Playing Catch-Up

Here's a quick post to get caught up with what's been happenening in the lives of Mr. and Mrs. L in the past few weeks...

Christmas time brought a nice and much needed break for Mr. L from work. For 2 whole weeks he was able to stay home and enjoy some "rest and relaxation" before the hustle and bustle of busy season began this past Monday. I was able to take some time off of work as well but the days seemed to pass by so quickly that I was back to work in the blink of an eye. A few unexpected things happened but all is well to report now.

We spent Christmas Eve with the L Family which included going to church and a wonderful homecooked meal. We got a call around 10:00pm from my Mom saying that they were at the local hospital with my Grandma who had had an episode at dinner. This was rather unusual because although Gma-J (as we like to call her) is not as young as she used to be, she's in pretty good health. Being the good husband that he is, Mr. L drove me to the hospital to spend the rest of the evening with my family. She was discharged late the same night and everything has been ok since...so praise God for that!

Christmas Day was nice as we were able to see my family in the morning, Mr. L's grandparents in the afternoon and more of my family in the evening. It can definitely be exhausting hopping around from place to place but we do it because we feel fortunate to have all of our loved ones so close to one another.

Surprise #2 (and if you guessed that it might have something to do with our cute little dog that is too smart for her own good, then you'd be right)- The weekend came and went and I had to head back to work. Since Mr. L still had another week off he was looking forward to spending time with Dakota and gearing up for New Year's Eve. I hadn't been at work for more than 2 hours Monday when I get a call from Mr. L. He tells me that he had decided to make a quick run to get some gas for his car and thought...how much damage could Dakota do if I leave her out of the crate (always a bad idea). He claims that he surveyed the room and saw nothing that she could get into while he was gone for 15 minutes. When he comes back...to his surprise...she had somehow jumped up on the dining room table and pulled down his dark chocolate Whitman's Sampler that was still in the plastic wraping. My theory is that she had to have been plotting this well before he left because in that short amount of time she had the box down, plastic wrap open, lid off, and every single piece eaten. Needless to say, a short vet ride later, $125 dollars, and a shot of something to make her vomit, she was not enjoying the rest of her day. She has since recovered and luckily hasn't eaten anything since.

We had a great time New Year's Eve at The Madison. We danced, and drank, and enjoyed being with our friends/family as we said goodbye to 2008 and hello to a new year. One of Mr. L's college friends and his girlfriend came to visit so it made the night that much more special. So...now you're all caught up. I'll leave you with a few pics from our fun night out on NYE.

Preparing for a New Year

In thinking about 2009 and what the upcoming year will hold for me and my family I realized that Mr. L and I have been married for 6 months now! Quite an accomplishment in my mind. We've reached the midway point of what they call the "hardest year of marriage". Reflecting back on the ups and downs of this new chapter in my life so far, I've realized a few things about what comes with taking on the role of a wife... and I'm going to share them with you. Here are my top 5 thoughts about keeping a home and a husband:

5. I cannot and will not ever be able to fold a fitted sheet so that it looks nice in my linen closet and for some reason this bugs me.
4. Pre-marriage, I used to go a really long time between doing loads of laundry. I will never understand how it is produced in mass quantities with only one more person contributing to the pile. I really don't get offended anymore when Mr. L threatens to take his laundry to his mother (secretly I kinda wish he would)
3. It is a lot easier to cook for two people than it is for one and most of the time I enjoy it.
2. No matter how often I swiffer/dust/vacuum/etc. I feel like there is a constant layer of dust on the floor, our dresser, and the fan in our bedroom. What is up with that??
1. At the end of the day it's very nice to hear the words "I love you" from Mr. L before I fall asleep.

A Doggie Proof Christmas

Lately Mr. L and I have been giving Dakota little trust tests to see how she behaves with a little freedom while we are not at home. We feel guilty crating her all day when we crate her at night to sleep. To our surprise things WERE (as in past tense) going very well.


I started out just leaving her for an hour while I went to the gym and slowly built up to leaving her for 6 hours on the day after Thanksgiving while I went shopping with all the rest of the crazies at Kenwood Mall. Each time we were pleasantly surprised to find A.) No potty mess and B.) No torn up stuff. That has since changed ever since we decided to decorate for Christmas.

Last Wednesday night we finally lugged all the stuff up from the basement to start decorating. We were pretty encouraged because Dakota didn't seem to be interested in what we were doing, let alone the rearranged furniture or the new tree that stood in our family room. We ended up being pretty efficient and got everything done in one night. The next morning came and against my better judgment, Mr. L convinced me that Dakota would be fine out of the crate and she wouldn't bother any of the decorations. My gut feeling was that we hadn't been there to observe her with the decorations up yet to know whether or not she's leave them alone while we were gone... but I complied.

All morning at I work I sat there and thought up all sorts of scenarios that I might come home to at lunch- the tree would be knocked over, all the ornaments would be broken, she would try to eat an ornament and choke, and the list goes on. By the time noon rolled around I was in my car and flying home (I don't normally break the law while driving but I thought pushing the limit just a little was ok in this potential emergency situation.) I screeched into the driveway, put the garage door up and ran to the door. As soon as I opened the door, there she was to greet me, tail wagging and all. Relief #1- she was not dead and had not choked on something or injured herself. I turned the corner to check on the status of our tree and...there was stuff all over the floor! As Matt said, she turned our family room into Dakota's funhouse. Let me give you a run down of the damage:


Chewed ornament #1- homemade cube with Matt's initial made by his Great-Grandmother
Chewed ornament #2- Matt's little football
Chewed ornament #3- homemade Cov Cath golf bag (are we seeing a theme here??) Apparently while decorating the tree I put all of my ornaments at the top.

The rest of the damage consisted of a chewed up umbrella, shoe, cord of the mini blinds, and door knob Santa (see photo- she chewed off his nose and tassel.)Last but not least a plastic ball ornament of which I couldn't find a small piece of. One small freak out and call to the vet later I was assured that she should be fine.

So...now that we have been through all that, we have a doggie proofed house. Our Christmas tree is looking a little "Charlie Brown-ish" with ornaments hanging only from the top half and our stockings are flipped up during the day. We have also been putting our ottoman upside down in the chair next to the Christmas tree to prevent her from getting the ornaments at the top. I guess some decorations are better than none and it still gets me in the Christmas spirit when I sit in there! Silly pup.

The Before (note stockings) And the After

Can we just give thanks!?

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. It is the one time during the year that it is guaranteed that my whole family will be together, I get to do all the baking for our feast (which I love) and it's the perfect time to reflect back over the past year and remember all the wonderful things that I have to be thankful for. It seems to me though that each year (this year in particular) there is another holiday that keeps creeping up earlier and earlier and is being celebrated by people before they even think about Thanksgiving. It's like Thanksgiving is just skipped over, forgotten about, treated like it’s just a day to stuff yourself and the real meaning is lost. This is one of my biggest pet peeves!!

Obviously we all know that I'm referring to Christmas, and before you call me a scrooge let me just say that I LOVE Christmas and I love to get into the holiday spirit just as much as the next person but for God's sakes can we celebrate our holidays in order PLEASE! I realize that many people begin to decorate their house in November because of the effort that they put into decorating and it seems silly to only leave it up for a month, but come on people I think you can wait until November 28th! How can you celebrate Thanksgiving which in my mind is the end of autumn when you look around your house and all you see is Christmas and winter!? I just don't understand. I for one will NEVER be putting up my Christmas tree before Thanksgiving no matter how convenient it may be. Soon it seems like we’ll be skipping straight from the 4th of July to December 25th. If you are a Christmas before Thanksgiving celebrator all I’m asking is that when you sit down to eat your turkey this year that you remember why you’re feasting and how lucky you are to be doing so. I digress...

Dakota

There is a saying that I heard many times throughout my childhood that still resounds in my head as an adult, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." As many of you know (or could find out be reading my older posts) we haven't had much luck in the pet department. After much discussion and prayer Mr. L and I decided that if the right opportunity came along we would try adoption again. I'd been keeping my eye on Petfinder.com looking for cute little puppies, and to be completely honest, puppies that looked like Marley. This time though we decided that we were only going to look at rescues instead of shelters and pounds in hopes that we would have a better chance of finding a healthy dog with minimal complications.

After surfing the website each day for a couple weeks we found a cute little black and tan puppy that didn't look much like Marley but was just as precious and would maybe grow up to be a little bigger, maybe about 20 pounds or so (our ideal size). I filled out the application and kept my fingers crossed. I was shocked to get good news back only about 15 minutes after I sent the email, that we were approved for adoption. We set up a time for Saturday to come meet the puppies and see if it would be a good match.

The next day at work it was all I could think about and something was eating away at me. What if the same thing happened to us again. What if we brought this cute little puppy into our home, got attached and then it got sick and died. I could NOT do that again! I tried to put it out of my mind but I knew I had to address my concern with the people from the rescue even if just for my own sanity. That night Sherry, who runs the rescue, called to confirm our appointment to see the puppies. Before we hung up I shared my concerns about bringing another puppy into our home after having one die of parvo and just wanted to double check that she was aware of the situation I had disclosed on our application. She told me she would check with the vet where she worked and would get back to me.

A whole 24 hours of waiting later, I got the call. Who knew that parvo could live in my house for up to 2 YEARS?! So, that pretty much put adopting a puppy into the out of the question category. I could tell Sherry felt really bad about having to share this sad news but offered another suggestion. An adult dog that had been vaccinated and was around 1 or 2 years old would be ok to adopt. She went on to tell me that the momma of the cute puppies that we had liked, desparately needed a home. She told me that they had had her picture posted on Petfinder for a year and no one had even inquired about her. She said she was about 2 years old and a very good dog but the current owner had no time for her and would leave her tied up outside pretty much 24/7. How sad! I talked with Mr. L about it and we decided to go look at her.

5 days later after she had been tested for heartworm, caught up on her shots, spayed, and had her teeth cleaned we brought her home. She has been such a good dog so far and will eat up any attention that you give her. We're still working on the jumping (on furniture and people) but hopefully that will come with time. Our little lady's name is Dakota and I think she's already got us wrapped around her little paw :-)

A Time to Remember

With today being Veteran's Day I thought I would post a little tribute to all the couragous men and women out there who fought and continue to fight for our country and our freedom. Sometimes it is so easy to get caught up in the day to day hustle and bustle that we forget that while we're waking up to get ready for work, sitting in morning traffic, and starting another busy day, there is a soldier somewhere who is waking up to take his or her post, armed with a gun, and ready to fight at a moments notice. I encourage you if you have not already done so to reach out to those people today that you know who have served our country and thank them for providing a service that we can never re-pay. Happy Veteran's Day!

Virtual Baby Lewin

So I saw this thing online today on the VW website where you could create your own "Routan Baby" and thought it would be hilarious to try. You upload a photo of you and your spouse (well, I guess technically it doesn't have to be your spouse, but in my case it was my spouse) and then it combines your facial features and spits out an image. I think our little guy will be pretty cute one day, what do you think?!