Snowzilla Sled Day

When the snowfall finally let up on Saturday night, neigbors started to emerge from their houses on Sunday to do what they could to dig out.  This is the view of our street.  There was so much snow piled up (nearly covering our neighbor’s police cruiser), and it wasn’t until Monday evening that we had out first plow truck come through to try to clear a pass down the street. 

Mark did the shovelling, the kids played and dug snow forts.  Cayenne and I took an exploring walk to see what, if anything, had been plowed out, and talk about exercise!  Trying to walk through three feet of untouched snow (and deeper parts, for that matter, from all the drifting) was tough, and Cayenne practically had to swim through parts of it just to get through.

Initially there was almost too much snow to get any good sledding going, but by Monday, we were out on a sunny and relatively mild day for some great sledding and fun.  We went with neighbor friends, so the girls had a great time sledding and playing for a couple hours.

I even got into the action a bit and attemped to ride down the hill on my feet like they were trying to do.   I didn’t get too far before the inevitable wipeout came.  It was fun though.

 

 

Everyone had a great time, and by the end of the day everyone was exhausted. 

The kids got out of school the entire week, so it’s been snow play, time with cousins, and a trip out to Mousey and Poppy’s to let Cayenne and Maggie have a snow play day while the girls got to spend some time in Mousey’s art room making beautiful cards.

We’ve gotten reports that they’re headed back to school on Monday, so the January vacation is about to end, but they still have the weekend to eek out a bit more fun before reality potentially hits again Monday morning.

It’s a Bizzard Out There!

Did someone mention it was snowing?  I’m sure the word has spread – the DC area is getting dumped on by big, bad, Jonas!  He blew in yesterday around 1pm, and it hasn’t stopped blizzard conditions since.  We’ve gotten feet of snow since yesterday, and reports say it’s supposed to keep it’s momentum until sometime tonight. 

Trying to emerge from the garage today, the girls literally had to swim their way down the driveway.  It was too deep for them to even push through on two feet!  Here’s a few shots from our first full day with all the snow. 

Mark did have to clear a path for Cayenne to get out the back door, down the stairs, and then a path for her to make her way through the backyard to go to the bathroom. 

I think this is the “it’s time to come in” face! 

Roses and Chicken Soup

Yesterday was Mark and I’s 14th anniversary.  Leading up to yesterday, I had been really under the weather.  What started out as a sinus infection travelled into my chest, and by Saturday night I was more miserable than I have been in a long time.  Under normal circumstances I would never go to Urgent Care unless is was really “urgent” but I was feeling so bad on Sunday morning that Mark convinced me to go.  I got some medicine and a little talk from the doctor about thank you for waiting it out to see if it was viral and would go away on its own, but next time don’t wait so long to get it taken care of…. Knowing how I love homemade chicken noodle soup, Mark made a trip to the store for all the ingredients to make me some of his chicken soup, and by Sunday afternoon I had some warm soup and antibiotics – a pretty good recipe for feeling better. 

Arriving at Tuesday morning (our anniversary), we walk downstairs early in the morning to a VERY cold middle level – like 51 degrees cold.  Go figure, our downstairs heating unit picked the coldest night of the year to stop working.  The kids even had a two hour delay to school because the wind chill was so cold, so they huddled around the fireplace while Mark tried to get the problem fixed. 

With many issues in our house or cars lately, Mark has been able to fix them by doing research.  He’s a research guy and will take the time to look up potential solutions to a problem, try to figure out how to fix them, and up till now he’s fixed all kinds of issues that have saved us from having to pay someone to come out and do it.  After determining that this issue with the heating unit was more complicated than he felt comfortable attempting (especially with a snowpocalypse forecast for this weekend), he called a guy to come take a look at the problem for us.  Long story short, it will take two days for the part to come in, so we’re bundling up around here and feeling thankful that at least we have heat upstairs!

So as I was standing at the counter yesterday eating my chicken soup for lunch and looking at the pretty roses I got that morning while bundled up in my winter coat, I thought, while, yes, I’d much rather be spending our anniversary on some tropical beach somewhere, the truth of it is, sometimes celebrating our marriage isn’t tropical beaches, it’s more like chicken soup and roses in a house with partial heat.  Life and marriage both bring challenges – things like the heater going out and getting sick were my two examples of the week, but the reality is that there are much bigger challenges out there that people have to deal with.  Yet, sometimes life and marriage are roses – things go beautfiully and couldn’t be better.  But I think for the most part, life and marriage are a blend of both things most of the time.  In our 14 years, I can think of our fair share of chicken soup times, and I can think of our fair share of roses times, but that’s real life and that’s real marriage, and by God’s grace I asume it will keep going that way from here on out.  The beauty in it all is having someone walk through it all with you – whether it’s the good or the bad.  To me, that’s what is really worth celebrating.

Come to think of it, last year’s anniversary celebration wasn’t roses either.  Nina got the stomach bug on our 13th anniversary and threw up in my car, and Mark cleaned the car out for me.  Maybe next year we need to celebrate on a day other than 1/19 or maybe we need to head off to that tropical beach somewhere – you won’t hear any complaints from me!

The Cozy Cave

Ever since we’ve had Cayenne, she has wanted to be wrapped up in a blanket when she sleeps.  If she gets in the bed with someone, she burrows under the covers, and when we put her to bed at night, she wants to get completely wrapped up in her blanket to sleep.  We had heard about a dog bed called a Cozy Cave, and when we looked it up, it was called the #1 Vizsla bed.  Clearly, Cayenne’s obsession with being wrapped up and under things wasn’t just particular to her – it’s actually particular to the breed. 

We had joked around about her needing a Cozy Cave, but when I took this pitiful picture of Cayenne wrapped up in her blanket with her nose peeking out of a hole, it was enough to convince even Mark that she needed a Cozy Cave.

So, finally, the Cozy Cave arrived, and we’ve had one happy Vizsla!  I think it’s the perfect bed for a Vizsla – especially in these cold winter months.

Even Lyla loves the Cozy Cave.  She has asked to trade in her bed for a Cozy Cave.  Go figure, it’s the kid who we have to keep out of the dog bed not the other way around. 

So Happy Together

Clearly The Turtles weren’t speaking of Cayenne and Maggie when they wrote their song, but it couldn’t be more fitting for these two.  They are so happy together and such great playmates. When we ask Cayenne if she wants to see Maggie, and when my parents ask Maggie if she wants to see Cayenne, they get all excited.  They know exactly who we’re talking about. 

This past week, Maggie came to our house for a puppy play date. It all started because I stopped in my parents’ house (without Cayenne) to pick up my mom, and Maggie was SO excited to see me.  It wasn’t that she was excited to see me actually, but she must have thought I had Cayenne with us. When we left, Maggie was at the door crying, and my mom says she doesn’t normally cry when she leaves.  Clearly she was hoping to see her buddy, so when my mom and I got back, we decided to let Maggie come home with me for a few house and play.

Cayenne was thrilled to see Maggie, and the pups had so much fun playing chase all over the back yard.  As Maggie has gotten bigger, she’s also gotten a lot faster, so she’s a fun chase parter for our speedy pup.  Cayenne loves a good game of chase and normally wants to be the one chased, but with Maggie, she’ll play both the chaser and the chased.

 

When Maggie is chasing Cayenne, she always goes for grabbing Cayenne’s tail.  It started when Maggie was really little and we were watching them play out of my parents house in the early weeks of them having Maggie.  Since then, it’s been Maggie’s goal to grab onto Cayenne’s tail in a chase game.  So, Cayenne has adapted the bottom-tucked style of running!

Regardless of who is chasing who, these two have such a great time together!

Maggie gave me the opprotunity for the cutest puppy picture ever when she lifted up Cayenne’s ear with her nose and looked like she was telling Cayenne a secret.  Too cute…

When it was time for Maggie to go, my mom and Maggie left our house to get in their car, and this time it was Cayenne who was standing at the door and crying.  She was just too sad to see her little buddy head home for the day.

Christmas 2015

If you happened to notice my previous “Test” post, you may have thought Mark hijacked my blog account.  While that didn’t happen, the very short story behind a very long and frustrating problem was that Mark’s dedication to research found the solution to a blogging problem that I had been having on and off since June.  It started in June with a period of time where my blog creating program just didn’t work, to the problem getting fixed, to it working again, to it not working at all around the middle of December.  I spent a many frustrating hour trying to find the solution, but was about to throw in the towel when last night Mark found a link in a forum that discussed the problem I was having, we installed a simple switch, and all is working.   Yay, and props to Mark for continuing to research the problem after I had given up and had grumpily turned to Pinterest to look up ideas for meals this week!

So, backing up to Christmas…We started the celebrating off with our usual Christmas Eve dinner at my parents’ house.  It’s always a fun night with family, lots of food, more food, and occasionally an Aunt Jeannette special.

It had been years since she had last had us wearing something goofy on Christmas Eve, but she brought it back this year, and we all cooperated for a picture.

The girls actually looked quite cute with the bows on their heads!  After the family picture, we enjoyed a nice time catching up together as is the tradition, then we all head home to get the little ones in bed before Christmas morning.

Mark and I didn’t have to much setting up to do once we got home.  We brought the presents down from hiding, brought up Lyla’s desk, filled the stockings, set out the “cookies for Santa” and called it a night. 

Lyla was the first to get up a little after 7am.  We made her wait until 7:30 to wake Nina up, but once she got Nina up, the present sorting began.

Even Cayenne had two presents under the tree, and she was so proud of her present that she actually was the first one to get to open a gift on Christmas morning.

She unwrapped her present all by herself, and LOVED her new toy bunny.  She paraded it around for eveyone to see and comment on.  She also got a hedgehog toy.  Spoiled dog!

   

The girls had a great time opening their gifts from Santa, Grandma and Grandpa, and Nana and Papaw.  Nina hasn’t believed in Santa for awhile, but Lyla still skeptically believes, so Santa brings all the presents from mom and dad.  She has been asking a lot of questions about if he’s real or not, how he gets out of the glass cover to the fireplace, and she even looked up “is Santa real” online without us realizing.  Thankfully, the first thing she came to was a phone number to call Santa, and insisted that we call to see if it was really him.  The number connects you to Santa’s answering machine where you can leave a message after hearing him, so…as of now she still believes.  Not sure how much longer that will last though.

It was about this time (after the kids opened presents) that I started feeling really poorly.  I hadn’t felt well when I got up – something just wasn’t right with my stomach, but I just kept hoping that I’d feel better.  Unfortunately, things didn’t get better.  I ended up getting sick and Mark took the girls to my parents’ house for the traditional Christmas morning presents and brunch.  I was so sad to miss out on spending Christmas morning with the family, but I was in no condition to head over and didn’t want to infect anyone else, so my mom took over the picture taking duties for Christmas morning.  You can check out her pictures here:  https://goo.gl/photos/mDM2sCdKsvmxCzvw5

Later that afternoon, Mark and the girls came back, and the girls set up their presents, Lyla got her new desk moved into her room, and the three of them played the new Super Mario Bros. game while I layed back with Cayenne on my lap.  I was feeling a lot better but not 100%, but thankfully all seemed to be out of my system the next day, and I even got to eat my favorite Monkey Bread that my mom sent back for me with Mark.

Other than the events around Christmas, the rest of the girls’ winter break was pretty fun.  All the rest of these photos came off my phone.  We went to the driving range together…

We took a hike with some friends where Cayenne found a deer leg and ran off with it.  There was lots of laughs and chasing around to try to get the deer leg from her then hide it up in a tree where Cayenne couldn’t get it.…

  

We did some shopping and Starbucks hot chocolates and coffee…

Cayenne got in trouble for stealing food off the counter and learned she could use the Christmas tree to hide behind, and she was also a good dog who got lots of love and snuggles.

 

   

Honey Badger got a Santa hat and Nina, her friend, and Lyla helped me decorate cookies…

  

…and while Mark and I were out one night, Mousey, Poppy, and Magnolia visited and Cayenne and Maggie got some snuggle time.  I think if you were to ask them, this picture Poppy took DID NOT depict the night those two pups had.  Evidentally, they were wildly playing all night long, and only relaxed when made to after the girls were put to bed.  I don’t think this quiet lasted long, but it sure was cute!

So, now, the girls are back in school as of today, it’s a whole new year, and thankfully my blog issues appear to be resolved.  Here’s to a great 2016!