The move

One of our first experiences as new home owners was realizing that water was not flowing through one of our downspouts. I got the easier task of buying a pipe snake while Ryan had the joy of clearing the clog.

He did a bit too good of a job.

Ryan showing off our new paint job.

Irie could've cared less about moving - she just wanted us to play ball with her.

It's official!

As of about 11:45 this morning, I became a homeowner. Despite all the misc. problems leading up to the purchase, the closing was very easy. A few signatures (OK, a lot of signatures) and you're done.

After the closing, Ryan and I spent the rest of the day over at the new house. We decided we need to paint the downstairs because whoever did it last did a pretty crappy job. So we spent many hours sanding the walls, taping everything up, filling holes/dings, etc. Tomorrow we will begin the actual painting.

We both have the entire coming week off so we're hoping to get at least some of the things on our home improvement list done. There's definitely a lot of cleaning and yard work to be done and several other little (and some not so little) projects - but for the most part, I think we're in pretty good shape. I'm not sure when we'll actually move our stuff in, but I guess that in part depends on when we actually get it packed up. :-)

We also introduced the dogs to the new house today. They were like two kids in a candy shop running in and out of all the rooms exploring. They also became instant favorites with some of our new neighbor kids - as did Ryan. Ryan let them in to the backyard to retrieve their lost ball and about twenty minutes later they showed up at our doorstep with several handmade "welcome to the neighborhood" cards. Each card stated that Ryan "rocked" and that he's the type of guy they'd like to hang out with - sometime soon, if possible. It was very cute. I think we'll be keeping those.

There are many stories and pictures I need to get caught up with on the blog, but it's after midnight and I'm ready to turn in for the night. Perhaps with being on vacation this week I'll be able to make more posts - maybe....

Vacation wrap up

Well the end of my vacation this week turned out to be very nice, as was the beginning. so all in all I'll call it a success.

Sarah came down to St. Louis this weekend and we had a great time taking in some sights, relaxing by the community pool and just getting some time to have true girl talk with no interruptions or short time frames. It was wonderful! :-) Somehow I managed to not take any pictures this weekend except those of our beautifully manicured toes. Odd - I know, but I've never had a picture painted on my toes before so I was a bit excited. (See photos below - pic #1 is Sarah and #2 is me.) But I promise we did more than that, including the Anheuser-Busch Brewery tour and visiting 2 out of 3 of the Man vs Food challenge stops. And while it was primarily a girls' weekend, we did let Ryan join us for some of the activities. I was really glad Ryan and Sarah were finally able to spend a little more time together and get to know one another better.

In other news, the before-mentioned house problem seems to be resolving, though we still have a kink or two to work out. Ryan and I spent most of the afternoon today window shopping for home repair items and getting ideas for furniture and decorating. We're both getting really excited and can't believe that our close date is less than 2 weeks away.

Tuesday seems to have fully recovered from her stomach issues earlier this week and is back to her normal self. And Irie is still irie. I found her a new sweatshirt that I love at one of the stores we were at today so she had to try it on for us tonight.

And tomorrow I go back to work. But never fear - I still have more than a full week of vacation that needs to be used by the end of June!

Is it over yet?

Today has been... well, interesting.

It started out well enough. I'd been spending the last few days up at Grandma Deetz's (pictures to follow) and today I drove back to St. Louis. I'm on vacation this week and wanted to get home today so that I'd have tomorrow to run some errands, do some packing, switch summer and winter clothes, etc before Sarah comes down for the weekend on Friday.

However, apparently there was a different plan in play for me. The drive was calm enough. I got home around 6pm and walked in to a wonderful world of chaos. Tuesday apparently has not been feeling well and when Ryan got home tonight (about 15 minutes before me) he discovered that she had had diarrhea in her crate. He got her (and her crate) into the backyard to be hosed down, but she got fragrant footprints throughout the house on her way out. So while Ryan worked on the crate and dog, I worked on thoroughly cleaning the floors. After her bath, she threw up all over the bathroom, so we had the fun task of cleaning that up as well. I think so far we've gone through about 5 towels to clean up the messes. She seems desperately thirsty but every time she drinks, she seems to throw it up. We started giving her a few ice cubes every hour or so and she's doing ok with that (so far.) She and Ryan are in bed now, so hopefully it will be a restful night and the worst is behind us.

In addition to this fun, I also came home to a very strange new house issue. I won't go into the details on this public forum, but it definitely threw us for a bit of a loop. So far everything is still OK, but we'll be keeping a close eye on the situation. Perhaps once everything is solidified, I can fill you all in. Until then, just keep your fingers crossed! :-)

At any rate, I don't think tomorrow will be as productive of a day as I had hoped, but I'm sure I'll make due. And perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised. After all, I certainly didn't expect any of the happenings from today!

Quick updates

I know I haven't updated lately so wanted to post a few quick tidbits.

1) Everything with the house is moving along on schedule. We've changed our closing date to June 12th, the inspection is done and we've reached agreement on who's fixing what. The next step is the appraisal. So far we haven't hit any major issues, but we're still a bit wary, I think.

2) Tuesday is still healing - we hope nicely. She has proved to be nearly impossible to keep down. We can't wait to get approval to start taking her on longer than 10 minute walks and getting her back to the dog park. She doesn't seem to be in any pain and has no qualms about running, jumping, wrestling, etc. I'm very concerned that when we take her in to get follow-up x-rays next week we're going to learn that she hasn't healed well. Irie (other than her obsession with eating the trunk of the tree out back and rolling in smelly stuff) is doing great.

3) Ryan and I spent this past weekend finally enjoying some of what St. Louis has to offer. Even though we've been here several months now, we just haven't felt like we've really had the chance to do fun St. Louis stuff. This weekend we checked out a local piano bar, the Botanical Gardens with Carl, Kathleen and Lily, a neighborhood restaurant with a great patio and the zoo. It was a very nice (and relaxing) weekend. All of our upcoming weekends are booked until we close on the house so it was really great to be able to just kick back this weekend.

Oh, how I like to see the little word "option" appear

As some of you have heard, and many of you haven't, Ryan and I began looking at houses this past weekend. As luck would have it, we fell in love with the third house we saw on our outing.
As potential non-luck would have it, there was an offer being made on the house so we had to move very quickly. And for first-time homebuyers - this was a little traumatic. Thankfully we had most of our ducks in a row so we were able to make an offer.

This morning we received written confirmation that our offer (counter-offer, whatever) has been accepted. So... pending inspections, appraisals and all the other things that could go wrong - we're going to be homeowners very soon!

We're very excited because the house is just so much more than we thought we were going to find. It's in our current neighborhood (which is especially nice because we already have friends here and know the lay of the land), it has more space than we were expecting, it has awesome perks (like new appliances and systems, a double lot fenced yard, three car garage, etc) and it's (in my opinion) a very nice, homey place.

Of course I realize much could still go wrong with the deal, but it's closer than we've ever been, so we're excited!

We'll try to keep everyone posted on our progress through the blog, but here are a few pictures to whet your appetite.

The progression of Tuesday

Tuesday has been doing pretty well and not causing as many problems as we had anticipated. It is annoying to have to have her on a leash at all times - it requires much more tag-teaming by me and Ryan. Also, because Tuesday is not allowed to jump up or down from the couch or bed, we've been trading off on sleeping on the floor (air mattress) with her. Probably a bit extreme, but we both get more sleep this way than if we had to listen to her cry in her crate all night. All in all, it hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. Of course, we're still in week one. Her stitches come out next week and then after that we can begin to allow her a bit more freedom and walking. The vet checked her out today and said the knee seems to be healing nicely though and she thinks she's going to be a quick healer. I would agree as she seems to not show any signs of pain at all and has no issues putting her full weight on that leg. Quite the trooper.

Keeping the injured leg elevated helps alleviate pain, Tuesday reasons.

It's hard to not feel sorry for her when she looks at you this way.

All tranqed up and sleeping soundly.

She finally got the soft cast off today and it was replaced with a nice e-collar to keep her from chewing her stitches. I'm not sure she appreciates the trade off.

The Incredible Pizza Company

It had been awhile since Lily and I had been able to have any quality aunt-niece time so Ryan and I turned in one of our visitation rights cards and took her to the Incredible Pizza Company last Friday. It was quite the place - kind of like a Chuck E. Cheese meets New Jersey boardwalk.

They have an extensive pizza/everything else under the sun buffet, 4 different style dining rooms (including one that's made up like a drive-in theater that airs full length movies), a pretty extensive arcade, a special area for the under 5 year-olds, bumper cars, mini-golf and go-karts. What more could you want?

I think Lily really enjoyed it - especially the moon-bounce and the merry-go-round that we could barely get her off of. I wasn't sure if she would like the go-karts because I know she's not always a fan of the "scarier" rides, but she loved it. Of course, we weren't going that fast, but she thought we were going top speed and she particularly enjoyed the fact that we were racing Ryan.

However, if you asked her what the best part was, she'd inform you it was getting a tiny plastic Care Bear in exchange for her 60 hard-earned tickets. Go figure. :-)

Lily riding the pony.

Peace.

We're going so fast the camera couldn't keep up with us.

The merry-go-round that wouldn't stop.

Send good, healing thoughts Tuesday's way today. She's currently recovering from surgery on her right hind knee to fix a luxating patella. Her surgeon says she had lots of "joint mice." (What a terrible name!) It sounds like she's doing pretty well though and the vet says the surgery was definitely needed - she couldn't even believe how bad it was.

Tuesday is such a happy girl you would never know she was in pain except for the way that leg was always just doing funny things.

We should get her back tomorrow night and then the real fun will begin - trying to keep her off her new improved leg so it can heal! (So maybe you could send some positive thoughts our way too!)

Blast from the past

One of the big highlights for me this weekend was driving through my old hometown of Carbondale on the way home. We drove by my old house (which looks remarkably the same), the pond Carl and I used to catch turtles at, my elementary school and some of the other old favorites. It was a somewhat erie feeling to see all these things and have them all seem so familiar when you haven't seen them in years. We were there around dusk and the pictures aren't great, but they're the best I could do from the car!

The new name of my old elementary school - Trinity Christian School. Whatever happened to good ol' public schools.

The corner of Winkler Elementary - which also looks exactly the same (minus the name). They even still have the same rusted swing sets.

1014 Glenview Drive. Try to look past the car parked on the street.

The big 3-0!

Ryan and I went to Memphis to celebrate my 30th birthday this past weekend. It was a little chilly to truly enjoy all Memphis has to offer, but we had a good time eating our way through the town. I think I ate enough fried food for a lifetime. But we did find time in between meals to check out Graceland and the Civil Rights Museum, which was cool. It was amazing to me how much I had forgotten from my high school and college days. Perhaps a strange thing to do on your 30th birthday, but it was fun. Here are a few pictures from the trip.

Ryan checking out the surprisingly delicious fried pickle.

Doing his part to try to drink down the most disgusting drink I've had - the Diver bucket from Silky O'Sullivans. Nasty.

Taking a more delicate approach.

Outside of Dyers (home of the deep fried burgers) on Beale St.

Happy St. Patrick's Day (and Happy Birthday, Kathleen!)

Tuesday, getting ready for the big parade.

The green horses that inspired much growling.

Irie, taking it all in with those big ears.

Me and Ryan with the pups, enjoying a sunny (albeit a bit chilly) St. Patrick's Day Parade this past Saturday.

Tuesday's Tuesday update

Tuesday has now been with us for about four weeks. In this time, Tuesday has...

1. Run away three times. Each time resulting in a mad chase around the neighborhood. She's fast. And not so good with the "come" command. She's always a happy girl when we do catch her though.
2. Has become Irie's best bud. I've never seen Irie play with another dog like she does Tuesday. Don't get me wrong - there's still the occasional fight, but really I'm very impressed.
3. Mastered the sit command. She now sits like a pro and will even wait (though not exactly patiently) until we release her to eat her food.
4. Become the hit of our local dog park. She simply loves all other dogs and can't wait to play with them.
5. Eaten the corner off our coffee table. She definitely likes to chew.
6. Scared off our dog walker to the extent that she ended up spending the rest of the day lose in the house because he was afraid to try to put her back in her crate.
7. Learned to sleep in a bed like a human, with her head on a pillow and usually with a paw around either Ryan or me.

So, yes, she's grown on us quite a bit. She's now attending basic obedience and we're working on basic manners with her. We haven't made a definite decision on whether we'll continue to foster or will just adopt her, but we certainly have fallen - at least a little.

Silliest Pet Picture contest

Our community center is hosting a "Silliest Pet Picture" contest. I've gotten some recent fun pictures of Irie and need some help deciding which one to use. So vote early and vote often.

Irie making good use of Lily's car-seat on the way home from the farm last month.

Another car-seat shot.

The after-effect of digging in a foot of snow.

This one really isn't in the running - I just think it's a cute picture.

Irie thinking it's a little too early in the morning for pictures.

Introducing... Tuesday!

We've added a new (temporary) member to our family. Tuesday is a four-year-old, border-collie mix that we're fostering from Stray Rescue St. Louis.

A few weeks ago Ryan and I started talking about fostering a dog and then he found Stray Rescue. Stray Rescue basically takes strays from the streets and some abused, neglected dogs from homes and puts them in foster homes until they find families to adopt them.

Our job, as the foster parents, is to give Tuesday a normal life in a house, try to teach her some basic commands, get her more comfortable with people/other dogs and take her to adoption events to try to find her a forever home.

We met Tuesday on... you guessed it, Tuesday (though she was already named Tuesday - that wasn't our doing.) We decided she'd be a good fit for us and we picked her up last night.

She's actually a very sweet dog. She's a bit skittish (and barky) with strangers, but warms up pretty quickly and is tolerating Irie quite well. Irie, of course, is not so sure about this new intruder, but they made it through last night with flying colors and have actually been playing together this morning.

The biggest challenge so far is that Tuesday is not a fan of coming back inside when called. We let her out in the backyard last night and it took us a good 10 minutes to get her back inside when we were ready. This isn't such a big deal except that it's about 2 degrees outside. So except when we have plenty of time to corral her, we've been taking her out on a leash. There's also the fact that two dogs just seem to set each other off more, so I'm dealing with a bit more barking than I'm used to.

All in all though, I think it's going very well. And I'm hopeful some TLC and boundaries will help get Tuesday ready for a good forever home.

Tuesday and Irie playing on the couch.

Street patrol.

2009 Resolutions

• Work out at least 3 times a week
• Find some friends in the Lou
• Find new hangouts in St. Louis
• Go somewhere new and fun
• Find a class to take with Irie
• Be able to walk Irie on a loose lead
• Go on excursions with Sarah and Nicole
• Practice patience
• Plan for an out of country trip in 2010

Ringing in the New Year

Happy 2009!

Ryan and I spent the last hours of 2008 in a blues bar trying to talk over very loud music. It was a nice, laid back evening though.

Enjoying the midnight toast.

Ryan trying out his waffle making skills. It was quite the mess but the results were pretty tasty.

Christmas Part I

We had a lovely (and unique!) Christmas dinner last night of standing rib roast, goat cheese scalloped potatoes, broccolini and pumpkin custard pie. Delicious.

Lily was a particular fan of the broccolini.

And then it was on to the gifts which Lily just couldn't wait to get into. To her credit, I thought she was pretty darn patient due to the many delays. It was pretty funny when she snuck into the other room and finally broke down and opened one. Here she is showing off her new camera.

Irie sporting her new sweater. So cute.

Lily and Sha-shawn (they both have very similar dresses on amazingly enough.)

All tuckered out.