Merry Christmas!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Love,

Jeremy, Sara & Diesel

Our Attempt at a Christmas Picture

So…I’m not sending Christmas cards this year.  Sad, I know.  I love Christmas cards too. We’ve been getting them over the past week and I love opening them and seeing a little note from friends and family, or getting a picture them.  I love the photo cards and I had big plans for a cute Christmas photo!  I even bought Diesel a cute little elf hat…which he will not for the life of him wear.  What a humbug!

Anyway, in one final attempt to salvage the Christmas card picture, Jeremy and I tried to take a good picture of ourselves with Diesel.  As you can imagine, getting a picture with the two of us, plus a 10-month, 75lb Chocolate Lab, all looking straight ahead and smiling, can be a bit difficult.  And below are the pictures to prove it.  Though there isn’t a picture were Jeremy and I both look good or that Diesel is looking straight ahead, they make me laugh and smile anyway, so I posting them.  Oh well, I guess we’ll have a cute photo Christmas card next year.

Diesel, where did your head go?

Distracted by Jeremy’s buttons.

I don’t even know where he went, in these two pictures!

Kisses for Jeremy.

Playing with the string on my sweatshirt.

And the best for last…how could you not love that face?!

Diesel’s First Snow

Hello all!  We had our first snow of the winter last week and it was quite the eventful day for our little guy.  It starting snow mid-morning last Monday, but it wasn’t sticking.  I came home during my lunch break to play with Diesel for a bit and he was VERY apprehensive about going potty outside when there was white stuff falling on him.  After a while though, he realized that if you gotta go, you gotta go, so he did his business and then ran inside. 

That evening it started to stick and we got a few inches throughout the night.  When morning came and it was time to go potty again, Diesel was very confused about the cold, white stuff that covered everything.  However, it didn’t take him long to realize that it was kinda fun to play in and that it was just like ice! (NOTE: When he was a puppy and teething, we gave him ice cubes to chew on, in order to numb his mouth.  He still loves ice and we cannot get ice out of the fridge without him running up and begging for a piece.)  Soon enough, a monster was born and he’d want to go outside just to run around, lay down in and eat the snow…instead of potty.  Awesome.  Then, when we could finally get him inside, he’d track snow into the house and we’d have little puddles of water on the tile, shortly afterwards.  Great.  Luckily for us though, the snow has all melted and now he’s back to actually going potty when he’s outside, not just being a schmuck and running around in the snow.  I did manage to get a couple of cute pictures though, so here we go!

What’s this stuff on my face?

Don’t eat the yellow snow, Diesel.

Mmm, plants taste even better with snow on them!

Eating snow off his good friend, the satellite dish.

It’s Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

Today is December 5th.  There are 20 more days until Christmas!  Are you done with your shopping?  Or are you like Jeremy and me, and have you not even started yet? :)  Have you sent your Christmas cards yet?  Or are you, once again, like Jeremy and me, and have you not even bought them yet? :)  Oh well, none of that matters because it’s Christmas!!

We bought our Christmas tree on Tuesday, but just got around to getting it decorated last night (we may have been slightly distracted by the Wii that we purchased).  It’s a beautiful 8 foot tall Noble Fur and it smells wonderful.  Here is a picture of it in all it’s glory!

In addition to getting the tree up and decorated, Jeremy put lights on the house.  We’ve never had lights on the house before because A) this is our first Christmas in THIS house and B) we thought we’d get in trouble by the rental company if we put lights up on the rental house that we used to live.  So, this was quite the exciting event for us…ok, maybe just for me.  We have lights on the ground level of the house, rope lights around our pillars, colorful lights on our yard tree, a reindeer and a red and green bulb in each of our porch lights.  Ta-da!

Speaking of Christmas decorations, check out this gingerbread house!

Pretty impressive, right?  Guess who made it.  Did you guess?  Well, you’re probably not right, so I’ll just tell you.  My co-workers and I made this!  Can you believe it??  I really think I’m still in shock that it turned out this good. 

You see, every year we have a Christmas party for the students that work in our office.  There is always some type of “crafty” thing for the students to do, and this year it involved gingerbread houses.  Well, before we knew it, and with the help of a co-worker, we quickly turned it into a competition, more specifically a “Gingerbread Throwdown!” (Yes, it was my idea and watch Food Network too much.)  The competition was broken down into three teams: the Admissions Staff (my team!), the Admissions students and International Admissions.  Anyways, to make a long story short…I created some rules (all the contents of one gingerbread kit must be used, aviation theme, 75% edible, etc.), trash talking between students and staff started, and the competition was on. 

Unfortunately though, everyone on my team lost enthusiasm for it and at the beginning of the week none of us wanted to do it, including me who was in charge of baking the house.  However, come Thursday morning when we all forced smiles on our faces and started decorating, things made a positive change and viola, our gingerbread house, complete with a  sea plane even, was finished!  As you can see from the picture, there is the main house (there are stained glass windows on the sides and back), the garage, magical fruit trees (we had Runt candies we had to use), a Twix chimney, and a sea plane!  Also, though you can’t see it, there is an “air conditioning unit” in the back (a.k.a. where the battery pack for the lights inside the house went) and it was surrounded by a graham cracker picket fence!  Needless to say, we won the Gingerbread Throwdown and I’m still in awe of the mad gingerbread house skills that some of my co-workers possess.

20 days until Christmas!!

What Did Diesel Eat Now?

Oh Diesel…our little garbage disposal!  This post is dedicated entirely to our little big boy, Diesel.  Let’s start with this question: Why do dogs eat everything and anything?  Really, what is so appetizing about rocks or dirty socks or plants?  Since we’ve had him, Diesel has eaten a variety of things.  Lately, some of those things haven’t settled with his stomach well and we’ve had morning of vomiting, afternoons of Vaseline sandwiches, evenings of colorful poop and one trip to the vet.  I thought it’d be interesting to write down a list of odd things that Diesel has eaten in his life so far:

• 3 back yard plants
• my electronic card to get me into our community center
• the spar remote key to my car
• part of my underwear
• part of a sock (this was the one that cause a trip to the vet)
• part of a green barbell shaped rubber toy (colorful poop appeared after this one!)
• 3 rope toys with bright pink, orange and red strings (more colorful poop the next day)
• a cigarette butt (yuck!  I’m pretty sure this was what caused him to puke a few days ago)
• rocks
• a dry erase marker (thank goodness it was non-toxic)
• a small magnet
• whatever will he eat next??

Oh Diesel, our life would be so dull without you!  Here are some recent pictures of him.  I’m always taking random pictures of him cause he’s just so cute…plus, he’s the love of our life (dang, imagine how many there will be when we have human children!).  Enjoy!

 

Laying on his favorite blanket…on our bed!

His favorite plant has grown back since he destroyed in in Spring.

Chewing on a bone.

 

I’m not really picking his nose, it just looks like it!

  

Jerm went to the Suns game and bought Diesel a mini basketball.  He destroyed it in about 4 days.

Just look at that face!

If you say you don’t dress your pet up in your clothes, then I don’t believe you! 

Where Did the Past 2 Years Go?

Hola friends!  I’m done with traveling for work for the year…yippee skippee!  Now I can get back to my regularly scheduled blogging.  Oh wait, my slaking started before I started traveling….hmmm.  Ok, well now I’m REALLY going to get back in the swing of things!  Promise.  There shall be consistent updates on Diesel, on us and on our adventures.  Plus, Christmas is coming up and it’s just the most wonderful holiday EVER, so you can bet that I’ll have a lot to Christmas related posts coming up.

Well, Jeremy and I celebrated our 2 year wedding anniversary a few weeks ago on October 27th!  Whoop whoop!  2 years down…many, many, many, many more to go.   Let’s take a moment to reminiscence, shall we?

 

That was a fun trip down memory lane, wasn’t it?  Anyway, I was traveling for work on the day of our anniversary, so we planned a vacation for the following week.  Where did we go, you ask?  LAS VEGAS!

We spent about 4 days in “the city that doesn’t sleep,” and enjoyed various activities such as laying by the pool, making sports bets (Jeremy), shopping (Sara), watching the Lions in the habitat, eating, walking around The Strip and seeing a show. 

During our stay, we resided at The Signature at MGM Grand and I highly recommend it!  We were on the 37th floor (out of 38) and had an awesome view of the city.  Our room even had a kitchenette in it complete with a mini fridge, microwave, dishes, silverware, cups, placemats, everything!  It was nice because we brought a lot of snacks and if we had leftovers from meals, we could always re-heat them later. 

Not our actual room, but it looked just like this!

Our actual kitchen, complete with our snacks.

 

The view.

As I mentioned, we took in a show too.  We saw Cirque de Soleil’s Ka, which is showing at the MGM Grand.  It was a really cool show!  The performers do so many crazy tricks and jumps and the theater itself is pretty amazing.  The only thing that was a bit odd was the plot.  Of course, there was no dialogue and generally one could grasp the concept of the story…but there were moments where Jeremy and I looked at each and said, “Are we on drugs?  This is so strange!”  But ehhh, that’s Vegas for you, and we’re still really glad that we saw the show. 

All in all, it was an enjoyable trip for our 2nd anniversary!  Here are some additional pictures from the trip:  

  

Just arrived…it was 12:30am, which is why we both look tired.

Studying for his sports bets over brunch.

Mmmmm, coffee.

Feeding time at the Lion Habitat.

Hanging out.

   

Laying out by the pool.

     

About to go see Ka.

And before I complete his post, here is a picture of our Diesel.  No post would be complete without him, would it?  Stay tuned for my next post and a new segment on our blog, which could quite possibly turn into a weekly segment, called, “What did Diesel Eat Now?”

Home Improvement

Home Improvement was a great show, wasn’t it?  My family used to watch it all the time.  Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor and Al Borland were always doing something funny!  You don’t find too many family shows like that anymore.  How sad.  But enough about the show, let’s talk about our home improvements.

Jeremy’s parents came out to visit us about 2 weekends ago, and his dad stayed a week longer to help with some improvements to the house.  The main things they did were: cabinet/drawer handles in the kitchen, lights in our backyard, new lights near our front door, built in soap dispenser in the kitchen, and sealed/painted the garage floor.  I sure they did some other small things, but those are the basics.  Here are the pictures!

  

Kitchen handles.

Garage floor.

One of our new light fixtures.

Soap dispenser and disposal button.

Life

Howdy everyone!  Just checking in.  What’s new with you?  Anything exciting going on?  Not much on our end.  Diesel hasn’t eaten any more foreign objects that require we feed him a Vaseline sandwich, so all is well. :) 

I’m halfway through my travel season and I came home on Friday to find that it’s definitely Fall here in Prescott.  My 80 degree days have come and gone, and I’ve broken out my sweatshirts and sweatpants.

Anyway, I just wanted to post a cute picture of my boys and a fun little video of Diesel.  Yesterday afternoon, Jeremy took a nap and Diesel decided to join him.  I couldn’t resist taking a picture.

 

I shot this video a few weeks ago.  Occasionally, Diesel will get a burst of energy and go crazy for a few minutes.  We don’t what triggers it, but it’s kinda like he drugs for a minute!  He’ll run around our kitchen island or maybe the dinning room table, or as you’ll see in this clip, he’ll run around the living room and squeeze himself behind our couch, even though it’s a very tight fit, now that he’s gotten so big.  Speaking of “big,” he’s currently up to 72 lbs.

Our 100th Post!

Say hey all!  I do apologize for being MIA for the past few weeks.  This traveling stuff is keeping me busy and when I actually do get to be home, I just want to hang out with Jeremy and Diesel, so I never really get around to blogging.  But here I am, on Saturday morning in Ontario, CA, waiting for my event this afternoon and I have time to blog.

So, to start things off, this is our 100th post!  Woo hoo!  That's a lot, huh?  I didn't think I'd blogged that much...but apparently I have because Blogger doesn't lie. 

Secondly, is it really October already?  Ugh, where has 2009 gone?  Before we know it, it'll be Christmas...but that's fine by me because I LOVE Christmas.  Anyway, back to October...it's Breast Cancer month!  Yay!  I love Breast Cancer Month because everything is so pink!  Pink candies in the stores, pink jewelry, pink clothes.  Pink, pink, pink!  I love it!  But of course, more importantly, let's remember to Feel Your Boobies, Save the Ta Tas and Fight for the Cure.

Alright, lastly, I have a story about our Diesel.  When Diesel is home alone, we leave him in the laundry room because we don't yet trust him to have full access to the house.  We leave his crate in there in case he wants to sleep, his water dish, and toys to entertain him.  Over the time, he's apparently gotten bored with his toys because he's played in the water dish and even chewed on the water dish holder.  He's recently discovered our white board/key holder.  We have this small white board on the wall, it has little hooks for our keys, and it's about 5 feet high. 

About a month ago, I came home from work and Diesel had gotten my spare car key off the hook and chewed my remote to pieces.  I immediately wondered, "How did he unhook my key from the white board that's 5 feet high?"  A few weeks passed and I came home again to find that he'd gotten my spare house key with my electronic card to get me into the community center.  He demolished the card but couldn't eat the key.  How was he getting these things?!  Well, when I was traveling about a week and a half ago, Jeremy made a quick trip to the store and came back to catch Diesel red handed...he was standing on his crate, which easily made him 2 1/2 feet taller and allowed him to easily unhook all the keys!!  That shmuck!  He's getting SO smart!  Oh, I wish Jerm had taken a picture.

Going along with that story, we removed all the keys from the hooks, but we left a dry erase marker and some on the little magnets on the board, not thinking that he'd be able to get those, since they were higher than the dangling keys.   We were wrong!  Last Wednesday, Diesel decided he was going to eat the dry erase marker and a magnet!  Jeremy came into the laundry to find blue marker pieces all over the place.  Ugggh!  The marker was non-toxic but we still called the vet and they advised that we call Animal Poison Control.  Did you know that it costs you $60 to call Animal Poison Control?  What if you didn't have the $60, would your animal just have to be poisoned with no cure?  Anyway, they said that we probably had nothing to worry about and that it would all "pass," but they recommended we feed him high fiber foods, such as canned pumpkin, apples and whole wheat bread.  The vet agree with the consultation but said to feed him a Vaseline sandwich twice  that day to help "get things moving."  Yes, you read right...a Vaseline sandwich.  GROSS!! 

Anyway, Diesel is fine and I believe everything has now "passed," thanks to the disgusting sandwich.