12 Days of Christmas

So I recently discovered this (ok, today), and I wanted to share it. Go to this You Tube video. It's pretty funny. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kYEK-pxs_A.

Where does the time go???

So apparently this thing is like my journal - I never update it. A lot has happened in the last few weeks. The weekend before Thanksgiving Jason's Grandma Moses died and so his mom flew up from FL for the funeral. He and his mom drove up to Brushton, NY (almost on the border of Canada) on Tues and I thought it was just going to be me and Buttons for Thanksgiving. But then they surprised me and came back Wed night instead of Thurs evening, so I was able to make Thanksgiving dinner after all (with Connie's help). It turned out great (if I do say so myself)! The pic doesn't do it justice. We just did a turkey breast since there was only the 3 of us, but it was delicious.

Then, at some point in the week, Jason's mom scared the birds as she walked by their cages and Mr Nently flew into the dishwater. He got so soaked he couldn't even fly. He was covered in soap bubbles so I had to hold him under the water to wash him off and he tried to fly off again. He splatted to the floor since he couldn't fly. It was pathetic. Here he is trying to dry off next to Mrs Nently.

On Black Fri I went out at 6:30 with my friend Rachel who was a week from her due date. She'd never been shopping on Black Friday before and wanted to go. In between shopping I took her to a doctor's appt where they told her they wanted to induce her on Mon. She looked overwhelmed and like she wanted to cry. But then she said "Well, let's go shop some more!", so off we went. When I got home Jason was gone to work on one of our cars so it would pass inspection, but my mother-in-law, Connie was there. She told me to look at the birds. We were down 1 lovebird. I asked where Mrs Nently was, and it turns out Jason was cleaning the cages earlier in the day with the door open and Mrs flew the coop. Unfortunately for her it got down to about 20 degrees that night, so unless somebody found her and took her in, she's in the big bird cage in the sky. I'm not sure that Mr Nently realizes that anythings different. They're very simple birds, and other than the occasional bored thought I'm sure he has, I doubt he even knows she's gone. We've also determined that she was the worst offender for throwing seed and for only eating the sunflower seeds. We hardly ever have to clean around the cages now that she's gone and the other seeds are getting eaten, not just the sunflower seeds. It's really too bad that it happened, but since they're rather expensive, we're not going to rush out and replace her.

Then last weekend we had freezing rain. It doesn't sound too bad until you realize that when rain freezes on trees it becomes very heavy, breaking the limbs and branches, sometimes uprooting the whole tree. When the limbs come down they can cause a lot of damage. On Thurs night I got out of work and my car was one big ice cicle. It was still raining and rained through the night. I didn't sleep well because I kept hearing crashes and I kept worrying that things were falling on our car. And Buttons must have been bothered by the storm because she kept wandering into the bedroom once or twice an hour and waking me up. We have hardwood floors and her nails click loudly on them. I woke up once and the clock was blinking, so I reset it and went back to sleep. Then when I finally woke up for good the clock was out. I had no idea what time it was because it was cloudy outside. I looked out the back window and there were wires and cables down in our back yard and large limbs everywhere. Then I went to the front and looked at the cars. Fortunately nothing had fallen on them. I called the power company and reported the outage. It was about 6:30 by then so I got ready and went to work. Jason didn't have school that day, but he did have an awards ceremony I was leaving work at 1:00 for, so when I got home, we went to that, but it was canceled because of the storm. Some people were without power for 4 days. We were only without until early Sat morn. We have a gas fireplace so we stayed warm and we have a grill so we cooked on that. It was plenty cold, so we put all the food in two coolers and put it in the garage. Some people in our ward had to go stay with others, some had kerosene heaters, and some just toughed it out. Jason's dad didn't get power back until Sunday. We had candles going all over the house, but no matter what it shows in the movies, 1, 2 or even 4 candles, won't give off that much light. We need to get some lanterns. But all in all we fared pretty well. Over 300,000 people lost power in NY and MA, and then NH got the same storm and another 200,000 lost power there. The power company finally came by and fixed the wires in back, but the limbs are still back there. A guy at work said he thinks I can borrow his father-in-law's chainsaw to cut them up. I saw one house that had a tree down across the driveway with 2 cars underneath. But most of the damage seemed to be just the trees themselves. Sorry this is so long.

Anything else? Oh, yeah. Jason was the Narrator for the Stake Christmas Devotional this last Sunday. He has a really nice voice and several people came up to him afterwards and told him he should do that for a living. Maybe as a side job. He's taking finals this week and then he's done with this semester. Only 2 more to go!!!

Jason's mom

Connie, Jason's mom, sent Buttons a Halloween card. We better give her some grandkids soon, or Buttons might get presents for Christmas! The card was for a granddaughter! It also came with some recipes for doggie treats. Buttons was very appreciative.

Buttons

Here are a few more recent pics of our puppy dog.

She sounds like a little tap dancer on our hardwood floors. She can't get any grip on them so when she's trying to go fast she slides all over the place. She reminds me of Fred Flintstone when he runs really fast without going anywhere.

She loves running around outside. We have several big trees in our backyard and they dumped a lot of leaves this fall. Buttons loves stretching out and army-crawling along on her belly through the leaves.

This is Buttons's favorite place to be: on the couch in the den with us. Jason's her favorite to be with, but she's pretty fond of me too!

And no, she's not radioactive!

Birdies!

As many of you know, we have 2 parakeets and 2 lovebirds. There've been some requests for pics, so here you go. Most of them were taken in our apartment in Albany.

Mr and Mrs Nently.

This was the day we got them and we realized

they need their wings clipped, or they'd spend

the majority of their time on top of the ceiling

fan.

This is our beloved Angel. She's pure white (as

you can see) and our first addition.

Here she is on Easter.

So we've been letting the birds' wings grow in

and the two parakeets and Mrs Nently can fly

pretty well now, but Mr Nently doesn't have

any good flight feathers yet. So he fluttered to

the floor the other day and the other 3 were

watching him down there. Mrs Nently decides

to go join him, and eventually Angel follows.

Once Samson, our other parakeet (whom I

don't have a pic for yet), saw the coast was clear

he headed over to the lovebirds' cage to eat

their food. After awhile Angel gets bored and

flies back up to the cages. Mrs does the same,

and I thought Mr would too, but apparently he

can't. So I had to help him. Great adventures

were had by all!

Pumpkins

One of my favorite things about Halloween is carving pumpkins. I used to struggle every year to make one that looked half-way decent, and then I discovered patterns. At first I felt like I was cheating by using a pattern, but when I saw how good it turned out, I never want to carve without one again! We bought pumpkins at Wal-mart, but didn't have any time to carve them until last week. Jason still didn't have time, so up to this point, mine is the only one carved.

Shortly after I put it on the porch, the head fell off and I had to do some surgery to reattach it. It involved 2 toothpicks and a lot of pushing. But in the end it looked good as new!

Halloween

We've had a lot of fun this Halloween. A week ago we went to a Murder Mystery Dinner and I was Mabel Biggs, the Mayor's wife, and Jason was Mugsy Malone, 2nd in command in the Northside gang. We did it at a friend's house from the YSA in the branch we were in before we moved. He lives in a former funeral home. There were about 40 people there. We had a potluck dinner and got to dress up.
This is Jason with Northside Nick, his boss (aka Ryan).

Some of the YSA.

All the guys and Chewy, the Labradoodle.

Our friends Sandy and Lauren.

All the girls.

Lookin' good, Mugsy!

Log Home Show

My dad has bought some property in WY that he and his wife plan on building on and retiring to eventually. They want to build a log home, so they've been going to log home shows to get info and ideas. I met up with them in PA for one such show. This is my dad and stepmom Freda.

They also had everything wooden you could possibly want to furnish your house with. The seat we're on was made from wagon wheels and wagon parts. They also some Amish people there selling real wood flooring, and another group selling things like chandeliers and chairs made out of antlers and wood.

Memorial Day

Our Stake has a picnic on Memorial Day each year and this year it was at a park in Schenectady. We bought a kite last year, but never had a good day to fly it. But on Memorial Day it was pretty windy, so we got some good air time with it. A friend took the pic. (And yes I know my latest posts are of past events, but I didn't start blogging until Aug!)

Jessica and Lucy

This is the daughter of some friends of ours. Her name is Lucy and she'll be 2 in Dec. This was at the wedding of another couple from our Branch a few months ago. (I'm a little late in getting the pics up.) Eventually we got up and started dancing. She's a great dancer! (Pay no attention to my double chin. It only shows up when I'm holding little kids or giving Jason my "Whatever" look.)

Jason's foster son

There's a family in our ward that has a 2-year-old son named Ayden. Ever since he met Jason, he's smitten. Every time we go to their house Jason and Ayden play together, Jason helps put him to bed, change his diapers and clean up his toys. When Ayden sees Jason at church he runs up to him and says "Hello, Buddy!" And when we go our separate ways after church, he bursts into tears.
A week ago Jason went apple-picking with them and some other friends. Ayden was constantly by his side.
Then last Sun we went to their house for dinner and by a coincidence Jason and Ayden were wearing almost the exact same outfit. So they took some pics and I thought I'd post them. Ayden's mom, Rachel, says Ayden's going to have some jealousy issues someday when we have kids!

A doggie!

We got a dog! Her name is Buttons (that may change) and we're told she's a Chihuahua mix, but I don't believe it. I don't know what she is, but Chihuahua she ain't. We've been looking for 2 1/2 months, been to clinics and shelters and filled out multiple applications and finally came to the conclusion that it's easier to adopt a child. But then we found Buttons at a clinic last Sat. She was a stray that was picked up with her first (and last) litter of puppies. All the puppies got adopted right away, but of course not her. She's been with a foster mom for 2 weeks. She's afraid of everything, but we've had her since last night, and already she's opening up. We took her to PetSmart and got some necessities, and Jason took her to the clinic today to get her medical records and pay the fee. We have a whole little zoo! I'm posting the pic of her that was on the rescue's website until we get some of our own.

We're brand new!

Well, I decided to join the 21st century and start a blog. The only pics I have on our computer right now are our wedding photos, so we'll start with one of those. I'm not really sure what all I'm supposed to put on a blog, so this is it for now!