Happy Anniversary to us!

Monday was our 6th wedding anniversary – not sure what the gift for the 6th is supposed to be but I am guessing something random like bronze so suffice it to say we didn’t go traditional on the gifts. Chris got me a fabulous Calphalon wok from the outlet stores here. I had been wanting one and although it isn’t a romantic gift, the card was very romantic and lovely and I am nothing if not practical. I got him iTunes gift cards, which he was very pleased with. We didn’t do much during the day as I had a terrible headache. There is an awesome playground about a two-minute walk from the lake house and the mister headed there with the boys while I watched the rest of Sense and Sensibility. He was back within about four minutes with an upset J1. Apparently they were treating the playground equipment with a stain/sealant that takes five days to soak in – basically the entire time we will be here! What horrible timing. So the mister asked the guy doing the work where else there was a park so they headed over there. By the time they returned I had showered, cleaned up the house and prepared lunch for them. Good times!

Okay, let me switch subjects completely and I’ll get back to the anniversary after. I am listening to the Harry Potter series on my iPod and have made it up to book 6 (but only ½ of book 3). For whatever dumb reason, I forgot to load book 3 before leaving and that is the one the mister and I started when we went to Eastern Oregon in August – we were planning on finishing it on this trip – mistake #1. I also didn’t think about loading book 7 just in case I finished 6 - which I just did – mistake #2. In addition, I am watching the movies after I finish the books and didn’t bring the 5th movie with us – mistake #3. Apparently even with all the extra hours at home waiting to sign papers I still didn’t get everything I should have. I guess I am back to listening to the Twilight books again. I do have other books on there - maybe I should branch out – well, maybe not! And on a related note, there are at least 3 people from the Harry Potter movies in Sense and Sensibility – Professor Snape (with much better hair), Professor Trelawny (with much, much, much better hair) and Delores Umbrage. The mister said he isn’t surprised because I guess he read an article that mentioned that they were running out of British actors for the last HP movie. Also, Hugh Laurie is in there but I totally had to rewind to check him out, as I didn’t make the connection while watching it. I think it was the “huge” sideburns and all the hair – also maybe the British accent.

Okay, back to the anniversary. We were having grilled chicken and stir-fried noodles with veggies. We also had sparkling wine (not champagne because it is from Oregon) and ate on the deck. We took J2’s highchair out there so he was contained. It was so hot in the house it was the only pleasant place to be anyway. We brought an apple pie from our freezer (made by my MIL) and my MIL and her friend stopped by to have some with us. We watched the season opener of House – which was great – and then off to bed early because J1 had a doctor appointment the next morning in Newport.

our view from the deck

So that story is - on Saturday he was complaining that his ear lobe kept going into his ear – random as of course it was not. I called our insurance company to figure out what was the best course for medical out of town. It wasn’t an ER situation so I saw no reason to do that. An urgent care place apparently just falls under our deductible, which J1 has not even started using yet so I wasn’t hot for that. If we could have found a convenience care place (those new ones cropping up in Walgreens and CVS staffed with a NP usually) it would have just been the $25 co-pay but there were none within 50 miles of here. Our last option was to see a regular doctor for the $25 co-pay but we had to find someone who would see us. Well, I did find one in Newport that had an opening on Tuesday. It would cost us $93 out of pocket but we could most likely get the $68 back from our insurance company I would just have to submit it myself. There was an urgent care place in Depot Bay so I called them to see if the cost would be less but she quoted me between $82 and $395 for a new patient – what kind of range is that?? Well, the Aquarium is in Newport so we just decided to do both. Turns out that most likely there was just too much wax and they cleaned it out. He did say that it could be something more and that the wax was just a red herring so keep that in mind with future ear things. May have to do some googling about that.

UPDATE: I check out a web site and found that the traditional 6th anniversary gift is Candy or Iron – iron? Maybe an iron? I could use a new one. The modern one is wood – I’ll just leave that alone.