Trading Habits

I know that habits change over time, but lately I feel like Eric and I have recently completely switched sleeping habits. Out of no where he has become the lightest sleep EVER and I apparently now sleep like a rock. Normally Eric sleeps through any and everything, especially when it involves the dogs. If one of the dogs is sick I will up out of bed at the first little heavy breath or sound of a stomach lurching. Eric is sound asleep, doesn't move, doesn't even stir. But lately that has not been the case.

Example #1
One night this past summer I awoke in the middle of the night to the dogs going nuts. They were barking, jumping, and carrying on like someone was at the door. Next thing I know Eric is running into the living room with his gun to see what was going on. I was still in a daze at this point trying to figure out what was going on. When he came back in I asked why the dogs were going crazy like that. To which he replied, "didn't you hear the door bell?" Um, no. Someone in our neighborhood was ding dong ditching that night and got us, but I didn't even hear it. How? I have no idea! We have a very loud doorbell and our bedroom is right off of the living room. I chalked it up to a long week.

This past week there have been 2 separate incidences that really have me scratching my head. In addition to dog noises, I have a hard time with annoying, repetitive sounds. They drive me nuts. Want to get under my skin? Drum your fingernails or click a pen while I am trying to read or study...I will lose it.

Example #2
One night when we were in the mountains Eric wakes me up around 4 am and asks me what that noise is. What noise? I was sound asleep and certainly did not hear any noise. I didn't hear anything when I woke up either. He told me to listen and finally I hear a faint clicking noise. I told him it was probably freezing rain or melting ice dripping from the trees onto the metal roof of the house and then I told him to go back to sleep. He couldn't because the noise was driving him crazy. Which totally blew my mind since he is usually deaf as can be at night and any other time I am trying to tell him something important. I drifted back off to sleep and finally (I don't know how much later it was) I hear him say there it is! It was a tag on the back of the other bed. The ceiling fan was causing it to tap against the bed post or the wall...I am not exactly sure which one because I could not even hear it!

Example #3
Just last night Eric woke me up in the middle of the night and asked me to hand him the remote control (we have 4 remotes for our bedroom, 2 for the tv, one for the fireplace, and one for the fan and I keep all of them together on my nightstand) that controls our oscillating fan (this is in addition to our ceiling fan). We have not been using the oscillating fan lately since it has been in the 30's at night and we heat our house with out gas and electric fireplaces at night, so it stays cool at night without the extra fan right now. I handed him the remote and went right back to sleep. This morning when I was leaving I noticed the ceiling fan was off, so I asked him why and he said it was making noises last night and woke him up. #1: I didn't hear it or realize he got out of bed to turn it off (come to think of it I don't remember him even coming to bed last night but he was there this morning); and #2: why didn't he just grab the remote off my nightstand to turn the other fan on? (Because men don't think that way!)

So what does this mean? Am I not getting enough sleep? Am I sleeping harder these days? Am I just super sensitive to dog sounds? I can hear one of the dogs heaving in the kitchen from a sound sleep in the bedroom for crying out loud! Maybe all of these instances have caught me in the middle of a REM cycle. Who knows?! I guess I am going to be able to blame my inability to wake up on time on the fact that I am able to sleep through not one but 2 alarms on a daily basis! Yep that's my excuse from now on. =)

ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

A Weekend in the Mountains

I am still trying to get myself back into a normal work mode (if that really exists). We took a break from the hustle and bustle of our regular lives this past weekend and had ourselves a nice little getaway to the Appalachian Mountains for a snowboarding weekend with some friends.

We left on Thursday afternoon and headed up to Sugar Mountain near Boone, North Carolina. Unfortunately we did not consider the time we were leaving and ended up in rush hour traffic in Atlanta, which was followed by a wreck right outside of Atlanta that had us stopped on the interstate for nearly an hour and a half. We were trying to beat the freezing rain that was headed that way and made it to the house we were staying at shortly after it started. It was midnight by the time we got there, but we were all wired for the trip so we ended up staying up to nearly 2 am (the boys may have stayed up later than that). Needless to say we slept late the next morning. I brought stuff and made breakfast casserole when we got there so all I had to do the next morning was get up and put it in the oven, which I did around 9:30 before almost everyone was awake. We'd decided to night ski the first night since we got such a late start and still had to get groceries for the weekend as well as rent our snowboards.

The view from the top and my snow bunny and I. (don't tell him I called him a snow bunny...lol) 

Our first night on the slopes was great! Luckily I did not forget everything I learned last year and was able to get down the hill sans falling the first time. =) We stayed on the easy hills for the most part and finally worked up the nerve to go up the bigger hill that only Eric and his buddy attempted the year before which resulted in them falling their way down the mountain. We conquered the big hill, which was fast but turned out to be really fun! We called it a night around 9:30 and headed back to the house for dinner.....at 10:30pm, which resulted in another late night.

Our second day started about the same time as our first day, but we decided to opt for night snowboarding again even though we had our gear from the night before. To pass the time before we headed out we decided to check out the town of Blowing Rock. It's a really cute town with a TON of character. We went there to check out a place called Mystery Hill where they have a "vortex" that has a higher than average gravitational pull that makes you lean at a 45 degree angle in the room. The guys were completely skeptical before we went in, and were completely freaked out after we left. It drove them nuts because they could not figure out why it was like that.

You could feel a higher than normal gravitational pull, almost like you were drunk.

They also had a platform that always made the person on the left look taller.  Apparently the physics department at Appalachian State has come out and tested this to prove it's an optical illusion, but were unable to explain it....freaky!

While we were there we came across an old timey photo place. Jokingly we asked the guys if they wanted to do one, and they got really excited about it. So we took one.....in reversed roles. Yes that is my husband in the front right in the short black dress. Isn't he precious? The guy who was running it said he'd never had a role reversal photo before and that we would have our photo hanging in the store soon. I guess it's better to be known for something rather than nothing, right?

We headed to downtown Blowing Rock for lunch and found a pub called the Six Pence Pub that was right up our alley.  They had a ton of unique brews and even a cider beer for me! The food was amazing and we left about 5 pounds heavier than we were when we went in.

We headed back to the house and caught a quick nap to sleep off our food comas and then it was back to the slopes for night #2!  The second night on the slopes was even better than the first. Eric and I got recognized by the lift guy on the first hill.  As soon as we got off the first time the second night he yelled out his window, "I remember you guys from last night!  You (Eric) grab the wall and she holds onto the chair until she gets to the bottom!"  BUSTED! Whatever works, right?!  It was a lot more crowded than the night before, so we hesitantly decided to try a higher/harder slopes than we'd been doing. It was the best decision we could have made. We had a BLAST! The higher slopes were ins lot better condition and a lot less crowded. We were pretty sure we were ready for the pro circuit by the end of the night, except for that whole going down the mountain like a bat out of you know where...we're not quite on that level. Not even close actually, but it left us ready to come back again next year!

We did all of the slopes circled in pink....lots more fun than just staying on the Lower Flying Mile like last year!

Two nights of snowboarding in a row left us absolutely exhausted and after some fabulous deer tacos for dinner we crashed...hard. There was no staying up late for anyone. Plus we had to get up at 8 so we could get on the road.

We were so sad to leave, and we will definitely be going back next year!  How could you not want to go back to beautiful views and an amazing house like this one?!

I seriously NEED this house for everyday use =)  We're convinced that renting houses is the way to travel anymore!

We were so sad to see this vacation come to and end.  It was so much fun!  I am so glad we were able to go with such a fun group of friends!  And because I know you want to see more old timey shenanigans......

You're welcome.

Birthday Recap and Another Birthday

Well it's safe to say that 28 is off to a great start. I had an absolutely wonderful birthday!I received lots of wonderful birthday calls and texts which make a girl feel really special! My day started out pretty typically....got up, got dressed, got ready to head out the door when I noticed a box on the counter. It was a pretty large box in a Bass Pro bag...one of Eric's favorite wrapping techniques. He appeared around the corner just as I was about walk out the door. The bag wrapped box was indeed my birthday present! I opened it to find packing air........and then I came to one of our guest towels....wrapped up in the guest towel was a beautiful white box the contained a pretty new iPad!!! To say I was excited is an understatement. Of course that also meant I've completely unproductive ever since. =) but I am ok with it!

My work day was quite nice. My friends surprised me a plate of brownies with cream cheese icing that we're amazing. Possibly the best store bought brownies I've ever had. We had birthday lunch too, which actually fell on my birthday so I got to go out to a very nice lunch!

I got home wondering what in the world we were going to do for the rest of the night. We decided to go light on dinner and went to our favorite soup and sandwich place in town. I was still stuffed from lunch and only ate half my sandwich. When we for back Eric's brother and his wife came over and we had cake and ice cream. It was perfect! He made sure I had candles the blow out. I had to ask him if he wanted a 20 year old wife instead of a 28 year old wife since he only put 20 candles on the cake. He said he was just worried about putting that many candles on a cake and lighting gem all at once....yep that's a lot of candles.

They spelled my name right for once!

On another note today is the 2 year blogoversary for this little blog-o-mine! I never would have thought I could have kept this going for this long but I am pretty proud of myself for it! I love being able to look back over the last 2 years to see how we've grown and changed. Here's to another 2 and many many more!

28 Years

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At 4:37AM this morning I turned another year older....I hit the big 2-8.  It sounds so much OLDER than 27!  I feel like that means I am officially a grown up now (as if getting a job, getting married, and buying a house don't constitute being an adult).  I am officially in my late 20's...YIKES!  I cannot wait to see what my 28th year has in store for me.

Eric's left me completely in the dark about his plans for my birthday tonight, but that's A-O-Kay with me because I LOVE to be surprised! He did give me my birthday present before I left for work this morning.....it starts with and "I" and rhymes with "rad" and I am so excited about it! =)  

I have plans to thoroughly enjoy my day because it's ma birfday!  WHOOP WHOOP!