Appetizer Dinner

Saturday night we had appetizer dinner out on the patio! The weather was so perfect (and it still is). We had margaritas and relaxed!

Of course Pellet and Cali were the first to show up... notice Cali smelling the food from underneath the table.


Cheers!



Lot's of loving from Cali girl (at least that's what I want to think she was doing). In reality she just wanted to get close to the food...

Happy Birthday Opa

Today was my grandpa's birthday - we would have turned 90. Although I was only 13 when he passed away after a long and tough battle against cancer, I have many fond memories of him.

One thing I particularly remember is how he enjoyed his birthday. It seems like there was always some sort of family event taking place on his birthday - for example my brother's confirmation was on Opa's birthday. I always had wanted to get married on Opa's birthday, but due to various reasons, September 4 was not a feasible date at the moment.

There are more things I remember. I remember how he was always the life of the party, how his family was top priority regardless of the circumstances at hand, how he worked hard and fair to get to where he got and provide the best for all those around him, how much he enjoyed traveling and eating, how he ate yogurt and oatmeal and fruit at breakfast (every day), how whenever he got mad you wanted to be far far far away because things were about to get ugly, how he was big, tall, loud and intimidating (to those who didn't know him).

How I wish he would've lived longer than 73 years... Fortunato Manuel Migone - I miss you!

End of Summer

Some say this was the last week of Summer... that Summer ends this weekend, with Labor Day holiday weekend.

We all know we still have little under 3 weeks of official Summer left. Either way you look at it, it's pretty clear we are in Summer's last stretch... I will miss you dear season...

On that note, here's a video of a typical Summer afternoon in our backyard. Disclaimer: at one point Pellet does get a little bit out of control, therefore they get yelled at by yours truly. But notice how after that Cali continues to instigate.

Fooled

Please keep in mind the story I'm about to tell happened in a total of 10 seconds.

Today I walked in from work and Pellet wasn't at the door to meet me.

As soon as I didn't see him at the door, I glanced up and saw him getting off the couch. Yes. I'm going to say it again: getting off the couch.

I immediately yelled: No Pellet! Bad! No! No!

Pellet went in his cage/on his mat, whatever, and wrapped up in a little ball.

I stood with my hands on my hips, looking at him: MAD.

He looked up at and walked off his mat with his head down.


And we think he "behaves" when we're not home... on his defense, I do have to say that usually we leave the couch pillows on the seat of the couch... last night the couch pillows were not left on the seat of the couch...

The Fig Tree

I don't know if I ever got around to blog about our fig tree:

But then again, the way August has played out... I probably thought about blogging about our fig tree and never got around to it for abcdefghijklmnop reason.

At some point during the summer it got full of figs:



Then all of a sudden, Norm realized that the figs were gone... Gone... GONE. We could not figure it out... the leaves were intact, so we didn't think the deer ate them... did maybe a neighbor pick them? But the tree sort of blends in with the surroundings so unless you know there's a fig tree there you wouldn't be able to spot it and let alone it's baby figs.

Yesterday I looked out the kitchen window and saw this:


GEESE!! I think these geese (ha!) might have played some sort of role in the eating of the figs...

The joys of country living... I could be eating nice ripe figs at the moment... instead I'm munching on sun chips...

Disconnected

What has happened? I haven't a clue why I have been this disconnected from my blog. I guess somewhere between evening walks, the beach, work and being addicted to a Yahoo! game I lost motivation to sit down and write away.

I have had things to share though, so I'm going to share them all NOW.

1. Last week I washed my smiley face mouse pad. Pablo gave me this mouse pad way back when I was in college. He is supposed to be bright yellow (obviously) but due to daily usage he had turned a funky shade of brown. Here he is nice and bright and clean!


2. We went to visit Norm's mom in South Carolina and therefore went to the beach. The weather was awesome and we got to spend quality time with each other and with the sun, the waves and the sand.


3. We've continued to walk, and when it rains we do jumping jacks. It's working out alright I suppose. Michelle shared this link with us and she did so at a perfect timing because Norm and I had been talking about doing the Jingle Bell Run out here at Lake Oconee... so as soon as we get it together (which should be today after dinner) we are going to start following the Cool Running routine (with the funky looking Sketchers Shape Ups we bought at the beach...)

4. Cali decided to take over Pellet's mat and play tug of war with it... She was finally caught "in action" two nights ago and got reprimanded... let's hope she's learned.


5. I'm pretty sure this happened today at the grocery store (as in one hour ago) because I didn't notice it this morning when I left the house and nobody parked next to me at work... See that dent in the middle of the door? Yeah... it's lovely. It could be worse... it could be like Pellet and Cali's aunt Julie (friend from work who watches them while we are away) whose car was hit by a Navigator and the driver took off... thankfully another person in the parking lot witnessed it all... Navigator got towed).


That's it for now... now I'm off to catching up with all the other blogs I read on a regular basis (which I haven't been reading... no clue why).

The Habit

Today we walked one mile in 18 minutes - when our goal was 15 minutes. Tomorrow we will try it again.

We have printed a calendar (made in the wonderful and versatile program by the name of Excel) and posted it up on the fridge. Under today's box it says: 1 mile = 18 min.

We are going to meet this goal and we'll keep setting stricter ones (strict in both time and distance). Today we walked fast - but one day we will run (for you folks that have been to our house, walking a mile is not an easy task on our road... this task involves 4 serious hills).

The other day Norm and I realized that our bodies are actually craving exercise, that's when we made a decision to take this on and develop a habit to exercise (which according to text books takes 21 days to develop). We'll see where we stand on August 26...