during the week when I'm not working or volunteering at the Senior Center here in town, I would love to have family and friends come stay! We have a great guest area that I've tried to make real "home-y". It has a bed, small kitchen table, full bathroom, full kitchen, and small sofa. So come stay with us!! :)

I wish I had more exciting things to report, but hopefully in the future there will be more exciting news! :) Thanks for reading!

Deidre, Kyle, Tila & Tessa

The Move & Chicken Bones

We're officially moved!! We have been at the new house for almost a week now!

Our move went pretty smoothly, with help from Karen (Kyle's mom) and Katy (Kyle's sister)! It was definitely a long day though, and we were pretty exhausted by the end of the day.

The good ole Uhaul

Katy helping us move the couch in

Sooo tired!

The girls and Connor didn't like being locked outside

We have been getting settled in nicely, and slowly getting unpacked. It's so nice to have lots of room for activities!! ;) It's strange to have a house with so much space that we wonder what we will put in some of the cupboards and closets. We are loving this house so far. The only downside we've discovered (which is actually a really inconvenient one we've found) is that we have ZERO phone service! It's very frustrating. We have to drive several miles down the road to make calls and listen to voicemails. Perhaps this wouldn't be a big deal, except i'm on call with a temp agency and it was extremely frustrating while waiting for phone calls from the emergency vet. We should be getting some kind of signal booster for the house from AT&T soon, thankfully.

Speaking of the emergency vet....

On our second night in the new house our oldest dog Tila tried to commit suicide. We went grocery shopping, and while we were gone she got into the garbage and ate our leftover chicken from KFC. We forgot our garbage bin at the apartment, so we've been keeping the garbage bag on the ground for now. She's never gotten into the garbage before (obviously the bin was a good barrier) so we didn't think about it. At first we thought she was okay, it was only two small pieces of chicken.

Then during the night she woke us up vomiting, twice. In the morning she refused to eat (which those of you that know her, that is EXTREMELY odd). So we were in full panic mode (I was so sure she was going to die at that point, immediately overreacting), we took her to the vet in town. They took some x-rays, and you could see a pretty nice sized bone in her stomach. The vet was worried it was too big for her little intestines and that we needed to get it removed right away. They sent us to an emergency vet in Eugene, where they thought we should keep her overnight for observation and to be hooked up to an IV, but to prepare ourselves for her needing emergency surgery.

Well, after a LOT of tears and stress, we were able to pick her up the next morning with no surgery needed. Her body was digesting the bone safely on it's own. So about $900 later, she's safe and sound.

Tila's 1st X-ray, the bone is shown in the circle fragmented.

So it has been an exciting first week here at the new house, that's for sure! But we are very excited to be here, despite all the stress to getting here. It will be nice to have a few weeks settling in together before Kyle leaves for the academy in Salem.

Relaxing in the living room

Thanks for reading everyone! I'll keep you updated as we continue to get settled and Kyle starts his new job.

Love,

Deidre & Kyle

New Home in Florence

Since I last posted, we have been planning like crazy for our upcoming move to Florence. Next week we are moving!!

We have been so lucky to find a wonderful house to move into! It's also very close to one of the many lakes in Florence, and in an area that stays clear of the wind and fog! The house came with a "guest house" of sorts, a studio apartment (the same size as the apartment we live in now!) that we will use for family and friends to stay in!

We have been working on painting the walls in the house, and plan to work on it more tomorrow. The walls had a pretty color blue and green on them, but I didn't think it really went well with the house. It made the rooms dark and I thought it was really odd to paint green on one wall and blue on the opposite.

Before

After! It's a tan color (looks white in the photo). Really lightened up the room!!

Before (the wall is green)

After (Same tan color as other side)

 The house also has a big backyard with lots of shrubbery and trees. Tila and Tessa really love it! They played and played while we met with the homeowner.

 We are so excited to move! We have a lot to do during the next week, but it'll be worth it. I've already gotten the internet and tv scheduled to be installed (we have to get Dish Network to have Pac-12, grrrrr), and the UHaul is reserved for moving!

I'm still looking for a job so everyone keep their fingers crossed that something opens soon in the Florence area! The dental hygiene prospects haven't been looking good so far, but I'm checking for openings every day.

Thanks for reading! I'll post an update after we've gotten settled in!

Deidre & Kyle

Exciting News!

Welcome to our blog!! I thought it would be fun to start a blog for family and friends to follow our new adventures! (I know, it's also really dorky, whatever)

Extremely exciting news for us though!! Kyle has officially been offered a position with the Florence Police Department and will start at the beginning of October! Yep, we are leaving good ole Corvallis and making a move to the coastal life! Tila and Tessa are very excited, as you can imagine.

 

This means we will have a very busy month ahead of us trying to decide how we will go about moving and when (as we are in a lease here until December, likely we will break it). Unfortunately, Florence doesn't have as large of a rental housing market as Corvallis, so there are slim pickings. But I'll keep my eye on craigslist and elsewhere. We'd prefer not to settle with a place we don't like just because it was all that was available and be stuck in a long lease with it.

Now that Kyle has a job in Florence, it's my turn! I was busy yesterday and today job searching! I've delivered my resume and coverletter at many dental offices in Florence, and I've applied to be a part of a temping agency that fills positions in dental offices. Lets keep our fingers crossed something pans out soooooon!

Today while in Florence we explored our new town. We found a dog park and let the girls do some sniffing there. We also tried out a new beach called Harbor Vista, which the girls also found very exciting. And down in Old Town we ate at a restaurant that lets dogs hang out with you!! It was kind of fun to eat lunch with Tila & Tessa. The waitress even brought them a dog bowl of water to enjoy! How cool is that??

Before we left, we scoped out some homes for sale we've had our eye on for a while (we can dream, right??). Hopefully it won't be long before we'll be buying our first home!

I think that's it for now. I'll keep updating our new blog as we start this new exciting move together! Thanks for reading! :)

Deidre & Kyle, +Tila +Tessa