Meet Rudy

This is our adorable new puppy, Rudy, who has completely stolen my heart and now I know why people have bratty children... because I'm pretty much willing to give that dog anything.  But I won't, mostly.

BF found Rudy online from a nice family down in Southern Oregon.  They had posted an add with the newspaper to find homes for their litter of  Mini American Eskimo/ Yorkshire Terrier/ Maltese mix.  As soon as he saw pictures, BF called me while I was out running errands to tell me about this cute pup. We called the family and they agreed to bring him up to us while they were on their way to deliver one of his siblings to another family.  

We spent our whole weekend trying to keep it a secret from our families and gathering all of the necessary puppy supplies.  Man, having a pet is expensive, but totally worth it.  

Yesterday I got to pick Rudy up and I took him to work so I could grab my laptop and work from home the rest of the day.   Before taking him home I stopped by BF's school so he could see him first.  The class went wild so we had the kids wash their hands and then take turns petting Rudy.  I took him home and he explored the house for a couple hours and then we took a nap on the couch together. 

Last night went pretty smoothly.  I expected that he would be up most of the night since we are crate- training him and he is not used to sleeping alone in a crate, but he calmed down after a few minutes and only woke us up around 2am to be let out to go potty.  He slept until 6 this morning so we got a mostly uninterupted night's sleep. 

You may be wondering why we named him Rudy.  His original name is Sparky, which suited him fine, but BF and I decided a while back that if we got a pet we would name him Rudy and when BF saw his picture he knew that this was our Rudy.  Why Rudy?  Mostly it came from a joke.  BF and I were discussing movies one day and he was trying to think of  the actor that played Samwise Gamgee in Lord of the Rings, who also happened to star in the move "Rudy".  While wracking his brain for the actor's name (Sean Astin) he blurted out, "Rudy!  You know, Rudy... Sean... Ganjes...?"  I laughed so hard at this and teased him about it for a while. 

He's doing pretty good with housetraining (even though it's only been a day) and he already tries to warn us when he needs to go outside by whining and trying to get our attention but not wanting to play.  It tooks us a minute last night to realize that he didn't want to play but that he was trying to get our attention for some reason... and then we figured out why!  So now we know what to look for.

Rudy is a very intelligent little dog and we've already noticed some of his funny traits.  He knows who plays what role in the house and will run behind my legs when we meet new people.  He doesn't like linoleum floors and will avoid the kitchen as much as possible which I think is because it's a little slippery for him. 

We are so excited to have him! 

Disneyland in Pictures

I'm almost inside Disneyland!



A Ginormous Tree



Main Street decorated for the holidays



Even the wreaths are shaped like Mickey Mouse




Haunted Mansion, decorated as well



A bread bowl of chowder for lunch



It's a Small, Gray, Rainy World



Standing in one of the only lines we had to stand in the whole time



The castle all lit up




We met Buzz Lightyear! He's kinda quiet.

 Ok, so we went to Disneyland/California Adventure for a few days before Christmas and guess what... the usually mild sunny California weather was replaced with crazy tropical monsoons.  We got pretty soaked every day, but the crowds were minimal and the lines few so we toughed it out and had a great time. 

This just means we have to go back when it's not raining so I can experience the fireworks and parades... all of those were cancelled due to the rain. 

It's 2011, and I've Got 2011 Things on My To Do List

Holy Moly, where did December go?  Last time I posted I was getting ready for Disneyland and Christmas and all of that seems like it happened months ago. 


I haven't even uploaded our Disneyland trip pictures and I was terrible and didn't take a single Christmas photo.  I should back up and tell you how everything went in Disneyland and Christmas, but I think I'll save that for a separate post with pictures so you get the full effect.
Anyway, so I've got that to do.  And I've got to get started on my Bikini Body that I've resolved to have this year.  I got close last year and then I let work and life craziness get in my way and slow me down.  Not this year.  Which reminds me that I have to post my WMM info here for the ladies.  This is a site where a few of my friends post their fitness goals and pictures and we can track how well we are doing.  Most of the girls already have their pics and measurements up but I didn't even think about it until this morning.


Besides having an insanely long list of things to get done in 2011, we have a few fun things going on as well!

Tomorrow we get a new member of the family, Rudy!  He is a toy American Eskimo/Maltese/Yorkshire terrier mix puppy.  BF found him online because we were devastated that the dog we liked at the Oregon Humane Society had been adopted.  Initially I had seen a story on the news about how OHS got a bunch of dogs and cats from a California shelter as part of a second chance program.  We waited until they were available and then found out that they had gotten a Scottish Terrier, which is what we wanted, as well.  So we made our way to OHS last Thursday to see the dogs and found that the scotty had a couple of holds on him, but animals can only be held for a day, so if they people didn't show up to adopt him before the next day he would be available.  We looked around and found a few other puppies we liked, including a terrier mix puppy.  You cannot put puppies on hold and they weren't available that day because they had just been spayed an neutered so we figured we would come back on Friday as soon as OHS was open.  Everyone else had the same idea as well and it was super busy.  We found out that the scotty we wanted AND the puppy we wanted had been adopted, so we went home bummed out and chalked it up to fate.

We couldn't get the puppy/dog idea out of our head so we looked online at other shelters to see what was out there.  There are a ton of big dogs, but not a lot of smaller dogs so no luck.  Then late on Friday afternoon BF found him in the Oregon classifieds online.  We called the owners to see if he was still available and he was!  They emailed us pictures and home videos of him and the rest of the litter and we were IN LOVE.  BF and I told the owners that we would take him and arranged to have him brought up to us on Tuesday (this coming Tuesday).  The rest of the weekend was spent shopping for necessary puppy supplies and keeping it mum from the parents.  We want to surprise them on Tuesday night and take him over for a visit.

Pictures will DEFINITELY be posted of our new baby Rudy.

Happy 2011! 

Who Steals Shoes?

One of my neighbors, that's who.

So I ran the Ho Ho 5K the other day and was partially on a trail by a wetlands area so needless to say it was a muddy, mucky mess for a bit.  My shoes were a little worse for the wear, so when I got home I put them on the back porch so the mud would dry up and I could flake most of it off and then take them in to properly wash them. The problem is that it's been raining cats and dogs here so on Monday I checked on my shoes and they were still wet and gross so I decided to leave them out a bit longer to dry.  Tuesday morning as I left my house for work they were still sitting by my sliding glass door in all of their muddy glory.  Tuesday afternoon when I got home they were noticeably absent.

I say it was noticeable not because I check on my shoes that much, but these babies were BRIGHT HIGHLIGHTER GREEN and very hard to miss, even with the mud.  So I asked BF if he had moved my shoes somewhere.  He said no.  So I started looking around the back porch thinking I had maybe moved them and not remembered, but then I realized that I hadn't.  So then it occurred to me that someone came up to my back porch, ingnored everything else there and took my muddy gross shoes. 

Here's the thing.  Those shoes are Nike ID shoes...which means they were a customized one of a kind pair with unique colors and a PERSONAL LOGO EMBROIDERED ON THE BACK. 

Way to go idiot thief neighbor... now when I see you wearing my running shoes I can PROVE that you stole them because they had a personal slogan embroidered ONTO THE SHOE. How are you going to hide that? 

My plan is to keep an eye out for them and jump the jerk who stole them.  I know I should be all "Turn the other cheek" on this, but you know what, I liked those dang shoes and you deserve a black eye and a bloody nose for stealing... ESPECIALLY around the holidays. 

Now I'm super bummed because I feel unsafe like ANYTHING I leave out on the porch (chairs, etc) will be taken and that someone might be lurking around trying to break into houses!  We live in a pretty safe and friendly area, but now I'm worried.  And pissed.  Mostly pissed because my comfy shoes are gone.

I'll find you, Thief, where ever you may be, and when you least expect it, BAM, I'm getting my shoes back.


Two days until Disneyland and boy do I need that vacation.

Hilarious...

A friend of mine's sister did this with her comedy group- Divine Comedy- and posted in on YouTube.  It's gotten some good and bad press, but I think it's the funniest thing.  I can laugh at it because I know the culture all too well :)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84u5k4bboU4 or watch it below...

11 Days...

... until BF and I are here:

DISNEYLAND!

I'm SO EXCITED!

I've never been to Disneyland in California so this is the best Christmas vacation ever.  Also, I'm hoping it will actually be sunny and warm (warmer than Oregon, anyway) because I'm so done with the dark, wet, cold days. 

I've been spending my extra time researching what I want to do on my Disney vacation and I've got the park map saved on my computer so I can peruse it at work during breaks.  I cannot wait to see the holiday parades and fireworks, and I'm completely freaking out about some of the rides.  Pirates of the Carribean? YES!

Besides the rides, what do I need to do there?  What should I look out for?  These next 11 days are going to go by SO SLOWLY.

I'm So Tired I Could Fall Asleep Any Minute

I remember when the holidays used to be so lazy and awesome when I was younger- mostly because school let our for a few weeks and I got to stay home and do whatever I wanted to do and enjoy all of the awesome holiday parties and events.  Now I'm an adult with a job and I make all of those awesome holiday things happen for people which makes me a very busy lady this time of year, but I still really like it.  Add that to the sneaky Christmas shopping, getting our Christmas cards out in the mail, work, work events I am involved in, fun holiday activities not of my organizing and daily life and you get one busy, tired girl. 


Yesterday I worked a 15 hour day because we had organized a special event at work.  It was awesome and everyone had a great time, but today I just did not want to get out of bed and do it all over again.  If I didn't have any pressing work things to do today I would not be here. 


I cannot believe how quickly the holidays came this year.  It seems like it was just September!


On the agenda... Christmas Cookies!