Tuesday, January 29, 2008

A Real Pain in the Ass

This weekend was an eventful one; visits from friends, dance parties in the kitchen, dog walks in the snow, birthday celebrations and the like. good stuff. And then I got the call on Saturday afternoon--Adam was hurt while snowboarding and needed to go to the ER. He had sliced his ass open on a rock while we had been snowboarding out of bounds with friends. Yes you read this right, his ASS.

Here's Adam's full account of the ass rippin' event:
"I was at the top of the Shuksan arm, a ridge full of popular snowboarding runs just a short hike from the Mt. Baker ski area, with my snowboard mates Misch, Chris and Jonnie. We were all planning to begin our runs from a feature we've been calling the "nipple". I went to the left of the nipple and everyone else decided to go off to the right, separating us from voice and eye contact. The snow was new, deep and dry, so I thought I would try to jump off a finger shaped drop where someone else had gone earlier that day. I peeked around the side of the drop to make sure the snow was good, and it was. After falling a few fun feet I hit the snow and it was harder then I was expecting and I was too hard on my heel edge. My board slipped out from under me and I bounced down the steep terrain and took a butt check. Unluckily, there was a sharp rock lurking under the snow and I landed right on top of it, knocking the thin layer of snow off. My friends didn't see my fall or hear my surprised yelp when I hit, so I took a brief minute to do a systems check and rode to the right around the base of the nipple to meet them. When I saw Jonnie I told him I needed a minute to gather my self and that I felt a little nauseous and dizzy. As an after thought I stuck my hands down my pants to see if I was bleeding, and to my surprise I was and I could feel that I had a cut on my butt. My pants also felt fairly wet and I was worried that it was more blood then snowmelt. From there I went down the mountain in a bit of a hurry and met a ski patroller near the return to the ski area. He kindly looked in my pants, seemed duly impressed and escorted me to the aid room. The rest of the story was fairly well documented by camera."

And there you have it. Adam was in good spirits during out trip to the ER--he got 5 stitches. The staff was very friendly and definitely entertained by Adam's injury--I do believe he was the talk of the ER that day.

I am very thankful that his injury was minor.

And without further ado, here are the fabulous photos. If you are sensitive to icky things, you might want to skip them.

Here's Adam being carefully inspected--doesn't he look like he's posing for a senior photo?


Here's the cut, cleaned out and ready to be stitched


Adam and the doc clocking in some quality time


Suture


I'm hoping for this to be the last of our snowboarding injuries this year :)

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Blog? What blog?

Hmmmm...took me a month to get back on the horse---better late than never, right? I'm gonna go ahead and blame the holidays for my blog slack. Happy New Year by the way! Don't know about you, but I plan to kick some serious '08 ass.

And for my New Years resolution I hope to go freelance full time...oh wait, I just did! Yes, that's right. As of December 31st, 2007 I am officially working for the best boss I've ever had---ME! I'm excited to take the plunge though I have a tremendous amount of work ahead of me. I hope very much to find wonderful clients and interesting work, to take on a variety of projects and continue to learn and grow and build strong relationships, professional and otherwise. Wish me luck and I'll keep you all posted!

As for my holiday...HOLY MEXICO!! Yes...I was in Mexico for a week with Adam and his fam and had the most wonderfully perfect non-christmasy holiday ever! I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to go AND spend time with some of the best people around. Our days were filled with waking and sleeping to the sound of the ocean, treasure hunting for sea goodies, snorkeling, sea kayaking, touring the ruins, peeping lizards, eating delicious tacos and drinking limonatas. Here are some photo highlights:

A view from our back porch. Pure heaven



Some of our beach treasures. Lonnie (Adam's mom) was the beach glass queen.



A sassy skelly from the front of our favorite shop in Akumal



This is a pier in Puerto Morales where we hopped on a boat and went snorkeling. The reef is protected there and we could only snorkel if accompanied by a certified snorkel guide. Very cool. Adam saw a freakin' sea turtle! I was so jealous...



Lizard. Soooo many beautiful lizards!



This is pic of the boys, Max, Stephen, and Adam. I got to go with these guys for a night of drinking in Playa Del Carmen (I was the designated driver, which was still actually really fun). This photo was taken at their favorite bar---the swing bar! We did an awful lot of hovering to score those swings but it was worth it! Aren't these guys adorable? I wish we got to see them more...



And I got to do some knitting on the beach---how fun is that? Answer: Super fun!



Now, speaking of knitting, I cranked out a couple hats for some very special people. i don't know what it is, but making something for someone, and thinking about them while you make it and how much they might like the material and the color/s, etc and then finally seeing it on them and having them actually like, maybe even love the item?! Well. That's just about the best feeling a girl could ask for. Seriously.

So here's Andrew and Lonnie in their new (baby alpaca!) hats. Geez...could they be any more adorable?



And for the wrap up, here's my brother Ryan in his new hat...i think he looks awesome in it even though he's making the crazy face.



And there's more where that came from---slowly but surely im determined to knit all of my peeps something special. Just yesterday I received a VERY sweet gift in the mail from my cousin, Casey---a kick ass stitch and bitch book with lots of great patterns that i am just DYING to try! Casey, I think you just got yourself bumped to the top of the list :)