Thanksgiving Fun

I think we've finally recovered and caught up on sleep since Thanksgiving.

What better way to spend the week of Thanksgiving than 52 hours on a road trip with your best friend! There's something about being trapped in a small space together for long periods of time that bring up great conversations that don't occur in day-to-day life.

Tim and I (and Cooper) packed up the car and headed north on Friday, November 16th around 6pm. We arrived at the Hauser Home in Glen Ellyn, Illinois around 2:30pm on Saturday. It was great to be back in the Chicagoland area. We ate at Cozymel's, went to Wheaton Bible Church, and just relaxed from our long trip. On Monday we (Tim, Tiffany, Copper AND Chessie) headed to Adrian, Michigan to spend the rest of the week with Tiffany's family. We spent our time playing in the leaves, playing with the dogs, taking long walks in the brisk weather, eating more food than we needed, and just having a great time with family! We arrived back in Fort Myers, FL on Sunday November 25th and vegged out for the remainder of the day.

Best part: hanging out with family! (and seeing the beautiful fall colors)

Worst part: getting stuck in TWO traffic jams on our way home.

We are very thankful for God's protecting hand upon us during our travels and the blessing of having the time and money to go home and see family!

Hope all of our loved ones were also filled with blessings and thankfullness.

So Much Catching Up To Do!

I apologize for our blog inactivity. I'm sure you've all been anxiously curious about what we've been up to down here in muggy Florida! Sorry to keep you in suspense for so long.

At the end of September we made a fun trip up to St Simon's Island, GA where Tim's sister Jessica, her husband Troy and their adorable children Annika and Samuel now reside. Our new nephew Sammie was baptized at St Simon's Presbyterian Church (where Troy is employed as the new Assistant Pastor). The island was wonderful. Some very gracious members of the church were out of town for the weekend and insisted that we stay in their home rather than spend money on a hotel. So, Mom & Dad Hauser, Grandma Helen, and Tim & I all stayed in this gorgeous home RIGHT ON THE WATER! The view was breathtaking. Every morning we watched the sun rise over the water and discussed the activity of the tide and wind (ignorantly, of course, since none of us actually know enough about the tide or the wind to have an intelligent conversation about it).

There are adorable pictures of Sammie's baptism at Troy and Jessica's blog: http://thehbs.blogspot.com/

That brings us to October...a month that has really flown by! Tim's parents were here the first week of October. Tim and his dad spent most of the week doing miscellaneous projects (such as fixing the large hole Cooper chewed in the middle of our living room carpet). Bones or carpet...? If I were a dog...I would definitely choose bones. Unfortunately, that day Cooper was just in the mood to chew on carpet.

At the end of the week Tim ended up in the ER (not from doing projects with his dad). He had been experiencing some intense chest pains over the previous weeks which continued to get worse. It eventually got so bad that he was worried he might be having a heart attack or something serious. His left arm also went numb, which further increased his anxiety about the possibly of a heart attack. So...off to the ER we went. They did lots of tests and concluded that he did NOT have a heart attack - yippee! It was most likely GERD, and the large quantity of acid that was backed up in his chest area was causing the chest pain. The numb arm they believe could be caused by a pinched nerve or something. They sent us off with a prescription for Prevacid and appointments with specialists. Since then the chest pain has decreased (but not completely gone), and the specialists are doing more tests (MRI, the throat scope thingy, etc.). Fun times!

We went to visit another State Park: Myakka River State Park in Sarasota. The weather was not rainy, so we were hoping to actually have a chance to walk around this time! It was beautiful. They have about 30 miles of hiking trails. We only did about 5 or 6 miles, though. 30 miles is a bit too much hiking in this heat. The park was pretty crowded - lots of campers, people biking and canoeing, but not too many were out on the hiking trails. We took Cooper off of his leash again and let him run around. He's very good at staying on the trail and not wandering too far ahead of us. He'll run ahead a little ways and then stop, look back to make sure we're still there...and wait for us to catch up to him. Then he'll run ahead again, stop and look back, and wait. It's funny. We had a really great time.

This past weekend we went to Oktoberfest over in Cape Coral at the German American Social Club. The place was swarming with people dressed in the traditional German attire, lots of music, people dancing...and of course some delicious food and drink! We walked around, ate some bratwurst with sauerkraut and drank some real German beer. Not the most nutritious meal, but it sure did taste good!

There are your Hauser Highlights for the month of October! Our ONE YEAR anniversary is coming up this weekend. Tim made appointments for us to have massages together and I'm in charge of making romantic dinner reservations. I guess I should start doing some research on good places to eat around here!

The Swampland

We love the beach. We've been to the beach almost every weekend since we moved here. We've been to the dog beach, Fort Myers Beach, Bowman's Beach (on Sanibel), another beach on Sanibel, Captiva Island, some other beach at the end of John Morris road that smells funny... you get the point. We've visited just about every beach within a 15 minutes driving distance. Therefore, we thought it might be time to widen our horizons and explore other fun things to do in Southwest Florida. So... Collier-Seminole State Park here we come!

We chose to visit Collier-Seminole State Park because (a) its dog-friendly and (b) they have lots of different hiking trails where you can experience "natural" Florida. Sounds like fun! After making the hour long trek down to the park we're welcomed with a bit of sad news. Because this is rainy season the two best trails are under inches of water! Only one trail was open - a one mile boardwalk that goes out over the swampland. Somewhat disappointing.

Despite the muddy conditions and massive quantity of muntant-size mosquitos, we still managed to have a great time. We were able to take Cooper off of his leash and let him roam free since we were the only ones there! Now we know why the year-round residents stay indoors during the summertime!

No Work...All Play...Labor Day!

Three of our Chicago friends came to visit us this weekend! Our very first visitors! Yippee!

Christie, Lisa, and Matt flew in on Saturday and we went straight to Sonny's BBQ for some southern pulled pork and sweet tea. Next stop...the beach! The girls spent the day at Fort Myers Beach and the boys went golfing. Sunday we all spent the day on the beautiful beaches of Sanibel Island. We played in the water, threw around the frisbee, and all got burned to a crisp. Monday the boys went golfing (again) and the girls went shopping (we definitely didn't need any more time in the sun). We ended their time here with another trip to Sonny's for more pulled pork and sweet tea!

Fun times were had by all.

Cooper's Favorite Place

There is a wonderful (chaotic) place just south of Fort Myers Beach that instantly became Coopers new favorite spot - THE DOG BEACH. He LOVES this place! Its one of the only off-lease dog areas in the Fort Myers area. There are always lots of other friendly dogs for him to play with, plenty of room to run around, and of course...water! Cooper is a very good swimmer. He's still trying to figure out how to use his back legs while swimming, but he's catching on quickly. There's only one thing we have to bring to keep Cooper close to us - a tennis ball. This pup goes nuts over that little green ball! As soon as he sees it his tail starts wagging and he's ready to fetch! It's as if I hold all his lifes hopes and dreams in my hands. The unending power of the tennis ball.

So...we just play fetch with the tennis ball until we're all tired out! Cooper doesn't let us take any breaks. If we even try to sit down, he'll bring the tennis ball over, drop it in my lap, and just stare at me with his tail wagging and eyes wide with anticipation. Who can say 'No' to that?

When we get home Cooper just sleeps and pees for the rest of the day. It's great :)

Our First Florida Bike Ride!

We finally had a Saturday free to do something fun - all of our boxes are unpacked, the house was clean, most of the laundry was done, the "to-do list" was completed. The bikes were calling our names!!!

When Tim talks about going on a bike ride, its never a short casual ride around the block.

We were feeling a bit adventerous and decided to bike all the way over to Sanibel Island! We thought, "it's only 15.5 miles each way, how hard could it be?" HA! We made it there and back...barely. 31 miles in 95 degree weather was more challenging than we expected. The causeway bridge that's as tall as a mountain was probably the worst of times (on the way up) and the best of times (on the way down)!

In the end...it really was a lot of fun. I'm sure we'll do it again sometime (when the weather cools down).

Tim got his fix of hard core single-track biking yesterday with a guy from church (Brian). They both returned with no serious injuries! Yippee!

the wonderful land of Chico's

This is where I work now! Chico's FAS Inc. World Headquarters in Fort Myers, FL. I work on the Internal Audit Team (IA). The IA team is known around the organization as the "fun crowd", so I fit right in! We have an extra office in our area, so we of course turned it into our little game room. We have a dart board, foosball table, and use the hallway as our putting practice area. There is also a little back porch area that was quickly converted to the grill/smoker area (not for smoking cigarettes...a smoker for meat). We've already had TWO department lunches of smoked goodies (smoked ribs a week ago and then smoked salmon today). The smell drives our neighbors crazy! haha! Fun is had by all here at Chico's.

It didn't take long for me to get used to the "casual" atmosphere here. They certainly take "business-casual" to a new level. Jeans are definitely a regular thing around here - not just on Fridays. And you'll probably see some shorts and flip flops now and then. During my second week here, my manager (Rodney) took me around to meet a few key people in various departments. We were walking down the hallway and ran into an older-looking gentleman in jeans and a polo shirt that was filling up a watering can. He was, obviously, going to water some plants. We stood there and made small talk for a few minutes. Then Rodney said, "Oh, Tiffany...this is Charles Kleman." We walked away and I thought, "I wonder what he does - maybe he's on the security team or the maintenance staff (hence the watering can)." Before I even asked, Rodney said, "By the way, he's the CFO." The CFO! Of a multi-million dollar public company! In jeans and a polo...watering his own plants...making small talk with the new internal auditor. I knew right away that there was definitely something different about this place.

Over the last few weeks I've noticed even more of that friendly, family-oriented attitutde in just about every Chico's employee. Don't be misled, we DO actually work around here. There might be a few late nights here and there or deadlines to meet, but we balance out work time and play time. I think I'm going to like it here.

we're diving into the blogging world

Hi everyone! We are taking the plunge...diving into the great world of blogging. We've hesitated on doing it under the fear that we would run out of things to say! Ha!

Well...it turns out that blogs are actually a fun way of keeping up to date on the little details of life now that we are far far away from so many loved ones. We love visiting the HB family blog to stay up to date with the progress of our adorable niece Annika and new nephew Samuel. You can't share pictures over the phone! Yippee for blogger!

Since we so greatly enjoy staying up to date on the HB family through the wonderful world of Blogger, we hope all of you enjoy our little "Hauser Highlights" about our life in Florida.