The Gallaghers

New Years Resolutions!

2010-01-05T11:40:00.000-08:00

I thought it would be better to make my resolutions public, this way I'll hold myself accountable ;) ... or at least maybe someone else will.

1. Update my blog AT LEAST 2 times per month! As you can see (besides yesterday's update) ... I hadn't updated in 4 months! I'm such a slacker!

2. Take more pictures! I didn't send out holiday cards this year because Mike and I did not have 1 single picture from 2009. Not even a bad one. Anyways, I'm taking my camera everywhere now and I'm trying to snap at least 1 picture a day... even if it's just a random one.

3. Run a marathon! ...and do all of the other running, biking, triathlon-ing events I did last year AND beat all of my times.

4. Saving $ - (Shopping + Vacationing) = House

5. Get into the Occupational Therapy doctoral program and begin classes in August 2010!

Christmas 2009

2010-01-04T12:06:00.000-08:00

This Christmas was a little different than normal. Mike's family went to Mexico for Christmas ... and we weren't able to take off work to go to Mexico OR down to Arizona to see my family ... so originally it was going to be just the 2 of us in Alaska. THEN, I got a bright idea! Why not invite some friends up to Alaska for Christmas! So - our friends Dana & Scott came up from Arizona! It was a fun time!

The first weekend they were here, we drove up to Fairbanks. It's about a 7 hour drive north of Anchorage. After driving for about 2.5 hours - we decided to stop for breakfast in Talkeetna, AK at a place called "The Roadhouse" which has been featured on Man vs. Food on the Travel Channel.

We arrived at Chena Hot Springs at about 5pm. The first thing we wanted to do was take a snow coach up a mountain where we were supposed to be able to view the Northern Lights ... but they weren't very active, so we didn't see much. We basically just froze in 30 below temps for 4 hours! It was FREEEEZZZZING! I have never been so happy that I live in Anchorage instead of Fairbanks!

This is a yurt. It's basically just a big tent that was supposed to be heated - it definitely was NOT heated! We basically just hung around inside for 4 hours waiting for the Northern Lights to come out ... but nothing :(

Overall - we weren't too impressed with Chena Hot Springs - so we got out of there as soon as we could the next morning and drove to the North Pole to visit Santa! Santa Land was awesome! There were tons of ice sculptures and we even got to sled down a slide made completely of ice.

Riding in Santa's Ice Sleigh! That was a cold seat!

The ice slide! Definitely my favorite part! (I don't know who that kid is behind us!)

Not sure which reindeer this is ... prancer, dancer, blitzen??

On Christmas Eve we went sledding at a Kinkaid Park and took a little hike down to the beach around sunset - which is at about 3pm in the winter. You can see 'Sleeping Lady' mountain in the background.

I thought I had some pretty impressive sledding runs - but of course the only one we got on video was this one with Dana & me ATTEMPTING to sled! (Thanks for the push, Mikey!) If you want to learn how NOT to sled ... watch this!

Christmas Day was pretty relaxing... for everyone except Scott who was our chef :) He made us a yummy prime rib dinner. We basically just opened presents, ate dinner and then played Cranium and Taboo - I love the way board games make you laugh until you pee a little!

A few of my favorite gifts ...

North Face Quarter Zip Super Soft Fleece

Under Armour Cold Gear Top

Black Diamond Ski Poles

The day after Christmas we drove to Girdwood - about 45 minutes south of Anchorage - to go skiing at Alyeska! This is just a picture of the scenery on the drive down. We don't have any pictures from skiing - but we had a great time overall!

Thanks, D&S for visiting us!! We had lots of laughs and fun times :) Can't wait until you can visit us in the summer!

Denali + Monster Trucks

2009-09-03T17:34:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago we went up to Denali, Alaska with Mike's parents, Monica, Mike's Grandpa and Renee. We had to drive about 4 hours north of Anchorage to get to the cabin we were staying at. About 15 minutes into our 4 hour drive ... Grandpa decides he's thirsty ...

Why would they stop the car? Isn't that what that little back window is for?

...and the trip only got better from there!

The cabin turned out to be way nicer than we expected. Although ... we still had to pee in an outhouse which just isn't my thing. Oh yah ... and no electricity or running water either. Gotta love the Alaska Wilderness! Can you believe there are people who actually LIVE in these places!? There are no restaurants or any sort of businesses nearby... even the nearest grocery store is at least 2 hours away. So... I hope you're not craving pizza at midnight because they definitely don't deliver there.

...and here's a picture of the view from the cabin... my favorite part!

After we admired the scenery and our cute little cabin ... we started a fire and had some fun ... well Bea definitely had some fun...

Come on ladies ... aren't we all adults here??? I don't know what she had in that cup ;)

The next day we went on a Monster Truck Tour through Denali National Park. Here's a link to the tour's website http://www.denalisights.com/. Here's Bea before the tour ... she's still havin fun...

The monster trucks are super cool because they can go places where you wouldn't normally be able to go ... they are able to cross up to 5 feet of water. Here's a picture of a river we crossed.

We were hoping that we would get to see some bears up close ... but it was cold and rainy ... so everything was hiding! So - basically we just drove around in a monster truck through Denali Park for 6 hours... and entertained ourselves!

Sicky Daisy :(

2009-08-28T11:08:00.001-07:00

Well - it's been a rough couple of weeks for little Daisy. It's a really long story - so I'll try to sum it up quickly.

It all started on 8/11 when she randomly peed on the carpet and Mike found a little stone in the puddle. I made her an appointment with her vet on 8/13... and sure enough he found that she had bladder stones. She wasn't showing any symptoms at first... other than the fact that she actually passed a stone. She was scheduled for a cystotomy on 8/20 ... that's where they surgically remove the stones from her bladder ... but on Sunday, 8/16 she started acting like she was hurting, straining to go potty and she had blood in her pee. So - we took her to the ER where they gave her some medicine and said she would be ok until the scheduled cystotomy. Monday morning, 8/17, I called her vet and moved the surgery up to Tuesday, 8/18.

So ... on 8/18 she had her surgery. Originally, the vet thought she had about 12 stones ... well... once he got in there he found "dozens and dozens" of stones. He removed all of them except for one which was kind of deep inside ... she had already been under the anesthetic for longer than he liked ... so he decided to close her up and figured we would flush that last stone out with a special diet. He had had this issue with other dogs in the past - and flushing out the last little stone with prescription food seemed to work.

When I picked her up to take her home that night she seemed pretty out of it... which was to be expected after all the anesthesia. Well, it ended up being a pretty rough night. She couldn't sleep or get comfortable because she was in so much pain. She wouldn't eat or drink so we couldn't give her her pain pills. Around 3 a.m. she started drinking some water ... but then started throwing up... this continued until about 10 a.m. when I took her back to the vet. He ended up keeping her all day and gave her shots for the nausea and the pain. I picked her up later that evening and she seemed to be doing better - she wasn't throwing up and her vet had been feeding her a little bit of baby food.

Well - it was another rough night of no sleep for any of us :(. Daisy started getting nauseous again ... wouldn't eat ... and she seemed like she wanted to drink but each time she did ... it would just come right back up. Thursday morning ... I took her back to the vet where he put her on an IV because she was getting dehydrated. She stayed there all day. When Mike and I went to pick her up that evening ... the vet seemed a little worried. Daisy's belly was big and kind of swollen ... it seemed like she had some internal fluid... which meant she would most likely have another surgery.

Needless to say - I was completely freaking out. My biggest fear was that her bladder would leak and she would have to have another surgery ... and it was all coming true :(

We took her to the ER where she had an ultrasound - from that the doctors found that that last little stone was trying to pass and it was stuck which was putting a lot of pressure on her bladder. Her bladder was filling up because of the IV fluids she had gotten throughout the day ... so the bladder was seeping. She ended up having surgery that night to remove the stone and all the fluid ... of course it was another night of no sleep for me because I was so worried about her. I talked to the ER doctor around 2:30 a.m. when she told me that the surgery was a success. I was definitley relieved to hear that :) When I visited her the next morning ... she already looked like she was feeling better.

Daisy ended up staying in the doggie hospital from Thursday night until Sunday night. The poor girl got so many shots and IV's ... she became my little pin cushion :(

Here are some pictures of her when she was in the hospital after her 2nd surgery:

Here you can see how they wrapped up her little tail ... and she had a little catheter and IV pretty much the whole time she was in there.

...and here is a pic from the other night at home in her favorite place ;)

She's doing much better now ... she's not completely back to her old crazy self ... but she gets better each day. She's now on a prescription diet forever in order to prevent the stones from forming again. I really hope they don't come back ever! I feel bad that she has had to go through all of this already ... and I so hope she doesn't have to do it again anytime soon. She's such a sweet and fun little dog... we love her so much!

Mark Your Calendars...

2009-08-05T14:34:00.000-07:00

...cuz I'm coming to town! I booked my ticket last night! I'll be in Phoenix from September 4th - September 15th. It'll be a nice break to go get warm and work on my non-existent tan. Should be a fun time... can't wait to see everyone! I'm excited!

Bird-2-Gird

2009-08-03T11:56:00.000-07:00

Bird-2-Gird ...aka my favorite bike ride ever! The ride goes from Bird Creek, AK to Girdwood, AK and is about 27 miles round trip depending on how far into Girdwood you go. For those of you who aren't familiar with Girdwood ... it's basically a little ski town where Alyeska Ski Resort is located. The bike trail is great because there usually aren't too many people on it so you can ride fast! I like to ride to Chair 5 ... which is one of my favorite restaurants in Alaska. They have the best bbq chicken pizza ever .... yum! It's fun to stop there after a bike ride in the summer ... or after a day of skiing in the winter.

One of my friends from work has started riding this summer and bought a brand new road bike a few weeks ago - he had never ridden Bird-2-Gird before so we organized a little outing this past Saturday. It rained all last week - but it was super sunny and "warm" (as warm as it can be for AK) on Saturday... it was definitely a perfect day for a ride.

Here's a picture of me ... behind me are the railroad tracks that the Alaska Railroad uses.

...and here's a picture of Mikey and me. Don't hate on the spandex! LOL

Amey's Baby Shower!

2009-07-21T10:50:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday, July 19th, I hosted my friend Amey's baby shower. It was so much fun! I had a great time planning and getting ready for it. Although ~ I did find that I am not too knowledgeable on all of the baby gear/products... I was completely overwhelmed when I was shopping at Babies 'R Us! It's quite difficult to find things when I have no idea what I'm looking for. For example ~ Amey had registered for a "Boppy"... sounds like some kind of bouncy seat ... turns out it's this weird shaped pillow thing. I definitely spent some quality time at Babies R Us ~ not sure if I'll be back any time too soon!

Amey (Mommy-to-be), Ryann (Sister-to-be) and

Roman (Daddy-to-be)

Ronie (Amey's Mom & Grandma-to-be) She did a great job at making ALL the food for the shower. I definitely could not have handled that! I had enough trouble with my cupcakes! (See below!)

Room Set-up

The Favors ~ I was pretty proud of these.

Me & Amey

Anyways, this shower was a little different than other baby showers since boys were included in the festivities! This little twist definitely made for some funny moments! The boys got to be pregnant for a few minutes and see how it feels to try to tie their shoe with a baby belly...

...oddly enough it was the guy with the biggest belly that won! Mikey was definitely having some trouble - he was the slowest!

Leading up to the shower I had a couple of big projects... the first one was to bake cupcakes! I wanted them to be super posh and fancy, so on Thursday night I decided to try this recipe for Pink Velvet Cupcakes with a chocolate ganache filling. (The colors for the baby's room are pink and brown... so I wanted my cupcakes to match)

Everything was going pretty well... at first.

...and here's how the first batch turned out...

Definitely not my best work.

Eventually they ended up coming out something like this...

As you can see they didn't really rise up right ~ so this is definitely the recipe's fault (at least that's what I tell myself).

Here's a look at the chocolate ganache filling...

...and the finished product looked something like this...

They didn't come out terrible ...but it took me like 5 hours to make about 12 cupcakes. That definitely was not going to work.

So ~ I took a different approach...

Much better ...

...and the chocolate ganache filling was a success so I decided to keep that part of the recipe.

...and here's how they came out!

My other big project for the baby shower was making 6 Diaper Cake Centerpieces! This was my favorite project! I had such a fun time picking out stuff and coming up with a theme for each of one.

Pacifiers ~ Pacifier Case, Wipes, Cleaning Brush, Multiple Pacifiers and Pacifier Clips

Safety ~ Nasal Aspirator, Anti-Bacterial Spray, Pacifier Thermometer,

Infant Tooth (gum) Brush

Feeding ~ Bottle, "My Mom is Hotter than Your Mom" Bib, Bottle Brush, Formula Mixer, Travel Formula Storage Container

Teething ~ Love Bug Toy with little feet chewies, Teething Rings, Teething Tablets

Bath Time ~ Rubber Ducky, Baby Wash, Shampoo, Baby Powder, Wash Cloths

Apparel & Accessories ~ Onesies, Hair Barettes, Socks, Shoes, Mittens

Mayor's Marathon Relay

2009-07-16T10:52:00.000-07:00

So ... running has never really been a positive word in my vocabulary, but over the last 6-7 months I've been trying to change that. In order to motivate myself, I registered for a few fun events. This summer I've done the 5K Heart Run, the Bike for Women, a Sprint Triathlon, the 5 Mile Run-for-Women and most recently the Mayor's Marathon Relay.

Now - when I first started running earlier this year... I couldn't run (even at a really slow pace) for more than 2 minutes without wanting to fall over and die. Actually... I've never been able to run... ever. lol After lots of treadmill-interval workouts, I've built up my endurance so that I can at least run at a steady pace for a good while. I have even realized that I enjoy longer, steadier runs much better than short, fast ones. Never have I used "enjoy" and "run" in the same sentence ... but I'm starting to-lol.

At work we decided to form a team for the Mayor's Marathon Relay which was on June 20th. Basically we split up the full 26.2 marathon length into 4 parts. I took the 2nd leg of the race which was an 8 mile trail run. The weather was great ~ not too hot (as if it really gets too hot here) ...or too cold... and it had rained a little earlier that morning so it wasn't dusty at all ... it was just nice. I had such a good time running with everyone that I was almost sad when my portion was over!

Here's our team picture: (love the gigantic cinnamon roll!)

...and I'm sure you are asking the question ... "Jeans? Really?" After my run I had time to run home and quickly take a shower before our last team mate finished. AND - even though one of the guys was 5 MINUTES LATE to start the last leg of the race (not to name names ~ but the one on the far left) ...we still beat Channel 11's relay team... so we were pretty happy about that.

Anyways ~ now I have one more event left this summer... the Skinny Raven 1/2 Marathon.

I can't even believe I'm going to do it! I'm hoping that Mike will do it with me ~ but we'll see... I think he likes shorter, faster runs. Of course he does - opposites attract, right?! Anyways, it's on August 16th. I think it will be really fun and a good way to end the summer.

Our Anniversary ~ 2 Years

2009-07-15T11:21:00.000-07:00

Mike and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary on July 7th. It was a really fun day hanging out together. We've always wanted to try out a tandem bike... so we decided to rent one for the day and ride around town. We thought it would be a fun experience to do something where we had to kind of "work together" to accomplish the goal (i.e. don't crash!). Of course I didn't take any pictures of us ... but here is a picture of the bike we rented:

It was a little shaky at first trying to get used to everything - and me trying not to be such a control freak in the back (since the person in front controls the brakes, gears and general direction)! ...but once we got the hang of it, we ended up trading places so that I could ride in front - it was so hard taking off, but it was a lot easier once we had our rhythm down. By the end of the day we were experts at the tandem. We took a few rest breaks along the way - the best one was at Tastee Freeze where we shared a Peanut Butter Shake - so yummy!

Here are some pictures of the Coastal Trail that we rode on during the majority of our ride:

A view of Downtown Anchorage from the Coastal Trail:

Originally we had planned to go out for a nice dinner... but we had so much fun riding around on the tandem that we thought it would be fun for Mike's parents to try it out, too! Plus we thought it would be fun for us to watch them try to figure it out! So, we took the bike home and the 4 of us rode to The Peanut Farm (it's a restaurant that we ride our bikes to a lot because it's right off the bike trail near our house... they have a great deck with a pretty view of Campbell Creek).

Front view of the Peanut Farm:

Back view of the deck and Campbell Creek:

Once we got home we watched our wedding video. I love the way it came out - our photographers/videographers were amazing. It was really the best day ever ~ and it's a great memory of all our friends and family who celebrated with us.

the end.

First Post!

2009-07-13T10:22:00.000-07:00

So... this is my first blog post ever! I was convinced over the weekend by my good friend, Rachel, that I needed to start a blog. So - here it is. I'm not very good about taking pictures of all the fun stuff we do - it's so hard when it's just the 2 of us hanging out. I hate asking random strangers to take our picture! ...and I haven't quite mastered the skill of taking a picture of ourselves... so this is definitely a problem... but I will fix it so that you actually have something to look at rather than just a bunch of text where I blab on and on about nothing.

BTW - I think my favorite part of this whole blog thing is all the fun backgrounds there are to choose from.