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!