New Web Site

So I'm trying something a little new. I know I am a horrible blogger as it is but I am now starting up a second blog. The address is: www.bestmealoftheweek.blogspot.com . As most of you know I love to cook and I make it a point to make sure we have a good sit down meal together every night. I am always trying out new recipes and then loosing track of the ones that we really liked. I also tell people what I make for dinner and they ask for recipes which I end up never getting around to giving to them. So I guess my new web site serves two purposes in that I can share all my best meals with friends and family and who ever else ends up running into my web site and I can keep track of them myself. Good idea right? I guess we'll see how it goes. If you're ever in the need for a good meal idea check it out :)

Best Weekend EVER!

This weekend was great! What a wonderful husband I have! I have to admit, Saturday did not start off too great. I went to a wrestling tournament where I once again got shut down on any job prospects as an Athletic Trainer here in Eugene. It is IMPOSSIBLE to do anything Athletic Training here without being a University of Oregon grad student. There is just such a tight connection there that if anyone knows about a job opening or even a weekend event that needs covered they call up their buddy in grad school. I have finally come to the bitter realization that really, Athletic Training was just the means to my ultimate goal of being a mom someday. I am basically just having to take a different road to my ultimate goal.

Any ways, after bawling my eyes out, my loving husband took me in his arms and helped me calm down and put things in perspective and continue on to have a wonderful weekend. On Saturday night we discovered an amazing sushi restaurant. Even though I am probably the most embarrassing person to eat sushi with due to the fact that I simply cannot fit the whole thing in my mouth in one bight, Sean puts up with me and we had a great dinner.

After dinner we discovered Trader Joes. Trader Joes is a mostly organic and pretty expensive grocery store but while we were there we discovered the greatest thing ever. Pain au Chocolate! Pain au chocolate is a delicious French pastry that is basically a croissant with chocolate in the middle. It is amazing. We loved them while we were in London and France and now we have discovered that our love affair can continue here on the American continent! Mmmm..

We then continued our night by getting Dutch Brother smoothies for dessert (the apple smoothie is my favorite!) and going regular grocery shopping at Walmart. It has been so long since we have been grocery shopping together and I forgot how fun it could be! Being with Sean just makes everything fun!

Sunday was a great day for being in love too. For breakfast we had our freshly baked pain au chocolate which starts any day off right. Sean did a great job on getting me the perfect Valentines Day present. He got me the box set collection of all the Jane Austin classic movies. Don't worry though, I told him that I would not make him watch them with me :) For dinner we had Alaskan King Crab legs, twice baked potatoes, salad and bread with oil and balsamic vinegar. Alaskan King Crab is amazing! I have never eaten crab where you get such a big chunk of meat from the shell that you actually have to cut it to eat it. Mmmm good. We then finished off our romantic evening by piling blankets on the floor, starting up our fire and watching a movie. So wonderful. How lucky am I to be married for ever with my best friend and the one person in the world that still makes me giddy just by being with him. I LOVE YOU SEAN! Thanks for making my Valentines weekend the best weekend EVER!

Bella's Secret Life

Sean and I have always wondered what Bella does at home alone all day. Some days we come home and one of my shoes is on the couch or all her toys are piled right by the door. It makes us wonder. Today we had another little insight into her day. She had taken all our shoes and put them in pairs all around the house! She's such a little organizer! At least she does not chew them, just moves them. It's pretty funny :)

Rose Bowl

Ok, I figure since it has now been well over month since my last post it is probably time for another one. So here is one of those classic catch up posts. First of all, for Christmas break we went to Canada this year. I feel like I have been up there quite a bit on my own in 2009 but it was nice to have Sean there with me for a full week. It was super fun to visit family, even if I still was still recovering from the Swine flu and exhausted all the time.

When we got back to Eugene after Canada our vacation wasn't over yet. We left the same night we arrived to drive down for the Rose Bowl in Pasadena California. It was a super long drive but the time always goes a little faster now that so many cars have TVs in them. We watched the whole first season of Heroes on the drive there and home. Here is Sean and I enjoying the view of California from a look out point we stopped at for to stretch our legs.

This stop also served as a potty break for the boys which we also ended up with pictures of but I figured I would spare my brother-in-laws the humiliation of posting pictures of them frolicking in the parking lot in their boxers.

The day of the big game finally arrived. The first adventure of the day started with parking. With the top carrier still on the vehicle underground parking was a little tricky. The only thing that saved us was how much six of us being in the vehicle weighed it down. Once we got into our tiny parking spot and we all got out the car popped right up and hit the ceiling beam. At least we knew no one was going to steal our car without six people there to weigh it down.

This is me getting pumped for the game by putting on my scary Maori face. Very scary...

We took a train to Pasadena to avoid the crazy traffic close to the stadium. This is us waiting for the train.

Here we are on the train! Hard core brothers. We made it! Here are all the cars that payed big bucks so they could have tail gate parties with the Rose Bowl Stadium in the back ground. This is me, shocked at the prices of the food outside the stadium. They first made us stand in line to pay for tickets and then pay for the food with the tickets. When we got to our seats we were shocked to find that we had tickets for the second row! Here we are with our hopes still high. Go Ducks! Unfortunately the University of Oregon just couldn't pull it off. This was an unhappy moment when the confetti started to fly and it was not for the team we came there to cheer for.

Going to the Rose Bowl was still a pretty fun family trip and we did get to go to Six Flags Magic Mountain the next day before we went home to Oregon. Plus, when it really comes down to it, we are still true blue through and through BYU Cougar fans. We were very excited that they came out on top even if our new school couldn't pull it off. GO COUGARS! :)

Speaking of Swine

With all this swine talk in my home I figured now would be the perfect time to introduce the blogging world to our neighbor.

Not the dog...

IT'S A PIG!!

Our back porch looks down the hill right into our neighbor's yard and it just so happens that they have a dog and a pig! I don't think I'll ever get used to sitting outside enjoying nature and watching this big old fat pig going in and out of the dog door.

One night I was startled awake by this unnatural scream. It sounded like a pack of wolves was attacking a small animal right outside our window. I was debating about waking Sean but I just decided to snuggle up with Bella and wait for the horrific sounds to end. I was sure that I would find a carcass outside in the morning. When I told Sean about it in the next day he said that it was probably raccoons. I guess they can get sounding pretty vicious. There was no blood or animal parts outside our window so I decided that that must have been what it was. A few days later I was talking to our neighbors a few doors down who also have a balcony that overlooks the pig and the dog. Somehow we got talking about them. They asked me if I had heard them fight in the middle of the night yet. All of the sudden it hit me. That horrible scream must have been the pig! And I could definitely see wolf like sounds coming from a dog like that. The mystery was solved. I haven't heard it since but it does make me feel a little better that there will not be blood and carnage out side of my window in the morning. Who knows, maybe one day I'll just wake up to the smell of bacon instead...

Swine Flu or not Swine Flu...

That is the question. So I have been super sick the past few days. Sean has decided that I have swine flu. Who knows, maybe I do. Here are my symptoms:

1. Fatigue - I have NO energy. All I do is lay on the couch or bed all day barely moving. Going up or down the stairs is enough to completely wind me and make my heart pump so hard that it feels like it is going to pump out of my chest.

2. Body aches - this is probably one reason I don't want to move. Even moving my wrist is painful. Sitting on a chair is like pushing on one big bruise. No fun.

3. Loss of appetite - It's a good thing Sean is home to make me eat because I probably wouldn't if he wasn't here.

4. Temperature - I am always running a low grade temperature that seems to spike every now and then.

5. Diarrhea - enough said...

6. Sore throat - so I know this is supposed to be a big tell tale sign or the swine flu but my throat has never been horribly sore. Every now and then it starts to sneak up on me and I think it might gets worse but it never does.

7. Runny nose - this is another come and go symptom but when it come it just drips.

8. Hard to breath - my body is so sore that breathing is painful. I feel like I can never get a lung full of air because it hurts too bad.

I think that's it. So all you Dr. Mom's out there, do I have swine flu? Sean has not let me leave the house so I don't contaminate anyone else. Not that I complain too much because I can't move very far as it is. I do need to go back to work at some point though. Is is something I should just suck it up and work through or am I justified in staying home so I don't get anyone else sick? What is the general consensus out there?

On Ice

Last night I experienced my first ice storm ever. I know I am a rugged Canadian and all but freezing rain is crazy! I went over to my one friend's house here in Eugene (thanks Erin for being my friend) and I was very grateful that she lives in the same complex as us because driving would have been impossible! All I had to do was walk up a small hill to get to her house and at one point, as I went sliding back down the five steps I had just taken while trying not to loose my balance, I really thought that even walking up that hill might not be possible. Going down it at the end of the night was kind of fun though so when Sean needed a study break I jumped on the opportunity to get him out of the house and playing on the ice with me. We decided to try our luck with plastic bags sliding down the same little hill. It was actually pretty fun, even if it was slightly gheto. I was all for sitting on the Walmart bags and sliding down even if my bum did get a little cold. Sean on the other hand found it amusing enough just to try to walk up the impossibly slippery road. It sure was a fun little break to get to spend some time together in the middle of Law School Finals. :)

Just call me Shepherdess Amy

To kick off the Christmas season our Relief Society put on a play called the Women of Christmas. It went through all the women that may have been involved the night that Christ was born. True, it was mostly all based on speculation but it was still pretty fun to be a part of. There was Mary, Elizabeth, The Shepherd's Wives, The Wisemen's Wives, The Inn Keeper's Wife and Anna the Prophetess. I was a Shepherd's Wife. I probably had the easiest lines of the group but of course I cracked under pressure and missed two whole sentences! Oh well :)
Ok, I was debating telling this story but I will just hope that the chorister does not read my blog and get offended. So the play was kind of short and the Sister who was putting the whole thing on suggested that we sing a few Christmas Carols to start the night off (mind you this just so happened to be the same night that the biggest football game in Oregon was going on and we were all very anxious to get home). So the Chorister gets up and says:

"There are 14 Christmas Songs in the Hymn book. We just sang one for the opening hymn and we will sing another for the closing hymn. That only leaves 12 left so I thought we could sing them all."

We all laughed a little, thinking that she was joking, but then we got singing. Oh did we sing. Rather then saying page numbers for the next hymn she would just say "Ok, now turn the page." I could not believe it! No one could! I could not help laughing. Every time we started a new hymn I would giggle at how crazy it was that we were really going to sing all verses of all 14 carols tonight of all nights and miss the Civil War game! This got everyone else around me going and all the actresses were all giggling in disbelief the whole time. You should also probably know that there were singing parts in the play we were about to perform. It was all fun and games until about 40 minutes strait of singing and only being half way through the Christmas carols. By this time people just plain started getting annoyed and stopped singing all together. The women who had solos actually left until we were done singing because they were starting to loose their voices. I lost my giggling mood and finally some one stood up and said that this would have to be our last one. It was kind of an uncomfortable situation but we were able to preform even with our raspy voices and we all laughed about it afterward (everyone but the chorister that is). Hopefully this story doesn't get me in too much trouble but it was really funny

Because I was all dressed up we decided to take some pictures.This is me - Shepherdess Amy!This is me and my trusty sheep dog.
And this is me and my sheep!

Bella's Graduation

Today was Bella's graduation from Puppy School! She is an official good dog now. She can sit, lay down, come when called, stay and even spin! We are still working on shake a paw but she did not have to know that to graduate. We had such a fun time in Puppy School that we decided to sign her up for Intermediate classes. Here are some of her graduation pictures from today.
This is her graduating class. There was another boy Cavalier King Charles Spaniel in the class (on the far right). We decided they were boy friend and girlfriend. There was also a girl Cavalier mix. Our teacher decided that they were sisters. They were best friends and she will be continuing to Intermediate classes with us. Last, but not least, there was a Silver Great Dane puppy. Believe it or not, this puppy was only 4 months old! It was always so excited to play with the other dogs but they were so afraid of him that they would hide under our chairs during play time at the end of class.
This is Bella looking into the distance as she contemplates all her "good girl" moments thanks to this class and looks forward to many to more even better behaviors to come...

Jealous Kisses

I know, I know. I have been such a blog slacker lately. Believe it or not I have been thinking about blogging but just not getting around to it. As a result I have a storage of stories and pictures that I now have to catch up on. So here we go...
My first back in action blog has to do, of course, with Bella. She is basically the best dog ever! She loves playing and being with us and, most of all, giving kisses. She loves giving kisses so much that she actually gets jealous when we kiss each other and not her. We tried to make a video of this because it is so stinkin funny but once the camera is on she must get a little camera shy or something. She usually jumps into the middle of our kiss and tries tries to kiss us both but this time she was a little more polite.