Hon! Lizzie's drowning!!!

I think I have blogger ADD. I promised to write about Lizzie *almost* drowning but always have over things that pop up in my head that I think I must write about. For instance, right now I want to write about my LOVE for Bora Bora but a friend recently e-mailed and asked, "So, how did Lizzie almost drown?" :-P So, here it goes!

This is our dog Lizzie. She looks like a goofball in the picture when in reality she's the smartest dog we've ever owned. Well, she WAS the smartest dog until a few weekends ago.

(this is a print screen from our wedding album design - pardon the poor quality ;-) )

Lately it's been raining ALOT - which is strange for Houston as temperatures are normally in the mid to high 90s during this time of the year. In our back yard, we have an empty flowerbed that Buddy (the goofball with my hubby above) decided was his personal sandbox by digging out the dirt. Well his digging has created a large enough hole for Lizzie and Flamey (the little one next to Lizzie above) to crawl underneath the deck.

Ever since she was a puppy, Lizzie loves dark spaces whether it be her kennel, under the bed or in the closet. She'll just go into her space whenever she wants to get away from us and needs time alone. Can you imagine her excitement when Buddy dug out the flowerbed? Lizzie HATES being outside and when we don't let her in fast enough she'll go underneath the deck. Normally this isn't a big deal. We leave her out there until she realizes the other dogs are inside and she's the only one left. :-P

When it rains. . . .it's an entirely different story. A few weekends ago, it started pouring (monsoon style again) while the dogs were out. We opened the door to let them in and sure enough Miss Lizzie was underneath the deck. We left her out there like always - thinking she would come out on her own. Well, after half an hour there was still no sign of her and I walked out onto the deck and discovered this:

I freaked out and immediately screamed for my Hubby. "Hon! Lizzie's DROWNING!!!!" I did not hear a sound coming from underneath the deck and had visions of my Lizzie gasping for air desperately trying claw her way out from underneath the deck.

Hubby told me to calm down because according to him we would need Tropical Storm Allison type rain (Houston folks know what I'm talking about) to fill the underside of the deck. I did not care - I wanted my Lizzie OUT. I called for her and saw her paw peep out from underneath the water. She couldn't get out 'cause her mouth, nose and paws would have to go underneath the water in order for her to crawl out. Hubby began digging out the hole with a shovel but it caused MORE water to fill into the hole. By this time, I'm ready to grab my Dad's chainsaw and cut a Lizzie sized square out of the top of the deck. Hubby stopped me, of course. ;-) Hubby's course of action was to wait. His reasoning being that Lizzie knew we wanted her out and she would find a way. We went back inside and I stayed by the window watching. Sure enough - she crawled out!

Doesn't she look terrified?

I've never been soooooo happy to see her in my life! Of course, Hubby was mad because she was COVERED in mud and had to be rinsed off. :-P

Since then, she's hasn't gone under the deck. :-) (*knock on wood*)

Have a great day! :-)

Kenny Chesney. . .

I don't have anything new to blog about, photography wise, so I thought I'd share a couple personal stories complete with pictures from my point and shoot. Last Thursday, Hubby and I went to see the Kenny Chesney concert in The Woodlands. (suburb north of Houston) I think Kenny Chesney is HOT even though I know he's probably COMPLETELY bald underneath that cowboy hat. :-P The evening started great - I left the house early in order to pick up my Hubby from his lab and have a nice dinner in The Woodlands.

All of that changed a few minutes after got onto the freeway. It started to POUR! Not just a passing, summer thunderstorm - this was MONSOON type rain. :-P I even witnessed lightning strike the Exxon building in Downtown Houston! It was so cool yet scary at the same time because the thunder was so loud the car windows vibrated. :-O

Needless to say, traffic was a NIGHTMARE. It took us over an hour to drive from the Museum District through Downtown Houston. Only in Houston does the INTERSTATE flood! Not some lowly side street - I-45 was under water!

It was soooooo annoying when all the little cars were trying to get in the right lane only to have big trucks, vans, etc speed by in the flooded lanes covering our windshields in a wave of water.

After a two hour trek and sniping at each other we FINALLY made it! (SIDENOTE: Hubby and I argue/snipe at each other when stuck in traffic or under stressful situations. It worries my Mother but I tell her not to worry - this is how we communicate and release our frustrations. Once we get it all out we call a truce and all is well. :-P )

The concert was AMAZING! I felt bad for the people on the lawn 'cause they got soaked - but that's why we buy tickets under the covered area of the pavilion. We enjoy seats, A/C and protection from the elements. :-P Here are a few images from the concert:

Cell phones are the new lighters! During the song, "There Goes My Life" people waved their cell phones - not a lighter in sight!

Wow - this was a long blog post. :-) Tomorrow, I'll write about how our dog, Lizzie, almost drowned over the weekend. :-P

Have a great day!

I'm back!!!

After an AWESOME week off in sunny California I'm back rejuvenated and ready to get back to work. I'm slowly but surely catching up on e-mails and phone calls and I have TONS of personal images to edit and show off. In the meantime, here are a few from my trip:

Family Portrait on the Beach


My brother doing his best Abercrombie and Fitch pose :-P


My mom's toy poodle, Sam:


My sister's dog, Cooper:


When we arrived, hubby and I rented a Ford Mustang and cruised around Solvang county - wine country! :-)



Firestone Winery - isn't it beautiful?


I have LOTS more so stay tuned! :-)

Out of the Office

May 24 - 30, 2007 - I will be out of the office. All phone calls and e-mails will be returned upon my return. Hopefully, I'll have LOTS of new and exciting images to share. Until then, I've scheduled random articles and pictures to post during my absence. Have a great week! :-)
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from msnbc.com:
Commentary by Miki Turner

Joy gets the party started
On Wednesday, it all started with Joy Behar’s Bush-bashing laundry list. You could see the pre-natal veins in Hasselbeck’s head starting to protrude, especially after Behar accused Bush of stealing the election in 2000. The further down the list Behar got, the more agitated Hasselbeck became.

After a short series of soft punches from Hasselbeck — remember her using TiVo as a defense on why she chose to watch “Dancing With the Stars” as opposed to Al Gore on CNN? — it became painfully apparent that Behar was going to win that round. Not one of Hasselback’s jabs landed.

Meanwhile, we have O’Donnell in the opposite corner stewing. Her lips are probably still sore because her pearly whites were obviously clamping down on them. But when Hasselbeck began defending the war, Mt. St. O’Donnell blew.

“The enemy is in Iraq? Did Iraq attack us?”

Honey, get the popcorn! It’s about to go down!

You could kind of see it coming because O’Donnell, who referred to herself as a “big fat loud lesbian” on Wednesday’s show, had been abnormally quiet throughout the entire Behar vs. Hasselbeck undercard. O’Donnell had been on the show long enough to know that it’s lose-lose any time she shares her opinions in that public forum.

Especially when Barbara Walters isn’t there to be the voice of calm and reason.

The problem with O’Donnell is that her self-avowed description of herself alienates a lot of the nice people who prefer more sanitized programming before lunch. They want to hear mindless banter about clothes, nutrition, weight loss, hot guys. But O’Donnell, who wears her gayness proudly and loudly and moderates the discussions on the show’s “Hot Topics” segments, like to discuss issues so flaming that even Walters’ reactions have become increasingly more subjective.

That’s why O’Donnell consistently finds herself vilified in the press when she attacks “innocent pure Christian Elisabeth.” If the two of them were selling soap, it’s probably safe to assume that many Americans would prefer buying it from a pretty blonde whose values are more morally sound.

Grow up, Elizabeth

Yet, at the risk of sounding overtly judgmental, I don’t really care for Hasselbeck. It’s nothing personal because I’ve never met her. I just don’t think she adds anything to the show and she’s a little too whiny for that time of day. She has that kind of voice that brings back memories of fingernails screeching on the chalkboard. I kind of wish she would have triplets and move to that rural area in Ohio that Dave Chappelle calls home.

Like Dave, she’s got some growing to do.

What truly amazes me, however, is that it apparently hasn’t occurred to Hasselbeck that she’s one of the only people in the country — blind, crippled, crazy or Republican — that still defends Bush and the war in Iraq.

You don’t have to ride the current wave, jump on the Al Sharpton bandwagon or be a hater — that certainly won’t get you that coveted invite to the state dinner for Queen Elizabeth — but, dang get a clue already!

Conversely, I’m fairly indifferent when it comes to O’Donnell. I think she must like the taste of her own toes because she puts her foot in her mouth a lot. I think she was wrong for mocking the Chinese language and perhaps should have suffered harsher consequences when she claimed it was all in the name of comedy. And I was over that whole Donald Trump feud the day before it actually started.

The difference between O’Donnell and Hasselbeck is that even though you may not always agree with either of them, at the end of the day you still have some respect for O’Donnell’s convictions. It takes a lot of courage to out yourself on national TV — and I’m not talking about her sexuality.

And, when it comes to politics and friendship, I’m often on the same page with Ms. Ro.

May 24 - 30, 2007

May 24 - 30, 2007 - I will be out of the office. All phone calls and e-mails will be returned upon my return. Hopefully, I'll have LOTS of new and exciting images to share. Until then, I've scheduled random articles and pictures to post during my absence. Have a great week! :-)

**************

FROM THE AP

Carter came down hard on the Iraq war.

“We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened, if we want to change the regime there or if we fear that some time in the future our security might be endangered,” he said. “But that’s been a radical departure from all previous administration policies.” Carter, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, criticized Bush for having “zero peace talks” in Israel. Carter also said the administration “abandoned or directly refuted” every negotiated nuclear arms agreement, as well as environmental efforts by other presidents. Carter also offered a harsh assessment for the White House’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which helped religious charities receive $2.15 billion in federal grants in fiscal year 2005 alone. “The policy from the White House has been to allocate funds to religious institutions, even those that channel those funds exclusively to their own particular group of believers in a particular religion,” Carter said. “As a traditional Baptist, I’ve always believed in separation of church and state and honored that premise when I was president, and so have all other presidents, I might say, except this one.” Douglas Brinkley, a Tulane University presidential historian and Carter biographer, described Carter’s comments as unprecedented. “This is the most forceful denunciation President Carter has ever made about an American president,” Brinkley said. “When you call somebody the worst president, that’s volatile. Those are fighting words.” Carter also lashed out Saturday at British prime minister Tony Blair. Asked how he would judge Blair’s support of Bush, the former president said: “Abominable. Loyal. Blind. Apparently subservient.” “And I think the almost undeviating support by Great Britain for the ill-advised policies of President Bush in Iraq have been a major tragedy for the world,” Carter told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

May 24 - 30, 2007

May 24 - 30, 2007 - I will be out of the office. All phone calls and e-mails will be returned upon my return. Hopefully, I'll have LOTS of new and exciting images to share. Until next week. . . .

we're living in the dark ages!!!

or it at least seems like it. :-P

Hubby and I are the worst housekeepers. You would think that a married couple, with NO kids and only dogs to take care of would be able to keep up with laundry, dishes and general housekeeping. But NOOOOOOOO, not us! Our lame excuse is we work hard, long hours that when we get home we're too TIRED to do anything but call for take out and veg. (I know the parents out there are rolling their eyes.) :-P So, when modern appliances such as the dishwasher, washing machine or dryer break down we feel as if we're living in the dark ages!

Wash and dry the dishes by hand??!! Who ever heard of that? :-P

Well, last night our dryer decided to stop drying. At first I thought it was a bad circuit but no amount of circuit tripping would get the thing to turn back on. Normally, this wouldn't be such a big deal except we're leaving for a trip tomorrow! AND our garage has become a storage room for dirty laundry! I am NOT exaggerating. I thought about taking a picture of our garage but that would be TOO embarrassing. We must have at least 10 loads of laundry in there!

Last night, I had the task of hanging up our wet clothes wherever I could so they would dry. After running out of space, I couldn't believe that I was actually wishing for a clothesline. A clothesline!!!

Hubby was asleep on the sofa during the dryer malfunction so this morning he woke up wondering why his boxers were hanging from the shower curtain rod. :-P LOL

We're still trying to figure out what we're going to do. We don't have time to purchase a new dryer and even if we did it probably wouldn't be delivered until next week.

I guess we'll have to live in the "dark ages." (and be grateful for modern conveniences.)

Jeremy's 30th Birthday Party

Last Saturday, Hubby and I, along with my sister-in-law Lisa, hosted a birthday party for my brother -in-law Jeremy. It was a pirate-monkey themed party. I'm not going to even begin to explain what it means or the origins of its conception, etc. I'll just say that everyone was decked out in monkey and pirate attire.

Hubby and I have been working over the past 3 weekends getting our backyard into party ready condition - this included many, many runs to Home Depot, endless hours of painting, laying down flagstone, planting and so on. I would be remiss not to say that my studly, man of all men husband along with his roly-poly father did most of the flagstone work in the freezing rain.** And when all of that was said and done we STILL had our house to clean. To make a long story short, last Saturday, we were SCRAMBLING to not only clean our house but also to ready the backyard, decorate and start the food.

At any rate, people showed up, we had food, drink and all the karaeoke you could handle. (My mother-in-law is a Vegas DIVA at heart. :-P )The party was an overall success and we're looking forward to having the next one.

Click Below for the Slideshow.

Click HERE to purchase prints.

**the "studly, man of all men" sentence was written by my Hubby

5 miles???!!!

Hubby and I decided that we would like to run a marathon. It's such a HUGE goal and we like nothing better than a challenge, right? For me, training for this is going to be tough. You see, I'm not a runner. In jr. high, I was always picked last for basketball, softball and when it was time to run the track - I walked. :-P For exercise, I prefer "fun stuff" like kickboxing. If I've had a bad day, I'll go to kickboxing class, visualize the person (or persons) I'm mad at and punch, kick and jab away my frustrations. I also have a roly-poly body with short, stubby legs - which doesn't lend well to speed or stride. Whereas, Hubby is 6 feet tall, has long legs and a super-fast metabolism. I've told Hubby he has a big job ahead of him because I'm stubborn and can get mean when I'm cranky. He knows this. . .and assures me that we'll push/support each other and cross the Marathon finish line together next January. So here we go!

Last night was day ONE in the quest to get me (and hubby) to run a marathon

We took two of our dogs, Buddy and Lizzie. Todd had Buddy and I had Lizzie. I run sooooooo slow that Lizzie was in a fast walk - not even trotting! :-P I felt so bad for holding her back that I gave her to Todd so she could run at full speed. (she's a border collie so running is in her genes)

When we arrived at the track, Hubby determined that 4 laps equals one mile. After two laps of walking/jogging I was DONE. My thighs hurt, my side hurt and I felt like such a wimp. My hubby kept pushing me to keep going and being me I fought him the entire way. Around lap 6, my legs were so tired that I couldn't even jog anymore! Literally, I would try to kick up my heels and nothing would happen. :-P I wanted to stop but Todd had it in his head that we were going to do 10 laps no matter what!

After those 10 laps (2.5 miles or so we thought), I was tired and grumpy. I couldn't believe that I was THAT out of shape that I couldn't even walk/jog 2.5 miles.

Fast forward to this morning. . . . .

My body feels like it did way more than 2.5 miles, so I pull up the neighborhood website to find out how long the track is. Todd was WRONG! 2 laps = 1 mile, NOT 4. Which means we did 5 miles NOT 2.5!! No wonder I was so tired!

Now, I don't feel so bad. ;-)

We plan to go for runs everyday with a few breaks and will register for smaller races around town to get us in the groove. I'll keep everyone updated on our progress. :-)

Puerto Rico!

We're headed to Puerto Rico! :-)

I plan to spend my days on this very hammock taking naps with only the sound of the waves crashing on the beach to wake me.

Once in awhile, I may switch locations to:

Besides doing absolutely nothing, :-) we also plan to explore Old San Juan:

Hike the El Yunque Rainforest:

Ever being the scientist, my Hubby wants to go on a road trip to visit this:

because it'd be, "So cool to see one of the largest telescopes in the world!" BTW, it's the Arecibo Observatory. For you movie buffs it was featured in the movies Contact and James Bond Goldeneye.

I think he should do this instead:

I NEED to buy the water housing for my point and shoot digital camera for when we do this:

Cool, huh? The water glows in the dark! :-)

*sigh* July can't get here soon enough!

any guesses?

Which Caribbean island are we headed to?

so EXCITED!

We just booked our summer vacation! Clues:

1 - We've never been.
2 - It's in the Caribbean.

Any guesses? :-)

Have I shared this?

Last month, my baby neice, Malia, celebrated her 1st birthday! Malia and I have a special connection - everytime we're in a room together my Aunt will go on and on how Malia's looks just the way I did when I was a baby. What do you think?

Aren't we adorable!!?? ;-)

Click HERE for Malia's 1st Birthday Party slideshow.

I'm sick. . .

have been home for the past two days and there are no signs that I'm getting better. :-(

I did go outside to get some fresh air and caught this little guy hiding in my rosebushes:

last weekend. . .

Last weekend we were soooooo busy building our brand new patio! Check it out:

We started EARLY Friday morning and my hubby and father-in-law 'almost' finished Saturday evening. The weather was CRAZY! Friday started perfect - a nice 70 degree, blue sky spring day. Saturday - we awoke to cold and rain! Because our goal was to finish this project, my hubby and father-in-law worked in the rain AND finished most of the job.

Ironically, all I did was supervise and I've been sick the past two days - they did all the hard work and they're fine. Go figure!

Check out our last outdoor home improvement project:

BEFORE

and

AFTER

Houston Thunderstorm

I can't believe this rain! Monday morning we awoke to a torrential downpour, last night we were under a tornado warning and now it's about to pour. I can already hear the thunder and lightening! :-O

Wish me luck getting home!

let's see if I can tell this story with pictures. . .