Birthdays and more birthdays

So this was the weekend of Birthdays. Matt's Uncle Bob and his wife Kelsea were both celebrating their November b-days this weekend but unfortunately we did not make it up to Portland to help them celebrate. I did make it on Sunday over to Tasha's brother's house to celebrate their 3rd birthday (November 18th). I brought over a bunch of pictures that I had taken of the dogs and kids over the last few months. Anna and Drew had bought the dogs presents, Tasha got a plush toy that you will see a few pictures of, and Jim got a rubber squeaky toy. We also had cake, well the dogs had their usual bread, cheese, peanut butter and kibble cake and we had a different one :) It was a pretty cold day due to the fog that wouldn't let up all day long. We played outside for a while but got cold pretty quick and headed inside. Here are a few pics from the party......

Anna trying to keep Jim from taking Tasha's present

The infamous dog birthday cake

OK dogs, make your wish....

Anna is helping the dogs blow out the candle

The only photo I have of Tasha eating her cake, it was gone very quickly :)

Jim has finally stolen Tasha's toy....

.....and he doesn't plan on giving it back

Tasha has found her favorite outdoor toy....a stick

The dogs playing as usual

Notice Drew's bulging pockets...they are filled with crab apples...great ammo for crab apple wars :)

Ready

Aim


I don't have a picture of FIRE....I got out of the way before I could get one :)

Changes in seasons and life

So this will be a little different than my normal blogs...more blog less pics. This first week of November has really set the cold, rainy, windy tone for the rest of the fall/winter. September and October were both so nice but unfortunately, reality finally hit. The change this week has come at a somewhat metaphorically appropriate time. Matt finally did what he has been threatening to do for some time....quit. Yes, he finally gave Red Rover the heave-hoe and had his last day on Wednesday. So for us, this is and will be a big change. Matt has decided that for the next couple of months he will act as "house husband" and get a few projects done; finishing our house for starters and looking into viable possibilities for either new companies or new employment. So far I have enjoyed the hot dinners when I get home from work part of his new "duties".

With all of this change in work/duties/professions, it has made me decide to try and work on my photography hobby a little more. I actually just signed up for a workshop in March from a photographer that I really admire. To me, she just has a way with color and composition that I haven't really seen before and that I really love. So hopefully this workshop will help direct me to see the images as she does. Check out some of her work at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholevan/

Work has been going well. My off-site flu clinics are slowly coming to a close, which means I don't get out of the pharmacy much anymore. This is a bummer because it seems this time of year people are much less patient and much more demanding and hot tempered. During the summer there is a laid back attitude among our customers, but come "holiday" season, it can be a nightmare. Just a quick example; one of my techs called a customer to verify if he had meant to drop off two separate Rx's for the same drug....this is an honest question since many of our customers get some of their meds through mail order but the doctor will write 2 RX's so they can give one to us in case the mail order messes up (doesn't send the med, lost in mail, won't be delivered for 1-2 weeks). But instead of thanking her for her concern he began to berate her for even calling him and asking such questions and that he felt like he was "talking to a 5th grader". This is the part I hate about my job. I feel like our pharmacy goes above and beyond the "expected" job but instead of being grateful, we get called names. My friend Susie who works at a different pharmacy had a similar experience last night. She had a gentleman who kept dropping the "F" bomb and finally made a comment about "letting a woman do a man's job". Susie unfortunately has had some experience with this sort of thing and without hesitation fired the customer from the pharmacy. I haven't tried to do this yet with any of my customers but believe me, I have gotten pretty close....although I don't know if I would get the same support for doing this as she does at her pharmacy. Safeway is obnoxiously big on customer service and we wouldn't want to piss off anyone now would we? ;)

Well that is as much typing as I like to do....no wonder I went to pharmacy school....no 100 page thesis to write :) Here are a few photos from our Sunday outing to Mac Forest. They aren't very good...my borrowed lens got taken back this week and the lighting was a little too dark so I got some practice with trying to lighten the photos after the fact.....something I really am not good at and something I hope to learn from Nicole, she is a master at manipulation on the computer. Anyways, hope everyone has a good week.....

Halloween

This week/weekend has been a lot quieter than last week. I have been busy with work giving lots of flu shots. I have to laugh at the "big-wigs" at corporate though. They have been really pushing to increase sales (this is no surprise and is very much expected), however, the way they go about it is so STUPID! The store manager came back on Wednesday to tell us that we were up 5% but our goal was 8.3% or something like that.....ok, so they want us to sell more right? Not necessarily. Our total Rx count is higher but with trying to match Wal-Mart prices and the increase in labor costs due to the increase in the number of prescriptions we do negate any skyrocketing profits that corporate is looking for....very frustrating. To make the whole situation laughable is when the store manager came back to the pharmacy again on Friday and told us that we were up 215%! Yes, 215%.....I never want to be manager :) I could go on and on but that is enough ranting for one night and my blood pressure is already up :)

I don't have nearly as many pics as last week but here are a few Halloween type pictures. On Friday at work we all dressed up (corporate wanted us in our normal gear but we said NOPE). I wore my dirndl that I wore at the bowling party last weekend. Christina dressed up as a "Goul Prom Queen" that was pretty darn good. She freaked us out by laying on the floor looking VERY dead! See for yourself......

YIKES!!

Here are a few from this afternoon. Matt had the boys over to bottle the beer they had brewed in September. The trees around here are gorgeous but the rain has come and is knocking down all of the leaves :(

Hope you had a fun Halloween!!

Busy Weekend (Swim Meet, Krystal & Rylie, Vollyball game, Mac forest, Bowling birthday, Magic show, Jim's house)

So as you can see from my monsterous title, it was a pretty busy weekend. I debated whether or not to separate the different activities into different blogs but it would still be the same length. I tried to get several pictures from each but that means about 40 pictures! It really didn't seem as busy of a weekend until I started collecting all the pictures for the blog.....I don't know why I'm not more tired! Anyways, here we go.....

The weekend started Friday night when mom and I went to the Oregon State womens' swim meet at Dixon Rec center. I heard about the meet from Krystal since her sister Keri swims for the Beavs. We met up with Krystal, Rylie, Colleen and Krystal's youngest sister (sorry I forgot her name :( ) to cheer on the OSU swimmers against Rice. I don't know what the final score was, but it seemed like the Beavers were winning more often and had a lot more depth. It made me miss swimming and competing, although I don't miss the 6 AM practices!


Rylie and grandma Colleen.

Kerri, Krystal's sister, on the blocks for the 50 free.

Our next stop that Friday evening after the swim meet was the OSU women's volleyball game. It was "Spike out Cancer" night so you got a discount if you wore pink, even the volleyball team had pink jerseys. Mom and I met up with Tami, Wes and their daughter Kayla for the game. The Beavs played Arizona and ended up sweeping them in 3 games. It was really fun and exciting to watch.....I may have to go to more OSU games!

Kayla cheering on the Beavs!

Tami and Kayla

Final score of the 3rd game

Saturday morning I took Tasha out for a walk in McDonald forest. It was gorgeous out and decided to bring the camera. Tasha was fairly cooperative, although sitting still is NOT one of her favorite things to do :).

Saturday night was Christina's "Dirty Thirties" mini-skirt bowling party. Christina is one of my technicians at work and has been talking about doing this for quite a while. I didn't have a mini skirt but since it was so close to Halloween I decided to wear my dirndl that my parents brought back from Germany last month....hey, at least it was a skirt! Mom was dressed in one of her magic outfits since she was going to put on a little show for the birthday girl.....at least the best she could in a noisy bowling alley. I convinced Matt to wear one of the Oktoberfest hats my parents brought back as well. It was a pretty crazy collection of people for this party....Christina wouldn't have had it any other way :)!!!

The birthday girl Christina...apparently the first skirt she tried on was a little too short and she was worried about getting kicked out of the bowling alley!

Tiina dressed up to look like Christina.....hey Tiina, since when does Christina wear glasses?

Tami dressed up as.....well, Tami.

Matt and Mom

Not a very good picture of me but it gives you an idea of my outfit...yes I got a lot of stares!

Laughing at trying to bowl in a mini-skirt

Will teaching Jacob how to bowl....I think Jacob was the only one who really cared what his score was.

Michael, Christina's hubby, concentrating on the task at hand.

Michael and Christina

Most of the Pharmacy gang (Tami, Tiina, Toni, Charlotte, and Christina)

Since my Mom was already here to do some magic at the birthday party, we thought it would be cool to invite some of our friend's kids over to the house for a little magic show. This would also give Mom some practice on some new tricks.

Justin hanging out on his dad Trevor's shoulders before the show.

Zoey and Kayla assisting in a rope trick.

Anna becoming an "assistant" magician.

Justin, Hayden and Karen watching the show.

Afterwards I took some photos for Mom since she was already dressed up.

And finally the last activity of the weekend......I took Tasha over to her brother's house for a few hours and I once again brought the camera along.....here are a few good pics.

Jim, Tasha's brother

Tasha

Anna and Drew playing with fire

Muddy thinks I have a treat for her :)

Hope you had a good weekend......we sure did!