Phew! December's almost done already?

Can you believe it's almost 2010?! We think this year flew by - We've been in California almost 6 months now (it feels like we just moved!) We hope all of our friends and family back home had a wonderful Christmas. Even though we couldn't be there with you, ours was still pretty good!

But let's start a little earlier than Christmas, we need to go back to the start of the month for this update.... Overall, December has been a pretty uneventful month for us here. Mostly full of work for the both of us and unfortunately we always seem to work opposite shifts so it didn't feel like we got to see one another a whole lot :(

Hannah's work has been busy busy, even more so since they were anticipating being slow so they cut a lot of sonographers that we could have used! She also got her first "get woken up from sleeping by your pager and hurry come to work!" call in which went very well - so Hannah must be learning stuff here after all! Nick's winding down his 2 jobs this month since school will be starting and has to now pick only 1 to keep for the new year. For now, it looks like Applebee's will be the job of choice due to the potential for more $ and more hours.

Oh yeah - Nick starts school January 6 (FINALLY!!!!) But of course we still ran into more school issues for him out here. He wasn't able to get placed into a dorm room so it looks like he is going to have to make the hour and a half commute to and from Bakersfield everyday :( It's been very frustrating for us that the school things haven't been going smoothly at all, but we have faith that things will work themselves out and it will all be water under the bridge.

We were able to walk down "Christmas Tree Lane" earlier this month! It was 2 mile walking stretch of houses decorated to the max with Christmas decorations. We took a few pictures for you to see too! Some of these Californians are a little unconventional in their theme choices!

Santa and Shamu?

A Toy Story Christmas

You can't tell real well, but this house was making snow! Quite the novelty :)

Oh Optimus Prime...

On Christmas day poor Nick got woken up at 7 a.m. to open gifts - He complained, but was secretly excited to get up early, too! Even the pets got some gifts which they really enjoyed! We spent the rest of our day with ice skating, going to see Sherlock Holmes, and eating a yummy dinner of friend brats (we even forgot to eat the pie, we were so full!)

Geo's new "Life is Good" Frisbee!

Geo smelled the bacon!

Even Echo seemed thrilled with his Christmas gifts (which are now lost under the couch somewhere...)

Nick's ready to co camping now!

And I can go camping too and now worry about bears :)

That's about it for our December - pretty calm and quite for us! Hopefully January will bring us some good stories to share and a better blog update for you to read! Thank you all for your generous gifts and warm wishes you sent our way this holiday season. We miss and love you all. We hope to be back in the mitten next Christmas for a visit! Have a safe and happy new year!

Nick and Hannah

Merry Christmas!!!!

GoBbLe gObBlE!!

Hello again! Finally our post - ready for some reading?

Nick started his new job at GameStop this month and so far so good - it sounds promising that his hours will start picking up a lot and that there may be a good chance that he'll be able to stay on at least for the weekends after the Holidays when he goes to school. He also got a job at Macaroni Grill (which was exciting as they sounded like they'd be very flexible with his other job). Unfortunately, they weren't very flexible at all and he was scheduled to work double shifts basically for his whole first week! So his employment there lasted all but one day and then he got a job at Applebees instead! It's been crazy. He had orientation, but they're waiting until after Turkey Day to give him shifts since they're kinda slow now. Fingers crossed they'll be more flexible than the Grill was!

One Saturday we decided to make Echo happy and take Geo out of the house for his first hiking adventure. Unfortunately - the trail we decided to try was not a good one at all. It appeared to start and stop many times and, in the end, felt really short. It was right up by Bass Lake, so when we finally decided to give up on finding the real trail, we took Geo to the beach so he could run (and dig!) Geo stirs up quite the fan club wherever he goes and we even ended up talking to a guy who told us a place to find a hidden geocache along our way. Of course we can't turn down a good geocache!

Here is Geo working on his route to China. He got tired so he had to lie on his side to continue digging.

In uglier dog news - Geo started his first "blow-out." Talk to anyone who has ever owned a husky and they will tell you of the horrific tales of the Fall and Spring blow-outs. Right now Geo's winter coat is coming in so his old coat is falling out. Take a look at our photo below - no it's not Echo lying there...it's just the fur only from Geo's rump. Ewww pretty much works as a caption here.

Working at a Children's Hospital finally caught up with Hannah. On one of her super call weekends (working 9 days in a row - 4 of them being at the mercy of her pager) she caught a cold from one of the many ill kids :( It wasn't the worst cold she ever had but it lasted like a week and a half and gave her laryngitis. Thank you Mom and Dad for not making Hannah a boy - because her nasty deep voice with laryngitis is so NOT attractive. Nick managed to escape the wrath of the bug. At least it wasn't the swine flu (which there's a lot of at the hospital too!) But working at the hospital has been pretty cool too! Hannah is learning a lot and she literally saw a 5 months old heart beat out of his chest in the OR. Crazy stuff right there! Working with kids by far beats out adults!

On the 19th - Downtown Clovis held it's annual "Enchanted Evening" (which I think was the same theme at Nick's senior prom!) It's the official kick-off to the holiday season here in Clovis. Downtown Clovis reminds us of an older downtown Holland. Pack some Geritol in your purse, and it's an senior citizens dream come true with ENDLESS (and we do really mean ENDLESS) antique shops. There are a lot of little family owned restaurants we want to get around to trying too...but that's another story. For the "Enchanted Evening", all the store stayed open way past usual (past 5 pm) and got decorated with Christmas lights and window decorations. The street were crowded with carolers and bands playing holiday tunes and every store you went into had a little table full of cookies, candies, and hot beverages. It was like a Christmas trick or treat you had to work hard for! It was cute and we had fun.

Yesterday Geo graduated! Class of November 25, 2009 and 6 o'clock. Congrats to him - now if only Echo would sit stay come.... But Echo does trump Geo in his cuddling ability. Echo's morning routine consists of getting up with Hannah before work than going back to sleep with Nick for a few more hours. That's the life. And please realize that yes, we have no social life therefore we talk about our pets a lot. We've apparently become senior citizens (complete with Hannah going to sleep WAY before midnight on any given day and most often on the couch).

To further prove that Hannah is an old women - she bought a sewing machine! Wooo! Hopefully she plans on making scrub pants to save some extra $$, but we'll see how that turns out. The first project was to make a cover for the pets ugly crate. Here's some pics for you (for momma Stultz especially!)

Phew - still with us here? This brings us to today! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!! We got up bright and early to run a 5K Turkey Trot over in Woodward Park! Yup- you heard right - Hannah managed to get Nick to run! We got some pretty kick butt socks for signing up for the run early too. We didn't do too good in the race, but for what it's worth we hadn't run in a month and mile 2 was ALL up hill (no joke!) And don't worry about our meal today moms and dads. We did alright with our feast consisting of chicken and gravy,mashed potatoes, brussel sprouts, green bean casserole, rolls, cranberry sauce, macaroni, and pumpkin pie! More than enough food(and carbs) for the 2 of us. Echo and Geo are even getting a special wet food meal (smells gross, looks grosser, but oh well) Nick works tomorrow morning - wish him luck. Hannah might go shopping or might sleep in - she's playing it by ear as this weekend she has a 5 day weekend WOOOOOOOO! We hope your month has been well and we miss you all!

Nick and Hannah (Echo and Geo)
PS leave comments! We like it when you do - and we want to know how many people are actually looking at this!

We've been slacking!

It's been almost a month since our last post! Geez! What have we been doing? Slacking apparently...

Actually, there hasn't been too many exciting this this month. Just lots of little things. Expect a big post on Thanksgiving or the day after to fill you in on everything!

We love you and Miss you all!

Nick and Hannah

Happy Halloween!!!!

Hello again friends and family!

The last 2 weeks were busy busy busy! Hannah had the pleasure of working 1o days worth of 10 hour shifts in a row plus 2 nights of on call during the week and 28 hours of additional on call on the weekend. What does that all mean? It hopefully means a great paycheck, but it also means she was EXHAUSTED beyond belief. Unfortunately it also meant that we missed the doggie costume contest and parade in downtown Fresno (bummer!...) Maybe next year.

Nick was also pretty busy as interviews started coming out of the woodworks. But - in case you haven't heard yet - he FINALLY GOT A JOB!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! He starts at GameStop this coming Friday. He also had interviews at AppleBees and a second interview tomorrow at Macaroni Grill, so it's possible he might be rocking the 2 job thing through the holidays.

The weekend so far for us has been low key. We wanted to go camping (But couldn't leave town due to Nick's interviews) so we improvised and pitched the tent in the living room! Yessiree - it barely fit, but we did it! We popped popcorn, bought some wine and had a Halloween movie extravaganza. Over 2 days we ended up watching such classics as Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the movie, not the show), The Witches, Midnight Meat Train, and even a few episodes of the Munsters. Saturday was one of Nick's interviews so he didn't dress up at all - but Hannah revived an old classic and dressed as Pippi Longstocking! (We only took a picture on the cell phone so we don't have one to post). But fear not - Nick got a little festive! He was an innocent bystander while Hannah was painting her nails and ended up with PUMPKIN TOE! (see photo below) hehe. We didn't have a party to go to at all (surprise surprise) but our friend Erin invited us over to pass out candy as she wouldn't be able to since she's a night shift nurse. Her neighborhood is pretty hoppin' around Halloween, so it was nice to have something to do and to see all the cute kids dressed up. There were a lot of Star Wars characters, princesses, and super heroes. It was fun -we can't complain!We filled our gumball machine with candy corn (we had black and orange M&Ms but we ate them too quick)

This toe is to make up for the fact that we were too busy to carve actual pumpkins this year!

Today (Sunday) we decided to hop in the car and see where the road East took us (we've been North and West already - but not East!) There's lots of lakes and small mountain towns up that way and we found the closest ski resort to us too - so Nick can get ready to snowboard once again. Otherwise the rest of our day was spent doing boring adult stuff like cleaning, laundry, and grocery shopping (BORING!).

And one of our favorite pictures of the week of Echo and Geo. Poor Echo gets tired of bunking with a smelly dog - so we occasionally catch him in the act of giving Geo a bath! He mostly licks Geo's head - we guess that's the worst part to Echo.

We hope you all had a great Halloween and we hope to hear from you soon!

We're not so different after all.

So Much for Warm and Sunny here in Cali!!!

What'd you do this weekend? Oh, nothing, just jumped out of a plane....

Happy Weekend before Nick's birthday! Woo!

Considering Hannah had a 4 day weekend, this was prime time to do all of our birthday celebrations. On Friday we had planned to go to the Fresno Fair (an annual event that they've been advertising a lot lately), but once we drove to it, we quickly realized why Hannah's co-workers advised us to only go during daylight hours. Fresno's fairgrounds are conveniently located smack dab in the center of the ghetto. The local community -eager to make a few bucks - was quick to offer "easy pull in and out" parking on the front lawns of their homes. Not feeling the safest, we decided against the fair and chose to spend the money on pizza, beer, and a good movie at home! Money and time better spent without fear of a good mugging.

If you haven't heard/guessed by now, Nick's big birthday gift from Hannah was a trip skydiving!!!!! It was in one word - awesome. We both went tandem - so nothing like being strapped to a complete stranger plummeting 120mph from 10,500ft. Hannah learned that she is no more graceful in the air than she is on the ground and had a much rougher landing than Nick (but for what it's worth, her tandem instructor did say that that was the fastest he's approached the ground in a landing in a while, so it's ok that it wasn't completely smooth...and the grass stains washed out just fine.) The plane in the picture is the one we jumped from! It was so tiny I didn't think we'd all fit, but we did (A total of 5 people!) When asked if we would do it again - that is an unquestionable YES. We recommend it to all our family and friends (it's not as scary as you might think and TOTALLY worth it! You only live once!)

Our jumpsuits look so good, we think we might wear them all the time!

And what's a birthday without cake!? Here's our annual Nick and his b-day cake photo! (his cupcakes say Happy Birthday Moose! :) )

Sunday wasn't nearly as exciting as Saturday (but can you really top freefalling?) but it was still fun. We went for a hike through one of the many trails at the Sierra National Forest , just outside Yosemite (about 1hr away). Geo didn't come along for this one, but we learned that all the trails that are a part of this system are dog friendly - so hopefully he'll be able to join us. We'd bring Echo, but he seems to have an aversion to leash walking :). The trail was beautiful with a lot of little waterfalls and hardly any people. We'll probably be back!


On our way back home we stopped in the cute mountain town of Oakhurst (Geo's hometown) to see the famed Talking Bear. Unfortunately, the bear had a frog in his throat - so we may never know what he actually says. It's a bummer Oakhurst is a little too far from the Children's Hospital - otherwise we'd definitely prefer to live there over Fresno!


Monday was just an all around crappy day. No sunshine at all and it cooled down to the 60's. One of those days to just veg out - which is what we did! Oh we did have our first experience recycling cans/bottles here though. Quite possibly the most inefficient process EVER! There are no machines you just plop the cans in.... oh no, that's too easy. You have to drive to designated recycle areas (the one we went to was the size of a large hot dog stand, maybe), wait in line, separate all your cans/plastics/light glass/dark glass into separate dirty disgusting trash can things, wait for a guy to weigh them all, and get piddly change for at least a good half hour spent doing this (we got $2.44 for a lot of stuff). And Fresno is California's leader in recycling. Don't know how that works. We miss Meijers.

That is about it for now - We'll leave you with a few quotes we're sicking of hearing in Fresno!
- "Fresno must be a lot smaller than what you're used to, huh?" (Why people assume that Fresno's population of .5 million is small is beyond us - I guess when you're comparing it to LA, but to Grand Rapids....not really.)

- "It's a lot different here than it was when you lived in Minnesota, right?" (Good question, I'll let you know as soon as we move to Minnesota. You'd be amazed how many times people have asked us this.)

- "Fresno's a great place to live and there's a ton to do! You just have to drive 3 hours and you're lots of places!" (We don't consider driving 3 hours to get somewhere still doing something in Fresno. That's like driving from GR to Chicago EVERY weekend. Gas prices don't phase Californians apparently. No ones Dutch here. So as far as staying in Fresno goes....we don't see ourselves here for long.)

Ahh, nothing like a good war reenactment to wind up your weekend.

Hello once again! This past weekend was probably one of our busiest yet! So here we go.....

Geo finally got enough of his boosters that we felt safe to bring him out around other dogs. Translation: DOG PARK, WOOO! Geo was like the popular kid on the playground - everyone wanted to be around him/pet him/ pick him up etc etc which he just eats up. He couls care less about us petting him, but as soon as a complete stranger comes up to him - he turns into a total ham. So much for "stranger danger." As for the other dogs, he was very skiddish. Granted most of the other dogs were twice his size, but still - grow some cahones Geo (even though we had them surgically removed earlier....)

Geo struggles with the concept of Fetch as Nick demonstrates here.

Here's Geo with a scary German Shepherd.

Saturday Evening there was a very nice work event that was to benefit the heart center at Children's hospital. Ironically, the event is called "Evening Under the Stars" and is held in a completely enclosed tent. But it was at a golf course in the very very very very ritzy part of town (multi-million dollar homes we're talking about here). Nick and I fancied ourselves up and went to hob nob with the doctors (can you say free dinner!) It was a very nice night although we were the youngest people there so felt mildly out of place - especially when the music/dancing started. There was a 10 person cover band cleverly named Run4Cover, who, to the best of our knowledge, decided that they were going to start a band one day when they didn't get booed off a karaoke stage. It was unique to say the least. And, an apology to our parents reading this, but somewhere between having children and hitting your 40's, the ability to have any cool dance moves just flies right out the window.

Aren't we cute!

Sunday was a hoot. Fresno happens to hold the largest Civil war reenactment in the western US. To honor all of our k-12 history teachers - we had to go! We even got in for half off - due to the fact we didn't have enough cash on us for 2 tickets and the women at the gate didn't want to turn us away. It pays to never carry cash ( though not so cool when you have to use credit to buy a $.99 burger at Wendy's)! We saw President Lincoln (who, like Elvis, is still very much alive), Sojourner Truth, and Walt Whitman. It was entertaining enough - but we don't think we have to go to another one anytime soon. In case you were wondering, in the battle we watched, the Confederates one.

That's about it for now! We'll definitely have more to update very soon! We miss you all! We'll leave you with a lovely photo of Nick and his new friends!

Fresno, CA - where else can you find hooker statues?

Just an update!

We can't say we've done anything too exciting that warrants photos this time around...so everyone will just get a quick update!

1) YEA - today (Sept 28) is officially our 3 year anniversary. We haven't killed eachother yet, so we must be doing something right!

2) Geo is getting big! He no longer looks like "little brother" to Echo. He's starting to run with us, he's mastered look, sit, and go to your home (going into crate). He's also managed to teach himself how to climb chainlink, put Echo's entire head in his mouth, and to take running leaps onto the couch. We're so proud (kind of).

3) This is Hannah's last official week of working 8 hour days! Starting next week she'll work 4 days, 10 hours each. Yea 3 day weekends! This is especially good when it comes to taking call. With last weekend on call - Hannah worked 12 days in a row (YUCK). And unfortunately her call was over Clovis Fest - so we were unable to go share with you those festivities (maybe next year, right?) Other than the stuff we miss - Fresno/Clovis is still pretty boring...


I suppose that's it for now. Keep in touch!

Happy (almost) October!

Fresno's Gone to the Dogs!

Let us tell you about our grand doggie dilemma!

I (Hannah) am a definite dog person. Don't get me wrong - I love Echo the cat, he's very entertaining, but cats just aren't the same companions that dogs are. When Nick was going to leave for CO - we decided to get a dog to keep me company! Yipee!!! Not wanting to have to deal with potty training issues all alone, we went the rescue dog route and adopted an Australian cattle dog! She was originally rescued from a collector (one of those crazy folks you see on animal planet with 50+ pets roaming around their house) and since her rescue has been bounced around from shelter to shelter :( To their best guess she was 2-3 years old.

We named her Caldera ( a geology term on Nick's behalf) and were very pleased with her demeanor - she was SOOOOO mellow. That was fabulous seeing as we decided to go the bigger dog route in spite of the apartment lifestyle. Little dogs are great, but I wanted one who could go running with me and hiking with Nick. ANYWAYS...she was so mellow - she wouldn't eat. At all. We called the shelter and they said she was probably just anxious about a new home. That seemed all nice and believable until she tossed her cookies at 6 p.m., 2 a.m. and one more time at 5 a.m. on a work night. We had Caldera one week before we took her to the vet. The diagnosis? Pneumonia!!! They wanted me to spend $500 on lab tests and THEN hospitalize her. I know we're living the big spender Cali lifestyle, but can you say heck no?! So, after much tears and deliberation...Caldera was brought back to the shelter in hopes of finding her a new home (FYI - it's a no kill shelter, so do't worry folks, she won't be put down!)

That all happened the week before Nick left... when Nick came back, I still wanted a dog! And since he'd be home more to help out...we could go the puppy route!!! With Momma Anderson in tow telling us we were crazy (as she drove back to Cali with Nick after the CO fiasco and kept us company out here for a week) we puppy hunted! And we would like to introduce you to the newest (and cutest!) member of our little family. This is Geo! A (now) 7- week old Siberian husky. Despire potty training frustrations - he's been good so far and Echo had been EXTREMELY tolerant. He lets the pup bite and play with him and they even sleep together. We'll see how that keeps up once the dog is bigger than the cat! He's got one blue eye and one brown. In a few weeks, he'll be enrolled in puppy school and I'm sure we'll have stories about that! Stay tuned!

Here he is looking very devious, ready to kill the cat (even though Echo gives him a run for his money!)

In Case You Were Wondering....

This is our weekly forecast here in Fresno. Hmm Looks like it gets a bit chilly come Sunday - but I think we'll make it.

Nick can't decide what "C" state to live in

Let me explain the school dilemma that poor Nick is dealing with.

The original plan was we would move to Fresno and Nick would take a semester off and resume college at Fresno state starting the winter semester. Seemed like a pretty fool proof plan, yes? No.
If you haven't already heard - California's economy blows. We traded Michigan's problems for Cali's problems. At least it feels like home right? haha. Anyways, the economy is so bad, that the colleges got hit with budget cuts forcing them to close admission until next fall. EEEk! Nick didn't want to take a year off!!! The solution? He had already been accepted to Western State in Gunnison, CO prior to moving out here....so why not kick school in the butt, move out there, and finsish school in 2 years rather than hanging out here and it taking 3. Although I was not thrilled about being alone - we decided we would make it work. So Nick left on a Wednesday morning.

16 hours later. Nick arrived in CO!!! yipee!! But wait - there's more. If you've never heard of Gunnison, that;s because there is NOTHING there. It's a tiny little mountain town about 3 hours away from any good civilized area. Nick had a revelation that (although enjoying small towns) he did NOT want to pay 26k a year to feel that secluded from everything. The new solution? Drive 16 hours back to Fresno on Saturday - work on getting residency in California while taking some time off and spend a lot less on school.

And we recently found some good news that we need you all to keep your fingers and toes crossed on. The university in Bakersfield (about an hour and 45 min south of Fresno) is still accepting applications for only a few majors - Geology being one of them! So if all goes well, Nick won't have to take this winter off and can get school done that much sooner! And then possibly easily transfer up to Fresno for the Fall. And also might be able to finish in less time then it would take in Colorado!

Phew - did you get all that? It's been a crazy week. So in summary. Nick came to California, Left California, and came back to California. I guess he loves that 105 degree weather -who wouldn't :)

We've been here a month already!

WHOA! We're way behind on this! First of all- welcome to our blog. An easy way for you all to keep track of what's going on since we moved far far away from the Great Lakes State. It's been a crazy ride so far. In short: There was a dog fiasco, a "Nick moved to Colorado and then came back" fiasco, waiting WAY too long for a couch fiasco, and the ever ongoing "holy crap - California is expensive!" fiasco.

I suppose before I go into the past and explain everything that's gone on during our settling in, I should show you around our new place. Finally furnished and lived in - this is our humble apartment in Clovis, CA.



Our Living Room and Couch we waited weeks for!

Le Master Bedroom. We need wall art still.

Master bathroom (aka Hannah's BR) attached to walk-in closet.

Our computer room

Dining Room (our table fits six... we need more friends) and kitchen

Check back soon - We still need to tell you all about Clovis/Fresno and about our mishaps and adventures!