Park Photos

I managed to snap a few non puppy photos when we took Zulu to the park the other day. It's rare to have a sunny day during the winter so I thought it was necessary to document the sunshine and other fine scenery. I don't really have anything against summer, fall or winter, but I absolutely love spring time and I'm anxiously awaiting the return of all the foliage.

Puppy in the Park

* Disclaimer: Yes, I realize this blog is ALLLL about our new puppy, but she completely dominates our life right now so I have very little to write about. Once she is more trained and we can leave her on her own for longer periods of time, then I might have more to write about. But until then, just enjoy her adorable little face!

We took Zulu on her first trip to the state park on Sunday. We've had unseasonably warm temps the past few days and we took full advantage. Zulu had a wonderful time and I'm excited for our next trips (which won't be too often because it's $8 each time you enter the park).

Blog #2

Hi readers! Please check out the new blog that my mom and I have started.

http://blazingburners.wordpress.com/

It's a food blog that will focus on vegan cooking. I'm no chef, but my mom is a wonderful cook so I'm sure you'll see some pretty amazing things.

The goal is for my mom and I to choose a new recipe each week to make (hopefully on the same day). We'll then post our results on the blog. Hers will likely turn out better than mine, but I'm sure I'll be able to provide readers with some humor from my failed attempts.

I'm sure we'll convince my sister to join in on occasion, but she's off at school having fun, I mean working hard, so she probably won't have as much time to devote to the task.

P.S. Don't be scared of the vegan thing, I swear some of the food is really good!

Random Tidbits of Information

* I got bored yesterday and signed Jake and I up for 2 races (with his approval and promise to actually train for them...we'll see)

Bay to Breakers 12k (about 7.5 miles) in San Fran. This race is a HUGE deal and it's the centennial race so it's bound to be extra cool. People dress up and go crazy. Alcohol used to be a big part of the race, but I think they're starting to crack down on that so it might not be too wild this year. I personally don't know how people can drink and run 7.5 miles, but to each their own I suppose.

Napa Valley Trail 10k This race has a marathon, half marathon and a 10k. It's my first trail run since my high school cross country days so I thought I'd take it easy with the shortest distance offered.

* I'm probably going to sign up for the Healdsburg Wine Country Half Marathon when registration opens. This is the one I wanted to do last year, but was full by the time I went to register so I ended up doing another one in Healdsburg.

Each time I'm running a half marathon I swear to myself that it's my last one. I don't know why I keep doing them! Still haven't gotten the urge to run another full marathon though.

* I'm going to San Diego later this month for a work conference and I'm so excited!

* I received a box of Christmas decorations from my mom yesterday. I got a few of them as gifts for Christmas and others were purchased at after Christmas sales when we were in TX. I guess all of them were gifts because my mom spoiled me and bought everything for me. See the item on the far left? That's the table runner from World Market that I wanted earlier in December. I found it for 50% off AND it was the last one in the store! And some of the ornaments are the ones from Anthropologie that I almost bought online before Christmas.

1st Anniversary Gifts

Jacob gave me my anniversary gift on Christmas (just a few months past Sept. 19th) but the wait was worth it!

He made me a drawing of things that we've done/things that remind him of me. He put so many hours into this thing and it's one of the best gifts I've ever received.

I gave him a photo album filled of pictures from our first year of marriage. Had I known that his gift was going to be so spectacular then I might have tried to make it fancier ;)

We're going to try to follow the traditional anniversary gifts just for fun. This year was paper and next year is cotton. I should probably start thinking of ideas now...

More Pet Photos

Nobody is going to get tired of seeing these, right? Okay great. I'll continue to post then....

Zulu has been with us for a little over a week now and I feel like I have a newborn and a toddler all in one. Not that I know what that actually feels like, but she's definitely a handful! She's so cute though so it's hard to get too upset over the loss of sleep and energy. But honestly, if children are MORE work than this, then I'm not sure I'll ever give birth.

Well, unless I can be guaranteed that the baby will turn out as cute as this:

She has something in her mouth at ALL times. And today she discovered the litter box...Oh, AND she doesn't mind the taste of bitter apple spray so that's been useless to us. Today I accidentally got some of it in my mouth and wow, it is GROSS. I don't know how she can stand it. But I guess if the litter box contents don't phase her, then why should this?

Poor Sydney, she still doesn't know what to think. I feel so bad for her. Zulu has gotten brave enough to chase Sydney around. And sometimes she'll do this thing where she gets right in front of her and basically jumps up and down. It's like she's taunting her with an "I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you" act. They are definitely siblings.

Mom, I'm tiiiiired of that dog and all her antics!

Family Pics

Remember when I said that my sister hired her bff, Sara Gillespie, to take pictures of us for my mom? Well, we have the pictures back and they are really cute. You should hire her to take pictures of you too. Here are my favorites:

Next time we take pictures I'm going to require my sister to do my hair and makeup because she's obviously the prettiest one in these pictures and that's just not fair ;)

Also, this is my 300th blog post! That's something to celebrate, right? Let's have a party.

Speaking of random parties... I once had a b-day party for one of my dolls, Molly. The neighborhood kids came. We had snacks and some people even brought gifts. It was awesome.

Texas Pets

Just wanted to show off all of our pets in Texas. They are a big reason I miss being there. They're pretty much the best pets in the world (tied with ours of course).

The newest addition: Gilbert Grape. He's pretty wild and has to go to time out a lot, but I think my parents will keep him around.

Bridget: We think one of our neighbors moved away and left her behind. She started visiting our backyard a lot and we started leaving food and water out for her. My parents eventually caved and invited her inside. She's super sweet.

Hannah: Jake and I rescued her in Oklahoma from a sketchy guy that lived across the street from Jake. Don't worry, he gave her to us, we didn't steal her! I think we got her in March and then my mom agreed to watch her for the summer while I did an internship in CA and Jake stayed at a friend's house in OK to do summer school. Various circumstances prevented us from taking her back after the summer was over, but her and my mom were too attached to each other anyway ;)

This is the unnamed lizard that invaded our house one day while we were visiting. I was the only one freaked out by him. I begged everyone to dispose of him, but nobody would do it. So he stayed and I lost sleep over it because I was pretty sure he was going to crawl on me during the night. He didn't.

Christmas in Texas

We had a wonderful time in the Lone Star State. I feel like it went by much too quickly. We landed around 9:00 pm on Christmas day. And since my sister and I are like 5 year olds, we opened our presents right away. The original plan was to wait until the next morning and pretend the 26th was Christmas day, but that just didn't happen. It was a wonderful night, but we were exhausted by the end of it. We didn't have to leave for the airport until about 9:30 am, but we woke up super early to go have Christmas with Jake's family. It was a day full of excitement.

I gave this plate to my sister. It was a huge hit. One year for her b-day we went to Rainforest Cafe. They gave her a special plate to eat on since it was her special day. This plate turned out to be a big joke because whenever we would set the table for dinner, we would always put this at her spot (even after she was waaaay to old to enjoy it). Since we don't have a Rainforest Cafe in Lake County (and for some reason their merchandise isn't available online) I had one of my bffs go to the one in Grapevine and pick it up for me. My sister was thrilled.

A pilot hat (with gloves to match)!

This is my mom opening a painting that I gave her. I will have to see if she can send me a picture of it. I forgot to take one :(

P.S. My dad was there too, but I didn't take any pictures of him. Didn't want to break the fancy camera :)

The next day we went to my Grandparent's house and had Christmas there. We usually go there on Christmas Eve, but everyone made an exception this year so we wouldn't miss out on the fun.

I think my sister won the "greatest gift giver award" for the year. A couple days after Christmas she had one of her bffs, Sara, aka our awesome wedding photographer, take pictures of her, me, and Jake to surprise our mom with. I'll post them once we get them all back.

We spent the rest of our time in Texas shopping and eating. It was awesome. We were beyond spoiled. I want to go back right now.

So much to say, so little time....

We got back from Texas a few days ago and I have to much to report, but the absolute most exciting thing in our life right now is this little girl...

Her name is Zulu (as in Alpha, Charlie, Bravo....Zulu-from the pilot alphabet). She's a goldendoodle. Her mom was a golden retriever and her dad was a black poodle. They were both around 60 lbs. so she should grow to be that size as well.






Here's how it all happened....

A few days before we left for Texas, Jake got on this kick about getting a dog. I played along while he researched endlessly on the computer to find the right dog for us. He settled on the goldendoodle for several reasons.

1. They grow the be a pretty big size.
2. They're really smart.
3. They don't have many of the ailments that a full bread dog has.
4. They're very sociable.
5. They don't shed (oddly enough, this was one of his biggest concerns. I guess he's tired of hearing me complain about the cat fur all the time)

Jake tends to get excited about things for a while and then the excitement will fade away so I really didn't think too much about his sudden fascination with dogs.

Little did I know...

We were on our way back to California and I reached into one of our carry on bags to get Jake's sweatshirt out. As I was pulling it out he said "there's something in there." It was a dog collar with the name Zulu on it. I thought "oh that's cute, he's really trying to butter me up about this dog thing." I put it back in the bag and then decided I wanted to see it again. I asked him to hand it to me and he said "do you want to see our new dog instead?" I was confused, and honestly, a bit upset that he'd just gone and purchased a dog without my consent. But then I saw her pictures and I fell in love. Head over heals in love.

He then told me that we had to drive back to the Sacramento airport the next day to pick her up. He'd purchased her from a farm in Oklahoma. We actually have a lot of guilt about purchasing a dog like this instead of rescuing one, but this kind of dog fits so many of the criteria that we were looking for and we're going to give her a wonderful home so I know it's for the best.

We picked her up on New Years Eve and we already adore her. She's definitely very "puppy" right now with all the biting and bladder issues, but she's only 10 weeks old so she's forgiven (for now). We have one 5x7 rug in our house full of wood floors and she decided the rug is her favorite place to potty. After accident number 2 I rolled up the rug. I will report back when the rug reappears. It will be a momentous day.

Well that's all for now, but I'll be back soon (probably with more pictures).