A lot to be thankful for

I was contemplating sending holiday cards (and I still may), but then I decided I have lots of things that I'm particularly thankful for this year that I'd like to share, so then I though how about a holiday letter... but I'm just not sure I'm quite to the point in my life that a holiday letter seems age appropriate. So instead... or for the minute anyway, I want to share a little recap of some of the things that have made this year... memorable.

Ryan and I have officially been in St. Louis a full year now. And I think it's safe to say, we like it here. We're still figuring out what our favorite places are, and what all is here, but we're enjoying the process.

In addition to living in St. Louis, Ryan and I have been living together for a year now and it has been great. Having never lived with a significant other before, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, but I truly love living with Ryan. I even enjoy the silly things we bicker about from time to time.

And in addition to living in St. Louis and with Ryan, I am also very thankful for the purchase of our new house. The house has been a constant source of entertainment and stress and joy. I love, love, love this house. And all the weird eccentricities of it. And I love that there are so many things we want to do with it, even if that does lead to some stress over what to do when and how to pay for it!

Though my job can drive me utterly insane, I'm very glad to have it and to be employed by a place that is doing something I believe is important and to work with co-workers who are truly great. Especially in light of the economic difficulties and unemployment so many are facing, I do feel blessed, for lack of a better term.

I feel very lucky to have been introduced to a great organization here in St. Louis called Stray Rescue that, in turn, introduced us to our new pup, Tuesday. I can not believe that Tuesday has only been with us about 10 months as she has become such a main stay of our lives. She is so happy and excitable and loving and even Irie thinks she was a great addition.

And speaking of Irie - she may not be something new this year, but I still adore her! I've really enjoyed getting back into agility class with her and teaching her new tricks like rolling all the way over this year.

We've had some sad events this year too, like the loss of Ryan's Grandma last spring, but we also welcomed my nephew, William, to the family. There's nothing quite like a new baby to make me smile and feel all warm and fuzzy inside. With new babies comes cute little outfits and warm snuggles and getting to know a whole new little person.

And Lily continues to amaze me. She's so much her own person these days and while she can be trying to entertain from time to time, I just love spending time with her and seeing her mind work. Simply amazing. I'm so glad to live nearby and be able to take her on little adventures.

I am also so very thankful for the new friends we have made in St. Louis as they have made it so much more enjoyable! Finding new friends takes time, but I so enjoy the ones we have found so far.

Of course, I am even more thankful (if that's possible) for my old friends who, though I don't live nearby anymore, still take the time to call me and tell me they miss me and work with me to find time for us to get together. Life would not be the same without you.

And last, but certainly not least, I am so grateful for my family. Every family has their share of issues, but I am so happy to be a part of mine. There's so much love and support and humor there. I can't wait to see so many of you this holiday season!

Irie and Terra with Santa Clause

Elfin' Around

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

The Girls' Room

There are still a few touch-ups to do, but the puppy palace is finally coming together. After much agonizing over how to do the pawprints on the walls, last night we finally just put paint to wall and I think the results are pretty good. Here are some pictures of the dogs' new diggs.

It's hard to see in pictures but the pink walls and chocolate paw prints are a nice color combo.

The wall beside the doorway with the dog leashes, etc.

The plaque hanging above Irie's crate.

Tuesday's plaque.

The really funny part about all of this is the dogs are never in their crates anymore. For the last several months we've just been letting them run around the lower level while we're gone. They've been doing really well with it and generally Tuesday just broke out of her crate whenever we put her in it anyway. However, it is still nice to have a place for all their stuff and I've really enjoyed putting the room together anyway.

We haven't gotten it framed and hung up in their room yet, but we had a caricature of the dogs done yesterday. One of the local pet boutiques was doing them and we thought it would be fun. I think it turned out pretty well!

Dad and Susan's renovations

While I was out in Denver/Boulder last week I got to see the almost complete renovations on Dad and Susan's house. It's definitely a new place and even without it being 100% complete, it was pretty impressive. I got a few shots (though they're not the best), but perhaps they'll give you some ideas of the changes!

The new loft area.

A view from one end of the kitchen, looking up into the loft area.

The art work on loan that I believe has found its new home.

The new kitchen.

Being around the renovations re-inspired me to get some projects started at our place as well. Nothing quite this extreme, but put me back in the mood. Perhaps that was the motivation behind our very productive Saturday. :-)

Oh, the sweet feeling of accomplishment

Ryan and I came back from visiting his family in Kansas City for Thanksgiving Saturday morning and proceeded to have one of the more productive days we've had in a long time. In the course of our Saturday we:

• Made the four hour trip home.
• Picked up the dogs from daycare.
• Went to Ryan's bank and my bank.
• Gave Tuesday a haircut.
• Went up on top of our roof and snaked our air vents for the bathrooms to see if that would fix our downstairs toilet flushing issue (it didn't.)
• Cleaned out some of the gutters while we were up there.
• Put the sample paint color on the downstairs bathroom wall to make sure it would work with the tiles (we think it does.)
• Did all of our laundry.
• Touched up the trim painting in the living room.
• Painted the dogs' room. (Still need to touch up the corners and add the brown paw prints.)
• Put a new doorbell on the front door and disassembled the old one so people don't get confused (the second half of this technically took place on Sunday.)
• Measured the two sides of our yard that we would like to put privacy fence up on. Discovered it's about 155 feet total.
• Went to a furniture store to look at a small couch to add to our kitchen area for additional seating. (Found one we like.)
• Went to dinner at a new branch of a popular restaurant that opened nearby. It's supposed to resemble Chicago style pizza. It was just OK, but we're glad we tried it. 
• Went to the movies to see 2012. It had some good action scenes, but otherwise was just an OK movie in my book.
• Got home and collapsed into bed at about 12am.

It's simply amazing what all you can get done when you're motivated (and have the things you need already at your disposal!)

Halloween Pics

Ryan with the pups.

Tuesday went as a skunk and took 2nd place at the doggie halloween party we went to.

Irie lived it up as a pirate.

A side shot of Little Bo Peep.

A family photo with little sheep, William.

Ryan and I went as H1N1.

Introducing William!

William Oscar Deetz
9 pounds, 2 ounces

22.5" long

Time for another two week update!

I'm on day two of a mild stomach bug and I'm officially BORED!

Working at home definitely has it's advantages (especially when you don't want to be far from the bathroom), but it also means I really have to find excuses to leave the house and when I'm not feeling well, that becomes even more unlikely.

I think I have watched at least 6 hours of NCIS re-runs in the last two days and countless other shows. Today I at least felt well enough to do some laundry and pick up the house a bit, but otherwise, I haven't been up to much other than work.

So, what better to do then take this time to do some blog updating, right?

Honestly, I think I've mostly just been pre-occupied with my new nephew on the way. I just keep waiting and waiting - as I know many people are. I do hope now that he holds off on his arrival until after Kathleen's sister's wedding this Friday though. I know she really wants to be there! But I am very excited to have a new little baby around to spoil.

Ryan and I stole Lily for a little while this past Saturday and took her to Monkey Joe's (a local inflatable playground place.) As Carl says, I believe I have been typecast into the role of "the aunt who takes Lily to Monkey Joe's." When I called Carl up this weekend to see when would be a good time to take Lily, she got on the phone and said, "You know what we should do? We should go to that jumpy place you took me to before."

It was a wild time. Our friends Hogan and Danelle brought their kids and met us there but unfortunately the kids were not real interested in playing together. Lily really wasn't very interested in playing with anyone. She spent most of her time in dramatic play, acting out interesting scenarios in the middle of the jumpy rooms while the other kids jumped around her. It was pretty funny. We had a few moments of true drama, mostly involving the candy necklace that Lily was wearing. At one point a younger kid in one of the jumpy areas grabbed it and the string broke, spilling the candy all around Lily. Serious issue. Luckily Ryan was there to save the day and climbed into the jumpy room to gather up all the candies and then we restrung them. Lily was still upset as we completed this process - when I asked her why she burst into tears again and said that she didn't want me "to tell mommy and daddy." I promised I wouldn't (this doesn't count by the way!) She often makes these kind of statements ("Don't talk about that." "Don't tell anyone that.") I just think it's funny that she gets so worked up over it, but I remember those feelings from being young too. Perhaps she's even more like me than I thought - quite the desire to not be seen in a negative light and be a bit "perfect" to the outside eye. Or maybe I'm projecting. Either way, it's interesting.

Another thing she has taken to doing with me lately is telling me all about limits. She often announces to me that mommy and daddy let her do this or don't let her do that or that she "thinks she's had enough candy for today." That one made me laugh. As did when she told me she's not allowed to eat candy anymore because she went to the dentist and he said she couldn't. Really? And how much candy have you consumed in the past week?

But I think my favorite Lily-ism of late happened when I was in the waiting room with her during one of Kathleen's baby check-up appointments. Lily had been busy entertaining a fellow waiting room guest with songs (luckily the woman was very accommodating). As a bit of a distraction the lady and I were asking Lily questions about the new baby. Lily informed us that the baby would be about this big (making a small circle with her hands.) We both laughed and I said that I thought the baby would be a little bigger than that, about the length of Lily's arm perhaps. She gave me an eye role and somewhat under her breath sang sweetly, "You don't know anything about babies..." She cracks me up.

Ryan and I also made our first visit to the St. Louis Ethical Society (where Lily had her naming ceremony a few years back) this weekend. It was a different meeting than they normally are as apparently it was "ethical action day", so there were mostly just presentations from various people about projects the Ethical Society has been involved in and upcoming projects. We're planning on going back this weekend and checking out a more normal meeting. We met another young couple that were also there for their first time and enjoyed talking with them about their thoughts as well. From past experiences and the couple of people we met last weekend, it's an interesting mix of people, but all friendly. I like the idea of being involved with it as a community and I really like that it focuses on values and leaves out all the dogma. Feels much more comfortable to me. I think Ryan, being raised Catholic, is particularly interested in figuring it all out, so we're looking forward to going again. I was also pleased to see more age variety in this society as opposed to the one in Chicago. Lots of little kids and I enjoyed getting to see the variety of book topics in their children's reading room.

This coming weekend is Ryan's birthday so I'm hoping I'll be feeling much better and we'll get to do some fun stuff to celebrate.

APA Canine Carnival

We've been enjoying the many dog-focused events St. Louis has been offering these past few weeks. Last week we checked out Canine Games at Purina Farms. The dogs got to take part in agility trials, races, flyball and wagon pulling. Today was APA's Canine Carnival, so the dogs got to enjoy another day in the sun playing games like cheese ball toss, find the treat and watching lots of funny dogs show off tricks, costumes and more. Here are some pictures from today's activities.

Tuesday waiting for the music to start in the dog version of musical chairs.

In prime position for catching cheese balls. A professional photographer actually came over to take shots of Irie's excellent catching skills to put on his website. They're supposed to be up later this week.

She's so ready. Do you see the cheeseball?

Tuesday wasn't such a great catcher, but she was super excited about the prospect of eating cheese puffs. She actually did catch a few.

The guy taking the photo had a crazy whistle to get the dogs to look at the camera. Our dogs decided this meant to bark their head's off. Irie is still in mid-bark in this picture.

Another shot -this time with Tuesday in mid-bark.

It's a sad day for the Deetz family.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091001/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gm_saturn_8

As many of you know, my immediate family has been a family of Saturn owners for a long time now. Dad started the trend back when Saturn first came on the scene in the early 90s and currently Carl, Mom and I all have Saturns. I guess we all need to take extra good care of our cars now as they're the last of their kind.

RIP Saturn. You'll be missed.

This and that

I have not been very good about taking pictures on any of our recent adventures, but we've been plenty busy.

A few weeks ago we took the dogs on a Float Trip (a St. Louis term that basically means taking a tube/raft/canoe, etc out on a river for a few hours.) Within the first five minutes Tuesday jumped ship (or raft in our case) and took off for shore. This resulted in Ryan, me and Irie all bailing out and chasing her down. Thankfully, she came back to the river. We were literally in the middle of nowhere and really had no chance of finding her. After that adventure, we tied her leash to the boat. We decided having to drag the raft with her would slow her down. The river was low, so we had to get out and pull our raft over many shallow spots. So between that and the river just generally running slow, it made for a long trip. I think we were all pretty much done with the whole float experience by about hour 3. Unfortunately it lasted another 2 hours. But once we got out and back on solid land, we had a better sense of humor about it all. I think it's a good lesson that next time we will want to either a) make sure the river is running faster or b) select a shorter trip. The dogs weren't totally psyched about all the water and swimming but they were truly exhausted for the rest of the weekend (as were we.)

In other dog news, I've got Irie back in agility class, which she is eating up. We've actually made quite a bit of progress and more importantly she loves it. We've gotten a few videos (see below). They don't totally do her justice, but it can give you a sense! She's consistently faster (though not always better) than the instructor's dog who is also in the class. We brought Tuesday with us the other night as well and she got a chance to play on the equipment after class. I don't think I've ever seen a happier dog. She was absolutely loving it. So, I'm sure we'll be getting her started soon. (In the meantime, we're busy teaching her how to roll over. - Now if we could just get her to come when she escapes!)





On the home-front, we have several home improvement projects that are in the works. We have purchased new tiles for the downstairs bathroom, but we haven't yet figured out the whole "scheme" for the bathroom, so no real work has begun yet. We're also trying to figure out how to do the whole sequence of things in there as we want/need to replace the toilet in there, so we need to plan everything accordingly. I have finally gotten a new duvet cover for the master bedroom that doesn't clash at the very least with our brilliant wall color, but I'm still having a very hard time finding decorative touches that work with that color.

This weekend we're headed down to Southern Illinois to do some hiking, camping etc. We've rented a little cabin (so I guess it's not really camping), but we're looking forward to getting away and having only nature to be entertained for a little while! I'm looking forward to getting to re-explore some of my favorite hiking/state parks from my younger days! Perhaps I'll actually get some pictures taken this weekend!

Lake of the Ozarks pictures

Irie trying to figure out how to get into the front seat.

Tuesday enjoying the breeze from the window.

Taking a break by the lake.

When we ran out of water.

Leaving on a jet plane (if it doesn't leave me first!)

I'm sitting in the airport in Sacramento waiting for my flight. I should be in the air right now, but when I arrived this morning, I was told my flight was delayed 45 minutes. As I was about 2 hours early, I wandered around the airport, responded to some emails, checked messages, etc. I wandered down to my gate at 10:20 and asked where my flight gates had been moved to only to find out that it had already left. Apparently they were able to take off sooner than they thought they would be able to and just went ahead and left. Because my flight was booked by a travel agent, they didn't have a number to call me at. Awesome.

This wouldn't matter so much except I'm supposed to be delivering a teleconference at 7pm this evening. I had to move flights around so that I will now be on my layover in Chicago during the call time. I can't imagine how much fun it will be to try to deliver a teleconference from an airport! I'm quite sure I won't be the first though.

Anyway, while I wait for my Sacramento to Chicago flight to take off, I thought I would spend a minute updating my blog.

I don't have any pictures handy, so I'll have to update with those later, but we did have another eventful weekend.

On Saturday morning, Ryan and I decided to make the 2.5 hour drive to Lake of the Ozarks with the dogs. It was a bit of an overcast day and we wanted to get out and do a little hiking. I've never been to Lake of the Ozarks and Ryan hadn't been in a long time, so we thought we should get it done before the summer got even further away from us. The drive was a bit long, but not too bad. When we got there we found the state park and a nice little trail. As we were entering the trail, there was a nice sign that said there was a high level of ticks in the area so to be sure to wear repellent. Well, the dogs had their frontline on and we had sprayed ourselves with repellent so we carried on. Our overcast day turned out to be extraordinarily humid and we (and the dogs) were dripping in no time. About an hour in, the dogs had already ran out of water and we decided to head back. We spent some time driving around the area to see what all was there and quickly discovered that it's not very dog friendly. While pretty much everywhere in St. Louis allows dogs on their restaurant/bar patios, nowhere in Lake of the Ozarks does. So after trying several places, we finally cut our loses and decided it was probably time to start driving back anyway. About this time I discovered a teeny-tiny little tick on my hand. With a quick look over the dogs we found that they were totally infested as well. It was a very long 2.5 hour drive home knowing that we were all covered with ticks! Our would be leisurely evening, turned in to a full scale tick hunt with specialized shampoos, sprays, etc. It was great. Irie (who's fur is much thinner and therefore easier to see through) has at least 100 bites all over her legs and stomach. She looks like she has the chicken pox. I called the vet and they said they would check them for Lyme disease when they get their next round of shots, etc but otherwise not to worry about it if they didn't show any symptoms. Ryan and I, other than being itchy, don't seem to be showing any negative signs either. Keeping our fingers crossed!

Sunday was home improvement day and while I spent the day painting our upstairs bathroom (which I'll post pictures of later), Ryan spent the day filling our big hole in the driveway much to the neighborhood kid's dismay. Since we moved in, we've discovered the neighborhood kids playing in our driveway with the pieces of asphalt that make up the hole. They seem to enjoy stacking them up and knocking them over. This is not a big deal, except somewhere along the way a few of the kids have decided they're also good to throw around - specifically at our garage door. After hearing this a few times and running out to try to catch the kids that were doing it, we decided the easier thing to do would be to remove all the pieces. Now it is mostly filled and Ryan has told several of the kids to stay away from it so that it will set properly. The next day the neighborhood snitch showed up at our doorstep to let us know that some of the kids had been putting their footprints in it and riding their bikes through. She wouldn't give up who had been doing it, but wanted us to be know it was happening. Nice. At any rate, while neither project is professional grade, it felt nice to get a few things accomplished this weekend (and checked off the ever growing list of home improvement tasks.)

Fawning over Ryan

On an unrelated note from this past weekend, I realized another reason why I love Ryan.

As we were driving through rural Illinois to get to Clinton, two young fawns jumped in front of the car. Ryan slammed on the breaks and managed to scrape by with only tapping one of the deer on its hind-quarter. The fawns ran off, but Ryan backed up to where he had tapped the deer and we searched to make sure it hadn't been hurt.

As we wandered along the side of the road hoping to not find the deer, it struck me that I'm with someone pretty special - and very in line with my own feelings. Not many guys I know would stop to make sure a deer they barely tapped was OK.

Thankfully, as we were searching, we saw both deer further down the road running into the corn fields. Good stuff.

It's officially summer

It never really feels like summer to me until I get to spend some time on the water. As luck would have it, the most unseasonably cool weekend we've had yet this summer, was the one we ended up spending on the water. It actually was really nice despite the cooler weather. Ryan and I met Sarah and Michael in Clinton at Sarah's parents house. They were nice enough to put us all up for the weekend (and babysit the Oldham boys) while we got some quality "adults only" time in on the boat.

We spent the majority of the day just lounging on the boat and chatting, but before we headed in we got inspired to do a little tubing. The water in Clinton Lake is oddly warm, so despite the 70 degree weather, it was actually quite nice to be in the water. It has been several years since any of us had been tubing, so it was a nice blast from the past.

Michael, Sarah and Ryan


Me and Sarah in our classic self-portrait style.

Ryan showing us how it's done.

I also had the pleasure of getting to spend a little time with my two pseudo nephews, Payton and Preston. Payton, as always, was a crack up. He's just such a sweet, lovable little guy. He's in to everything (especially anything mechanical) and spent a good hour when we first arrived taking me and Ryan for a ride in his grandma's Yukon. Plenty of buttons in there to play with.

And Preston - I just can't believe a whole year has almost passed! As bubbly as Payton is, that's how serious Preston appears to be. It's pretty funny. But despite the fact that he normally has a deadpan stare on his face, I was able to get some giggles out of him this weekend and actually managed to catch a few on film.




So, now that the summer has officially begun... I find we're at the end of July. How does that happen?

In truth we've done a lot of fun things this summer that I just haven't gotten around to writing about. We had a great 4th of July with Nicole and Jason. Ryan and I got to take in a day at the Six Flags water park. We've had a few BBQs in our new backyard, lots of house guests and plenty of fun activities with the pooches, but somewhere along the way I lost some interest in documenting it all on the blog. I think in part that is due to stress at work and my lack of desire to sit at the computer and think in the evenings.

About the middle of last week I decided I was starting to feel a bit out of balance and, well, just bored, so I'm on to a new regime now. More trips out of the house during the week, more exercise, new engaging books and less thinking about what all I need to do for work seems to be the ticket for the moment. I think next on the list is getting started on some of our home improvement projects so I can feel a bit more accomplished and getting back to finding some friends in the area. There are actually a few decent prospects, there's just been so many other things going on I haven't really spent any time focusing on it! Summer is just a busy time.

Incredible Pizza Company trip #2

Lily and Senora test their rhythm.

And take in some pint-sized bowling.

No trip to the Incredible Pizza Company would be complete without 20 rides on the carousel.

Tuesday's new headrest

I turned around in my office chair the other day to see Tuesday using my bookshelf as a headrest. It didn't look very comfortable but she seemed to enjoy it.

House pictures (part 2)

The office.

The family room.

The game room.

The puppy palace.

The staircase (pretty much everyone's favorite aspect of the house.)

House pictures (part 1)

The kitchen.

The "dining room" with our make-shift dining table.

The blue room (aka the master bedroom.)

The enormous whirlpool bathtub in the master bath. It's ridiculous - you can fit about 5 adults in it.

The downstairs fireplace - complete with a bunch of our home improvement tools.