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.)