Gavin is OnE

 This weekend we celebrated Gavin's first birthday!  It's hard to believe this little guy is one already.  

Alisa and Mike had the party at Nick's Pizza.  

We both got our five minutes with the guy of the hour!  

The cake was made by a family friend Angela... it was pretty impressive if you ask me.  Angela needs to start up her own bakery.  I tell her every time I see her!

Happy Birthday Gavin!!!!!

Colon Cancer Awareness Month

Okay, call me a snot (and many do) but am I the only one getting kinda tired of hearing about breast cancer??

Now...don't get me wrong, it's a horrible thing to get. But as a colon cancer patient I feel like the red-headed stepchild of cancers. Noone wants to talk about colon cancer...b/c well, that'd mean talking about butts and poop (to put it mildly). But BREASTS! breasts are glorious....we must do everything in our power to save the breasts! The great american breast! So you have both men and women fighting to save the breasts. Sooooo much money and research goes into it. I feel smothered by pink ribbons.

This was taken from the blog of Becca... http://thecolonchronicles.blogspot.com.  Becca is a friend of one of my friends, Kathy at work.  She lost her life to colon cancer at the age of 30.  Her blog posts prior to her death are truthful and well written.  They have been turned into a documentary that I am on the waiting list at work to see, called I Am A Visitor in Your World.  Based on what I have read in her blog posts... this documentary should be amazing.  

I am a nurse.  An endoscopy nurse at that.  While I am not the one who tells the patient... "you have cancer."  I am the one who is left standing there, when the doctor bows his head and walks away, leaving me with a scared patient and their significant other.  Those words are hard.  They represent the unknown.  They represent the beginning of a very uneasy path.  Those words put you right in the middle of a healthcare debacle that messes with every aspect of your life.  The old people usually choose to just let it be... colon resections in the later years are just way to risky... but the young ones... those are the ones you cry with.  The ones that are brand new mothers, and have this rectal bleeding that their doctor just attributes to hemorrhoids from carrying a child... only to find out  that it's colon cancer.  The guy who comes in because he's been feeling a little tired and his parents both had polyps, and he just wants to make sure that he doesn't... but guess what, genetics weren't on his side.  He has colon cancer and his worst fear... a colostomy bag is definitely in his future.  There are so many stories to share.  I like to stick with the good ones... like people who come in  early, find out they have cancer, have their colon resections, and now they are cancer free.  Or those people who come and get their screenings and we don't find a thing.  Those are who we are hoping for.  

It's COLON CANCER AWARENESS month!  So pass the good word and get it done.  I have poked and prodded everyone that I could about this.  I can poke and prod no longer.  Lately, after seeing so many young people diagnosed.  I went to a GI doctor myself.  I was having an upper endoscopy done anyways, so he added on a colonoscopy even though I wasn't truly due in the eyes of insurance companies till I was 40.   Mom had cancer, mom's sister had cancer, and polyps run rampid on my paternal side.  Sign me up!  

Here's how it goes:
Clear liquids the day before...
Drink this concoction that starts out sort of tasting like cough medicine and ends up tasting like salt water.  It's bad.  Completely awful.  
Go to bathroom over and over for about 2 hours.  
Go to sleep
Wake up in the wee morning hours to drink that awful stuff again.... no cheating... drink every last drop.  
Go to the bathroom over and over again for about 1 hour. 
Then get yourself to your appointment.
Get drugs.
Have the best nap of your life.
Find out that your cancer free.
Eat food... the best food you will ever taste!

Exhibit A:  Clear liquids the day before

L to R:  Picture 1, Cheers to drinking this awful prep.  Picture 2,  not gonna lie, that was my true face after  just the first sip.  Picture 3, next day with my IV before going in.

Thankfully I have a healthy colon with not one polyp found.  My next colonoscopy will be when I am 40.
Do you know when YOURS will be!!??  Find out your family history, and act accordingly!

Happy Birthday, Dave!

   

"Where do you want to go for your birthday Dave?"-Andrea

"The Brahaus!!!!!"-Dave

And there you have it... they don't know if it's year 6 or 7, but that's where Dave has chosen to spend his birthday the past few years.  We were there!!!

Love this place!

 How can you not with pretzels and liters of beer bigger than your face!!!?

the start of a new decade

Let me travel back 2 weeks ago when birthday week started.... ahhhh.... Adam surprised me with upgraded tickets in first class.... food, sweet food....  let me stretch those legs right out, don't mind if I do.... and something to drink... sure why not.... I'll take a screwdriver.... oh, yes, I will have another... we made it to Miami in no time.

Once we made it to Miami we got our rental car and started trucking South on US Route 1 till we reached the very tip toppity end.  KEY WEST.  We stayed at LaTeDa, a 15 room bed and breakfast.  Which also happened to have one of the best drag shows in the city.  Sign us up.  We bought tickets to see EyeCons for that night.  Christopher Peterson was the man who brought nearly 10 different famous women to life.  It was great and worth every penny!  A great welcome to the city.

Day 2, we bought tickets for the Conch Train.  A tourist attraction if you will taking you all over the island and pointing out all points of interest.  It was fun.  I am always a sucker for bad jokes and this conch tour was full of them...i.e.  "There are no squirrels on this island, but we sure do have a lot of nuts!"

Da-dum-cha!

It was a great tour where we hopped on and off and were able to do that for 2 whole days.

Earlier we bought tickets for a sunset cruise.  We signed ourselves up for the Ocean Commotion and had a great time.  It was unlimited beer, margaritas, and appetizers.  We met all sorts of people... those from Minnesota  New York, and Ohio... all there to get away from the cold.  And that, we did.  It was really quite beautiful... and if you don't feel like you are on vacation when you are on a sunset cruise.. I don't know what kind of person you are.  The last day of my 20's was glorious.  

My actual birthday February 25th, was everything I hoped.  My birthday wish was to swim with a dolphin.  Luna and I were assigned together and we became fast friends.  She was so sweet and I will never forget her.  To go on my soapbox here... it was incredibly amazing to be that close to another being.  I got to shake her fins, pet her, make her jump, spit water at her (and she returned the water!), and swim with her and another dolphin Flagler.  We did all of this at Dolphin Research Center, a suggestion from my friend Stephanie who also swam with a dolphin there.  After looking into it and learning that the money we pay goes more to the dolphin then the people working there, I was sold.  Adam also joined in on the swim too.  On our drive back to Key West, we stopped at the marina to check out deep sea fishing for the next day.  That was something I have never done that I really wanted to do, but after talking with some captains we just weren't ready to pay the money they wanted.  Also they wanted to take us out on a 6 hour trip, and I was only willing to do 4 hours.  I was worried about boredom, sickness, and with the ants in my pants.  I can't sit still for very long, where would I go in the middle of the sea???  So we passed.

For dinner we went to Hot Tin Roof... where there is a fabulous sun set... of course it took me too long to get my act together and we were basically running down Duval Street to catch it.  

"Why are you rushing?" -Adam

"Well, the sun is not going to wait for us!!!!!!!!!!!" -Erica

The food was great... and the key lime pie... (to diiieee foorrrr)

*side note* I hate when people use the phrase "to die for,"  I really do, it just gets under my skin.  I mean I love food but I never would actually die for a piece of chocolate or a juicy steak...  *end side note*

Let's just say it was the most excellent key lime pie...ever.

So instead of fishing on day 3, we went biking!!!  Adam and I rented some good old fashioned bicycles and just rode them around the entire island stopping at some of the sights along the way.  Key West is very bike friendly.  4 miles long, 2 miles wide.  We biked it all.  After a few hours we were done, and went back to the hotel for a retreat at the pool.  Adam claims he will never drive a bike behind me again.  Apparently, I brake too much.... eh?  And I feel the very same.  I mean when it's a four way street, and there are no cars, is stopping really necessary on a bicycle?  I guess we will just have to ride side by side forever.

That night we headed to Mallory Square.  Mallory Square is a huge area where street performers gather and do crazy things for money.  They aren't shy about asking you for money either... and the funny thing is each and every single one we watched mantra is... "Stay in school, kids."  This is all happening while you have a drink in your hand, and the sun is setting.  It's really neat, and we found a sweet spot on the water to watch the sun go down.  It was kind of cloudy, but pretty still.

Our Key West leg of the trip was over... and on to Marco Island we went.  It was about a 4 hour drive, and since neither one of us did research on the drive, we were happily surprised, that the drive was thru the Florida Everglades.  It was so cool to see gator after gator after gator.  However, we did not stop for pictures.  Everyone knows what a gator looks like, right.  We left super early from Key West and by the time we got to our hotel, it wasn't ready.  We went to lunch at the Snook Inn.  We were by far the youngest in the place by 30 years, and loved every minute.  People watching is great when it comes to old people... 

We had a nice beautiful hotel room with a kitchen and backyard.  Which we ended up spending more time that we liked in... since the sun hid its face most of the time.  It was in the low 60s and cloudy, so it was a total bummer.  We did swim despite this, and sat in the hot tub twice.  We walked the beaches, went to Naples to shop with the rich and famous, and went miniature golfing.  It was actually quite relaxing.  A complete 180 from the commotion that goes on in Key West.

Our last leg of the trip was good old Orlando.  We haven't been back to Orlando since we moved to IL in December 2009, so Adam and I made our first stop Bubbalous... an amazing BBQ joint that we loved dearly.  They didn't change a thing, I ate like a pig, and I was full till the next day.  We then went to the Mall of Milenia... my old stomping grounds.  Following this we took a ride past our old condo, our old shady Publix, but skipped the state "corrections facility."  We stopped at BJs... and enjoyed a peanut butter pazooki.  The waitress comes up and starts telling us the specials, and I say... "We just want a pazooki!"  which for those of my 9 readers who don't know is an ooooyyy goooeeyy cookie topped with ice cream... Simple, but they do it best.

After that we headed to one of the hotels Adam used to work for.  One of his friends was able to score us a sweet deal there.  Soon after arriving, Ashley arrived.  I took the elevator 19 floors down and jumped on her when the elevator doors opened, nearly knocking us both over.  We stayed at the pool for a bit chit chatting and catching up in our short time together.  That night I planned a get together at Bar Louie so that all of our friends who wanted could meet up with us.  It ended up being a great time seeing everyone.  Including a small Disney reunion between Ash, Dolline, Kelli, and I.  I was so happy that those who did came.  It was a late night of drinking, we came home ate ceaser salads, took 2 Tylenol and went to bed.

Our final day of vacation was spent at Disney World.  (Is it totally obvious that I planned this entire vacation!?)  I mean what better way to end?  We started at the Magic Kingdom, where I got to see the new Fantasyland.  It was pretty neat.  It even made me want to ride Dumbo.  They made it look so much cooler.  We circled the park, hitting every necessary ride, and then were off to Hollywood Studios.  We did the same there... even getting to ride Tower twice! I even got a special hug from my favorite little pirate Jack and I gave Jack a treasure of chopsticks.  He loved them!  Our day ended at Epcot.  I got to ride the new Test Track and of course Soarin'!  Larsen and his wife Stephanie, showed up for a brief minute, and Ashley surprised us with a VIP seating for Illuminations.  It was the coolest thing, we were basically standing on a barge on the water where the fireworks are shot from.  We got to watch the guy who controls everything, and ask him questions after the show.

I seriously had the best time ever this vacation.  It was a great 7 days of doing what I wanted when I wanted.      All that was missing were my friends from back home.  Adam was a trooper and survived 617 pictures being taken and he cheersed me every day at dinner, Happy Birthday.  We seriously celebrated all week long, and no other birthday will ever compare!