My soap box!

Just the other day, our friend told us about the calzones at Kendall Pond Pizza. He lives just down the street, so he walked down and picked up a calzone. Nate was psyched to try this calzone so today he ordered one. Because we were home, he decided to try and place an order over the internet. After about 40 minutes, I asked him if he got an email confirmation and if they charged his credit card. He said yes and then he said he was going to call them. He called and called and called and called... the phone would just ring or they would answer, say, 'Please hold' and then hang up. I tried calling too and it would just ring and ring or they would answer it and quickly hang up. After about an hour and a half of waiting, Nate decided to drive over there. I guess the food wasn't ready and the order wasn't processed because Nate cancelled the order and is on his way to another pizza place to pick up some dinner.

Our vote --

gets...

Sorry Kendall Pond Pizza, no more business for you from me or Nate...

My version of the Nate story

This is Nate: 

I had met Nate in one of those random ways in which all of a sudden your world turns off kilter and everything changes. I had just moved to the area and started swimming and playing ultimate frisbee in order to meet new people. I had been here for about 2 months and was asked to go to a tournament. I had asked the person that asked me to go to the tourney for a ride since I knew nothing about New England. They said 'yes' and gave me the address to their house where I would meet up with them and 3 other guys to ride to Vermont. I got stuck sitting in between Nate (who I had never met) and Guy (who I also never met) in the back seat of an Audi for 2 hours. Mike drove and Rick sat shotgun. These 4 guys had been friends for years and sat there and joked around most of the time. Then Nate brought out an outdoor gear magazine/catalog. I want to say it was a Mountain Hardware catalog, but I'm not 100% on that one. I asked him if he liked to camp and he said, 'yeah, sorta.' Then I asked him if he liked to ski or snowboard and he said, 'yes'. I asked him if he liked to surf and he said, 'yes'. He was an amazing conversationalist back then too.. :-) I then was like, 'can we be friends because I want to learn how to snowboard and surf?' I don't think Nate knew or knows how to deal with overly-forward girls so I think he was really scared by the friendship request (this was before the days of Facebook) and he was like, 'yeah, sure... whatever'. We got to the tournament and played and kinda went our separate ways... except that I believe Nate got hurt at the tourney and since I wasn't getting a lot of playing time since I was new to the group and he was hurt, I think we talked a bit more, but nothing crazy.

Fast forward a few months, I was still playing frisbee and swimming and still trying to meet people in this cold land that I have learned to call home. I get this random group email from Nate with a picture of Sunday River getting dumped on and the email said, 'Who wants to go skiing?'. I instantly emailed him back and was like, 'I do!  I do! But remember, I don't know how so can you teach me yet?' .... and silence...

Fast forward another month or two, I decided to play indoor frisbee during the winter because I still didn't know how to ski or snowboard and I wasn't sure what I was going to do with all these cold months. I went to play pickup and Nate shows up one day. I was sitting on the bench and he sits down near me and says, 'Nice cankles'... yeah, this guy... he's got a way with words!!!

So let's fast forward though all the complicated stuff and bumpy parts in our lives and get closer to today. Nate and I have been living together for over 5 years and the boy is just as amazing as ever. He puts up with sooo much crap from me (and many others) and just keeps on taking it and typically doesn't seem phased by how much poo he's really taking. Last night, he had to witness one of my classic PMS/Sick/Tired reactions where my fuse was only about 1 centimeter long and once it was lit, there was no turning back. I exploded on him, unfortunately. There was nothing he could do to prevent it, there was nothing he could do to get out of the way, and there was nothing he could to make it better. So, he waited until I was calm, cool, collected, and the irrational train had finally reached the station and I jumped off. I try to tell him how sorry that I really am, but it's not something I necessarily can control (girls, you get me... guys... well... sorry, it's something we can't explain nor stop from happening. You either love us, or you don't!). So, since I have a blog, I'll publicly tell you all about how awesome this character really is with some of my favorite Nater Potater pictures!!

This is Nate with my new puppy Oakley. Oakley was terrified of the water. Nate was testing out these new boards called "Stand-up Paddle Boards" and wanted to take it to the pond. I insisted that my new puppy come along with us. So my overly patient boyfriend took my new puppy onto the board with him while she shook and shook and paddled her around the pond. Did I mention that Nate is not the hugest fan of dogs? Reason #1679908 why this young man should be sainted!!! :) 

Oh, look at that again... Nate and Jenny and the dang dog that Jenny insists goes everywhere with us... Look, Nate is smiling even though he now has to share his time with a dang dog that Jenny insists goes everywhere with us!! It's getting better! I don't drag the dogs with us EVERYWHERE we go and Nate is WAY more accepting of taking the uber hyper dogs places and even will do activities with the dogs when I am away!! 

This is the super talented Nater on his surfboard. He doesn't have a pro contract or anything like that but he absolutely loves to surf and has some serious style. 

He even likes to take pictures with me where I'm pretty much strangling him and doing the whole self-portrait thing! 

One of the surfing photographers, Ralph, took the picture below and the picture two above of Nate. Nate got a whole disk of the series of pictures and I went and I blew the pictures up and made them poster size. Then Nate's dad made frames for them. Then I made Nate hang the pictures in our dining room in our new house. Nate is a little bit bashful and expressed numerous times that he did not want pictures of himself hanging up in the dining room. I told him to think of it as surf art and that if he had to that it was someone else surfing. Except when everyone comes over, I make sure to point out that they are pictures of Nate surfing. He has threatened to have pictures taken of me and put up somewhere in the house, but thankfully, I'm not graceful at anything and there are no pictures of me hanging up anywhere in the house. 

This is one of my favorites because it was from one of those trips where when Nate said, 'let's ride our bikes through Washington DC', I thought he was completely nuts. I was like, 'this is a big city. we can't just ride our mountain bikes all around'... Well, sure you can... and you end up seeing WAY more things via bike then you do walking and when it's the Fourth of July in Washington DC and it's over 90 degrees and there are a million people EVERYWHERE, it's the BEST way to see DC. You get a nice breeze and you can just scoot around everyone. He has a tendency to push me out of my box and help me think around the picture. He's good like that!! 

I love this picture for two reasons. 1) It shows off Nate's silly side! It's not seen that often but he can be super silly. 2) It was also one of those times where Nate pushed me out of my little box. We have a small ski hill near our house. It had snowed all day long and as you can tell from the picture, it was still snowing. Nate was like, 'get your snowboard stuff together, we are going to hit powderhouse'. I looked at him and was like, 'uh... what?' He said it again and I was like, 'ok, crazy, let's go'... This opened up a whole new world of hiking for our turns for me. We lapped the little hill probably 5 times. I was completely gassed but it was sooo much fun to make fresh tracks each time. 

He's incredibly sexy with his blue eyes that match his tie!! 

And then there's this... :) 

Nater Potater, thank you for being my best friend, my rock and the guy that pushes me to go places I never imagined I would go or do things I never imagined that I would do! Thank you for teaching me how to surf and to snowboard and be a better mountain biker. Thank you for doing all these things with me even if I huff and puff. Thank you for being patient with me and putting up with me on all the good and bad occasions!!! 

I LOVE YOU!!!!!! 

First race of the summer

On Sunday, I did my first race this WHOLE summer!!! I had actually signed up for a 5k, a 10k, and then an "Aquarun" which consisted of a 1/3 mile swim, and a 1.5 mile run twice through. Because of my hip injury, I was not able to do the 5k or the 10k but I have finally started running again so I decided that I could do the aquarun. Through this process, I have a whole new appreciation of sucky injuries and my hip injury sucks!!! 

Back to the aquarun, the swim was at Mendum's pond which was a beautiful clear pond/lake. There was boat traffic so I was actually surprised by how clear it was. The run was on a trail that went up over this little peak and then down, then turn around and up again and down to the pond. Nater came with me and untied my shoes and held my cap and goggles and gave me my towel and flip flops... basically, he was once again the bomb diggity!!! Sorry ladies, he's all mine, and I don't share!! :)

Nater took some pictures of me during the fun. Here I am coming in from the swim. I didn't finish the swim first although Nate makes it look like I was out there by myself. There were two people ahead of me when I started the run and I don't know if they were just better transitioners than me. I was pretty slow wiping down my feet and getting my socks and shoes on and dreading the run!!! 

I ended up getting 6th overall and 4th in the females. There were about 25 people in the race and for how I felt during the run, I was pretty happy about it. I didn't walk. I ran the whole thing. I felt like I was going to puke on the first run but managed to keep going and only got passed by 1 dude on the second run. For next time, I would really like to have to swim 1.5 miles and run 1/3 of a mile... If anyone knows of those types of races, please let me know!! :) 

Oh, and a HUGE shout out to Brian for driving to Mendum's pond after the race to deliver a key so that Nate and  I could get back into my car!!! Thanks buddy!!!! 

Random Thoughts by JP - August edition

I do have a lot of random thoughts and occasionally they make it to posting, occasionally, they get deleted because I never complete my random thought updates... Today will be my variety of FB updates that I have thought about posting, but have not due to not really caring to update my FB status! :)

1) Last night, the dogs were outside and I was getting ready to get them dinner. I let Oakley in and Scout was still milling around the yard so I shut the screen door as I didn't want bugs to get in the house. Next thing I know, Scout comes bounding up the deck stairs and flying across the deck and smashes into the screen door. He folded in half, fell, got up, shook himself off and we let him in. I was DYING laughing and Nate did not see the humor in it at all. I now have "Buy screens for screen door" on my task list as the screen was ripped badly... It still cracks me up though!!

2) My favorite real estate agent EVER, Sam, bought us an electric fence as a house warming gift!!! Knock on wood, but the dogs are really becoming contained in the yard and I couldn't be happier!!! I love that we get to spend time outside and not have to worry about the dogs running away, Scout getting tangled up around trees, or Oakley wandering into neighbors trash bins to see what good things they threw away from the night before!! Thank you Sam!!!

3) If you don't understand this, please don't ask because I am not going to explain this... Dear Hampton, please watch out for my friend tonight and every night to come!!

4) Oakley is not a huge fan of dudes in general, but there is one male figure that Oakley has spent some time with and NEVER EVER warmed up to. I wish she could have actually said what she was thinking because knowing what I know now... she was right!!!

5) My triathlon is almost a month away... at the beginning of the summer, I was uber confident and thought that I could kick that triathlon in the teeth... My confidence is gone!! I'm hoping to finish. I'm hoping not to finish last. I'm hoping that I'll be able to run the whole 5k. I swam and then ran yesterday and pretty much have never bonked so hard in my life. Two things factored into that bonkage... the lack of food (i was so worried about getting the dogs out of the house quietly that I forgot about foodstuff) and aunt flow. She's a bi-atch and really sucks the life out of me!!!

6) This will probably make it as a blog post in it's own because I believe it will be a pretty fun adventure, but here is the before picture:

And here is the after picture: 

Time to reclaim some of the yard....