Nothing like 2am with the dogs!

Apparently 2am is the new 10am and it's puppy play time. The best part? Juno tries to get on Cheese's back and ride around on him like he's her horse.

Okay back to sleep as soon as the dogs finish letting some energy out.

This poor blog!

I haven't updated this in forever! Lots has been happening the past few months. Most notably, we did acquire ONE more dog. Her name is Juno and she is a yorkiepoo. She is 3 pounds and totally adorable! I will post pictures as soon as I get a good one. Since she is all black, it's hard to get a photo where you can tell where her face is!

Most notably, a few weeks ago I fell down an entire flight of stairs. No good. I still tried to go to work that day and they agreed to let me go to the ER. Lance came and picked me up and we spend all day in the hospital. My work then said it was okay to take a day or two off to recover however my doctor said I needed at the bare minimum a week and the company wasn't okay with that. They gave me the option to be let go when I returned or resign so I went ahead and resigned.

Now I am hunting for work! It's not very exciting but at least I have spent some quality time with the dogs. There really isn't much out there for jobs right now. I will just keep applying!

Off to check the chili and my cookies. I tried a new Oreo Cheesecake Cookie recipe I found online and hopefully it turns out okay!

So long since the last blog!

Greetings!

Sorry it's been so long since the last blog! In the past month, Diane has changed jobs, we've done a ton of work on the house, and we just added our third and final fur man to our home!

We've hung drapes downstairs which really ties the whole room together, hung a new light fixture over the table, put up our new fans downstairs and in the bedroom, we've replaced light fixtures, hung the TV on the wall, and mostly paved the backyard. PHEW! And we're still not done! We're in the process of removing an unnecessary wall upstairs, move a door, then install a new storage system! So much left to do but it's been a blast. We will post photos of the our progress soon! But FIRST! Introducing

Cheese Doodles Dyson!
Here are some photos of Cheese and the boys!

Baby Cheese! 3 pounds!

Such a little man!

He is so dang cute!

Such a sweet man! He just hangs around. We put up a special little baby pen so he has his own place to sleep and eat and relax when he gets nervous. We move it upstairs at night. He is so good at waiting to go potty until he is outside!

Our new fur man!

He definitely looks like a Pekingese =)

Fur man!

Why yes, the toy next to Cheese is as big as he is! He's the size of the other boys' toys!

Rockford licks the gate to try to get out

Our Rockford! So cute!

Turnip!

The boys don't mind having a new brother! In fact they kind of ignore him. Except for a few sniffs, they don't really seem to notice he's around. I am sure he'll grow on them! It's been less than 24 hours!

... and a few pictures for Saturday, too!

Here are some pictures from our dog park excursion! We'll be heading back to Magnuson very soon!

Allison (my co-worker) and our dog pack!

The dogs playing.

Turnip was a lone wolf!

He was a muddy fur man after a swim in the Sound!

Rockford did so well!

Rockford never let us get too far away but he did a fair share of exploring.

Tpop looking for other dogs to play with.

Just call him SheRockford Holmes!

We had a good time walking around.

Turnip is so cute!

A Quick Update!

The past few weeks have FLOWN by! Holy cow! It took us nearly two weeks to finally get the back yard dug out and leveled. The yard went WAY uphill from the house but the way it was grated, water was running straight down to the house. We dug it all out, including the giant hill in the corner, and grated it so the water will run away from the house. I thought it would take us a day to dig but it ended up taking us many nights after work and weekends! I am glad it's done. We now have 14 Home Depot yard waste bags in our front driveway that we'll be hauling away today. A lady I work with wants the dirt so we're going to drop it by. Fingers crossed the rain hasn't made the bags weak otherwise they'll break! The bags literally weigh about 200lbs each so we may end up having to shovel dirt into more bags to distribute it. We'll see how this goes. Our plan is to get a Uhaul moving truck that has a ramp that slides out, then we'll use our borrowed dolly to take the dirt up/down the ramp. It sounds great in theory but we'll see how it actually goes!

Other than our grand yard adventure that ended with us laying topsoil and finally laying sod (YAY!), not too much has gone on around here. My dad came over last Sunday and helped us install our two new ceiling fans. We now have one downstairs and one in our bedroom. I posted a picture of them earlier - they're the really neat modern looking fans with three blades. I LOVE them! The one downstairs is stainless steel and upstairs is oil rubber bronze. They are so cool! For a while we thought they were broken because I was upstairs messing with the remote and Lance was downstairs messing with the remote for the one in the living room and they were controlling each other... needless to say we learned the value of changing the frequency of the remotes!

We've also put a new bench in our entry way. It has some cubby holes for shoes and it's super comfortable to sit on. I saw it at Home Depot and thought it would be a good idea because all our shoes are by the door and in the entry way closet and then you have to come back into the living room to put them on! Here's a picture of the bench:

We also picked up one of Martha Stewart's custom closet kits. It wasn't very expensive but it gives us a TON more room! It was a pain to install but now that it's in, it's so nice to have so much more space to hang stuff up! Special thanks to Lance for spending hours reading the impossible instructions and figuring out how to put it together! This is what it looks like:

I am so excited to have a closet that we can fit stuff in! Of course we bought the basic closet (above) but she has more drawers, shelves, cabinets etc that you can buy to customize the closet. We bought a few extra shelves for the middle but I think we're going to leave it as it. 

Last weekend we spent Saturday at Magnuson Dog Park with the boys. They LOVED it! When we first let Turnip off the leash he wasn't quite sure what to do but once he realized he could run around freely, he bolted! He was so cute. He looked like a little blur of white fur running around. We also learned that while at the dog park, Turnip does not come back. He doesn't run from you if you try to get him, but if you call him, suddenly he doesn't know you or his name. What a pain! We decided to let Rockford off his leash and he was the perfect dog! We were worried that he wouldn't hear us and would run away, but he just played with dogs near us and always kept close by. He was great! There's a part of the park on the beach so I waded into the water and took Rockford and put him in to see if he could swim and he paddled right to shore! It was like he had been watching Michael Phelps and thought "I could do that!" Turnip, on the other hand, sank like a rock! I don't know if he is lazy or what, but he just let himself sink.  Before I could pick him up the current pulled him closer and he just walked out. I think when it gets warm out we're going to have to work on his swimming or else get him a life jacket anytime we're near water!

Well it's getting close to dirt hauling time! I should probably get ready and figure out how to get to my co-worker's house. I am so excited to get rid of all that dirt in our driveway! We'll have even more dirt once we dig out the patio area to lay pavers (55 square feet dug down 6 inches or so - you do the math!) but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it! We were going to try to dig it out and take that dirt over as well but we couldn't find the energy. Instead we had steak, V. Sattui wine, and watched The Green Hornet which was actually really good!

Hope everyone has a great Saturday!

A Preview of Easter at Aunt Cheryl's!

Here are a few pictures that I took at Aunt Cheryl's Easter Egg Hunt! This is just a preview - I took a TON of photos there!

My lovely and talented Aunt Cheryl!

My dad and Zach with his egg basket!

Going for a stroll with Uncle Reg.

Uncle Reg teaching Zach some egg hunting maneuvers.

"Should we pick this up?"

It's much easier when Aunt Joyce picks the eggs up for you.

The egg hiding was done quite well!

Lance and Zach. Lance is Zach's new BFF.

Lilly with her golden egg!

The golden egg was everyone's prized possession! 

Carefully examining to be sure that's an egg and not a blue rock.

Apparently the eggs tasted as good as the chocolate inside!

Everyone had a great time! Thanks to AC for a wonderful Easter! 

Happy Early Anniversary to the Love of my Life!

Lance and my 2 year anniversary is coming up next week so last night I wanted to surprise him with an extra special present. Let me tell you a little about Lance. Not only is he the nicest, sweetest, most wonderful guy in the entire world but he is completely selfless. Since we bought our house, we’ve bought everything I want – a new sofa, new lamp, curtains, etc. He never says a word about it though and is always happy when I find things I want. So, for our 2 year, I decided to buy him what his heart desired most: a new grill! I wish I had a camera to capture the look on his face last night when I unveiled his big surprise! I got him the exact grill he always drools over at Home Depot. It’s even Diane & Lance sized so it’s not as huge as a regular grill. It’s all fancy with ceramic plates and such and I know Lance can’t wait to get to grilling! 

Here is a photo of his new prized possession:

Lance, if you happen to read this, I love you more than anything! Thank you for all you do for me and Turnip and Rockford. Of course the gift was from the boys too. We all want to be sure you always have everything you want because you deserve it! Happy Anniversary from me and the boys!

Okay enough mushy stuff!

We got some unpacking done last night (the spare room is almost completely unpacked and is really starting to look great), hung some drapes, put together a little bench that goes inside the front door for you to sit on and put your shoes on and it has cubby holes underneath. The dogs also went and got muddy then ran ALL OVER the white leather sofa GRRR. I cleaned it the best I could last night but I think it’s time to buy some leather conditioner and leather cleaner. We want to sod the yard this weekend so the dogs aren’t just running and playing in the dirt and that way they won’t come in covered in mud. Once the painting is done and the sod laid, we really just need to finish unpacking then we'll be pretty well set. Of course we still have more stuff to do in the yard, but at least for the most part the inside of the house will be finished! I can't wait! Then we can finally have a house warming party!

Happy Thursday!

Our first outing to Discovery Park!

Today we spent about 3 hours roaming around Discovery Park with the dogs. They LOVED it! The park is only a 3 minute drive away and has a ton of trails and things to see. Rockford started out the day scared of everything and after an hour or so, he was leading our pack! He was so great! He sniffed other dogs, he didn't get scared of people, and he walked like a champ! He's our most confident little doggy now! Turnip also did great except he spent most of the time so excited he started hanging himself on the leash. That's okay though, at least Rockford made up for it by walking like a champion. Here are some pictures from our great family outing!

View from a trail we hiked. Rockford led the way!

Shilshole Bay in Ballard - just across the water!

Lance hiking with our mountain dog!

Another view from the top of our trail hiking! Rockford led us to a good spot! And he was fearless - it was quite a climb!

Lance and our boys. I LOVE that Rockford is being "classic Rockford" and is face the wrong way for the picture!

Another scenic shot!

The boys lounging in the sun... and mud!

Lance and Rockford taking a break on a bench.

Rockford being a champ!

Our adorable man.

One more Rockford shot. He's so dang cute!

We tried to get fancier with this shot.

Turnip in the dirt. And my shadow.

Our little Turnip!

Lance walking the dogs.

Walking as a family!

We had a great time today! We hope to venture out again soon. The dogs are absolutely pooped! They had a great time though.