Falon’s World

Today we slept a long time and when we got up we ran a whole bunch of errands – priced fencing materials, bought dog food, stopped by a coworker’s house, hooked up the air conditioner unit in the bedroom (thanks Dad!), fixed the leash rack and made a key rack . It was a good day!

The leash rack started like this:

After adjusting for the added weight, it looks like this:

This project turned out really good too:

I love working on projects like this!!

Eric wanted to add some photos to his portfolio so he asked if I would pose for a short jaunt on our property. It was a really warm day with loads of bugs so neither of us lasted that long before we wanted to head back to the house. The photos turned out really good though…talented photographer.

You can click on any of the images to see it larger…

What do you think?

After six years of school, and a particularly difficult, grueling and miserable last year, my parents agreed to throw a party. Partly for me, but partly just to get friends together to have a good time and some drinks. We had volleyball/badminton set up and some GR friends came too. It was a good time.

My poor parents had so many problems getting the party ready to go but we all had a good time – thanks Mom and Dad!!!!

Eric wanted to take some professional photos of a couple of things for someone and was trying to figure out a way to do it with his make-shift dropcloth (a fleece blanket draped over a chair). I wanted him to have the best to work with, so I gave him his gift early…a “real” dropcloth set-up.

The make-shift dropcloth shots(sometimes it fell and freaked Mason and Kya out, it didn’t bother Midas one bit though lol):

Eric also took some…rather creapy photos of himself too:

With the new backdrop:

I’ll post a couple of each of the kids but the whole set is HERE.

Although some of them were pretty funny – for example, this is Midas and Kya before I came to help pose:

After I made an appearance to assist:

Mason needs someone to help him pose only because his enthusiasm can be a little hard to control sometimes:

Adam happened to already be dressed up for another event so we snagged him for some photos too:

Today it was cold but clear and sunny so we took the gang to the Open Space Land in Allendale. We had a slight problem when some idiot girl let her off-lead German Shepherd approach us where I had corralled my three off the trail in sit/stays for them to pass. I despise oblivious dog owners…

The gang had a blast though!

Unfortunately, I began to feel sick right after we went bowling and that seeped over into Christmas . So, I ended up missing out on both of Eric’s Mom’s side of the family’s Christmas’ (wow, did that make any sense??) and staying at my parents’ the whole time.

We celebrated Christmas early (so as not to have to bring everything up North and then back again). I took pictures of Eric’s gifts to me, but there are no photos of my gifts to him as yet (why is that Eric??? hmmm? lol).

ETA: the photos are up now

This is the laptop/camera bag I got him. I also got him a new lens (visible in the last photo):

At my parents’, we started out by giving all 5 dogs their gifts:

After that, the immediate fam opened gifts.

Eric, Adam and I made two large-ish framed photos for Mom:

Dad got her some very nice sweaters:

We got Dad tickets to see Larry the Cable Guy at the end of January and Mom got him a new (tiny!) laptop:

Eric and I got Adam a gift card to American Eagle:

Eric got some reflectors for his camera that he had been really wanting and some pajama pants, white tees (badly needed!) and some new socks:

I got a new toaster oven (for Eric too) from my brother:

some clothing and books from my mom and…

A NEW BOOKCASE (from Mom and Eric)!!!! Isn’t it awesome????

We did some seating rearranging and then did it all over again with Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Sheila:

Aunt Sheila made me a sweater:

Some people had smart comments to make, to which I responded:

Adam is wearing the blanket Aunt Sheila made him. Then he wanted to try on my new sweater:

His boobs may be bigger than mine…LOL

The rest of the time we lounged around and put concerted effort into relaxing…including a 3-D movie:

So…I have been MIA for…months now. A lot has happened but with school…I haven’t had time to write. This will be a quick catch-up…sadly truncated but the best I can do at this time.

PHOTOS

We shot some more engagement photos and also a wedding at the end of the summer. I have decided that weddings are not very enjoyable for me but I ended up taking some stuff that, after Eric’s skillful manipulation in photo shop, turned out spectacularly! He’s started playing with us having our own photography business “On The Run” but I like to just be the back up and not have anyone depend on my shots. These are two of my favorite photos (that I actually took):

KYA

Kya is a “normal” dog now, 100% with me and 95% with Adam and Eric. She’s always happy when I come home and loves to cuddle. She’s learned to wrestle with me, which is hilarious – she has pent up energy that she doesn’t know what to do with that results in her doing this weird head-body shake thing. She still adores Midas and her and Mason have just gotten to the point where they will play together, carefully. She barked and tried to block me when we had friends over awhile back – something totally new, but perhaps she’s feeling some loyalty.

MASON

This is not the only blog that has been neglected, Leapin’ Labs is sadly behind as well. I will have to catch up on that later. Mason is doing spectacularly with SAR. Really progressing well and will hopefully be taking his first test in the next month or so. We have quite a few pictures, but they’re of course not posted yet. He’s got the hang of the game and we’re just starting to add things to make it more difficult.

MIDAS

We had our very first agility trial. We NQ’d our first run, Jumpers with Weaves. Midas was puking his guts out the whole day and I was about to yank him from our second run but decided to go with my gut and run him – we got FIRST PLACE!!!! There are videos, the first one is here and the second one here. He got worse as the night went on and we had to pull from the second day. Eric was at a football game so the only photo we have is this crappy one I took with my phone:

SCHOOL

Ah school. The bane of my existence. It has taken up so much of my time. After the first couple of weeks, I started to get there around 7 am and not leave until 7 pm. Usually just going home to do more homework or more studying. It was a miserable existence and I’m so glad it’s done. It got to the point where I was unhappy all the time because I didn’t have time for anything remotely enjoyable. I lived from homework assignment to homework assignment. I never comprehended just how difficult this semester would be. The last 9 days we had 13 tests, three projects and that’s not including the homework assignments. Now I’ve started my clinical rotations – I’m at Blodgett for Micro and absolutely love it. I can only hope the rest of them go as well.

DIET AND EXERCISE

This summer I went on a massive diet and lost 30 lbs. Then I joined Snap Fitness and gained around 5 lbs back. Hopefully muscle. There are no After photos of me since working out, maybe later. These are the photos from my weight loss though:

I think this photo shows the most change, although most people comment on the change in my face…

FRIENDS

Through the misery of school, I spent an enormous amount of time with Josh and Rebecca and we’ve all become quite close. They’re some of the best friends that I’ve ever had. Here are some photos Eric took of us:

There are many, many more, including some really good ones of Adam and I:

The rest of the “good” photos are HERE. Then there are a bunch of funny ones HERE. Enjoy

THE DEATH OF OLD GOLDIE

We decided to drive Old Goldie to Marquette for the football game, leaving at 2 am. We were just north of Gaylord when Travis (who was driving at the time because Eric was falling asleep) hit a deer….totaling the van. I had to call Mom and Dad at 5 am to come and get us and we had to wait for 4 hours at the local Big Boy. The entire experience was miserable for me, compounded by some rude and heartless comments made by Mike and having to leave the van up there for $30/night…there’s no happy ending to this story. We are now down to one vehicle.

THE FUTURE

Hopefully I will be able to keep this updated better in the future…but we will see.

Oh, and now I have red hair:

We decided to take the dogs all out to the river on this very warm day for a nice swim. After the last experience with Kya attempting to dock jump and swim, we bought her a Life Jacket, which up until today she had not worn outside of the kitchen.

Today was the day:

She swam like a champ, a little slower to jump in (don’t know if she’ll ever have the leap like Midas and occasionally Mason has), but fairly competitive in speed in the water…

I think they had a good time:

I know we did!

Woke up on Saturday morning relatively early considering how late some went to bed on Friday, to rain. Not a storm, just a steady drizzle. I was a little apprehensive about going canoeing when it wasn’t looking so great but was told the weather forecast was to be 75 and sunny. So, we headed out to the rental, did some dropping and exchanging of vehicles (Old Goldie played her part in that) and then we started out on the river.

We had an odd number of people, so Nick took a Kayak:

Just like last year, we saw some birds on the river, not as many though:

Some members of the canoe trip were a little more…risky, than others:

Then it started to thunder off in the distance, then a little closer, until it started to rain. I was already freezing, so I took Nick’s generous offer and put his sweatshirt on:

We came upon a bank where there were several people using a rope to swing out over the water and plunge into the river. Eric started insisting that everyone stop because he wanted to do it, so we did. Then he got up there, and was too scared to go first haha. So, after several other people went, Eric began to prepare, I was watching from below when all of a sudden SPLOOSH! I was under water. What in the hell??? Ben had been coming down beside my canoe, slipped in the clay bottom/drop-off, landed on the end and opposite side from where I was and catapulted me into the river. At least the water was very warm lol. After we had fished out what we could, I watched Eric again prepare and he swung out, I yelled when to let go in case he couldn’t see (he took his glasses off), and he screamed like a girl and thunked back into the hillside before swinging back out and eventually letting go – it was hilarious .

Shortly after we dumped the remaining water out of my canoe, we headed out, although we made several stops along the way, to peel off drenched clothing, go to the bathroom, and drink:

Next thing we know, it starts pouring (we were back on the water again) and thundering like crazy. The water was coming down so hard and fast we could hardly see, let alone dodge any submerged stumps or trees. It was really, really cold and the river water really warm, steam was lifting off into the sky. We stopped and got into the water to have a little warmth:

Then the weather cleared up, the skies turned blue and the sun came out:

We turned a bend in the river and saw this:

So of course, the guys wanted to stop to prove their manliness by jumping off yet another something-in-the-air:

Eric jumped again…well sort of, he lowered himself from the branches pretty far before he let go:

We left from there and it downpoured again, complete with thunder.

This soaked my second borrowed sweatshirt and then I was down to just a towel (not mine either):

Kelsey and I were both freezing and shivering like crazy by this point. Then the sun came out again (are you sensing a theme?):

By the time we reached the end of the trip, it was clouding up and looking like rain again so we hurried and packed up the van and headed back to the cabin.

Ben exercised the boys for us (and Kya a little):

(he’s hitting a ball with the bat and they’re retrieving, if you click on the photo, there’s a note)

We gathered around the campfire for awhile, I was freezing still and couldn’t get warm:

That didn’t last long before 1/2 of us succumbed to the need to nap (and get warm). Eric woke me up awhile later, I ventured outside for a bit, but a couple of people had not gotten up from their nap and shortly after I went to bed for the night. Eric came in much later after playing Euchre for several hours.

Today at work things were a little slow, so I started to play around with some photos in PhotoShop. I’m just now becoming a little more comfortable, enough to explore some of the options. This is what I came up with:

I also did this one from the other night:

I thought they turned out kind of neat . (I know, for those PhotoShop users that may read this blog post, I didn’t do a whole lot – but I still liked the effect)