You Know You Have a Tailgating Problem When...

in a 30-minute driving period two different cars pull over so you can pass them.

Christmas Day

We had a wonderful Christmas Day yesterday! Michelle and Juan Ma came over on Christmas Eve and we went to Midnight Mass (at 10pm...)

When we got home, we took pictures right away:

Norm and I attempted to get a "family portrait" which was a total FAIL (this is the best picture we got)

Then we drank eggnog and opened presents!
We all got beautiful presents - Norm was the literature king - he got 3 different books, all related to food, of course.

On Christmas Day, we cooked and ate

We also played The Game of LIFE - which now involves no dice and no pink and blue babies - it actually involves a LifePod and credit cards...

We hope all of our friends who follow our blog had wonderful Christmases and continue to enjoy the season!

Happy Birthday Pellet!

Yesterday was Pellet's birthday - he turned 3! We are so happy Pellet is around - mello, mello pello, mellet, melito, pelito, little boy, pup, flip, flipear, pelletmeister (that one is owed to the vet) - in little under three years (he was born on December 22nd, but he didn't come home until February) he has become a sure staple in our lives.

One thing we do have to admit that not everything has been peachy with Pellet around... how could we forget the first (and last) pair of sandals he ate, or when he took off and almost got run over by a truck, how about the endless times he's scared the mail woman half to death - or the DHL guy (he actually sprinted back to his van).

We can't leave out last Thanksgiving when he ate a whole clove of garlic off the counter, or that one time this summer when he ate the 4 raw burgers (literally behind our backs) or the chicken tenders just a few weeks ago...

For the most part, it's tough to remember life pre-Pellet and that's a wondeful thing!

Clothes Shopping - ugh!

I guess for the most part everybody fits into one of two categories when it comes to shopping - especially clothes shopping.

1. Shopper that goes in the store and looks around, if whatever shopper is looking for doesn't POP out and grab shopper's attention shopper will walk out.
2. Shopper that goes in the store and proceeds to look through every-single-rack and every-single-article of clothing hanging in the rack until shopper finds what shopper is looking for.

Ok - I fit in category 1. If I have something in mind (today was a light pink, nice looking, sweater to wear to the work Christmas Party - tomorrow) and I don't see it when I walk around the store, I leave the store and move on to the next. I don't have the patience to look through all the unorganized, cluttered "medium pants hanging next to extra large sweater which is hanging next to small tank top" racks.

So with that being said, I do find one thing very frustrating. Walk in the store; find the perfect shirt on the mannequin. Logically thinking, whatever the mannequin is wearing should be hanging relatively next to the mannequin. NO NO NO NO. What the mannequin is wearing is actually nowhere to be found in the store (at least "nowhere" by my standards). Why?

Can you tell that the shopping trip was not successful - at all? I am going to have to come up with plan B for tomorrow's outfit. Right now I'm stuck somewhere between procrastination and shopper blues...

Talented Little Creature

Tonight I came home from work to find this:



how.on.earth did she get the bottom part to slide out like that? We obviously forgot to lock it after the last time it was cleaned... but still! I never realized that those "hard to open" and "hard to close" locks actually served a purpose!

Our dog has developed a new talent. In the 3 years that Pellet has been with us, not a single time have we ever seen anything remotely close to this...

Begining to Think She IS a Lost Cause

First she ate the flowers... now this... what's next?

Nothing but Sillyness

Yesterday I spent a good amount of the evening shredding old bills.

Cali sat by the shredder on and off the whole time...

She found this process incredibly interesting...

That's at least what she lead me to believe until I found this: SPAGHETTI!

which I am sure is what she was after from the very beginning.

Now --- sillyness from Pellet.

A few days back we had moved the cages to vaccumm and Pellet decided to crawl into Cali's cage... we said he was reminescing (since that was his old cage)

Public Speaking

I have a presentation tomorrow.
I have been practicing all night.
I think I am now able to recite it in my sleep.
I feel like I'm in 8th grade.

I don't tend to be a procrastinator, but it's strange how some things just don't come together until the very last minute. This presentation has been planned for over 6 months. Guess when I figured out exactly what I'm going to say when I get up in front of a room of 80+ people? this afternoon. I just hadn't been enlightened just yet - I knew the time of enlightment would come before 10am tomorrow morning.

Bad Combination

What do you get when you cross a wild puppy with a cold, wet morning? Click on the pictures so they zoom in.

THIS:

Check out the feet (she had mud all over the belly too)

Of course she did not like the cold water that came out of the hose

Live Past, Accept and Trust

There are some things in life that are hard to cope with. They happen and we get mad, terribly mad, yet we have no control over them. We simply have to take a deep breath and accept (the difficult fact) that this has happened.

This can be applied to all sorts of happenings accross the board. The reason I bring it up is because today, on the way home from work, a rock hit my windshield and left a big ugly hole on my windshield (not really a hole, but that funny star-looking thing windshields do when rocks hit them. I'm obviously having a hard time explaining what we all know I'm talking about... I'm referring to this.

I got scared as soon as I heard the loud noise. Then I got mad as I looked for the evidence that a rock had hit my windshield. I couldn't find it (because it's low on the windshield) so I kept driving home happy and thankfully. Closer to home I lean forward and find IT. Oh I got so mad!!!

So many thoughts went through my mind:
- how much is it going to cost to repair it?
- how long will it last like this before cracking the whole windshield?
- will it make it through the cold winter?
- did the car in front of me fling the rock?

So here I am. With a funky windshield and absolutley no control on why this happened. I just have to accept that it happened and live with the consequences of something I did not ask for.

Ever notice how we always have to have a reason "why" behind everything? If we were look at it on a larger scale, we would go crazy... why do people get sick? why do they die? why do deadly storms hit?

Do we not have the spiritual capacity and trust to simply accept (and make the best of) what is given to us every day? Human nature tends to blame someone or something right away after something bad (out of our control) happens.

It's up to us to learn how to live past, accept and trust.

Scenes of a Beautiful Morning

We are fortunate to be able to spend this Sunday in a somewhat normal way (i.e. not working). We slept in, had a great breakfast and will go to Mass this afternoon! After breakfast we took the dogs out for a field trip to a new park by Publix. The sky was blue, the landscape was beautiful and the morning air was chilly. Here are some fun pictures!

There is a pond, walking trails and benches:


Must have been saying something to Pellet...
something like "sit - stay":


Norm taking in the views:


Have to be responsible people and clean up -
there are trash cans too!


Happy Dogs!!!!


It took about 6 pictures to get this one!
(thank goodness for digital cameras):

Uneventful Evenings

Not much going on at 324 E. Riverbend... it gets dark early, Norm works late, the dogs have quit eating the flowers (for now), the novela (spanish for soap opera) comes on at 7pm, people are already decorating for Christmas (not us --- other people).
Here are some scenes of the type of uneventful evenings we've been experiencing:

Get Used to It

It's 6:15pm and it's pitch black outside. This time of the year is so difficult - especially for us warm weather-sun loving people. The evenings and nights seem endless, it's a challenge finding things to do and by 7:30pm I'm ready for bed! After so many years of living through this, the transition is still a tough one and my warm weather seems to be an eternity away.

On Their Own

As I got up from the couch after watching a show this evening, I glanced over at Pellet's cage and found this:

They did this all on their own. Aren't they silly?

Looking Out

Pellet lived with us about 2 1/2 years before Cali came along and the worst he ever did was eat Fernanda's sandal when he was a little puppy.

Today Cali decided to chew through the stringers of the kitchen blinds so she could have a clear view of the outside.

We know for a fact it was Cali because Pellet was outside... Here's some evidence:



Now what?!?!?

Fire Season

The other night we had a fire going in the fireplace. This was Cali-girl's first encounter with fire! She was very much entertained by it. Check it out:

It should be a fun winter!