Ode to a ridiculous dog-Louie

When I got married, I inherited a very happy yellow lab. Although he drives me crazy some times, he is actually a good dog. He is like a little kid and cracks us up all the time. He has the most hilarious sleeping positions.

I woke up to use the bathroom one night to discover Louie totally asleep with his eyes open.
He loves being outside.


Louie also has a love/hate relationship with the vacuum. It may have started when I tried to vacuum loose hair off his back. Whenever I vacuum he stands near me just looking at the vacuum with worried eyes. I was vacuuming downstairs and he come into the room just to watch the vacuum. I honestly think he feels better if he knows where the vacuum is. I am sure it doesn't help when I pretend like I am going to vacuum him again. Don't call PETA on me please.

Christmas Break

The first part of Christmas break we spent with my parents. Kenny's family was there the first weekend. When we first arrived we went out to the field to find Kenny and the boys. They are discovered a dead deer. It looked like it had laid down in the sun and just died. There was no blood or marks on the deer. The boys posed next to the deer to make Johanna's hunting brothers jealous. After seeing the pictures Kenny sent Tyler called. He wanted Kenny to bring the head of the deer to Kansas with them. So Kenny and Gabi removed the head and it traveled to Kansas in their overhead case on their van.
We opened presents a little early for Kenny's family.

Snow in Grand Junction.

We left for Los Alamos the day after Christmas. Grayson and me playing with my iphone.


Louie and Grayson taking a nap together.

Phi Yen, Gabi, and I went snowshoeing


Needless to say I didn't take a lot of pictures during the break but it was so nice to spend time with family.

Master Chef Gabi

So Gabi is a great cook. His parents told me that when he was little he didn't like most foods. They told him that they were not going to cook two dinners just because he was so picky. He started cooking for himself at an early age and it paid off. On our first date he announced that he was a recovering picky eater and that he didn't like almost every vegetable. I, myself am a picky eater so I didn't think much about it. I soon discovered that he REALLY didn't eat vegetables. By the fall we were talking about marriage and I told him that he would have to eat vegetables in front of our kids. So in the Fall he started stretching his tastebuds and he discovered that he liked vegetables if they were cooked right. His new tolerance of vegetables has really helped his cooking.

We wanted to have our first Thanksgiving in our house this year. Both sets of parents came, my friend Jeff and 2 of my sisters. Gabi planned a 3 day cooking schedule. On the day of Thanksgiving the Dads, Connie and I raked the leaves outside while Gabi and his mom cooked. (we are a progressive family). It was amazing.
Notice the fish spreader. We got that for a wedding present.

Phi Yen (Gabi's mom) made crab cheese won tons because I love them so much.



Spanish style appetizers

A couple more of Gabi's amazing creation:
Breaded veal cutlets with arugula and fennel salad.

And finally, just for the halibut: Olive-oil poached halibut on rice. (Connie caught this while she was in Alaska)

By the way the "just for the halibut" joke was written by Gabi. I swear he likes cooking halibut just so he can make the joke 3 or 4 times while he is cooking.

Fall Break

For Fall Break Carol and I went to visit my brother Kenny and his family. It is always a treat to visit his family but I usually leave needing a vacation. I am not sure how Johanna does it. We got up early to help Drew with breakfast and get him ready for school, finish feeding the other boys, and then I was ready for my first nap at 8:30 a.m. It was a week full of lots of activities.
Drew was pretty amazing at the jungle bars.

Mya was just so cute.

We took the boys to the Palm Springs Zoo.

Decorated a ginger bread house.

Had a lot of cuddle time.

And we were there for Halloween. We watched the Star Wars cartoon so that Ian would know who Obi-Wan Kenobi was. In the cartoon Obi and Anakin were still friends. I didn't know how to explain to Drew that Darth Vader was not a good guy and kills Obi-Wan so I just left that out. The whole time we watched the cartoon they would ask about every 2 minutes, "Are they a good guy or bad guy." I was glad that the movie was only about 85 minutes long.
As always I had a great time in California. We ended the week by seeing Drew and Ian play soccer. It was great.

Fall Fun!

This Fall Gabi and I were really busy. Gabi started Law School at Denver University the same week I went back to school. Our amazing summer had come to an end. When Gabi decided to go to Law School last year we planned for him to attend the night program so he could work during the day. He later was laid off in April but it was too late to transfer to the day program. Gabi and I have completely different schedules. He leaves for school about 5 p.m. and I get home around 5:15. On Monday/Wednesday he gets home around 7:45 and on Tuesday/Thursday he is finished around 9:40. It was been an adjustment for us.

At the end of August we bought our 1st house. We were very excited not to be living in an apartment with Louie. Our move was successful except for the couch. I had inherited a couch from my sisters, from some guy. It is an older couch so we planned on putting it downstairs. Gabi and Brother Becker worked on getting that couch downstairs. 2 hours later and many marks on the wall they had it stuck in the bathroom/hallway downstairs. There was no way it was going to fit into the empty room. They started bringing it back upstairs and it got stuck again. I told them, "if it doesn't fit downstairs I don't want it in the house." They were excited to hear this because that meant they could just break it in half. And so, the couch is no more. I think it helped morale to be able to destroy that couch after wasting 2 hours on it.

What is left of the couch.

We were excited to be able to finally put both cars into the garage. The house is almost completely unpacked. The office is still a disaster but every other room in the house is set up. It took us 5 months to put pictures on the wall but we finally did it.

Bo and Joe came up to Denver for my 30th birthday. We all bought puffy jackets which made Carol mad. Carol has a puffy jacket and has done everything in her power to persuade me to not buy one too because we would look stupid both having one. I have not regretted my decision once.