Girl Power!

Gracie's all girls hockey team is in first place! They are beating all the other teams which are made up of boys only. As Jim says...."stupid boys"!

Hillbilly Weather

My favorite Aunt and Uncle Hillbillies live in Kentucky. We sent a "may day" out to them this morning because they have been having terrible weather and we needed to know if we needed to send in some support (ie Jim flying in for fun and adventure!).

They are doing ok but have great stories to tell. Including ice covering all the trees, losing there power for days at a time, cooking over their wood stove, etc.

This is a cool pic that my Uncle Dave sent.

Book Review

I told you a little while back that I was going to read "The Middle Place" by Kelly Corrigan. It is about a gal in her mid 30's who has breast cancer at the same time her dad is fighting his third bout of cancer.

It talks about being in the middle between your parents and your kids. And how you swing back and forth between being a parent and being child.

Great development of characters (who are all real people) and candid discussion of feelings and how crazy those feelings and reactions can be.

It is a quick read and well worth the time investment. The relationship between her and her dad is especially inspiring.

Fungus Lips Chiweenie Butt

My little niece is a pistol. And we got a taste of this weekend when she stayed with us overnite. It started last week, when my sis in law said she was ready to give her to the gypsies because she was in Starbucks saying "Dr M, Fungus Lips" at the top of her lungs. At first it was funny but then they had to leave when she didn't stop. The saying is a long story but it involved a trip to the doctor for really chapped lips!

At our house yesterday we had a similar experience. I called Ahi, "Chiweenie butt", which is a term of endearment at our house. Amelia heard me, so she started saying "Chiweenie butt" in a VERY loud sing song voice while dancing around the front yard!

The whole gang

The real cousins (Jack, Mimi, Sam) and the pretend cousins (Maddie, Kayla) were over last nite and they did a fair amount of gathering around the computer to watch Youtube. I thought this pic was funny....the kids ranged in age from 2 (Mimi) to 42 (Marty).

Robbery!

All the kids were over last nite and they were playing "robbery" ( I think there are too many real life crime shows on tv)! A bunch of the kids went up stairs and put on disguises (see pic of Gracie and Mimi) and two of the kids were downstairs in the family room with the cash register. The bad guys came downstairs and robbed the people with the cash register. The best part was when Mimi was holding onto the cash register and trying to pull it away from the bad guys.

In the pic Mimi seems to be playing the role.....she looks like a bad guy with her "just try to get me" experession! Gracie looks like a sweet little girl!

Aruba

My Grandma went to Aruba and all she got me was this t-shirt! It makes me look buffed.

Don't tell anyone but she did not get Daisy Mae ANYTHING! OHHHH! I am the favorite!

Dead dogs?

Were the dogs poisoned and died on the bed?

Nope - this is what happens when they play all day in the snow.

We were out in the kitchen cooking and eating and they both quietly slinked off. When we went to see where they went, this is what we found.

Chiweenie Love

How could you not love that face! The Chiweenie is turning out to be a pretty good dog. The only thing is I need is to get an electric collar for recall. She seems to like to chase runners, walkers, other dogs, etc.

The Girls

A couple years ago we took a pic of me, Gracie and Daisy in the snow and it is one of my favorite pics. This weekend we did an updated pic with my newest girlie - Ahi. Me and all my girls!

Kingof Dorkland

The Loyal Subjects

The King digging for a mine while the Loyal Subjects watch.

Once upon a time there was a King. His name was Doug and he was the King of Dorkland. And he had four loyal subjects:

* Princess Gracie
* Prince Tyler
* Prince Drew
* Prince Jeremy

The King was always getting himself and his loyal subjects into trouble. One day while wandering in the forest, they searched for dead bodies or gold in old mines. They really wanted to find gold but had been watching too much NCIS on tv so they were thinking of dead bodies.

Lucky for them, they did not find any dead bodies. But sadly....they did not find any gold either.

Not to worry, the King of Dorkland is probably sitting in his throne right now thinking up more adventures.

Sledding!

The day we went to play in the snow was unbelievable - it was about 65 degrees. I was in a sweatshirt and jeans. You can see that we found a big patch of snow but all around us was bare.

Jim and Doug got on sleds and locked legs like they did as kids on skateboards.

Snow shelter

While playing in the snow, the boys and Gracie built a snow shelter. They made snow blocks for the walls and sticks covered with snow for a roof. We are going to wait for a big snow storm (if it ever comes) and then go back to find it. It would be super cool if it snowed 5 feet and we needed to dig to it!

A BIG FAT KID ADVENTURE!

Today we had the mother of all kid adventures. Yesterday, Me, Grace and Tyler found the opening to a cave/mine. The two of them spent the rest of the day devising a plan on how to get a pic inside the cave, which had an opening about the size of a beach ball. They came up with:

* Strap a camera to a remote control car

* Strap a camera to the Chiweenie

We did not have enough time last nite to show it to Jim, Doug, Jeremy and Drew so we went out this morning.

We were armed with shovels, pics, cameras and flashlites. Doug, of course, went in first! Then everyone followed! Except for Chris and Auntie Deb who were making plans with the life insurance money!

It was an old mine, probably dug 150 years ago, that was about 100 feet long.

What a thrill it was to see. We then went to search for other mines. We found some but none as long.

Dog Beach

Here are some pics from the dog beach last weekend. The dogs LOVED it! Ahi met a dog the same size as her and thought that was fun. Daisy Mae swam in the ocean.

Goalie Girl

This girlie is one tough cookie and being a goalie is just one part of it! I thought these were fun pics of her getting ready for a game.

Starving

I am so hungry today that I can't even think up a good word to describe it.

I woke up at 5 am to let Ahi out and I was really hungry. I thought it would go away.

I left for the gym at 5:45 am and was still really hungry. I wished I had a banana.

I rode three miles and thought that the feeling would go away. Nope.

At 7 am, I started a one hour excercise class. My stomach was growling and my brain was distracted.

At 8:45 am, I heated up my oatmeal (steel cut with golden raisans and walnuts)! And as Drew says: Hallelujah!!!

I am still eating it and thinking about what I will have for lunch!

It is going to be a long day!

Who needs a baby with a whiner and sneezer

I swear I have gone back in time to when we had little babies. Last nite, we were up half the nite and it was not the kids, it was the dogs!

At about 3 am we were startled awake by giant dog sneezes. I mean GIANT dog sneezes! Daisy sneezed 4 times in a row with the biggest sneezes you have ever heard - it was like her head was going to explode! The probalem was that when she sleeps on her back, nose spit runs back into her snout and makes her sneeze. My guess is she had been sound asleep on her back for awhile and then woke up with tons of nose spit in her schnoz! Thus causing the 6.0 (on a richter scale) sneezes!!! By the end of the second sneeze we had both jumped out of bed and turned on the lite! Scared the bejeezes out of me!

And.....it woke up the Chiweenie! UGH! So, now she is whining in her crate. I tell her to be quiet and go back to sleep which she did for about 45 minutes and then she started again. So I had to finally get up and let her out.

We were up for about 2 hours thru all this! I am way to old for this! And now the two of them are sound asleep in my office next to me, while I work!

pics

I have some good pics from the weekend of the dogs at a dog beach....but Jim took my camera squiding with them yesterday and left it with a friend! Stay tuned and I will post once the camera is located.

However there will be no squid pics as they did not catch any.

A good friend....

Every so often, we are all gone from home for an extended period of time and can not bring Ahi with us or leave her in the backyard. When this happens, Auntie Debbie and Jeremy come over in the middle of the day to let Ahi out to go potty. And if possible, they take her to run an errand with them! Today was such a day and she went to the pet store to get some dog food with them.

You know you have a great friend when you get a voice message like this at work:

"Hi, it's Auntie Debbie. Ahi went to the pet store with us and was a little nervous nelly. She is now back in her crate and seemed to enjoy the trip. OH! and Harvey the Pitbull was getting dog food too!"

Auntie Deb is a great friend for checking on Ahi and taking her on an errand with her.

And she is a great friend for giving me details about Harvey the Pitbull because she knows I would enjoy that detail!

I am blessed with good friends! Who love the doggies like me!

And I am lucky to have Jeremy to assist Auntie Deb because he is so kind to the doggies!

Snowboard boots anyone?

Let me know if you know anyone who wants to buy a used pair of snowboard boots. We have a size 3 and a size 5. They are both in good condition. They take up too much room in our winter gear bin!

Score!

I love it when I completely forget about Bagel Wednesdays until the email goes out saying the bagels are here!

I scored a cinnamon raisin bagel!

OH! The little things in life! Happy happy happy!

Scrubs!

The new season of Scrubs starts tonite and we are VERY excited! And there are two shows tonite:

Show 1:
Dr. Kelso's beautiful replacement, the unethical Dr. Maddox (guest star Courteney Cox), shakes things up a bit, while J.D. struggles to manage new interns.

Show 2:
J.D. and Turk set aside their decade long steak night tradition to comfort a dying patient, while Dr. Maddox (guest star Courteney Cox) begins to show her true colors.

Plus as a double yippee.....it comes on right after NCIS!

For someone who rarely watches tv, I am in over my head today!

AI pool anyone?

That's right folks, American Idol is back and bigger than ever this year! With that being said, the top 12 AI Challenge will officially be on the way in the upcoming months. Who's in, who's out and which newcomer wants a piece of the pie?! Last year, after 12 weeks of competition, 3 people in the pool took home some dough. Last year we had 30 players with a pot size of $600 and this year who knows how much bigger it could be!

$20, 12 weeks glued to your television set and 3 winners (only if you consider 2nd and 3rd place a winner) in the end.

Let me know if you interested or not.

Rules are simple:

When the top 12 are announced, you must pick who gets eliminated each week before the show starts. All picks must be in before the start of the top 12. 1 being eliminated week 1 and 12 being eliminated the last week (this is the winner of the show)

You will be rewarded 1 point for getting week 1 right, 2 points for week 2, so on and so fourth.


Payout Breakdown as follows:

1st place - 60%

2nd place - 30%

3rd place - 10%


So far I have the following folks interested:
Brian
Lesley
Team Walker
me

Anyone else?

Sniff

I went up to my folks house yesterday afternoon to pick up Drew's new feather bed from their garage. They are on their way to the Panama Canal on a cruise and did not want Drew to have to wait until they returned to get the feather bed. So I ran up there yesterday planning to do a quick run in, grab it and be on my way. But as long as I was there, I thought I would check on things.....that is where I made my mistake.

I did a walk around the outside of the house, making sure there was no broken windows, packages left out, etc. I found a utility closet outside the house open. I looked in thinking the wind probably blew it open and was going to close it. That is when I smelled gas.....

It is one of those times where you hope you are hallucinating because you really don't want to deal with it. So I walked away and then walked back...sniffing. Yep! That was gas!

Hours of work later, PG&E comes out, finds a leak in the manifold and fixes it!

I guess I was lucky to have noticed as it would have been bad if the house blew up while they were gone!

Drew's xmas gift

This is Drew's xmas gift....no....not the dog - the bed! It was time for the giant kid to get a giant bed. He went from twin to queen. Daisy loves it too!

Snow Adventure

We went to the snow today. We went four wheeling down a forest service road, pulled off the side and started a fire. The kids sledded and played. We had a yummy lunch of homemade pierogis and roasted veggie soup!

It was a chilly day - but sunny.

The excitement of the day was when a group of 14 four wheelers came by. They were out driving around in the snow.