GRRR!

It's official. The worst thing about living in the city is the parking. When we first moved here Josh and I parked the car about 20 minutes away in a free parking lot because we didn't want to have to pay for parking, and we didn't really use the car that much. Then when I got a job I needed the car more, and I wasn't about to walk 20 minutes every time I needed it. We could have parked our car in a garage right behind our building for $120 a month, but we're cheap, so we found the cheapest parking space we could which costs us $60 a month and is about 4 blocks away. Since it is 4 blocks away, we usually park in front of our building on the weekends because it is allowed, and I usually shop later at night because I can park the car out front after 6:00. However, due to the curse of city parking, we have already received FOUR PARKING TICKETS!!! GAH! On our street we are not allowed to park our car on week days between the hours of 7-10 am, and 4-6 pm, and in between those times it is metered parking. Special us. We sometimes forget that we have our car parked out front come Monday morning, or I forget to return it to the parking space after bringing groceries in. Hence, the four parking tickets. 60 dollars apiece for three of them, and 20 dollars for the fourth. (sigh) It's really disheartening to think that we could be parking our car right behind our building for the same price we have paid to park it four blocks away. :( ...Thank you for reading my novel.

More Pups

Here are more of the dogs that I walk. Well... first we have Lily here, who you have already seen, but I just had to show you all what she gets to wear when it's raining outside. :) Like her lady bug rain coat?

These two are the toughest looking that I walk. The one on the left is Kawliga. (Ku-lie-sha) He looks like he could bite your head off, and sounds like it too, but he's like a sweet grandpa. The other is Lily, and she's a handful. She likes to get in fights with dogs so it's always a bit nerve racking walking around the neighborhood with her. Thankfully we never do run into anyone. (Sorry they look like demons. Their house is a little dark, and it was raining outside.)

Next we have the two naughty pups. This one is Kona and the one below is Mason. You can see the kind of trouble they get into in Mason's picture. Just look at the corner of the cushion he is sitting on. Unfortunately the lady that owns them doesn't help much and leaves things for them to get into all around the house. We always dread this visit because we never know what we will find.

This handsome guy is named Hogan, and he is HUGE. The pictures don't even do him justice, but he is the largest dog I have ever met, even compared to Great Danes. Sadly he probably won't be around for much longer. He is only 5 but Mastiffs have a lot of hip problems and he has already had one surgery. He'll probably have to be put down when the hips go out on him again.

As you can clearly see, this is hogan's paw, and my boss Kat's hand. She is no little lady.

Like I said, the pictures don't do him justice. He looks like a lion in real life.

Then we have these two great labs. The first one here is Eli. He likes to eat. You know... leaves, acorns, sticks, anything he can find that you tell him not to eat. Sounds like a lab right?

And his roommate is Bear. Bear is also a giant of an animal, and he's especially fun because he likes to jump on you, which makes him as tall as me. He's cute though. After I let them out in the back yard he likes to sit behind me on the couch and put his head on my shoulder while I write their note.

Here are some video's of a dog named Wanetta. She was trained as a puppy to work as a seeing eye dog so she's really smart, but she didn't make the cut in the end so she gets to be a normal dog. (Sorry about the unsteady camera. It's hard to hold it still and throw a ball at the same time. Also, how does anyone stand my voice?)

Here is one last shot of Lily. She is a Boston Terrier so her nose is squished up making breathing hard as it is, but she also has really bad allergies which make her breathing even worse. I had to let you all hear what she sounds like. (Sorry you can't hear it very well, especially with my talking.) It was the rainy day so after going out to pee, as fast as dogly possible, this was our "walk" for the day.

Some New Fabulous Art Work!

Happy November Everyone! Josh and I decided we needed some fall decoration for our little apartment (also for fun to celebrate Josh's awesome test scores!) so we headed to the craft store last night, found some awesomely priced art supplies, and continued on home to make our fabulous pieces of art.

This is the turkey I made. Josh and I loved the giant clothespins and formed the idea around them.

And this is Josh's wonderfully abstract fall painting he dubbed, the "I Hate Fall" painting. :)

Josh and Sydney's Halloween

Yay for Clifford and Steffan! The best costumes ever! Pretty much everything you see here was built from thrift store items, minus the main body of Steffan. He was originally a Walmart purchased beer bottle costume. I think Josh and I did a pretty decent job of transforming him. Below I've posted many pictures, just so you can enjoy the beauty of our handy work.

San Francisco open your golden gates, don't let nobody wait outside your door!

They told me stories of things they do on their bikes. Some of them were fun, but some of them were scary!

Shame on your eyes!

Since we couldn't really go trick-or-treating on Halloween we found a different way to incorporate candy. For fun we decided to make scary graveyard scenes using pudding, oreos, worms, and laffy taffy. It was highly enjoyable, and highly sticky.

This would be Josh's piece of art. It was a very foggy night in his graveyard scene.

And this would be mine, and no, the zombie isn't swimming. He is actually trying to escape from his grave.

Dog Walking

Alright everyone (mostly parents) here are some pictures of a few of the dogs I walk in a few of the areas I walk in.

This is an an area called The Fan, and was taken only yesterday. As you can see, we still haven't had a big burst of fall color. Just random splotches.

And this is Lily, one of the dogs I walk who lives in the Fan.

And this is sometimes what we call a "Lily Walk."

This is Java. He is actually my boss' dog, but she has me walk him some of the days I work.

And this is the area Java lives in, called Carytown.

This is Henry... one of my very favorites. The picture is the best I could do because he hates cameras and hides his face every time you pull one out. He's pretty much a big chicken about a lot of things, but he's such a cutie and as soon as you say "treat" he forgets all his fears.

These two are named Klaus and Vladmir, Vlad for short. Sorry the picture is blurry, but they would not hold still. They're very big and VERY hairy. I actually don't walk them. We just get to play in the backyard together.

Then we have insane Bella. Really, she's a nutbar. She's still a puppy which explains a lot, but one of her favorite things to do it jump up and bite your chin. It hurts.

These two are so cute! Unfortunately we only get to walk them when the family is gone, so we don't get to see them very often. Finnley and Huckleberry are their names, but we call them Finn and Huck. They also happen to be puppies so they're a little insane, but my favorite part about them is that they are brothers. ... really. Do you see the family resemblance?

So those are just a few of the dogs I serve. If you're lucky I'll post some more of them later. :)

Halloween Happenings

Thanks to the Halloween decoration Lisa gave us, we were inspired to do some crafts of our own. Unfortunately I still don't know where everything is in Richmond, so I limited our craft options by a lot. These were made out of paint buckets bought at Lowe's and painted with our very few paint colors, lacking especially in Halloween colors. (Which tends to make Halloween crafts a little difficult.) Nevertheless, we had fun with it.

Then in the spirit of Halloween, and in celebration of two more classes completed, Josh and I rented The Rope by Alfred Hitchcock and made some delicious Halloween treats. Josh says he loves these rice crispy treats even more than the regular kind with no food dye in them. :)

Trip to DC and Adam's Visit Part 3

Towards the end of Adam's visit we had yet to explore Richmond itself, or do much shopping... This store here was a special find.

After finding a great pair of pants for Josh and a fantastic tie for Adam we headed off to do a little sightseeing in the city. We discovered an awesome Civil War museum that was actually built inside a building partly destroyed during the Civil War.

We found some cool looking black powder candy to buy. Turns out it was just plain sugar with something in it that made your mouth black. Not tasty.

We also spent some time exploring the James River and the surrounding areas. Kind of bigger than most the rivers one would find in Utah.

Across the bridge was an area called Belle Isle. It was sweet and looked like the world of the lost boys.

And here they are... the lost boys. :)

Then we took Adam to see more of actual downtown Richmond, including where Josh goes to school. This picture should look a little familiar.

And of course we took some time to snap a few model shots up by the capital. He's a natural.

After all of our adventures we needed some nourishing food. And two nights in a row of Buffalo Wild Wings? What more could boys ask for? Truly a great vacation for all.