That Darn Cat

That darn cat is not supposed to be up on the back of the couch.  He knows this, and I know he knows this because I have successfully trained him to stay off of other cushions.  He is now totally trained to stay off the back of our loveseat, but I think he is going to test the waters (and my patience) with EVERY OTHER CUSHION until he runs out of options.  You know, just to make sure I really mean it.

Distraction

I apologize for my recent blog hiatus.  I spent the last week or so combatting some sort of virus.  It basically amounted to me doing nothing but laying around and going through 700 boxes of kleenex for several days.  So, rather than writing a substantial blog post, I am going to distract you with this cute picture of Moose:

We leave this weekend for an out-of-town trip, so I promise, promise, promise that I will have lots of interesting things to blog about next week! 

Turtles and Aprons and Ribbons, Oh My!!

I put together a little package to send to Brooke & Truman for their birthdays which are close together actually a month apart, but I had tons and tons of homework and a little gnome stole all my sewing gear and excuses, excuses, excuses am a slacker and could not get the boxes together in time. 

Anyway, I made some homemade turtles.  One for Truman, one for Truman's buddy Khai, and a teeny tiny girl turtle for Khai's new baby sister Rowan.  I am hoping that the turtles were a hit.

Also, I made coordinating mommy and son aprons for Brooke & Truman for cooking, arts and crafts, etc.  I was pleased with the result.  It was a challenge to come up with a fabric combo that works for a two year old boy and his mommy. 

Also, Brooke found these cool ribbon toys online, and we decided it made much more sense to make them than to buy them.  They actually turned out pretty cool. 

Moose agreed.  I had to convince him that they were not intended to be kitty toys.  Then I got this look: 

Okay, Okay, Okay!

Okay!!  I will FINALLY blog about Easter weekend.  Here's what we did:

1.)  We drove back to San Diego late Friday night.  No pics of that, sorry.

2.)  We took my Grandma out to Black Angus for lunch and to visit.  We had delicious food but terrible service.  That seems to pretty much be par for the course at Black Angus. 

3.)  We colored Easter eggs with Travis, Alex and Cindy:

(I made a special one for Moose since he couldn't be there)

4.)  My beautiful niece Natalie was born!!  Which was fabulous timing.  We went to the hospital to meet her on Easter morning:  :)

5.)  We hung out with Brett's fam' on Easter, and the kids had their Easter egg hunt.

(This is part of the fam.  We'll call this a fam faction™)

6.)  Everyone got jolted by a 7.2 earthquake, or whatever magnitude it was, I just remember it was a lot.

7.)  We went to the San Diego Zoo!!

(Here I am just hangin' with the monkeys.  Pun totally intended)

(This is me communing with the wildlife.  I look so comfortable in this situation)

(You Takin' to me?  Man I'm on a roll today.)  

8.)  Then, we met Travis for lunch @ the Zoo.

9.)  We went up to Carlsbad to visit my Dad & Margie and had a yummy dinner.

10.)  We decided on the drive from Carlsbad to Alpine to drive home late that night (Monday) rather than getting up super early on Tuesday to drive home.

11.)  Got a speeding ticket for going just a teensy bit over the speed limit.  In the middle of the desert.  In the middle of the night.  With no one else around.  It's ok.  I'm not bitter. 

And THAT is our Easter Update.  :)

Kitty

Angry Kitty or Sleepy Kitty?

You be the judge. 

At This Point...

...Moose is pretty much fed up with the whole moving process. I think his look pretty much says "screw you guys, I'm going to hide out in my cat hut..."

My Attempt

We got Moose a "pet taxi" for his ride to Arizona. Moose has never been the world's biggest fan of small confined spaces with cage doors. However, he is the world's biggest fan of Temptations Tuna Treats. So, in an attempt to get him comfortable with his temporary digs, I placed a trail of tuna treats leading up to, and then all the way to the back of his carrier. We'll see how this goes.

Update: Moose has now eaten all of the treats leading up to his carrier. After that he stuck his head in and sniffed around a bit, but he didn't touch the treats inside. Maybe he will after we have gone to bed and he figures that there isn't much threat of getting locked inside.

Update #2: We woke up the next morning and all the the treats that were placed inside the cat taxi are now gone. Moose must have gotten the courage to venture into the carrier while we were sleeping.

Brett & Amy Update

Hmmmm...what to blog about? It seems as though Brett & I have been stuck in the doldrums of Winter lately...but I'll try to scrape together a few things for this post. ;)

First...I cut my hair!! I cut about four or five inches off. I really really like having it short again. It makes me feel ready for spring.


Brett cut his hair super short, too. Not on purpose. There was an incident. He got fed up with his hair so rather than go get it cut, or wait for me to do it like I sometimes do, he decided to cut it himself. He has done this before without a problem, but this time the guard fell off of the clippers while he was cutting, resulting in an extremely short strip being carved right down the middle of Brett's head. The only remedy of course was to make all of his hair the same length. So he was walking around with very short hair there for a while. I unfortunately don't have a picture of that, so you will just have to use your imagination.

Last week was my mom's birthday, which was kind of sad, but Brett made it fun by sending me beautiful flowers at work and then taking me out to dinner, because he's awesome like that.

I made another skirt out of some adorable fabric that I am in love with. It's just a simple drawstring skirt, but I can't wait for it to be warm enough to wear it.


Brett is studying for Part 3 national boards. His test is on Sunday, so he has been holed up at the library a LOT lately. You know your husband is in grad school when the big spring-break decision with his friends is "should we go to the Bettendorf or Fairmount library today?" This has been the view around the house for a while now:


He takes the test on Sunday, then he takes Part 4 in a few weeks, then he is DONE WITH BOARDS. Hallelujah.

Meanwhile, Moose has been up to his usual antics:

Christmas Week(end)

Brett and I each had a five day weekend for Christmas which was WONDERFUL. Actually, Brett is off from school for 2 whole weeks, although he is still going in to see patients on certain days. We got even more snow. I swear there was at least a rock solid (and I really mean rock solid) foot of snow on the ground outside just from the past week. We are handling snow removal for our neighbors while they are out of town. They conveniently picked a very snowy week to be away, but we don't mind because they're good neighbors. Here is my snow-shoveling husband out clearing the walks on Christmas Eve:


I was so excited to FINALLY have a white Christmas that I just had to take a snowy picture in front of our tree in our front yard.


Later that day we went to see the movie Four Christmases, which Brett & I can totally relate to. Then we drove all over town looking for a restaurant that was open for dinner. There were surprisingly few restaurants open for Christmas Eve dinner. After dinner and a movie we returned home to make some cut-out cookies. Brett & I have always just called them sugar cookies, but everyone in Iowa seems to call them cut-out cookies, so I will call them that too. :)


Christmas morning we slept in. It was wonderful. Then we went out to see what Santa had left under the tree:



(lovin' the bed-head)

Santa even brought something for Moose:


We hung out, relaxed, watched a Christmas Story a few times and made our own Christmas dinner. I don't have any pictures of that.

Friday we did our part to keep the economy going ;) by heading out for some day-after-Christmas shopping. I'm afraid I don't have a picture of that either, but we had a good time.

The rest of the weekend Brett & I focused on cleaning and getting more organized. I am especially proud of my completely re-organized closet:


I hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas!

I couldn't resist

Sorry... Every once in a while I just can't help myself from posting a picture of our adorable little MooseCat. Here he is just lounging around this morning.

Moose's Spot

It looks like our friend Moose has a new favorite place in the world. I think he is really enjoying the bounty of windows in our new house.

Happy New Year!

Here is the story of our day, told with (lots of) pictures:

It was very snowy yesterday. The crazy weather people only called for "about an inch." Well, we got a little more than an inch. More like 3-6" depending on your area. The roads were snowy and icy, so we really didn't go out much. Here is a peek of our winter wonderland:


Here is my MooseCat doing what he does best by hanging out under the tree:

And here he is looking particularly handsome:


Around 3 o'clock I got a crazy craving for French Toast, so Brett made me some. :)


Later on, we hung out with our friends Dean & Michelle. We played Battle of the Sexes:


And then we rang in the new year:


Aren't they cute?


Then we tried to take a group picture using some of my new camera toys. Here's how that went:
Maybe a little too much flash?


Is it working? Hmmm, maybe if I point my remote directly at the camera....oops!


That's better. :)


Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas, Moose

We got Moose a new cat bed for Christmas this year. In the spirit of giving, we decided to give it to him early so that he could start enjoying it now.

Naturally, he much prefers the pile of laundry:

Moose is Ready to Go...

...19 days left until San Diego. If only we were as ready to go as the cat is--he has actually packed himself in his cat carrier. We are so excited to come back, but there is a whole lot to be done between now and then. I have an x-ray practical on Wednesday, a huge insurance project due Thursday, in two weeks we have finals, and I have a job interview for a teaching assistant position on campus (I'm nervous! =)). All that and we still have yet to secure a suitable plant-sitter. With all we have left to do, 19 days can't come fast enough.