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.