Denver Trip 2008

* * Click the picture to see more pictures, it will take you to the Kodak gallery **

This past weekend was our "Denver Blitz" trip. I love to tell this story - so forgive me if you've already heard it. Anthony decided some time at the end of the summer that we should go to a football game - keep in mind, we like football ok, and enjoy watching on Saturday afternoons, but aren't die hard fans for anybody in particular - so I said "Great! I'll get us tickets up to an Ole Miss Game"...
AG: "No... I want to go see and NFL game."
KG: "Oh, alright then, let's take the train down to New Orleans and see the Saints play. that would be fun!"
AG: "No, I don't really like New Orleans or the Saints.....hum.... lets go to Denver and see the Broncos."
So that's pretty much how it went... and we were spontaneous and bought tickets 3 months in advance (yes, 3 months of planning really is what we consider spontaneous!)
We flew out of Jackson Friday afternoon after Anthony (finally) got out of clinic into Dallas, and then on to Denver. We rented a car and drove to our lovely room at the Doubletree (they are the best place to stay - primarily because they give you a warm cookie upon arrival, and it's always nice and clean, with a good price - and they don't even have to pay their guests to say stuff like this). We got up relatively early on Saturday morning and wen to this cute place to have breakfast - yummy - then drove around down town to check out the city. They have a nice outdoor mall on 16th street. The only thing about Denver, is that there is no where to park for < $10 down town, so it was expensive, but an experience. Then just before noon we started our drive out to the Rocky mountains. We drove west from Denver to Idaho Springs, then directly north through a bunch of curvy roads toward Rocky Mountain National Park. The mountains were lovely as you can see from the pictures on the Kodak site . We stopped for lunch in a little town called Nederland (which is really funny if you know one of the Med Peds residents whose last name is Nerland, but no one ever gets it quite right). What made this lunch stop even more funny was that we had yummy curry chicken at an Indian resturaunt in a little town in Colorado - just seemed silly to me. We continued up north until it was starting to get dark, and we didnt' want to try to navigate the curvy turns in the dark, so we drove east to the highway (the mountains abruptly stop and then the highway is pretty flat and straight). On the way to the highway, there was a heard of Ram grazing on the roadside, so we took pictures :).
Then we got back to Denver and went to an improv show and dinner at a place called Wynkoop Brewery. The Improv group was the Impulse Theater. They were really funny.
Sunday was our day for the Broncos game. We slept in a little, then went downtown and walked around some more. We got to the game about 1.5 hrs early, but there was plenty to see and do. The Broncos weren't very good, but it was fun to watch. Afterwards, Anthony discovered that there was a 6 Flags in Denver, so we were lucky enough to get in on the last day of the season. We rode a couple of roller-coasters - WOW i hadn't been on a roller-coaster since 6th grade, and Anthony had never been to 6 Flags. It was a lot of fun too. We then headed back to the Doubletree to get ready to fly out on Monday morning. It was a great trip and a wonderful weekend away from Jackson.

Mike Gannon's Graduation

**Click the picture for a slideshow of pictures**

We are so proud of Anthony's brother, Mike - he just graduated from flight school and gets to fly Black Hawks! Click on the picture to see a slide show of the pictures from the event (keep in mind this was also a testing day for Anthony's new camera).

Chicago Marathon 2008

Hi Friends,
I know it's rediculous how rarely I write on here, but believe it or not, our life isn't all that exciting and UMC is pretty much the same day in and day out. However over the next few months we do have some exciting plans. and I'll post pictures on here.
The above photo (and link if you click on it) are pictures from the Chicago Marathon. My friend Jeanann came along too - she was a great travel companion even when we got dropped in the middle of the highway at a "bus stop." The city was fun as always - even though we didn't really get to enjoy it for too long. We flew up on Friday and returned on Sunday evening. The marathon itself was - in a nutshell - hot and long. But the people and neighborhoods were great. they all came out and gave out water and gatorade, and ice and oragnes, and sprayed us down with waterhoses and sprinklers. what was really funny was that it was hotter on Oct 12 in Chicago than it was in Jackson. My training fault is that i normally began my long runs on Saturdy morning around 5:30 so i could finish before it got too hot; unfortunately the real race didn't start until 8:00 and I didn't cross the start line until 8:20ish (yes there were that many people ahead of me). I finished just under 5 hours, which was a little more than i had hoped for, but this was my first marathon. I had a great time, but the pain came afterwards. The first day after - it was joint pain, knees and ankles really hurt. The 2nd day after was the muscle pain - which was a bit worse than regular run muscle pain, but went away after a few days as well. No long term damage that I can tell. I 've been taking it easy for the past few weeks - which is a nice break - but am looking forward to getting back to the running routine. The next race that I've signed up for is the MS Blues 1/2 marathon in Jackson in January. I haven't signed up officially yet, but I'd really like to run in the Seaside 1/2 marathon in march - just because I really love seaside and think it's a great excuse to go to the beach for the weekend! I'll keep you posted and keep posting pictures.

Dogs, dogs, dogs....

So this is our Gabby's boyfriend Otis. Otis is the white curly-haired golden-doodle. This is a combination of a golden retriever and a poodle - the idea is that they are hypo-allergenic, don't shed as much, and combine the best traits of both breeds - I couldn't agree more. He really thinks that Gabby is his girlfriend. They literally give each other a hug at first meeting and are inseparable the entire time that they are together. Adam and Elizabeth Byrd invited us to their lake house for the Fourth and we took Gabby along. Porter is still too little and too unpredictable I think. She had to stay home. Gabby LOVES the water - she kept going to fetch the ball and bringing it back the long way all morning long. Since there are no steps up the pier from the water - Gabby went to get the ball, swam all the way to shore, got on the pier and brought it back to me. Even when sweet Otis did get to the ball first - Gabby would dunk him under and steal the ball away to bring it back. it was such a great game and she was exhausted the rest of the day, and slept all the way home. We are so blessed to have friends like the Byrds and I know Gabby likes the company as well. :)

Hood Family

Anthony's sister and her Family (husband Dave, son Justin - 5, and daughter Hannah 2). We went to Houston to see them in May of this year and they came her this weekend for a quick trip to see the Grandmas. Enjoy the slideshow - we'll see how much i know about technology!

Inspired to write again.

So... I'm obviously not very good at this whole blogging thing - on average I have one every two months. My friend Adelle (whose blog is on my favorites to the right - and who has a much more interesting life and the cutest little girl - as well as a very old picture of us) does an excellent job of blogging and has inspired me to pick it up again. On the up side - not much changes in our house too quickly - we're very habitual creatures and keep a pretty tight schedule. Lets see... recently Anthony & I took a trip to Houston to see his Sister, brother-in-law, and two sweet kids. I've put some of the pictures on here. It was Loads of fun - little Hannah is just over one year, and Justin is a super smart 5 year old. We had a blast with them even though we only got to stay for a weekend (thank goodness for direct flights on Southwest - and funny flight attendants). Justin actually lost his first tooth while we were there. He and Anthony and Dave had a great time playing video games too - I could just picture Anthony as a kid doing the same thing. Justin also got really good at riding without training wheels while we were there too.

Other adventures - I had a meeting in the Windy City - it was my first of three trips to chicago this year and it was indeed windy. This first trip was for a meeting of APSA- American Physician Scientists Association - I think the link is to the right as well. It was a lot of fun to meet with other nerds from around the country! Chicago was wonderful - especially because it was cool and dry! Lake Michigan was this beautiful color teal green/blue - the picture really doesn't do it justice. Oh the shopping on the "Michigan Mile" is awesome too - they have a Garmin store, and Nike, and Apple, and Tiffany's :) among other things. Next time i go, i'm also going for business- another APSA meeting, but just exec for a day, so not too exciting- but the people really are great. Here are some of the pics from this trip:

The last trip of the year to Chicago will be fore the Chicago Marathon- terrified and excited about 26.2!! It should be really well organized thie year after the fiasco that happened last year. there should at least be plenty of water and gatorade. I have a friend at Michigan State that might get to come down and hang out with me a little during this trip.
At the end of this month Anthony & I are headed to the beach for a 2.5 day weekend - we are really excited about having the time off and love the beach almost as much as the mountains of Virginia! It will be a short but relaxing trip. .....Lets see - other updates .... we've added another member to our little family - We got another Golden Retriever named Porter (her whole name is Erin Porter - becuase we got her on St. Patrick's day and Erin is the poetic name for Ireland, and Porter b/c Anthony liked the name - she goes by Porter. She's really sweet and Gabby loves having a friend to play with during the day. We are officially at our pet limit- no more living things in this house unless they are human - otherwise we'll have to charge admission to the Gannon Zoo!! That's all for now - i'll try to do better with this - just in case anyone is interested :o)

It's been a while

So now that you've all got that song in your head.... (sorry to all the faithful readers - all two of you!) Life has been really busy and since we don't have real two legged kids and we live in the same city as most of the family - there's not much reason to blog really. none-the-less - here we are. Life's good. Anthony is on Peds wards this month and I'm in and out of town most of this month. I just got back from San Deigo Experimental Biology conference - San Diego was great - American Airlines not so much. We had to get back the same day we scheduled to get out, so... we re-booked through Southwest and flew through Oakland to Houston to New Orleans, then rented a car at 11:30 pm and drove to Jackson! YEah for American - I'll never fly them again! Yes i realize that all of the companies have problems - but it was rediculous! And someone owes me $575 for the extra travel that my poor Discover card has suffered. On the upside - Coronado Island right across the bridge from San Diego is wonderful - if we ever go back I hope to stay there. the breakfast buffet is amazing and you get to look over the pacific (see pictures below). Next I'm off to Chicago - which i'm also really looking forward to! I've never been there before and the meeting will be good too. We've got tickets to a baseball game the first night we're there. Unfortunately Anthony doesn't get to go to this one either. His next trip is on the CMDA mission trip to Mexico in May. WE also might get to go see his sister and our neice and nephew in Houston (Thankfully there is a direct flight to houston on Southwest from Jackson). And we're hopefully going to the beach at some point this summer. I think we've both been in Jackson a little too long and are going stir crazy - plus traveling is much easier pre-kids (no, we're not planning on any any time soon) and pre-clinical years.