Blog Worthy

So, if you didn't know by now, my dogs are like my children. I talk about them all the time. Well, mostly when they're interesting, which is surprisingly, a lot. I have a couple Rufus stories from the past couple days that Nick considered "blog-worthy".

Rufus is quite a character. He has so much personality, it is ridiculous. He is definitely Nick's dog, and Nick has recently referred to him as his son and his sidekick. He can be quite a pain sometimes because he has a lot of energy and likes to get into trouble. But he can also be really cute and sweet and just adores Nick. And he loves nothing more than chasing his tire.

Anyway, I mentioned awhile ago that as an anniversary gift, my parents had given us M&Ms with our names on them (which were also used at our engagement party):



Well, Nick was eating some and there was one random red M&M in the bag that had the date December 10, 1979. Ya, that date has absolutely no significance to us whatsoever especially since it was before both of us were even born. He felt like it was some clue to some mystery we were supposed to solve, ha ha. You're probably wondering what it has to do with Rufus. Nick left said M&M on the table and Rufus proceeded to snatch it. Thankfully, I grabbed it before he ate it. But ya, he's a booger.

Then, last night, we let the dogs out after dinner and Rufus ran really fast over to the fence. I thought there might have been another dog or something, but he turned around and ran proudly towards us with something in his mouth. Ya, it was a dead rat! Thankfully, he didn't try to eat it or anything, and dropped it quickly so that Nick could dispose of it. We're pretty proud of our little rat-killing Terrier though! Because as the past has proven, I am NOT a fan of rodents in my backyard (See this post... and this one...and this one). So go Rufus!

Baby Pictures!

I just noticed that these were on Facebook, so I had to share:

Nick holding Kayleigh

Me holding Kayleigh

These are the pictures from when we visited our friends' new baby a few weeks ago. So cute! Crazy to think she's almost a month old already! So fun. We'll probably have a bunch more of these kind of pictures in the months to come because practically everyone we know is pregnant right now, ha ha. Seriously though, I'd say at least 2/3 of the married couples we know are having babies, or have had babies this year. There must be something in the water! I'm going to a baby shower in a couple weeks in fact. Fun times!

Time Management

I recently watched a sermon about time management/planning from Mars Hill Church (Proverbs:Planning). It was really interesting and made me think a lot about how I spend my time. Overall, I'm a pretty organized person. I have a cleaning schedule, somewhat of a budget, I clip coupons, and I love routines (my weekly schedule really doesn't change all that much). It also helps that I only work a couple hours a week and volunteer one day a week and don't have any kids yet. So I should have tons of free time, right?

Yet day after day, I am in the same position as I was in today. I woke up at 7:45am and I had to be somewhere at 11am. In that time, I had to eat breakfast, walk/run both dogs, work out, and shower. So how was it that I was freaking out when 10:45am rolled around I needed to head out the door that second?! That should have been totally doable.

But instead, I got caught up messing around on the internet. Its not like this is something new either. I do this allll the time. Because I just looove to rush around. Ya, not so much. The problem is, I love to multitask. But, instead of saving time, it's really making things take that much longer. One thing that stuck out to me in the sermon was that you should schedule a time to read/respond to E-mails, be online, etc. I definitely need to incorporate this more into my daily life so I'm not unsuccessfully attempting to multitask like I've been, which then results in running around.

This sermon had a lot of good other points though. It talked a lot about setting goals, but keeping them flexible to change because, a lot of times, God has different ideas for you. A lot of it was common sense stuff, but I really needed to hear it. It made me rethink a lot of my goals and think about why I'm not quite reaching them. It also is timely, in that we're moving in about 1.5 months and will only be in Georgia for about 6-7 months. So I'm definitely thinking about what's next. Planning/time management is definitely something I'm going to be praying about a lot.


On a side note, this morning, at the end of my walk with Scout, I was looking at our yard and noticed a whole bunch of fruit on the lawn. I was wondering where it came from, and then, I looked up and saw this:

Our front tree covered in fruit

I have no idea how I totally missed the fact that a) Our tree is absolutely covered in fruit and b) That this tree grows fruit at all. We've lived in this house for almost 2.5 years now, and it's shocking to me that it took me this long to notice it.

I love fruit, but Nick doesn't, so I don't buy it all that much. But now I have a tree producing fruit in our front yard! Woohoo!

Yum!

Crazy Dog Lady Part ?

I had yet another crazy dog lady moment yesterday. I think I've lost count of how many times this has happened.

The day started off pretty normally with walking the dogs, but about a minute in to my walk/run with Scout, there was a random dog just standing on the sidewalk. Thankfully, it was a really friendly Boxer and Scout apparently didn't mind it. It was on one of the busier streets in our neighborhood though, so I thought I might just call Animal Control, even though they're usually not open that early.

Well, they must've changed their hours, because someone picked up the phone! I was shocked. Unfortunately though, they said that it could be as late as 4pm by the time someone could pick it up (it was about 8:30am when I called) and asked if I could bring it home. Being the crazy dog lady that I am, I, of course, did. It gladly followed me all the way home, but I had to practically carry it into our backyard. Rufus thought it was his new best friend, and Scout warmed up to it after only a little barking. Thankfully, it was perfectly content to stay in the backyard, and it only took a few hours for Animal Control to show up.

Good times though. I don't know if it's just our neighborhood, or what, but this occurs waaaay too often. And somehow I seem to be the only one who even bothers to call Animal Control. Oh well.

A Couple More Pictures

My computer was acting up last night when I posted those other pictures from our trip, and I thought this one was on there, but apparently not:

We were boating over to a different bay, and we saw this. Apparently there's a sandbar or some kelp or something and the Bald Eagle is standing on it in the middle of the water

And also, my dad sent me this picture as "proof":

Nick and Spencer after jumping in the water. Crazy boys!

Vacation Part 1

We're back from vacation! We sure jam-packed those 12 days the Army gave us, and now we're pretty much exhausted. But it was definitely worth it! Looking through pictures to post, I realized we didn't take any for the second part of our trip. But I know my awesome mother-in-law did, so can I steal pictures from you M?

Anyway, the first part of our trip, we went to the fabulous San Juan Islands in Washington State. I think Fort Lewis, WA has officially been bumped up on our list of posts we want the Army to send us to next. I, of course, knew how awesome it was up there, but Nick needed to experience it firsthand.

We had an absolutely wonderful, relaxing time. Although, I don't know how you couldn't when you wake up to this every morning:

Literally right outside the door of our room

Ah, it was fabulous! We did a whole bunch of sitting on the porch, reading and playing UNO. We were also introduced to an awesomely hilarious game called Telephone Pictionary. It definitely=good times. Although it would have been awesome if all of my family was there, it was great hanging out with my parents, "little" bro & his girlfriend & best friend.

On the boat with Spencer & Emily

We saw all of the sights on the island, including:

The lighthouse- where we saw some Orcas through binoculars (we just missed them swimming close by the shore)
The lavender farm

Friday Harbor (see the ferries in the background?)

A whollllle bunch of seals (those little grey things on the rocks- click on the to see it bigger)

The daily eagle feeding- yes, that is a Bald Eagle- so cool!

Roche Harbor

We also went wine tasting, and ate lots of delicious food- including fresh crabs, clams, and BBQ'd oysters, yum! Unfortunately crab season started the day after we left, so we weren't able to catch the crabs ourselves, but it's all good. On one of the days, Nick joined Spencer, Emily & Spencer's friend Max in their craziness & jumped in the Puget Sound. Seeing as the water was about 50 degrees, I passed. Emily & Max even went wakeboarding:

Emily wakeboarding

Ya, it was a pretty amazing trip, and we're totally sold on moving to Washington, if the Army decides to send us there. We could both definitely see ourselves enjoying living up there and were very upset to have to leave. At the very least, we're going to try to visit again. I'll leave you with a few more pictures:

Cruising around in my grampa's awesome '64 Mustang

Near the lighthouse, looking for whales

One of many amazing sunsets

The "backyard"

Another beautiful sunset

Hanging out on the boat

A seaplane landing in front of the house

The San Juans from the air

Mt. Baker from the airplane

More Weekend Stuff

So I totally forgot about all the other fun things we did this past weekend with the mass of pictures and all. I just dropped the dogs off at the kennel and am procrastinating on cleaning before we leave for our vacation, so here are some highlights:

- One day when we were walking all 3 dogs, it started raining. We were on the tail end of our walk, so we just decided to keep going. Well, then it started raining harder...and harder until it was pretty much a total downpour. Thankfully, the dogs were up for a run, so we ran the rest of the way back to the house and ended up being soaking wet.

- We made these delicious cookies and frosting that were supposed to be exactly like Lofthouse cookies (one of Nick's favorites).


They aren't exactly the same as Lofthouse, but mmm, they're pretty tasty! Of course, since we're going on a trip, we've had to get rid of them, but the people Nick works with were more than happy to eat a whole bunch. Oh, and I got to use the adorable cookie cutters Nick got me for our anniversary. Love it!

- We visited Nick's old West Point roommate and his wife and their new baby Kayleigh. She's now a week and a half old, but she was 6 days old when we saw her and we were the first non-family visitors. Her daddy took some pictures, but they're a little busy right now with a newborn and all, so I'll post them when I get them. She's pretty adorable though! Nick and I both got to hold her for awhile, and I was shocked at how sore my bicep was afterward! Especially with how tiny she is!

So we're off to start the first leg of our trip tonight, so I probably won't be posting until we get back. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures though!

4th of July Weekend

Nick had a 4-day weekend this past weekend, and it was absolutely wonderful! It was pretty rough getting back to normal today though. I know I had a hard time getting up early! Thankfully, we're going on vacation in only a few days!

Some friends of ours went out of town and needed someone to watch their dog, so we helped them out:

Bruno

He is pretty laid-back, but it was definitely interesting adding another dog into the mix. Plus, being a Golden Retriever he sheds like crazy! Our Roomba didn't know what hit it. The dogs all got along fairly well, except Rufus would randomly get jealous if Bruno got near Nick. So we had a few little tiffs here and there, and definitely some barking on Scout's part. Even though it wasn't too bad, if we were thinking about a 3rd dog anytime soon, we definitely are not anymore. It was just a little too chaotic. Although it definitely helped us appreciate the peaceful moments!

Thankfully, it finally stopped raining, so we were able to spend lots of time outside. The dogs definitely loved doing a lot of this:

Relaxing in the backyard

And Scout's favorite part of Bruno coming over was this:

Giant bone!

He didn't quite know what to do with himself.

We did a lot of relaxing and hanging out with the dogs this weekend, but we also had an opportunity to go to a local rodeo:

Nick all cowboy'd up

It was the 86th year this rodeo has gone on, and it was very impressive! Our absolute favorite part was the mutton busting, which is when little kids basically cling on to sheep for dear life. Don't worry, they wear helmets and protective covering, and most of them only lasted a few seconds. It was also awesome because they brought in a little kid to be like a rodeo clown and he just loved chasing down the sheep. So cute!

They also had some amazing girls who did trick riding on horses and ponies. At one point, one girl rode two horses "Roman style"- standing up with one foot on each horse. It was amazing how daring and crazy they were!

They also had miniature bull riding, which was where kids like 7-10 year old kids would ride miniature bulls. I just can't believe how hard-core they were. And, of course, all the normal rodeo stuff was awesome too!

For the 4th, we ended up cooking up a tasty BBQ and buying a bunch of little fireworks and setting them off in the backyard.

Mmm, BBQ!

Nick thoroughly enjoyed playing with fire and explosives if you couldn't tell:


Thankfully, we bought a bunch of "Black Cats", a.k.a. firecrackers:

Nick holding some Black Cats

All in all, a fantastic weekend! I know it meant a lot to both of us that Nick was home this year to celebrate, and it was really cool being in a state that loves America so much...even if it's only a tad more than it loves itself, ha ha. But seriously, the freedom we enjoy in this country meant so much more considering how much we have personally endured for it.