Dog Days of Summer

It is officially the "Dog Days" of summer. During these summer months Dog Fence DIY encourages exploration beyond the fence!

Every summer every teacher everywhere has a list of "goals" or projects that he/she want to accomplish.  There are many reasons for this: the first one being that we don't have to work every day (although I'm sure the majority of us are), but mainly because we've just spent the last ten months of our lives having no free time and this list that originally seemed do-able has grown and grown and grown to a monstrous, overwhelming list.  This summer I had lots of things on "the list" and some I've done, while others I've thought about doing (does that count???).  One of the items on my list was to read multiple books a week.  While that hasn't happened, I still have been reading during the week and am wondering what type of lack-of-sleep issues was I having to think I could read several books in a week (maybe if I did nothing else...)?!  

Another goal that I put on my list was to get outside and walk/jog {at the very least} 3 times a week.  There are many motivators behind this goal, such as having a desire to live a healthier lifestyle, as well as the super cute, 4-legged friend that I'm blessed to call mine....

Isn't he cute?

Princeton has definitely been on the receiving end of this goal as he has absolutely loved getting outside and nosey-ing around.  Most days I just take him for a walk around our 2 mile neighborhood, but on days when that doesn't feel like enough, we get in the car and drive to the park.  

It doesn't hurt that we live less than a mile from a ginormous "21st century" park that Louisville has started.  When they're finished with "The Parklands at Floyds Fork" it will be over 100 miles of trails connecting 4 major parks with a park drive.  It is pretty incredible.  The park by our house that we like to venture to is Beckley Creek Park...and it's pretty incredible.

Needless to say, Princeton LOVES going for walks here as it is a change of scenery from our regular walks in the neighborhood.  He also loves to sniff EVERYTHING and "hunt" (or pretend that he's hunting) in this seems-like-the-wild park.  Unfortunately Princeton is prone to getting carsick.  Thankfully, he's not in the car long enough to toss his cookies, as it is literally a 3 minute drive.  When it's all said and done, there will be a sidewalk at the front of our neighborhood that will lead us right to the park on foot.  I'm sure Princeton will be pretty stoked when that day comes!

The best part about taking him outside of the backyard and neighborhood is that this is what he looks like when we're on our quest homeward:

That's right - dead asleep.  And by the time we make it back to the house, he's out cold for the rest of the night:

His two favorite things are accomplished by my goal: he gets to go on a walk AND snuggle on the couch.  Score and score!

Christmas Cards

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It's Christmas card time!  I love everything about Christmas cards - from taking the pictures, to picking out our cards, to getting all our friend's cards in the mail and hanging them up in our house.  We're blessed because my sister is a photographer who is willing to capture us each year (EELaine Photography).  This year, I had even more fun with our Christmas card picture, because we had a new family member who joined us in front of the camera...

Isn't he just so handsome?!  He looks so regal in this picture...Princeton, that is :)

He's looking a little unsure of this whole thing in this picture.  Needless to say, this wasn't the choice for the 2012 Christmas card!

     

If you didn't already know it, these pictures should verify how well loved this dog is!

Here we are trying to get Princeton to howl....his thoughts? "Really, guys???  You sound ridiculous!"

"Let me show you how it's done..."

After sifting through all the great pictures that my sister took, we finally decided on this one:

I felt like this was the best one of all three of us :)

And here's a sneak peek at our 2012 Christmas card from tinyprints:

What about you?  Do you send Christmas cards every year?  Do you love tinyprints as much as I do?  (Here are our Christmas Card pictures from 2011 Christmas)

A Weekend in Chicago

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Do you remember when I told you about how Princeton was protesting the month of October?  If not, you can read about it here.  Well, November came in with a big bang and a trip to Chicago.  Princeton was not a happy camper...

The good news is that he had a good time visiting with Grandmama and Super Pops (my mom and dad) and when we returned, he hadn't destroyed anything else out of anger.  It was a win-win situation!

Stephen and I had been looking forward to our trip for the longest time, and were thankful for a reason to get away.  We had friends who were tying the knot in Chicago, and we couldn't wait to get there!

As soon as we drove into the city, we headed to one of our most favorite restaurants, Joy Yee.  Joy Yees is a pan Asian restaurant located in Chinatown (I wrote about it here when my sister and her husband visited).  For the past couple of months every time Stephen and I go out to eat, Stephen has shared his craving for Joy Yees.  Thankfully we were able to satisfy this craving on this trip.  It was a night of a double win, as our good friend, Shea, joined us on our Joy Yee extravaganza!  Unfortunately, we have no pictures to document this :-/

Joy Yee, we love you!

Stephen proudly showing us what he's going to order :)

Our meal: Coconut Curry Chicken and Chicken & Shrimp Pad Thai

Stephen double fisting our Bubble Tea choices.  Mine was on the left: a Mango Freeze.  Stephen's is on the right: a Berry Freeze.

On Saturday we enjoyed time with our good friends, Matt and Amy before heading off to Carnivale (a great Brazilian restaurant in downtown Chicago) to enjoy a wonderful wedding!

It's such a fun and beautiful atmosphere, with DELICIOUS food!

They served our table family style with food that was out of this world!  

 Stephen and I are blessed to have such good friends.  Here are our good friends, Debbie and Stephen - both were in our small groups in Chicago. 

The Bride and Groom

After the wedding, Stephen and I headed to our dear friends, Mike and Amanda's apartment (Princeton's previous owners) to hang out with them and our other dear friends, Matt and Amy.  We enjoyed a great night of food (more food?!) and Balderdash.  You can never go wrong with Balderdash and this crowd!  We laughed until we cried!

On Sunday, we were privileged to worship at The Moody Church before we spent the rest of the day hanging out with friends and loving our home away from home even more. 

We even got a chance to drive past our old apartment...

 We love Chicago and miss it daily.  The people make the place, and God definitely blessed us with an amazing Chicago Family that we'll have for the rest of our lives. 

Have you ever been to this great city?  If so, what's your favorite thing to do there?

A Great and Crazy Week!

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I got ahead of myself last week when I told you how much I loved my dog....good thing love is unconditional.  Someone is protesting how busy we've been:

I had to tell my sweet students that MY dog ATE their homework...yup - you just read that correctly.  Apparently it does really happen and it happens to teachers, not necessarily just students.  This week he has "eaten" some reading logs, some scholastic book orders, as well as our checkbook.  He knows what he's doing is wrong because he'll immediately go and put himself into his bed.  He's silently protesting the month of October, which happens to have been the busiest month for us.  

In other news, we had a pretty eventful week.  Every Monday we enjoy dinner with my family (including my 1 year old nephew), as well as Bible Study on Tuesdays and Young Life College Fellowship on Wednesdays.  This Thursday was extra busy, as we had the Louisville Young Life Banquet and then I packed up my stuff and headed to Lexington to celebrate one of my favorite friend's  wedding.  My best friend, Laura got married!  I didn't take a single picture, so I had to go and steal borrow from my other best friend's uploading FB pics.  The pictures below will show you some of the highlights (or just what was available to me from my friend's album :) )

On Friday night, after the rehearsal dinner, I spent the night with my BFF, Donielle.  This picture documented our slumber party :)

Donielle is fabulous at doing hair.  Here you can see the fantastic up-dos she did for me and my friend, Elisha

Here is a picture of the wedding in action - if you look to the bottom left, you can see me at the end of the bridesmaids.

Here's the gorgeous bride and handsome groom after the wedding and on our way to the reception (Donielle did her hair also)

Here's a picture of Donielle and I right before they announced the bridal party into the reception.  Because Don-Don is so handy at doing hair and she's also a friend of the bride, she was behind the scenes a lot at the wedding, making sure us bridesmaids (and bride!) looked fantastic at all times.

These next pictures document our love for dancing and acting crazy.  Enjoy!

(my other bestie, Katie, enjoying the act of crazy with us)

Roomies reunited!

Stephen with a weird red-eye reduction mishap ;)

Last picture of the night - what a great time celebrating love and friendship!

Now it's time for me to embrace reality and do some lesson planning and paper grading.  I hope you have an enjoyable week!

A Weekend with the Prince

This post about how spoiled and loved my dog is and the great weekend we had together! Thank youwww.dogfencediy.com for making this possible.

You've met one of the loves of my life, Princeton - in case you haven't, here he is!

I figured a good post to get back into the swing of things was one on this handsome fella'!  I love dogs, always have...but I really love this dog, for many reasons.

1. He's a great companion.  This weekend I was sewing my Saturday away.  My sewing machine is set up in the basement, away from the hub-bub.  All day long, Princeton kept coming downstairs to check on me and to get a good pat and give a big kiss.

2. He loves to snuggle.  We often fall asleep all curled up on the couch next to this snuggle bunny.  Don't believe me?  We have proof:

It doesn't matter the size of the couch, it's inevitable - if you're on it, he's going to join you!

3. The last reason that I'll share as to why I love Princeton is because of how much fun he is.  

If we pretend to howl, he'll join us:

Sorry this video is so dark, you can still hear his talent.

I always enjoy the weekend because that means I can sleep in and lay low.  I know that Princeton enjoys the weekend because that means he doesn't have to wake up at the butt-crack of dawn and we're going to stay home with him all day.  Man, I love that dog!

Do you have a canine man or lady in your life that brings you joy?  Can he/she howl on command?  I'd love to see it!

Here's to hoping that I'm able to share all the 16-ga-zillion things on here that I've been waiting to share.  I'm trying to get back into the swing of blogworld.  I've been gone far too long!  I've missed you blogland and I'm excited to return!

My Hunting Dog

My dog, Princeton is a hunting dog.  He spends a ton of his time "hunting" in the backyard.  We get the biggest kick out of watching him find his prey, point, and then tip-toe to catch it.  Very rarely does he actually catch anything (I guess that makes him a wanna be hunting dog), but nonetheless, it's still fun to watch!  If you don't recall, a little less than a month ago, my dog brought my attention to a nasty snake chillin' in my backyard.  He got my attention by having a very angry and repetitive bark.  At first, I wrote it off to him being a "dumb dog" and then had my hand quickly slapped when I opened the door and was greeted by the reptile from hell.

About a week ago, I was alarmed when I heard the same bark coming from him in our backyard.  I was nervous to go out and take a peek at his latest find, assuming there was another satan serpent snake in my backyard.  As I walked out to the backyard, I braced myself for what I was about to find...

Until I found this harmless turtle being tortured by my dog...

(Check out Princeton's hind legs as he "ferociously" attacks this turtle)

Once Princeton saw my reaction and how un-phased I was by this harmless turtle, he got a little braver. That's when he picked it up in his mouth (poor turtle) and pranced around the driveway with it.  It's a good thing we've been working on the command "Leave it!" and I was able to get him to stop terrorizing the poor fella' while I worked out a plan.  That plan involved me holding Princeton while I called my mom over to help me remove the turtle from our yard and relocate it to the woods near our house.

Here he (or she???) is, enjoying their ride to safety.

Free at last!

And, once again, to prove that Princeton is a hunter at heart, here he is preying on a fly.  My blinds didn't really appreciate the attention he showed them (and neither did I!)!
He is currently sleeping next to me on the couch, hunting something in his dreams (there's an occasionally growl, muffled bark and movement of his legs)!
Oh Princeton!  Our life was so boring before you came into it! :)

I Live In A Zoo...

...and not the kind of zoo I'd like to live in (although I'm unsure of what kind of zoo that would be!)!
On Friday, after school, Princeton was outside after I had gotten home from work. All of a sudden I started hearing him go nuts. He was barking his head off, a loud and quickly repeating bark. I know you're thinking, "yeah, he's a dog, big whoop." But Princeton's not a barker - it takes a lot to get him to bark, and at this time I started to wonder what in the world was going on. I got up to check things out and as I looked out the back door, I saw Princeton barking furiously AT the back door. What in the world?! I knew then that my dog had officially lost his mind. That's until I opened the door to go out and see what in good gravy was going on. I was still thinking Princeton had lost it until I saw the most horrid thing out of the corner of my eye...
A big ole snake. Uggggggghhhhh! I immediately started freaking out, P-ton style. I called Stephen and insisted he come home as soon as his car could get him there! I then proceeded to watch the snake and follow it until Stephen got there. There's something you should know about me: I live in the camp of snakes came straight from hell. In fact, I'm fairly certain my Bible tells me that.
Stephen came home and got straight to work hunting down my arch nemesis. He spent an hour pretending he was Indiana Jones before he accomplished the inevitable. He then proceeded to bring the dead snake (he did have the decency to bag it up) into the house to prove to me it was indeed dead...SICK! Who does that?!?!
So with all that being said, I've turned into a skiddish freak in my own backyard...here's to hoping I've seen all the snakes I'll ever see in this lifetime!

Randomness In Numbers

It's been waaaaay too long since I came on here and promised you I'd be back...I wasn't lying - although I was very slow at my return.  Apologies.  I know your life has been on hold while you've been checking my blog feverishly on a daily basis (I kid, I kid!).  There's so much swarming around in my head - so many thoughts, projects, feelings, ideas, stories...today just seemed like an appropriate "random" day.  What better way to share with you what's been going on, than through a random post - with numbers?  Here we go!

5 - the number of school days left with students....I am so ready for this summer break.

1 - the number of new students that I got today....5 days left into the year.....that don't speak a word of English.

3 - the number of custom baby bedding orders I'm currently working on - are you pregnant, or know someone who is???  Change that number!

2 - the number of dead birds my dog has brought me over the span of 2 days.  He was incredibly excited and thrilled by his offering.  Too bad my anger and disgust really threw him off.

6 - the hour of the morning that Stephen and I awoke on Saturday to find ourselves still in our Friday clothes, on the couch, with the dog, and the t.v. on...ay yi yi!

4,567,921 - the number of projects I have on my mental list of things to do this summer.  Will they all even be possible???

2 - the number of students who called me a "snitch" on Friday - to my face.  Please refer to my first random number.

4 - the number of nieces and nephews I have that I've been able to see on a weekly basis now that Stephen and I live in Louisville.  There's nothing like seeing your baby nephew so often that he smiles when you come into the room!

582 - the number of recipes I have pinned on my Recipe Pinterest board...someone better get cooking!

4 - the number of recipes I have actually tried from my Recipe Pinterest board - at least I was pleased with every one of them!

1 - the number of baby pools Stephen and I have purchased in our lifetime.  This baby pool was not for our baby (considering we do not have one), but instead for our dog - in a last ditch effort to keep him out of our pool in the backyard.

20 - the day in June that I have to take time out of my summer break to drive to Bowling Green for a Conference for school.  PTL for family in Bowling Green - let's get some good family time out of the random work day during the break!

3 - the number of times that Stephen has converted into a 5 year old little boy while he's explaining to me what Bear Country is in South Dakota and how much he can't wait to visit (a trip we have planned this summer)!

4 - the week of Couch to 5K I'm getting ready to start this week...here's to hoping I'm more consistent with my runs this week than last.

6 - the number of pictures I have to share with you to make this post even more random, but less boring :)

Princeton - or P-ton, as we like to call him, enjoying his new pool!
Here's to hoping this keeps him out of ours!

Cakes I made for a friend's baby's first birthday.  That
homemade fondant is just so good!

P-ton sleeping on the couch...he's hard not to snuggle,
which then leads to waking up next to him at 6 am.

The lilies we have growing in our pond in the backyard -  they are gorgeous!  This was
not our doing, we're just reaping the benefits of the previous owner's plantings.

Exhibit A of why living in Louisville is nice. Randomly celebrating a
handsome man's pre-school graduation is always a good time!

Exhibit B.  This little guy is just too much fun!