An unexpecting weekend

I was supposed to work this past weekend, but that ended up not happening. Last week I wasn't feeling the greatest and some people at my work were sick. Friday I had off since I was going to be working the weekend shift and I had an interview that day ( I am quitting my job and will work somewhere else in a couple weeks). I ended up being sick most the day, but felt ok enough to go out at night. Saturday morning-was awful. I tried to go to work, i opened up the kennel for another employee, but then i headed home. The rest of that day was one i wish i could forget at the moment. I was sick in the bathroom all day, had to call jon home from work to take care of me, started to get better in late after noon, and then the worst hit. I got severely dehydrated, started passing out a few times, and was vomitting. I couldnt even lift my body so Jon had to take me to the hospital. They put me on IV fluids for several hours and i got a shot in my hip-ouch! I am better now, but I can't eat much. I think it will take a few days for my tummy to get back to normal. I am just praying for jon not to get it and also that we will both be well by time my bday comes in a few days. I want to eat my birthday cake!!

i love paul and jen

all i have to say is: thank you! :) i love you guys haha.
oh.....and i got peed on today at work, a lot, and it was by my own dog...bear. oh...and then he peed on the carpet at home too. ok thats it

i admit im just a fool for you

i survived another busy monday...today i enjoyed my job. tomorrow i may feel differently haha, im sure i will. im going to be helping with interviews soon for more kennel techs. we are really short staffed but not too bad at the same time. we are all working a couple weekends a month to make it fair, but soon it may be more like three weekends a month for me. we shall see. i want to hire a part timer and full timer (once the other fulltimer leaves-she is going to be a cna). Memorial day weekend is going to be insane ahhh. too many animals-even for me. i scheduled myself for it so maybe i wont have to work july fourth weekend. Jon and i had a great weekend. we were outside a lot. saturday we hung out with some friends and we went to the farmers market that is real close by. Jon and i played tennis for a while, then we (and aaron) went to the pool/jacuzzi for a bit. sunday we played tennis again, i love it. so we both got quite a bit of sun :). we were going to go see me without you and thursday in winstonsalem on sat evening, but we decided against it. we wouldnt have gotten back until around two in the morning. good thing we didnt go because we saw a movie with aaron and christy and i fell asleep during the movie, at nine at night. we saw over the hedge, well they saw it, i didnt haha. i think i saw about the first twenty minutes then i was out. i havent fallen asleep during a movie in the theatre since tenth grade, on my homecoming night. we are going to warped tour this year though WHOOOHAAAAA. im so excited, took off work and everything :)!!! yay plus my bday is coming up im excited. and our anniversary. I love being married :). its so exciting. nobody could put up with me like jon. thank God for him. i remember my brother peter telling me when i was little that i would never get married because i was too difficult and that any guy would be crazy to be with me (and peter dont you deny it because you know its true what u said)!!! i guess jon was up for the challenge. and this is to all my friends out there- leave me a blasted comment already. i dont have myspace ( iknow im a loser) so leave me one on this thing. something to the affect of how cool i am-thatd be sweet haha. jk. just say hi :)

TGIF

so glad that its friday. this week has been tiring and we are hoping to go to kings dominion to ride some wild coasters this weekend. we planned on going there on mother's day (for hope of shorter lines) but it might rain that day, but we still might go cause that could mean even shorter lines. we shall see. last night we played mexican train dominos with some friends, it was quite the fiesta. well gotta get to work and get this friday finished off right'.
~jon

road trip day4-day14

well we had a wonderful time on the rest of our trip. we have been a little too lazy to update the blog lately, so i am just going to give a little rundown "state by state".
so we left off in AZ were we stayed in yuma a bit longer. while there ryan took us shooting and bekah was quite the shot.

after spending some time with my family and eating a lot of tacos we headed to phoenix to see some friends and my sister at ASU

the next day we were heading for the grand canyon. we camped out there and spent a day hiking with some friends and cooking chunky soup for dinner.



we drove over the amazing hoover dam on our way out of AZ. and then it was on to vegas baby.



that started our time in NV. vegas was cool but we didn't have enough time to see everything we wanted to. also we lost our beloved IPOD there (don't ask) so that made the trip back to NC not so musical.
On to Utah...now Utah has some of the most beautiful mountains and desert lands i have ever seen. we left vegas a little late so we didnt get to spend the time we wanted to in Utah, so not too many photos.

our last major stopping point was in Colorado. we stayed with some old family friends and they were awesome. good food, great ranch house with dogs horses cats and birds (bekah was in animal heaven) and they lived in colorado springs so they had some insite of the area. it was a great time.

driving through the rockies



Bekah and Loot, she got to go riding.


The garden of the gods.







after CO we headed home and made it back in two days.
good times

April 1-April 3 (nc to az)

North Carolina...Tennessee...Arkansas...Oklahoma...Texas...New Mexico...Arizona...

Bekah' journal
April 1st
Saturday morning began without a hitch. NC went by pretty fast and the weather was amazing so it made the trip easy. Hit some traffic in Tennessee and we both thought that state was boring and went on forever. Before daylight ended we crossed the Mississippi river into Arkansas. I expected the Mississippi river to look a whole lot bigger because of what people have said about it, but for some reason it was still awesome. I just started thinking about all the history behind that river and how years ago people died trying to get across it.While in Arkansas we saw a breathtaking view of a lightning storm. I was kinda scared though. It was very dark and hey, we basically were in tornado land, so i was worried about that. BUT, we made it through. We crossed into Oklahoma around midnight and got a hotel.

April 2nd
Definitely not enough sleep, at all. Kind of crabby feeling but i quickly shook it off. Oklahoma was a decent enough drive, i started it off, but the land definitely is flat. Texas was, well, not exciting. I guess because we were just driving through the panhandle. We stopped in amarillo when we saw a bunch of brightly painted cars sticking out of the ground. We remembered that was a tourist stop so we stayed for a few minutes to catch some pics. Back in the car, yay, heading to the dreaded NM. I had never been in New Mexico before so i was interested, but that feeling quickly went away. The land looked the same the entire way through the state and i must say EVERY SINGLE BATHROOM WAS AWFUL!!! The worst was at the last stop we made there. We had just eaten subway and i walked into the bathroom and the smell immediately made me gag. All of the stalls were full except for two of them so i headed into one (bad mistake) and saw something that will haunt me for the rest of my life. The toilet seat was up and there before my very eyes was the biggest pile of turdage...it must have been a world record. It looked like an entire family went on that same toilet. I almost vomitted. I had to go though so i went to the other stall, which was still nasty, but you gotta do what you gotta do. All i can say is i feel bad for the person that had to clean that up...i would quit my job before i'd pick that up and i work in a kennel, my job is to pick up poo! We got into az around ten at night and stayed at a crappy motel 6.

April 3rd
Got to sleep in some which was nice. We drove to Flagstaff and took the scenic drive to Sedona. Honestly, words cannot explain how beatiful the view was. Pictures won't do it justice, but we still took some. We stayed there for a couple hours and did a trolley tour through old sedona. It was neat :). Had some good food too. Then headed off towards Yuma. We went a backroads rout so it took longer, but it was pretty. We went through an old ghost town in jerome. It was crazy. Old buildings all in the side of the mountain. Didnt think our car was going to make it up the hills, but it did!! Yay for scion buddy!! :) Got into Yuma around eight something at night and mom/dad allen got us chili pepper for dinner, we were starving. It was wonderful. Glad to be in a home for a couple days and have a bathroom and bed. :)

Jon's Journal

April 1st
NC left the house in NC..Nc is nice..pretty mountains..TN border, one state down.
TN..long state, the road goes on for hours..lots of road work..long state, get me out of this state..huge river up ahead, mississippi river/AK/light at the end of the tunnel.
AK lots of open land. its getting dark now, lighting is starting, looks pretty but doesn't look good. i think we may die tonight be a twister..wait OK border..motel 6..safety..sleep.

April 2nd
OK is down and the TX panhandle should be no problem. what the...cars are stuck in the ground..weird. take some pics and move on. moving quick the I40 is the only road we have been on. 2000 miles on the I40 not to confussing. NM is here, traffic is a dead stop. one hour later we have found the problem, a semi-truck that has been burnt to a complete crisp. finally moving again AZ is in reach..its here, motel 6 sleep.

April 3rd
AZ time for the fun to begin, time to get off of I40 and take the scenic road. incredible mountain views, 20mph speed limit on single lane roads with 2000 foot drops on the side, no pressure. took a trollie tour in sedona, good times..the scenic way is cool, but is taking much longer then planned but worth the drive. desert sun is going down, wish i were home in yuma, one hour to go, i can smell the burritos...and now i can taste them. long day, time to sleep.

Cadillac Ranch

Cadillac Ranch
Originally uploaded by notoriousjon.

Amarillo,TX
Random cars stuck in the ground...yet it looks cool, now thats art!

Bekah's new souvenir

Bekah's new souvenir
Originally uploaded by notoriousjon.

Flagstaff

Flagstaff
Originally uploaded by notoriousjon.

bekah (trying) to look tough...isn't she too cute to be tough!!!

Flagstaff/Sedona

Flagstaff/Sedona
Originally uploaded by notoriousjon.

Jon (trying)to look tough, isnt he cute??!! :)

not tennessee(thank goodness)

not tennessee(thank goodness)
Originally uploaded by notoriousjon.

cliffs right outside of Flagstaff

prettier view than the turd in the new mexico toilet

prettier view than the turd in the new mexico toilet
Originally uploaded by notoriousjon.

enough said...

Sedona

Sedona
Originally uploaded by notoriousjon.

Typical Sedona backdrop...just our pic has the added bonus of us two sexy beasts.

Under the bridge (theme song playing)

Under the bridge (theme song playing)
Originally uploaded by notoriousjon.

A stop along the road to Sedona. There was a trail and a beautiful stream down below. The drive along 89A to Sedona was the most amazing scenic drive that either of us have seen yet.

AZ/CA border

AZ/CA border
Originally uploaded by notoriousjon.

In Yuma, AZ. We are right above the colorado river between two states.

Road Trip USA2006

the road trip begins on the 1st of april and will be going until the 15th of april. we are both starting to get reall excited, well i am at least, i'm pretty sure bekah is too. so here is a quick rundown of the trip.

2 people (myself and bekah)
1 car (the scion XB)
15 days
17 states maybe 18
4854.32 miles (give or take)
0 days that we have to go to work
1 night sleeping in the car (every major road trip requires one)
5 main destinations (yuma, az..phoenix, az..grand canyon, az..mesa verde, co..colorado springs, co)
1 ipod (currently with 1044 songs)

so thats the nutshell version, we will be taking plenty of pictures and hopefully putting some up along the way. we got a new camera since our other one crapped out. we will be camping at some spots staying with family or friends at some spots and getting hotel rooms at others. our poor dogs are going to be stuck at the kennel while we are gone, so we will have to get them something special to bring back to them. anyhow if we are seeing you on this trip, i'll see ya soon, otherwise...uhh i'lll see you later.
~jon

to texas, south carolina and back to NC .......... my travels

Ok so i went to houston to do a couple of silver ring thing shows. the flight out there went pretty well, i was at the airport at 450am and got to bed that night at like 1am which was 2am NC time, so it was a long first day, which felt like two days. the silver ring thing shows were great. lots of fun and i got to see some old faces and meet a few new ones. its always a little wierd though when you go somewhere and people you dont know are like "i hear you are so funny that i'm going to pee my pants..." i'm like uhhh...."i'm not that funny (no preasure)." but they did end up peeing thier pants i guess i am that funny, or they just have a weak bladder.
ok so that was on a wed and thur. on friday morning a flew home to NC got back at like 6pm and the next morning at 7am me and bekah were heading for myrtle beach, SC. we had never been there before and we were only going for one night and driving back on sunday. it was really fun but cold.(it had been in the 70's the day before we got there and then in the 50's and 40's while we were there) we ate at some whole in the wall place by some waterfront area for lunch, good food, fish caught that morning. and for dinner we went to cheeseburger in paradise, where i actually met a server named todd who i used to work with at cracker barrel in PA (what are the odds) we also went to the ripley's aquarium while we were there and it was sweet.

so that was about it, i would put up some pics, but my camera crapped out and isn't working (anyone ever get an E18 message on a canon power shot camera??)

el fin~jon

why i hate the radio..

ok so the radio is always on when i'm at work at cracker barrel. i can deal with hearing the same songs in rotation every 45 minuetes, which adds up to me hearing the same crappy songs 12 times a shift. and i can deal with lame morning talk shows that are on when i open at 530am, but this i cant handle...thursday morning...they always do a recap on the tv show "lost" (me and bekah watch this show every week and it is quite addictive) so last week was a re-run of lost..or so i thought..the morning show was talking about how it was a re-run the night before and how the abc website and previews said it was going to be a re-run, but right after the re-run they did a surprise new episode. not only that but the surprise episode had tons of plot developing things happen including two main people on the show (jack and eko) getting killed off. i couldn't believe it...i missed it! it ruined my morning, people were calling in saying how they were so mad that they missed the surprise episode. me and a couple of co-workers who watch "lost" also were devistated...and then about three hours later, they announce it was a prank, no surprise episode, just a prank...this i cannot handle from the radio!

my favorite lady

My new hat
Originally uploaded by notoriousjon.

i'm a lucky guy..i love this chick.

little somethings from my mind

I am currently listening to Underoath. They are so amazing. Every time i listen to them i feel alive. Today driving back and forth from work the bombs over broadway by squad five o was playing and it took me back to my freshman year in college. Oh man, what an awesome year. It reminded me of the first time i heard squad, when Jeremy let me borrow some of his cds and that one was my favorite. Ive been reading a lot lately-well im always reading. I love to read. Reading and music...thats me. Im finishing this one book at work, but also about a week or so ago i had started reading a million little pieces. I had heard about it from some friends a long time back. Then of course i buy it and all this controversy emerged on tv/radio/news. Crazy. Im still reading it even if its not all 100% true. So maybe he lied about some things, other writers have, they just all havent got blasted on the oprah show for it. Its an interesting story no matter. Makes me respect even more the people who have the job of helping others rehabilitate from drugs. Like jons dad. My job has been going pretty well. I had to put my supervisor "hat " on the other day with a coworker. I am not a confrontational person so that was a stretch, but the person has more respect for me now. Thats cool. Its weird having people look up to me for direction. I dont know what im doing. Im learning i guess. Some of my coworkers and I were talking a few days back about the president and various political issues. I must say...i cant wait for this presidential term to be over with. Please God let whoever comes next be better than the past several. Im not expecting perfection....cause im not perfect. Just something better.
"hey unfaithful i will teach you to be stronger, hey ungraceful i will teach you to forgive one another...desperate to brush the lips of grace, do you feel hollow when you think of how ive lied, oh sweet angel of mercy with your grace like the morning wrap your loving arms around me...hey unloving i will love you, i will love you, i will love you....and Jesus im ready to come home, Jesus, Jesue im ready to come home....hey unfaithful hey ungraceful hey unloving i will love you."

kicked up a notch/chocolate popcorn

so last night we made spagetti with turkey meatballs, but for the sauce we used "emeril's kicked up sauce". i personally am not a huge fan of canned spagetti sauces, but i must recommend this one, it was awesome.

and for dessert we grinded up choc. chips, popped some popcorn and mixed it all together, it made for a perfect snack while we watched "lost" on the couch.

Steelers all the way babe oh yeah

soooo havent blogged much lately probably because nothing too exciting has happened, but oh well. I havent put any pics up lately because i actually dont know how to do it but jonny is going to show me. :) Jon is on myspace more often than here so that leaves me trying to think of things to say. We are going to hopefully watch the big game on tv tomorrow with a few friends. I only get into the playoffs in sports. Not a big sports watcher but once it gets near the end i love rooting for the underdogs or just yelling at the tv for pure delight. Im going to get my hair cut in a bit whoohoo. Ive been growing it for a while so the longest part hits at my shoulders. I need to get something fun though so we shall see what happens...im not getting it chopped off because i love having longer hair now. Jon and i are planning a road trip baby. YEAH BUDDY!!! In april we are heading off to az. Going to take two weeks off and drive there and to the grand canyon and then to colorado and then who knows where?! We were thinking of going to switzerland, but we are going to save that for another time. Alrighty enough said time to go. Hopefully the next time i write, i will have B E A utiful hair pics to show :) and the steelers will be headed to the superbowl yeeeeeha.

another Christmas bites the dust

Our christmas vacation was a lot of fun this year. Fortunately, we were able to have a decent amount of time off to spend with my family in sc. We played a bunch of games (both jons side of the family and mine LOVE to play games), went bowling, went to a light show, and Jon, david and my dad went golfing together. It was relaxing and when we went bowling i scored one of my highest games in a long time, almost a 100!! haha :) Hey, thats good for me, and i wont mention my score when we went with jons family here. Christmas night we hooked up with Femmy, Charlie, Elizabeth, Jimmy, Matt and Amanda. It was only the second time ever that our two families have seen each other so that was cool. Monday we came back to NC and all but matt/amanda came to stay with us for a few days. I had to go back to work on wednesday but we still had a good time together. We visited downtown raleigh and toured the capital building. Forgot to take our camera though so we dont have any pics, but if we have some cool photos of our trip at all we'll try to get them up soon. This weekend i am not sure what we are doing for new years. Maybe going downtown or a movie who knows...but we have guests at our house for the moment. Two other dogs named charlie and mister. We are dog sitting for some friends so we have four canines plus us in our one bedroom apt. Its craziness. I feel like im at work :).

christmas tree

christmas tree
Originally uploaded by notoriousjon.

merry christmas..almost.
i hope everyone has some plans for the holiday season. we are going to SC on wed. to see bekah's family, and all of my family will meet us there on christmas day. what are you people doing for christmas?
anyhow here is a pic of our tree.