Birthday Girl

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my dear friend Jennifer!!!

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I just love this picture of her and her goofy girls.

And here we are in all of our Hawaiin beauty! :-)
Jennifer and I met about 12 years ago and have been best friends ever since. She is beautiful, talented, loving, hilarious, a faithful friend and I couldn't love her any more than I do. Jennifer, you are amazing and I hope you have the perfect birthday! (Maybe Brett will surprise you with tickets for the 4 of us to go back to Hawaii!!! Hahaha!! Hey, we can dream!)

Feeling the Love

Will and I spent this weekend visiting "The City of Brotherly Love," Philadelphia, PA.


Even with all the history to see and city to explore, I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn that the first item on our agenda was to seek out THE original Philly cheese steak restaurant!

Pat's King of Steaks was the original...

...and we'd be willing to bet that it's still the best!

After we fed ourselves (and, yes, I did eat that entire thing!!), we walked down to the historical part of the city and saw Independence Hall (where the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were signed) and the Liberty Bell.


It was a wonderful weekend! And now, Sunday night, time to start preparing for another work week. Hope you had a great weekend as well!

Pearls and Fur

On our wedding day, Ms. Lesley from The Paw Keeper's Inn kept Bailey and was kind enough to drive her out to the vineyard where we got married for pictures. I just learned yesterday that Lesley has yet to see any of the sweet photographs from that day....so this is for her! :-)

Bailey was very excited to wear her pretty pearl necklace. She's such a lady!

I can only imagine she was looking around those rolling hills thinking of the fun she could be having if she wasn't stuck there taking pictures!

Ms. Lesley, thank you so much for being so sweet to us. You and Karen really do provide such a wonderful service to us dog lovers who can't/won't settle for anything less than the best for our little ones!

Work or Stay Home in Bed?

Most every morning while we are getting ready for work, we can turn around and find this scene in our bed...

Bailey is queen of locating the biggest pile of pillows to prop her head up on. The blanket? Well, I'm pretty sure the blanket fairy covers them up. And they don't seem to mind! :-)


I often ponder this question...go to work or stay at home in bed?? Clearly reality always sets in and I power through to make it in to work, but I sure wouldn't mind staying home to snuggle with these comfy munchkins every once in a while!

Random Me

I saw another blog this week where the author put together a list of some of the random things about her. I thought it was entertaining and realizing that I'm full of random traits, thought I'd give it a go....

• I have been drinking coffee every morning since I was in jr. high. It's become such a comfort routine for me. It makes me think of my Mom and our morning coffee and talks together.
• I can't go into a store and buy only one item as it feels like a waste of time (standing in line) and a waste of the swipe of the credit card. Even if I love the item, but can't find anything else that I have to have, I'll walk out empty handed.
• I cannot stand dishes or anything at all in our kitchen sink. It drives me crazy.
• I make lists for EVERYTHING. Sometimes I make them just so I can cross off things that I've already completed.
• I can't swim -- I can't even tread water or float on my back. And yet thanks to my brother Russ who taught me to waterski, I love being in the water and have learned to trust the life jacket. Thank goodness because I can't imagine missing out on amazing experiences like snorkeling in Cancun and Hawaii!
• I wasn't a candidate for lasik surgery, so I have contact lenses surgically implanted under my corneas. (Unbelievable!! Let me know if you have questions about it -- I'm a HUGE fan!!)
• I spill. All the time. I'm not picky about what I spill on myself, but coffee tends to be the most common offender.
• When I wear my hair straight, I play with and twist the left side of my hair all day long. When I curl my hair, I don't touch it. Weird.
• I don't take criticism well. I'm such a pleaser and I'm a perfectionist, so if I get criticized, I feel like I've done something wrong and I've let you down. This is a bad trait, I know.
• I could give a speech to a stadium full of people and not get remotely nervous. If a small group of my friends or co-workers, however, throw me a surprise party and make me give a speech, you'll see me turn a million shades of red. The intimate settings make me WAY more nervous.

I'm sure there are MANY, MANY more that I'm just not thinking of right now. I'd be very interested to hear about any of your random-ness...please share!

Home Safe and Sound

Well, we made it back from a wonderful trip down to San Antonio, TX and Tularosa, NM. We both managed to get sick on the trip (stupid recycled airplane air), but still had a really great time. Here are some pictures of our trip.

The River Walk in San Antonio is so beautiful.

The 9 1/2 hour drive from San Antonio into New Mexico was, well, calming. (That's code for: there is NOTHING in western Texas!!)

As we were coming through the mountains in New Mexico (in Cloudcroft, NM I believe), the sun was setting and it was absolutely stunning.

We had such a great time seeing Will's parents in New Mexico. As usual, their horses kept me fully entertained...

Here, he looks like a racing machine....strong, powerful, full of energy...

Here, he looks like our dogs have been teaching him the "my back itches" trick...

Not sure if you're aware, but Will is a dentist in his spare time. He diagnosed that this horse needs to brush his teeth.

Either Ed and Mary are REALLY strong or that jockey (David) doesn't weigh much...

This horse here took a liking to me. I won't lie...I kind of liked her too, she's sweet.

Ed doing his thing -- he actually looks like he knows what he's doing, doesn't he?! :-)

And then there's me doing my thing...

Okay, so maybe I don't so much know what I'm doing! I wasn't so confident that my one riding experience when I was maybe 13 was enough to make me a pro, so Will led me and the horse around. Hehehe.

Thanks for everything Ed and Mary -- we really had a great time!!

Vacation leads to a litte deep thinking

The freedom that comes from getting on one of these...

...and NOT turning the power on to one of these...

...is a beautiful thing!! I LOVE VACATION!!!

So we've been on vacation now for 4 days and I've been thinking a lot about something. I have a great job and I'm very grateful for it. But here's the question...does the job create stress in my life or do I allow it to take control of me...to consume me? I don't know that I have a good answer. I do believe that certain jobs naturally are more stressful and harder on the employees. But I also believe that no matter what my job is, I should do it as unto God -- do the job like I'm doing it for Him. So that means giving it 100%. Apparently my problem is that I have a hard time giving 100% without also allowing it to stress me out. I need to work on this -- I need to be better at finding outlets (like working out) to relieve the stress in my life instead of waiting for a vacation to relax me. It's just not healthy. What about you? Do you have any good advice for lessening the stress in your life?

On a lighter note, vacation has been wonderful and very relaxing. (As you may have noticed from the above paragraph, I needed this!!) The great state of Texas has been great to us so far!! (It's 75 degrees -- in March -- while it's 30 degrees back home -- need I say more??) :-)

More pictures of our trip at a later time. A special thank you to our wonderful and generous friends who are staying at our house, protecting our homestead and the 2 furry munchkins, while we're away. We appreciate you!!