Camping Trip

Well, September came and went so very quickly. The month was filled with much fun including catching up with good friends, celebrating Hallie's birthday and we ended the month by going camping....just the four of us.
We packed up all of our stuff and headed to the great outdoors. We stayed at Harry S Truman state park in Warsaw, MO for a short weekend. Porter and Tripp had a good first experience for the most part, at least after the adjustment to all the noises, especially the armadillos that enjoyed marching through our campsite at night. Rob and I were able to go fishing and took the dogs on a nice hike on a very winding trail. Below are just a few shots from our trip.

Robby proud of his fish he finally caught. I tossed a line in early on friday and caught a bass close to this size and again on Saturday. Oh course Rob said they were both "too small" to keep. He catches one approx one inch bigger and it is definitely large enough to keep. In my heart I feel that Rob is a little jealous of my fishing skills because he never has the camera when I catch one...but by gosh I have to go get the damn camera if he catches one!!!

Getting ready for our hike in the woods

The Campsite

Porter the "city" dog did not enjoy the trip as much as Tripp. He growled at every noise.

Tripp on the otherhand enjoyed chilling out at the campsite and didnt mind being by himself.

My favorite memory of this experience included freezing our tails off at night on a deflating airmattress with two adults and two large dogs crammed on. The dogs definitely thought they were living large when we let them snuggle up with us...truth was I didn't mind because they were like giant furnaces

Salsa Making

With a wonderful three day weekend, Rob and I decided to delve into the Salsa making world. We used most of our yummy tomatoes and peppers to make up a fresh salsa and jared a few different varieties. After quality controlling them all they are fabulous and it was so easy.

First chop/process jalepenos/peppers of choice and onions. Also finely chop garlic

Blanch tomatoes, peel and place into pot to cook. Then add in your other ingredients-peppers, onions, garlic, corn,black beans and a seasoning pack is what we used in this bunch

Funnel the salsa into canning jars

Seal with lid as demonstrated by Robby

Our finished product! It is pretty yummy stuff!

Exploring Mother Nature

Well this week's adventures included obtaining a fishing license for me and a hunting license for Robby. Rob was so excited that we had to go buy new fishing poles and supplies, I whipped up some jello weenies to fish with and we headed out the great outdoors on Sunday morning. Rob caught one little bass and I managed to loose my line in a tree, followed by catching a small branch. I make one excellent fisherman!

Since we live less than 2 miles from a huge natural reserve James A Reed, Rob decided to make the most out of his hunting license and went to shoot dove after work once last week. This is him geared up and his successful outing of 2 birds....sad but do we expect more from Rob? Joking, anyways, he had a good time and is planning on making another trip back this week.

Hopefully this will be a more successful trip!

The Malones

Oh the Veggies You can Grow!!!!

Well as any of my readers know...because there are very few of you....Rob and I started a small garden this summer once we were settled at 924. In the past couple of weeks she has really gotten 'crazy with it' as Rob says, and this is the produce we've picked from the past week. We've had several good size harvests of cherry tomatos and a few large tomatoes earlier but nothing like this zoo. Anyways, we're looking forward to many BLT's and making a little salsa, hopefully this weekend.

Farmer Rob holding his prize winning tomato... a large, beautiful Cherokee Purple

From the Malone Home,

Rob, Ashley, Porter & Tripp

August

Well like normal, I'm slacking on my blogging lately. August has gone by so quick, I really can't believe that summer is almost finished once again. However I'm very much looking forward to cooler weather, football, chilli and firepits this fall.
To end our quick & crazy summer August was filled with baseball games, a float trip (pics to come) and the new addition to our household....no, it's just a dog.
After much discussion (mostly me discussing/wanting) Rob and I decided to begin the process of looking for the perfect doggie companion for Porter on a Friday evening. Like usual, I find something I want/like right away and make a decision, by Saturday evening we brought home a lovely, sweet guy we named Tripp.

Tripp and Porter have been good buds so far. If one isn't licking and stirring up trouble, well then the other is. Overall, they do like to play together but Tripp is definitely a more free spirited pup than Porter.

This pretty much sums up the before and after work picture I see all the time. One provoking the other.
They both do love to snuggle up with me, every once in awhile they both like to sit in my chair with me.

Rob and I are looking forward to going on our first camping trip together and the dogs first trip as well. Hopefully nature is ready for us!

I hope to be a little more diligent in updating my blog in the future...that may be a little optimistic for me though!

Rob, Ash, Porter & Tripp

July Update

Well as usual, I'm slacking on updating my blog, we've just been staying so busy lately.
Fourth of July came and went and we had a wonderful time celebrating with family at our home. The kids really loved shooting off the fireworks, as well as the adults. As normal, my photo taking was lacking again. I was able to get a little shot of my houseguest Miss M who braved sitting in Porter's chair with me the following day.

  Rob and I were teaching Madeline how to play candyland and I had a lovely bit of insight into my future....Rob does not express much patience in letting small children learn how to play the game. Might I add I also witnessed another "parenting" moment when he told Porter to go downstairs and watch TV...yes, he told the dog to watch TV. Let's just hope he gets some more practice as an uncle before becoming a father.

July has also been filled with fun at the K! We were able to catch two Royals games for free compliments to my Dad and Rob's employer. It's been fun to be back in KC and watch our home team live!

Most recently we've been staying busy visiting with good friends at our housewarming party, celebrating my Mom's 50th birthday and just trying to stay cool.

From Sunny KC,
Rob, Ash & Porter

Porter the scaredy...dog

 

Well the past month has been full of change for the whole Malone household. Perhaps experiencing the most difficulty with adjustment is Porter.

First, Porter had to help sort through boxes and boxes of kitchen goodies.

Secondly, We learned that Porter does not like all of our treasures we unpacked. The saxophone was quite the entertaining moment to say the least. In addition I remembered why I didn't con't to play past high school.

A recent hail storm damaged most of the roofs in our neighborhood so it has been a couple month ordeal having everyone's roof replaced....at least for one furry pup. Porter is deathly afraid of nail guns. So much that we have to walk him outside and give him a 'potty treat' everytime he'll go on command. Yes, we're reverting back to the 8 week potty training time.

In addition, fourth of july is approaching and now that we're in missouri we have lots of eager children shooting off fireworks. Porter has been terrified and has now found a new hiding place.

Yes, he hides in the closest underneath my clothes as far back as he can get.

He's been so scared lately, he is ready to be packaged up and sent far from all the noises!

Rob thought we could break Porter's fear of loud, popping noises so we played with bubble wrap this weekend. Then he thought we needed to wrap him up too

From Sunny KC!

Rob, Ash & Porter

June Update

Well, well, well.... It has been a lengthy amount of time since I've been able to update our blog. Rob and I closed on our home and survived one last move (for many years hopefully :)) the beginning of June. We spent many days unpacking boxes and boxes, also we had to spend a great deal of time sorting through all of our fabulous wedding gifts. I had the daunting task to reduce much of our former kitchen ware to make room for our new gifts! After one and a half weeks of unpacking, we had 15 bags of trash and approximately 50 boxes lined up outside to be removed...yes we looked like 'those neighbors'.

As far as work, I've been adjusting even more to my job and have really started to enjoy working everyday. In addition, Rob also recently accepted a position at Rosehill Gardens as a commercial estimator/landscape designer. Rob wants to add "I'm loving it." okay that was my cheesey interview question so I guess I expected a half corny answer. Either way, it has been really nice to wake up and head to work at the same time everyday, we even get to share a little coffee together these days!

We had our first house guests this past weekend, thanks Mike and Teresa for making the trip up to see us and our home. We had a relaxing weekend. We're definitely looking forward to more visits and many more visitors. We're tentatively planning a small house warming party in a couple of weeks, Sat July 9th for those that want to stop by.

I hope to post a few pics of all the exciting things that have been going on the past month soon!
From Sunny KC!!!!
Rob, Ash & Porter

Working World

Well, after my extensive vacation away from work I'm finally back to the grind. After relocating to KC I spent a couple weeks doing a few interviews and made the decision to take another inpatient position at the newest BIG hospital in KC. I'm working at Centerpoint Medical Center in Independence which is conviently located ~15 min away from our new future home. I really enjoy my co-workers which is great because they have enormous shoes to fill from my Austin family. I'm adjusting to the much larger facility and increased caseload which makes my day go by fast! Just looking forward to finding my roots and new working family.

Rob is still in the hunt for a new job too, we're definitly hoping he finds something that he really enjoys doing as well!

From Rainy/Stormy KC,
Rob, Ash and Porter

Our next move....

Rob and I have decided to venture out into the waters of homeownership once again. This past week we really began the househunt project with the help of my Dad and were fortunate to find a place we loved on the first day. After one day of "negotiating" if you could call it that we thought we would be moving on from the house and went back to the drawing board. With a nights sleep, the seller's came to their senses and we were able to come to a reasonable agreement. Barring no additional hiccups with the inspection and/or appraisal, we're set to close on our home on the the 31st of the month. We are both very excited about our new home and I'll take some photos this week while we're at the inspection. Thanks to all of our parents who helped make this an awesome experience!

Love,
Rob, Ashley and Porter

Update on our lives

Wow! Time has flown by way too fast in the past month and few days. Many of you know that Rob and I moved back to KC from Austin, TX in early April. In addition to the chaos, we were married on April 16th and had a beautiful spring day to celebrate with our family and friends.

We honeymooned in Playa del Carmen, Mexico and continued to have fantastic weather. We were able to visit the Mayan Ruins at Tulum and snorkeled at a natural reef park Xel Ha. I managed to dodge any stomach illnesses, however Rob suffered from a case of octopus! I told him not to eat it but does he listen to me??? We had a fantastic time overall.

More updates to follow very soon!!!

Love,

Rob, Ash & Porter

Bon Voyage!

They say in life there are some things you just come to realize and are at peace with. After much thinking and praying, I awoke on Monday morning (my day off) and had that peace of mind. Rob was getting ready for the day and was talking on about how he was dreading heading back to the grind. I said, you know what, why can't we leave when we close on the house. Thus begins the craziness. As if we didn't have enough on our plate, lets toss on a big move! So after some more thinking and asking for parental guidance and support we've decided to take the plunge. So in eight more days we'll have our home packed and begin a new journey  in our lives. Please disregard the previous post with an Austin address. We'll be updating everyone as we know more details on a home in kansas city. I'm asking everyone to keep us in your thoughts & prayers as we adventure into this new and exciting chapter. We'll definitely miss so many things about Austin; the city, food, and most of all our friends that have been so amazing. However, we can't wait to be closer to home & nearer to our other friends too. Austin, we'll be back (hopefully often) to visit, you'll always have a special place in our hearts as this was our first home together!

From sunny Austin Tx,
Rob, Ash & Porter

Apartment Hunt

Well this week our challenge was to find an apartment that we can move into very soon as we now need to be out of our home in less than 11 days! I spent all afternoon on Tuesday calling place after place to find out 1. if they offered short term leasing and 2. do they take pets. Lesson learned, very few will do either one, let alone both! Luckily, we were able to find a little gem that isn't going to cost us an arm, leg and pet, it is also located very close to both of our jobs. We'll be moving the majority of our things next weekend. We'll definitely be taking volunteers for our big move back to KC at the end of May. Let us know if anyone wants to help us :)
Our new address is included below!

Rob & Ashley
13601 Elm Ridge Lane
Apt 1435
Austin, Tx 78727

What a Weekend!

This past weekend we made another trip to KC. Friday evening we were able to celebrate our nephew Carter's 5th birthday. Lessons learned, giant people do not fair well on inflatable jumping equipment. Saturday Robby celebrated his final night of freedom with his friends in Manhattan for fake patty's day. Thank goodness he returned alive the following day, he did look a little rough more most of the day though. For me I was able to catch up with a couple of good friends and got my wedding gown finished, I was so excited. Sunday my mother hosted a bridal shower and it was so great to see my family. Rob and I are truly blessed with such loving, caring and generous family members & friends! Today we had the joy of driving back to Austin. When we left KC at 5 this am it was 30 degrees and snowing/blizzard conditions and when we arrived in Austin it was sunny and 75 degrees. Needless to say, it has been a fun & exhausting weekend. We'll keep you posted as we can, we definitely have a busy next couple of weeks with packing, etc.

From Sunny Austin, Tx
Rob, Ash, & Porter

If you give a dog a bun...then he'll want an icecream treat...

Today is saturday, we had our third open house scheduled today. Like most weekends these days, I try to "sleep" in a little while and then I get up to do some groccery shopping, make some coffee, do laundry and then we get to work cleaning up for the open houses. This morning we had a little rain shower come through and I ran out to take care of the chickens. I thought that I'd give them a treat and gave them old hamburger buns; this is one of Porter's favorite times to come out because he likes to get whatever treats they are receiving. Today I decided I'd spoil him and gave him half of a hamburger bun thinking he'd sit down and eat it, rather he swallowed it whole essentially. He then sat outside next to the girls waiting patiently for them to kick the bread pieces toward the edge of their pen where he can then reach in and eat some. Today he sat for nearly 45 minutes.

We decided to drive downtown today during the open house and took the pup to a popular dog park we've been trying to go to the past two years. Porter had a blast, I made a new buddy...a great dane pup named murdock who kept sitting on my lap and tried to get into my bag of treats. Made me definitely want another puppy for sure. We tried to take a picture but there was too much chaos for porter to focus. We then drove down the road and had a lunch picnic. We ended the afternoon trip out by stopping by DQ and got a little icecream treat. Porter had been so well behaved I thought I'd spoil him once again today, and gave him a frosty paw icecream treat. Forewarning, the following pictures get graphic

Porter enjoying a frosty paw

Me cleaning up the frosty paw...along with breakfast. Rob just thought he needed to take this picture

Needless to say, the frosty paw didn't last long and didn't take long to come back up.

We wanted to keep our family and friends posted that we did accept an offer on tuesday evening. Our home was inspected on thursday night and now we're still in the waiting period. Continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers that everything works out well. If things go as planned we close on the home on the 31st of this month and will be staying in an apartment in Austin until mid-late May. We'll definitely continue to keep everyone up to date with our moving news/plans.

From sunny Austin, Tx
Rob, Ash & Porter

Home Update

Well, it is finally happening. The whirlwind of selling a home has begun. I think I mentioned in my last post that we were hoping to get our first offer on our home. We wanted to update everyone that so far we have two good offers on our home. We're hoping to square away some of the paper work and hopefully accept an offer this evening. However, we do understand that any myriad of variables could alter this but potentially we could be closing and be out of our home by the 31st of the month. With that said begins the real whirlwind. We're trying to determine if we should get an apartment for a couple months or do we start the chaos known as job searching and start to plan to move back to KC even sooner than we had planned. We hope that everyone reading this continues to keep us in your thoughts and prayers that we'll continue to make good choices and be close to our family & friends soon enough. We'll keep you all posted in the next few days.

From sunny Austin, Tx
Rob, Ashley, & Porter

Happy Sunday

Well, this is the first weekend in a long, long time that Rob and I have not been frantically working on wedding or house improvement projects. In fact, the biggest obstactles we encountered was to leave our home for 2 hr on saturday and 2 hr on sunday for showings and an open house. Good news thus far, we have three very interested parties, one of which may make an offer later today (according to an email from our agent). We're so pleased that there has been lots of interest in our first two weeks on the market but still are trying not to get too anxious as we know that anything could happen to delay this process or they may change their minds all together. I keep reminding myself to be patient and that it will all work out when it is supposed to. Now Rob and I have been running the crazy ideas through our head if, 'hey, you just got an offer you accepted, now get out of your home' ...what are we going to do? Scary thought that we'd have to make so big time decisions fast but we're definitely welcoming the next chapter and can't wait for it to start!
Onto a lighter note, a different agent voluntered to do our open house today. He pulled up quickly, jumped out of his vehicle in sport pants, a tshirt and what looked like cleats. He then proceded to tie balloons to a sign then disrobe in the middle of the street to change into his professional attire. Just when we thought the agents running the show couldn't get any stranger, we witness this first hand. Oh well, it will all be worth it in the end.

Well, that is a wrap from sunny Austin, Tx. We actually had to turn on the air conditioner today for the open house because it is getting rather toasty outside. Hope the weather gets nice soon for all our family & friends back home.

Love,
Rob, Ash & Porter

I think we're back in Kansas Toto!

A little over a week ago, we made a much anticipated trip back home to visit our families and friends! As mentioned in the previous posts, Rob and I have been in the process of getting our home ready to put on the market, well it finally happened. We spent most of last week+ getting as many projects as we could before we headed home. We met with Mike, our agent, and Rob's signed the papers to get the MLS for the house started Tuesday Feb 8th. Rob and I decided to take a moment to further develop our 'religious' sides Wednesday evening before leaving town and buried a statue of St Joseph which is supposed to help sell our home more quickly!

The next day we headed out of the state to adventure into the artic known as Kansas. We were so fortunate the roads were minimally icy and we had no difficulty on the road. I decided to try out my christmas gift from Robby, it really does make snoozing in the car much more comfortable.

All passengers were pretty happy campers for the duration of this trip, okay well Rob doesn't look quite as happy about driving as Porter & I are.

Friday evening, February 11th my sister hosted an amazing bachelorette party for me. For anyone that knows me, I love many things...namely 80's parties, dancing, 80's music and margaritas.

I was fortunate to have all these things and to celebrate with my family & friends. Everyone participated in the attire and it was so much fun seeing what people came up with. We also took a party bus around KC where we ventured to a pole dancing class. Thank goodness I don't have those photos in hand yet as I do recall there were a few embarrasing moments.

So in reflecting in my experience at Pole works I can now safely say the following:
1. I need to keep my job as a physical therapist because I wouldn't survive dancing on the pole

2. Cut those ladies some slack because it is a whole heck of a lot harder than it looks. I believe I was experiencing DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) for the following three days, day two I could hardly move my arms.

Saturday came and I somehow wasn't feeling too badly! I was blessed to have another great friend host a bridal shower. Later that evening we got to celebrate at Nate & Staci's home for Chase's second birthday. It was fun to see how excited he was opening all of his gifts. We got Chase a little Elmo that sings and danced to the hoky poky and Chase was so stinkin cute dancing around.

All in all, it was a fabulous trip home and continues to solidify our desires to get closer to home as soon as possible!!!

Well that is a wrap from Austin!

Love,
Rob, Ash, & Porter

Snow Days!

Well it happened once again...mass chaos arrived in Austin, Tx last friday. With all the anticipation and crossing of fingers, we managed to get a whopping 1-2" dusting in the city. Rob was fortunate enough to get a day off from work but I had to make the trip in to the hospital. I did manage to snap a couple of quick pictures in the dark that morning, sadly enough I didn't get to enjoy the snow with the boys because it had all melted by 10 am.  And yes, it was almost 75 degrees the following two days, sometimes I feel like we never left Kansas!

During the afternoon of Robby's snow day, I had him get busy working on repainting the master bathroom. This is the beginning of priming....

Yum...beer!
Of course everyone knows drinking beer makes priming much more tolerable. The finished product to come!

My snow day came the following monday. For some reason our patient census has been rather low at work the past week so I volunteered to go home and have a "snow day." I was able to get so much accomplished in terms of cleaning, packing and organizing. Can't wait to update everyone on our home changes. This past weekend we were also able to tackle the outdoor project of limb trimming so you can see our home from the road once again.

Of course we use our pick up truck as added height to reach those pesky branches the ladder can't reach



After two and a half hours our teamwork paid off and we were able to bundle up all the sticks for trash pick up

The final product!!! Wow, you can see our windows and the garage from the street. Sorry for the angle, the sun was going down and it was so bright!

Well that is a wrap for now, we'll keep you updated as we make more progress on our home!!!

Love,
Rob, Ash & Porter



Weekend Update!

Well, this has definitely been an eventful weekend to say the least. Friday evening Rob and I spent most of the night working on picking up our home (much needed) in order to meet with our real estate agent on Saturday.Everyone was so worn out by the end of the evening but one guy in particular was so tired he had to spread this long legs out on a chair with mom and crashed out underneath his K-State blanket.

 With much anticipation of Saturday came and we had some encouraging news and information from our wonderful agent Mike. Although none of the news we heard was of surprise, we are still overwhelmed with everything that we 'should' do before we put our home on the market, oh yah and he wants it on the market this week if possible! YIKES. Anyways, we're just trying to keep the mindset to work on one project at a time and we'll continue to work on things throughout the duration of selling our home. We are so excited to be starting this new chapter of life and definitely looking forward to moving somewhere closer to our families & friends. We will keep you all posted as our adventure takes form!

Today, Sunday Jan 30th, Rob and I woke up early to run the 3M half marathon here in Austin, Tx. Although we both had mixed opinions as to how 'good' the race felt, we were both elated that we did much better than either one of us anticipated. We both managed to clock in at the same time, 1 hr 16 min and 59 seconds! Really only ~6-7 min slower than our last race which we trained our rear ends off for! The weather was definitely our first obstacle. Original projections were temps in the 20's until 2 days ago when the warm front remained; therefore we had >65 deg and lots of humidity. Fortunately it was overcast and a lit rainy throughout the first portion, the sunshine did come out for the last couple of miles. We're both recovering this afternoon in PJ's and plan to finish off our evening with a yummy margarita for Ashley! Well, that is a weekend wrap from Austin!

Showing off our medals at home!


Love,
Rob, Ash, & Porter

Garage...

This weekend Rob found an amazing internal motivation to begin the long process of organizing and cleaning our home with much anticipation of putting our home on the market. I came home last Saturday from a long day of work to find Robby cleaning out the garage on a beautiful day. While going through many boxes of randomness we have managed to sort out stuff to sell, goodwill donations and things to put into a storage unit. We did stumble across the following items in a random cooler which was followed by much laughter, I think I was nearly in tears once he put the contents of the cooler on. Please see below:

Cooler with random contents inside. Seriously, why is there a clown wig?

Getting back to work in style

One more close up shot!

In addition to the garage, which looks like you could actually park inside, we have begun to tackle the inside organizational projects too. I've been working on the master bedroom closet and we ended up re-arranging our entire bedroom. It looks awesome! Future pics to follow.

Random story to conclude the blog...This weekend I was headed back to work on sunday morning, I went to feed Porter and he was so exicted that his nose got him into trouble. He was following the bowl down to the ground, scooped up his snoot and completely knocked every morsel of food onto the floor. He somehow had half the contents eaten off the ground before I could even stop laughing to get my camera. Somehow his messy accidents are so adorable on occasion.

From sunny Austin, Tx with love!
Rob, Ash,  & Porter