Happy 8 Months To Us!!

Dave and I are so happy to have one more month behind us in this wait. Tonight we may celebrate by going to a movie. We'll see how his landscaping goes today.

I was adding up payroll last night to make it go quicker for processing tomorrow night, and discovered that Dave has worked 120 hours since May 16th. Yikes. Plus, lots of those hours won't get paid out to him since they are not billable to customers (darn it all). I just can't believe how hard he's been working. I'm so proud of him. I never imagined 6 years ago that Dave would be at all interested in gardening, much less starting up a company doing this!! It's incredibly hard work and a little scary owning our own company, but I love seeing Dave in his element. And he's so good at what he does.

He's extremely exhausted right now, but his birthday is coming up (the big 3-0!!!) and we are going to spend the day at Valleyfair (an amusement park kind of like Six Flags for those of you not from Minnesota). I'm so excited!! We've never been there together, so it's been more than 7 years since either of us have been there. We both love all of the rides there, and are excited to go on the new ones! I'm praying for good weather come June 9th!!!

Gus update

Just when I thought Gus was getting better (he was walking partway up the stairs before yelping for us to pick him up), he got super excited to see my mom yesterday, tried to jump up, slipped and fell down on the linoleum and reinjured himself. Crazy dog - we still can't tell where he is injured because he wags his tail and smiles at us the whole time we are feeling around for any injury. He just gets too excited sometimes. So he spent the evening limping around, even worse than before. He can still make it down the stairs just fine, but can't make it back up them at all. I'm still refusing to take him to the vet because he's eating, drinking and taking care of business outside. He has had superheroesque powers of healing in the past (especially with his snip snip surgery), so I'm just hoping that he'll heal quickly again this time. Dave made me promise that if he's not better by next Monday we will take him in. Here is a pic of him in his favorite chair that he is way too big for...

Grocery store encounters

Dave just got back from the grocery store. (I have the best husband ever who takes super good care of me, but that's a different story for a different day.) While he was at the grocery store, he ran into a lady from church. This woman is a prayer WARRIOR at our church. She heads up the prayer team, and has awesome faith in the power of prayer. Even though we may disagree on some things, I have respect for her. She walked up to Dave and said, "Someone who loves you asked me to pray for fertility for you". (My jaw dropped a little when Dave told me this. I have no clue who loves us. Just kidding.) Dave then answered, "Okay, thank you, why don't you also add our adoption to the list". She said, "Oh, alright. But you know... (ugh, here it comes) my second cousin got pregnant shortly after they adopted. It happens all the time".

**sigh**

Just an FYI. Any medical professional will tell you that this actually happens less than 10% of the time. This is the same percentage of people struggling with infertility who get pregnant if they continue on with fertility treatments. If it does happen for us, then we'll hip hip hooray with the rest of you, but this is another one of those "what not to say"s.

Congrats Aaron and Dana!!!!!

Aaron and Dana are over in Russia right now picking up their son, Kaden. They celebrated their Gotcha Day today (or whatever you want to call it - I know some people dislike that term), and I'm so excited for them!!! Kaden is adorable, and things are going well for them. Please pray for safe (and sane) travels for them as they make their way back to the U.S. this weekend. Yay!! Congratulations, Aaron and Dana!

Grandpa and Grandma

Happy Memorial Day!! Thank you, Grandpa for serving our country!!! And thank you to anyone else reading this blog who has served our country. We truly appreciate the work that you have done for us!!

This weekend we went down to my grandparents' house to help them clear everything out, and pick out what we wanted from their house. I'm so proud of them, they have decided to move in with my parents for the summer months.

My grandparents "winter" in Arizona from September-May every year, and usually have to spend quite a bit of time getting their house ready to live in every May. Then every August they spend time closing the house up for winter. My grandparents are social butterflies, so they spend a lot of time traveling through Minnesota in the summer with their camper and visiting friends and family. I'm sure at times it was hard for them to have to get back to the house to mow and take care of things throughout the summer. I think they are looking forward to being able to go where they want, whenever they want, without having to worry about taking care of a house.

They have rented the house they lived in here in Minnesota since my dad was 2 years old, and he is going to be 55 this year. It was fun hearing about the history of the house while we were going through everything on Saturday. My favorite part is that recently their rent went up to $600 PER YEAR from $300 per year. Dave and I had to pay more than that in rent the first month we lived in our apartment in St Paul!! Dave and I picked out lots of things that meant a lot to us, and my grandparents were excited that the things that meant a lot to them while raising their family will still be used while raising our family. Here are some of the items we picked out:

Dave and I got their dining table - on Saturday we fit 14 adults around this table. I can't wait to have big shindigs around this table!

We got a kids' table and chairs too, but couldn't bring it home as our truck was too full, but here is Jeremy sitting on one of the chairs
My great-aunt and uncle were missionaries in the Philippines and gave my grandparents this wooden fruit, the apricot table cloth and the windchimes

This was one of my favorite things at Grandpa and Grandma's house. Yep, it's a purple bull bobble-head with a rose in its mouth. Love it!!And here are some pictures from the day. We sure had a lot of fun, and relived lots of old memories. It's weird to think that we won't have any more family gatherings at their house, but I thank God we have memories that will last us a lifetime!!!

I know this is bad lighting, but the videocamera my cousin Jeremy got is super old and super cool

Zach was crazy excited about his new saw thingy. And my cousin Lucia is excited for her hubby to make something nice with it!

Here is the house

We always loved pretending this was a horse, so here are the cousins posing on "the horse" one last time

Some purty glasses that I tried on

Here are Carissa and I in the dresses my grandma wore for our Uncle Doyle's wedding (Carissa), and for our parents' wedding (me) - snazzy, I know

Too friendly?

Gus got himself into trouble once again with his friendliness. Poor little puppy can't catch a break. Friday morning, I went outside to call for Gus at my parents' house. He never comes to the door, we have to call him in from playing, and sometimes he runs away from us and we have to drag him inside. But that morning he was sitting by the door waiting for us to open it for him to come in. I was surprised to see this, and more surprised when Gus slunk in with his tail between his legs. He limped a little as he walked over to Dave, and then we discovered he had manure all over his back. My parents' neighbors have a petting zoo, so we assumed that he either got knocked over by a goat or a donkey at their place, and didn't think much more of it.

I got home from work that afternoon and let Gus out of his cage. As he stood up he started yelping and whimpering, so I became concerned. We went outside and he didn't want to walk around much to take care of business. I laid him down on the grass to look over his body to see where he was hurting. He wasn't wincing at all while I was feeling around, and then I saw dried blood under his right armpit. He had a huge welt under his arm, along with some cuts.

When my parents came home and looked at the area they came up with a theory. Their theory is that Gus was being super duper friendly (per usual), and decided to try and make friends with the donkey. But donkeys hate dogs, so the donkey probably kicked Gus, and Gus hit a fence and landed on his armpit. Dave's theory is that Gus was trying to jump at the donkey and the donkey kicked him right in the armpit. I don't have a theory. All I know is that Gus limps on his left side, but it's his right arm that has the welt under it. He can't run right now at all. He is a hurting unit, especially after he has been laying in his cage for a few hours. He can make it down the stairs okay, but when he tries running up the stairs, he only makes it up 3 or 4 before yelping and crying. Then we carry him up the rest of the way. He's still eating/drinking/peeing/pooping, so I'm not super concerned.

You may remember from this post that Gus got attacked by a dog we'd known for a few years when he was just trying to sit near him. Gus seems to get into trouble for being too friendly. I'm hoping this teaches him to stray far from where we are. The nice part of this whole ordeal is that Gus can't move fast, in fact he hobbles like an old man right now, so he hasn't been able to run away from us when we call him. He's been very obedient while he's been hurt, which has been really nice! I definitely hope that lasts, although I miss seeing him race as fast as he can out to see Dave in the greenhouse when we let him outside at my parents' house. With the fast healing powers Gus has though, I am sure he'll be running around like the crazy Gus we all know and love in no time.

More funnies

Without even trying to tell a joke, Madelyn (my 4-year old niece) told me a bunch of funnies today. I drove her to daycare today since her little sister, Grace had to stay home with her mama due to a cold/sinus infection (although she is still a crazy lady even when she's sick - she came running out of her room completely naked to greet me this morning).

As we were driving along, she started talking about her friends from daycare. She started running down the list of who gets the most time outs, who is naughty, who is nice, etc. She told me that Grace is nice most of the time, and only naughty sometimes. I asked her if Grace has to go into time out when she is naughty and she said yes. Then I asked her if she ever had to sit in time out. She told me, "Well I am very good ALL of the time, so I only have to go into time out sometimes, but less than Grace because I am older than her."

She then told me about her friend, Elise (who she talks about regularly). Today Madelyn told me that Elise is "pretty bossy", and sometimes she puts Madelyn in time outs, but that Elise is "a whole year younger" than Madelyn, so sometimes she breaks out of Elise's time outs.

Lastly we were talking about a little baby at daycare who has her ears pierced. Madelyn informed me that she is too big to have her ears pierced right now. I asked her if she would get her ears pierced when she was older and she said, "Yes, maybe when I am 75. Wait no, maybe when I am 100". Then she told me that mommies and grandmas can be 100 years old, and that she thinks her Grandma Pam is "ninety-one-six years old".

I'm glad I had some funny times today, because the rest of the day stunk. We dealt with a customer who bounced their check to us, which then made us scramble to call all of our vendors asking if they could hold off on cashing their checks from us until we get it straightened out - they were all super understanding about it. Sometimes I wonder why in the world Dave and I decided to start our own business. But these kinds of days only happen once in a great while, and I'm extremely proud of Dave's hard work, and beautiful gardening and landscaping skillz.

Madelyn watering the garden

Philippectus Rex

My fellow bloggy-adoptive mom, Tasha (a sneaky pseudonym that makes me smile) has been drawing pictures with the borders of different countries. They are all silly and awesome (just like Tasha), and so I asked if she would do one of the Philippines. So if you click here, you can check out what she drew for the "Philippini Mimis" :) The first one's long long legs look like Gus's legs!

Cars are dumb

Early last week as Dave and I were driving our brown car home, we saw the Service Engine Soon light come on. We got home just fine and decided that we would bring the car in as soon as we got a chance to the dealership here in Waconia.

Then last night I went to start the car to move it over in the garage b/c it was crowding our white car, and bugging me. As I started turning the car on, it made a funny noise and wouldn't start. Our neighbor Bob (we live in a twinhome townhouse) kept poking his head in to say hello, I think he wanted to help me, but I just said, "Hey Bob!" and walked back in the house. I wanted Dave to get the first chance at fixing it :)

Dave got home, and Bob must have had his Dave-dar on, because he came over before Dave even got out of his truck. I had already checked the oil and had the hood up, so they went to work checking everything else. In the past few weeks, we had noticed some hesitation when shifting into 1st and 2nd gear, but it would go away once we got going down the road. Bob and Dave are predicting that we will need a new fuel pump or something like that. Bob was kind enough to call his brother-in-law to see if he'd come take a look at it after work tonight. We seriously have the most helpful neighbors (and the coolest ones who live across the road!!). Luckily this car is a stick shift, so if we need to tow it to the dealership, it will be easy enough with a tow rope, plus the dealership is only 1/2 mile away.

The frustrating part of this whole ordeal? We just spent $650 last Friday on our white car because it felt like the tires were about to come off of the car as we were curving right going 70 mph. The "fix" didn't totally work, as the car still feels a little wobbly. As you might remember from this post, we're already feeling quite a pinch money-wise. I'm not really sure what lesson God has to teach us through all of this. We've really been doing a better job of finding good deals (even on our home improvements), and the bills somehow are always paid. I guess God just wants to ensure that we HAVE to rely on Him for our needs.

Realization

Today I logged onto the Ya.hoo Philippines Adoption group that I belong to and saw that a woman posted news of her referral. I was so excited to see it that I called Dave right away to tell him about it. He said, "That's great news! Isn't it great and kind of weird to feel excited for someone rather than jealous that they just got what you've been wanting for months and years now?" I had to agree with him!

As I did a little self-assessment of my feelings, I realized I didn't feel jealous at all. Instead I felt happy for her, excited that it was one more name off of the list ahead of Dave and I, nervous for the day that I get the call, excited for the day that I get the call, and just good in general. I realized that this woman had only waited 11 months for her referral, and though she does have some distant Philippine heritage in her family (through her grandfather), which may have helped her referral go a little quicker, it just made me realize that Dave's and my day isn't really that far away! Even if we have to wait 9-18 more months for our referral, that is next February-November. The way that days fly by for us, it doesn't feel that far away!!

I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. This wait has not been excruciating for me (not like the approval wait - now THAT was excruciating for me). Instead, I've been in a great mood most days. When I think of the wait (at least once per day), I'm amazed at how quickly it is going. People hear me reciting exactly how long we've been waiting (thanks to my little tracker at the top of the blog!), and I think they misinterpret that as an obsession and sadness about how long the wait is taking. They look at me with sympathy when I tell them how long it's been, and I have to say, "No!! It's not a bad thing! Dave and I are enjoying our time together". I keep waiting for the day that I fall into a panicked depression because we still haven't received our referral. God has been working wonders on my heart during this wait, which I feel is the number one best part about this wait.

Garage sale-ing and parties

I'm not a huge fan of shopping, this includes garage sale-ing. I'm not a "clothes digger" as my sister and I nicknamed some of the ladies and men out garage sale-ing yesterday. These people find AWESOME deals because they are patient, and will keep digging and digging until they find treasures. For me, if it doesn't jump out and bite me, I won't notice it.

Yesterday, my sister Carissa and I hit the city-wide garage sale in the town my parents and Carissa live in. I found some great kids' books at the first sale we went to, and we got 10 books for a quarter!! What a steal of a deal. Then later I found some squooshy balls for Gus, and some binders to organize my stuff a little better (and haggled on the price - woot). At the last sale we went to, I was walking around not really seeing anything I liked when suddenly a box fell onto my foot and stubbed my toe. I looked down and saw that it was a box that contained a practically brand-new Snugli. We had gotten some tips from a family who already went to the Philippines that it's not as practical to bring a stroller, we should bring some kind of carrier. I couldn't believe that I literally tripped over this!! I just had to chuckle at God, b/c I felt like he was saying, "Come on, Rach, use your eyes. You can save some money for the stuff you need if you just look!" Now I just need to find a little bigger one, just in case we get an older child and want a backpack-type carrier while we are there!

We got back to my parents' house, and I asked my sister how big Grace is. The carrier says it will hold up to 26 lbs, and Grace is about 26 pounds (she's a peanut). So we decided to try it out, and take some pics so you all could see for yourselves (please ignore my nastified hair)...

Later that evening, we went to a party that our friends, Jon and Suze had invited us to. We missed the Govenaires playing by about 5 minutes which bummed us out!! Otherwise we had tons of fun at the party, and of course I got some pictures too...

Jonny whipped out his hackey sack, and the boys had a good time "hacking it up". Suze and I joined in later in the night. You can see the hackey sack in front of Jon the Pro (with the white shirt). I felt like I was back in junior high/high school with Jon (only Luukey was missing).

This is the truck that Suze's brother, Rick has been working on the the past year or so. Suze and I spent a lot of our evening swinging our legs off the back of it chatting and people-watching. It was so fun!

And this is the car that Suze's dad fixed up. It's so darn pretty! If you can believe it, he hauled a garden tiller in this car one day. That cracks me up :)

Here's Dave posing in back of the car so you can see just how tiny it is (and Jon looking cool next to the truck). We sat down in it, and I seriously felt like I was sitting on the ground!

Thanks for another fun evening, Jon and Suze (and Rick)!!

Why the Philippines?

This is one of Dave's and my least favorite questions that people ask us when we tell them we are adopting from the Philippines. I'll rephrase that. It's when people who have adopted ask us that question in a challenging manner, making us feel as though we need to justify why we are adopting from the Philippines that we dislike that question. I feel like I have to say how much we love that the Philippine culture is all about family and so are we, that we have loved everything we've learned about Philippine culture. Or that we had family and friends who have served over there in mission work or training to be community developers. While those are true, the only answer I need to give is, "Because that's where our babies are".

I figured I would write a post though explaining why I am so grateful that we are adopting from the Philippines. These are reasons that apply to Dave and I only. I admire the people who can adopt from countries like Russia, b/c you will see with my reasons below that I don't think I could do it. So without further ado, the reasons we are grateful we are adopting from the Philippines:

-We only have to travel there once to do the government-required paperwork and pick up the child. I think that I would completely breakdown if I had to go for one (or more) visit(s), and then leave the child there until the next trip. I was just reading a blog about a family in Haiti who is struggling with coming home from their first visit with their adopted children living in an orphanage there. My heart hurts for this mother who has already held her children, then had to leave them while the governments finish up all the necessary paperwork for their children to finally be home with them. Every time I read one of these blogs, I wonder how these strong women are able to do it. I don't think I could do it.

-We only need to stay in the Philippines for about 1 week to get everything done. Although we will probably want to stay there a lot longer, it's nice knowing that we don't have to stay there long before coming home to start our new lives together!

-We don't have to carry any cash with us, or bribe any officials to get things done the right way. In fact all of our money is handled for us through our agency, and all we have to worry about is spending money/hotel/travel money. I hear stories about people having to carry thousands of dollars with them on their adoption trips b/c the officials will only accept cash, and bribes. That would scare the bejeesums out of me.

-The Philippine government agency that handles the adoptions (ICAB) takes the referral process very seriously. They want to ensure that they are choosing the right family for each child. I feel that they have a high success rate in adoptions because of this. This is also one of the reasons that we haven't tried finding and adopting a waiting child. We have full faith that ICAB (and God) has the right child/ren in mind for us, and we can't wait to meet them!!

-The Philippines is WARM, hot even!! I love warm weather, and am really praying that our trip falls in February, March or April. Why not December or January you may ask? Well it's so that we can get a nice reprieve from that time in Minnesota when it's insanely cold, and you don't even have Christmas or the Super Bowl to look forward to.

-We hear that the people in the Philippines are more than nice. Everyone is accommodating and kind. I can't wait to meet people over there and just smile and smile (I like to smile).

-The people in the Philippines are BEAUTIFUL. Ramiele from Am.erican Idol is from the Philippines, and what a gorgeous girl she is, right? I can't wait to gaze into the beautiful brown eyes of my babies, brush their smooth black hair, and admire how beautifully different their skin is next to mine.

-The food is AWESOME. And I know we haven't even experienced the best of what we'll get to eat over there. I'm excited for real Chicken Adobo, Adobo Peanuts, Pancit, REAL fresh mangoes, and other new things that I can't try over here. When Dave and I travel our rule is that we can't eat anywhere that we could go to when we are back home. It should be lots of fun in the Philippines!!

Keep 'em coming

Omigosh, I am loving the jokes I am hearing in response to my last post. Cass, those 3-year old jokes are AWESOME. Isaac, I got some good groans from Dave when I read the joke aloud to him. So keep posting more jokes!! Especially jokes you hear from kids. Those are hilarious.

And Nik, yes I read A LOT of blogs. My count in Google Reader is currently at 49 blogs. Dave thinks I have a slight addiction to blogs, but at least I'm not addicted to texting. My latest find is a man who writes a blog about his life. He's a man from MN who married his high school sweetheart, then they moved out to Cali to work for Dis.neyland and Ya.hoo. Eight weeks ago his wife gave birth to a baby. The next day, an undiscovered blood clot took her life when she stood up to move into a wheelchair to go hold her daughter for the first time. There was nothing the medical staff could do, and her husband was devastated. So now he is raising their baby (who was born 8 weeks early) on his own, along with the help of good friends, and he writes about it in a very beautiful, poetic way. The blog is called Matt, Liz and Madeline. Check it out, and say a prayer for Matt and Madeline, I can't even imagine how tough things are right now for him.

Hee hee

So Madelyn (my 4-year old niece) is suddenly big into telling jokes. I LOVE 4-year old humor. Here are some examples:

Why can't you stand on a tree?
Because you CAN'T!!!

Why did the tree cross the bridge?
Because the bridge crossed the lake!!

Why can't you stand on a car?
Because the pole is on the pillow!

I'll admit, I'm a bit perplexed about the last joke. Madelyn asks Carissa after every one, "Mom, is that one a joke?" And Carissa answers, "Well I'm laughing, so I guess it must be!" Grace (her 2-year old sister) is suddenly talking to people that aren't really there. She'll turn her head away from (visible) people and say, "Huh?? What you say??" That also makes me laugh, so I guess it's Grace's idea of a joke.

Happy Mother's Day!

Last year I hated Mother's Day. We went to church where there was a Mother's Day sermon, along with a baby dedication for two different families. We went to Dave's family's celebration and I snapped at his sister when she told me I wouldn't have to worry about cooking and cleaning on this day in the future because I would be a mom by next year. I knew I wouldn't be, and started crying and walked off when she said that. I was in a very different place last year than I am this year.

This year I am excited to celebrate the awesome women who are mothers in my life. And, as I discovered yesterday, at least two of the women in my life were excited to celebrate the fact that I am a mother (in my heart). My older sister called and wished me a Happy Mother's Day, which made me happy. My younger sister brought in a gift yesterday afternoon and announced that it was for me. Just that action alone was extremely touching, and made me so happy. I opened the card, and she pointed out that there was a poem on the inside of the card. I copied the poem at the end of this post. She told me that it had made her cry as she read it, and sure enough I started crying as I started reading through it. I love the part where it says that I would dig through the Earth to get to where they are. So true. The gift from her, Rich and her girls was Apples to Apples (the game), I'm so excited to play it!!

My dad mentioned that he was going to be doing a Mother's Day prayer at their church this year. He said that he wanted to include waiting mothers in his prayer, and asked if I had a good poem. I think he is going to read the poem that my sister gave me. I'm so glad that other women may feel a little better than they thought they would on Mother's Day by having someone acknowledge them as well, whether they are going through infertility or adoption.

Update: My mom and dad also celebrated the fact that I am a waiting mom with a Mother's Day present, and a very cool surprise announcement for Dave and I. Yesterday was a surreal, yet very much appreciated Mother's Day celebration with my family. Thanks guys!!!

I wanted this post to say an extra special Happy Mother's Day to my fellow waiting first time moms - Renee, Emilie, Joanne, Dana, Robin, and Jessica. Happy Mother's Day, ladies!!!

Your heart is aching for someone to hold you.

My heart is aching for someone to hold.

My empty arms are here to embrace you,

Soon we'll be together, Mother and child.

I hear your cries when you are hungry,

I hear you whimper when you are alone,

I hear you giggle when the nanny makes faces,

Soon we'll be together, Mother and child.

Hold on to your dreams of a family, of love

And I'll hold onto the hope of bringing you home.

Hold on to your dreams, we are coming to get you

And you'll be filling my arms, my heart, our home.

Give me your hand, I'll be there to protect you,

Give me your heart, and I'll cherish our love.

The love between Mother and child is precious,

Soon we'll be together, Mother and child.

I'll fly over an ocean to see and to meet you,

I'd dig straight through the earth to be where you are.

I'm waiting my turn; time is all that's between us.

Soon we'll be together, Mother and child.

-Julie A. Rocheleau

Before and After

Last night we painted the tall wall in our living room last night, and we LOVE how it turned out! Here is the before and after...

BEFORE

AFTER
(there are water spots on my camera lens, we didn't paint white circles on our wall)

Safety first!

As promised, here are the pictures of Gus's new seatbelt. hee hee, I think he looks a little goony. He's been really dramatic about the whole thing too. The seatbelt isn't super comfortable for him to lay down in the backseat, it pulls at the harness. So he was whimpering, then just leaned against the seat with his head and shut his eyes like he was going to sleep sitting up. Cracked me up :) I'm just a little more relieved knowing that if we get into a car accident we won't have a 50-pound dog knocking our heads off.

Plus, Dave and I went to take pictures of some of his new spring pots today that he put together for one of his clients. I think they look beautiful!! Dave does such nice work...

As famous as he'll ever get...

Ever since I posted this one about my submission to Overheard in Minneapolis, my sister has been checking that website every day, and also introduced the website to her boyfriend, Rich. Rich works up in Minneapolis during the week, and was blessed with hearing this goodie the other day:

Young Lady #1: You know, there are a bunch of blind people staying in the hotel.
Young Lady #2: Yeah, well that explains why my TV had closed captions on it.

Lobby of the Four points SheratonOverheard by The boy your mom warned you about.

Yay! Rich is famous now too. The title of it is "Someone Should Tell The Blind They Can Read". I laughed so hard when I read this one, then when I found out Rich had submitted it I nearly bursted with pride. I don't think bursted is a word. Okay, I was bursting with pride.

On a roll...

Yesterday Dave and I decided on a whim that we wanted to replace our kitchen light at that very moment. We'd been talking about how much we hated that light for the past 4 years (since we moved in), but never did anything about it. So we hopped in the car and drove on over to Home Depot to pick out a light. We came out of Home Depot with track lighting, plant food, cleaning supplies and a can of brown paint.

Yes, you read that right. While we were in Home Depot we decided that we wanted to repaint the tall wall in our living room cocoa brown. Right now it's a very pretty maroon with gold leaves painted on it (thanks for doing this, Riss!!), but we were ready for some changes. Then we decided we needed new drapes for the deck door, and found a good deal at Home Depot. And THEN we decided we needed a seatbelt for Gus, since he rides with us to and from work every day. If we ever got into an accident, he would probably take off one of our heads, he's getting so big.

We got home and got to work right away. We've replaced a couple of other lights in our house by ourselves, so it wasn't as scary this time. Dave got everything pulled down and got the track for the lighting mounted. I decided we needed to test the lights to ensure they turned on, so we flipped the breaker and it worked on the first try. Yay!! So we got everything mounted. We work really well as a team, and it ended up only taking a couple of hours. It looked beautiful, and I was so happy to have it done. However, when I went to turn the lights off to go to bed they WOULDN'T turn off!!!!! Dave remembered there was an "extra" wire that he just capped off, so that must be where the issue is. It was too late to do anything about it last night, so we'll work on it tonight and maybe call in Neighbor Bob the Electrician for some assistance.

I didn't take any before pictures, but found one of the drapes that was supposed to be just a pic of Gus. Here are some pictures of the new additions (and a super cute Gus picture thrown in at the end as well):

Before

(you can kind of see the drapes next to Gus. They were off-white)
After

I love this picture!!! I'll try to get some good seatbelt pictures tomorrow. He cracks me up.

At least senior level... right?

Sing with me.... Are you Smarter than a 9th Grader??

Movie Reviews

Get that tail!!

Today Gus got groomed. I always think his puppy look shows up a lot more right after he's been groomed. He's such a cutie (although I want to kill him b/c he peed on our bed tonight). So the groomer trims his tail since it gets so bushy, and Gus does this everytime he gets groomed. Hilarious!!