Our Furry Daughter

I got some good pics of Jason playing with Buttons a couple of days ago. She's such a sweetie-pie!

She wasn't very cooperative, though, and every time I thought I got a good one, she had moved at the last second.

She's a little blurry here because she wouldn't stop moving.

She loves to spread herself out and pull herself foward with her front legs. It's her army-crawl.


She really doesn't like to be held like this, but Jason keeps trying!

Look at me posting 3 times in one month!

Spring is sprung!

Today was beautiful! It was in the 80s. When I heard earlier in the week that it was supposed to be nice, I decided to do yard work. And it was WORK! We borrowed a rototiller from someone in the ward and tilled up a large strip of garden/lawn in the back by our neighbor's fence. There were some flowers there that we wanted to save, so I stuck them in pots to be replanted in the front, but the rest was all tilled up. There were so many things growing back there, with very little organization, so we decided to just begin all over again. I'm going to plant a raspberry bush back there, and some flowers, and maybe some tomato plants. We were pulling up roots like crazy (apparently things have been growing randomly for years back there, and everything is very root-bound).

If you look behind Mr. Nently in this pic (he was being forced to take a bath in the bird bath) you can see the stuff growing in the back that we tilled under.

There were flat brick-like paving stones buried under the edge of the fence, so we pulled those out, and we also got rid of a small tree. It already looks so much better out there, and nothing's even planted yet!

Once Jason went to work at 2 I cleaned up and got started in the front garden. There are two, one on either side of the porch. I'll take some pics and put them on here one of these days. There were a total of 6 bushes in the 2 gardens, but they didn't all match. One side has 3 of the same, but the other side had 2 of another kind, and 1 of a third. We decided we wanted a more symetrical look, so a week ago I uprooted one bush, and today I did the other 2. It's a lot of work to uproot a bush, especially when there are 2 layers of weed cloth that have been there since the dawn of time, and they're covered and innundated with roots. So first I had to get rid of the weed cloth and then dig out the bushes. By the time I was done with that, I was pooped, so I called it a day.

Earlier Jason was washing the birds' cages outside and one of our parakeets, Samson, flew away. His wings were clipped, but he can still glide if he starts from off of the ground, so we had no idea where he went. We searched for 1/2 hour or so, and some neighbors even helped us search. I gave up after awhile, and eventually started crying. I was really bummed. Jason didn't want to see me unhappy, so he kept looking. All of a sudden he tells me to get the cage because he found him! I was so excited. He was on our neighbor's porch across the street sitting on a chair. I had looked in their bushes below the porch, but didn't look on it, because I didn't think he'd go that high. He was probably sitting above me the entire time. Jason held the cage up to him with our other parakeet in it, and he hopped on Jason's finger and then into the cage. And the peasants rejoiced! Samson acted like nothing happened and started cleaning the other parakeet.

Sorry this is so long, but it was a long day! We also borrowed a chainsaw from the same ward people and we (mainly Jason) cut up the limbs from the ice storm, and got them stacked in the front yard for the city to pick up. I feel like we're finally making progress on the yard!

Florida!

So we went to FL a few weeks ago to visit Jason's mom. It was so nice to get away to the warmth for a few days! Jason's mom took us shopping and got me several things. Then Jason paid for his mom and I to each get a pedicure. The last time I had one was for my wedding, so it was a real treat. We went to the beach one day. The water was pretty nippy because it was only March, but I still went in up to my waist.

The place was packed! So many people of all ages and sizes. We saw sooo many women and girls who should never wear bikinis wearing them, and we saw an old man or two in a speedo. Ew!

Jason and I took a walk down the beach to see the sights, and saw some of the wildlife...

Jason wasn't part of the wildlife, but he was good to look at! (He's wearing his mom's sunglasses and visor because it was so bright there.)

Jason's been wanting me to get a new suit for months, (for some reason he didn't like my old one. I thought it was fine) so when I was down there his mom bought me this one. Usually I wear shorts with a suit, because I feel too exposed otherwise, but this came with a little skirt on the bottoms, and it was just perfect. It was so nice to wear a suit and feel covered enough without having to add shorts or a wrap!

The water was so beautiful. It's amazing that it's such a different color from the water around here, namely the Hudson river!
This is the dog Jason's mom is fostering. Her name is Ebony and she's about 12 years old. She doesn't walk so well, so Jason's mom got her a dog stroller that she takes her everywhere in. Some of the stores even let her bring Ebony in them since she's so cute. Jason's mom hopes she never gets adopted, because she's gotten so attached to her.

FL was so nice. It was so nice to go on a vacation where we had very little planned. We slept in, we went for walks, we took naps and watched TV (a guilty pleasure since we don't have TV), and just generally relaxed. Thank you Connie for bringing us down there!

Valentine's Day

I don't know if anyone will read this since I haven't posted in so long that probably nobody checks it anymore, but I'll post anyway. I'm so behind the times. We celebrate our anniversary and V-day together since they're only 4 days apart, and when I came home on the 13th (he had to work on Valentine's so we partied on Fri) I came home and Jason had surprises waiting for me on the stove: chocolate-covered strawberries, 2 dozen roses, a candle, and chocolate-covered cherries! He'd also picked up a couple of movies to watch. I couldn't believe it. It was so nice. We went out to Sitar, a wonderful Indian restaurant that we love but hardly ever go to, and then came home and watched a movie.


I got him a stuffed elephant holding a heart, some candy and I made him a pillow case with an "inside" phrase ironed on the edge. No, nothing nasty! Just something between us. I took a picture of what he gave me. I have the best husband ever!

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.