8 Years

One guess as to who the romantic one is in this relationship:

RJ: So tomorrow's a special day, huh? (with a little smile)

Me: Oh, really? What's tomorrow?

RJ: .....?

Me: D'oh!! (a la Homer Simpson complete with forehead slapping)

Tomorrow, April Fool's Day, will be the eighth anniversary of when Rusty and I met. Cuh-raaaazy! At dinner tonight, we started talking about everything that has happened in the past eight years and couldn't stop. A lot has gone down for us, both as individuals and as a couple. And there are some days when I still cannot believe the way everything turned out. It has been quite a ride so far and it ain't over yet!

The icing on my double chocolate cake? How awesome is it that I found a guy who always remembers important dates?! :)

Harley Bear

I'm all about the pictures these days. :) I've been starting out slow, trying my hand at Picasa first before I start playing around with Photoshop. So what are your thoughts on this one? I messed with it a little but I'm not sure it looks as good as I think it does.

Either way, I love how peaceful he looks with the water from the hose in the background - something that would normally have him and his brother frantic with excitement.

A Portrait of Silence

I'm just really proud of this picture. You have no idea what it takes to get them to be quiet and sit still like that!

Aren't my boys handsome? :)

TGIF!

Seriously, I am so happy this week is over and the weekend is finally here. I really need a couple days to sleep in and relax. Okay, maybe the relaxing part won't be happening in spades, but close enough. :)

Yesterday was a pretty nice day so I left the front door open to let the dogs bask in the afternoon sun. As I was petting them, I looked up and saw our grape vines are starting to grow back!

For the past 6 months, the main stem and branches have all looked like the one on the right. Pretty dreary if you ask me. Not to mention, that's the only "separation" we have from the house next door. So we feel especially exposed during the winter. Sidenote: That's one thing I don't like about California - how close together all the houses are. I'm more used to having some serious space in between each house. A girl needs her privacy sometimes! ;)

I'm going to try and take a picture of this every couple weeks or so to see how it grows. Truthfully, I didn't pay much attention last year because our landlord had said not to worry about or touch it and they would deal with it. Well... that didn't happen. It got a little unruly and they ended up having to pull out one of the main plants, so this year I'm going to take care of them whether they like it or not! Wish me luck!

Oh, man... I hope I don't kill this little guy...

Sixth Sense

Proof that dogs are indeed smarter than we are.

From now on I promise to investigate when Brodie is staring intently at the wall for 30 minutes at a time. Who knows what might be in there!

Menaige Trois Bonne Anniversari Extravaganza!

I had a chance to get my butt down to L.A. for a visit with Jess to celebrate her birthday (yesterday), my birthday (last Sunday) and Jess's friend, Sam's, birthday (next Sunday). We kept things low key on Friday night with some Chinese food, warm chocolate chip cookies and a couple episodes of What Not to Wear. Ahhh, my kind of night. :)

Saturday, Jess, Sam, me and about 20 of their closest friends met up at Eclectic, a fantastic wine bar and grill in North Hollywood. Yum yum YUM. And that was just the pomegranate martini! After dinner, we headed down the street to Skinny's Lounge to dance the night away. As Jess would say, "the drinks were strong, the bartender was friendly and the lights were dim." All good things except when 2 of those 3 things lead one to fall and sustain some very minor injuries. Not that I have any idea what that would be like....

All in all, we had a blast, which of course meant that I was doomed to a Sunday filled with nausea and headaches (aside from the pain from what felt like getting punched in the face). And somehow I still managed to get through what felt like the longest 1-hour flight I've ever taken in my life.

Anyway, here are some pictures from a great weekend that I will not soon forget. Thanks Jess, Chris and Indy for putting me up for a few days!! And HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JESS!!!! :)

Furbabies

Meg's scare with Gordon today really got me thinking about my dogs and how even with all the stupid stuff they pull we still love them to pieces. Both of our dogs have had weird things happen to them where they very easily might not have lived to chew up another shoe.

Brodie walked through the railing and off our second floor balcony when he was only about a year old. Then a year or so later was hit by a car in front of our house. Both times he walked away with pretty minor injuries if anything.

When Harley was about 13 weeks old (3 weeks after Rusty gave him to me) he got really sick to the point where he peed the bed multiple times in one night, wouldn't drink or eat and was completely unresponsive. We rushed him to the emergency animal hospital and a few hours later he was back to his old self. Albeit with a sack of fluid sloshing around on his back, but still back to being a puppy.

Last week I posted about how Harley chewed up that green highlighter. It was pretty funny at the time, but the next morning, we woke up to find that he had actually eaten quite a bit of the plastic pieces from the marker. He had thrown it up in the middle of the night, but we can't help but wonder what might happen if he does it again. Will we be so lucky that it won't damage any internal organs? Our family dog, Jaxx, ate something when he was about 4 years old and ended up needing a really expensive surgery that resulted in him losing about 18 inches of intestine. We were all grateful he made it through to live another 5 awesome years.

I guess where I'm going with this, is why do we do this to ourselves? I'm an enormous animal-lover, so its no question why I love having dogs. But we all know that they eat things that aren't supposed to go into their bodies and do stupid things that have the potential to make them sick or even worse. We know that with having pets there is an inherent risk that something could go wrong at any moment through no fault of our own. Yet, we still bring these animals into our lives and then blame ourselves when things do go wrong.

I shouldn't have left the door open.

I should have cleaned up the house better so there would be nothing to chew up.

I should have paid more attention.

Shoulda coulda woulda. There's really no point. These animals are in our lives to make them better for the time they're around. We all know that dogs don't live as long as we do, so we adopt these little furballs knowing they're only going to cause us heartache in the end. But it is so worth it when you get moments like these...

Hang in there, Gordon! We're all pulling for you!