Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Puppy Mania

So... I've been bad about updating our blog as of late, and much has happened during that time. First of all - We got a puppy! Well, sort of. We fostered a puppy. ... For 3 days. :( Her name was Rosie and here she is sitting in her favorite spot in the apartment.
Because we technically live in an apartment that doesn't allow dogs we didn't want to risk getting a permanent one in case we were forced to get rid of it, so we decided to try fostering. When we agreed to fostering Rosie we told the volunteers that we needed a well behaved and quiet dog or it would never work. Ha ha. We took her home a week and a half ago on Saturday. Sunday we left Rosie home when we went to church and came home to this.
Oh well. So we decided, no more soft things in the crate for Rosie. Then Monday night we heard a bark while we were falling off to sleep. To our sadness we realized Rosie had been whining and barking while we were out, and that was NO good. Tuesday we had to leave her once again on her own while I went to work and Josh went to school. We decided to do something about the naughty business once we got home. When Josh got home he stumbled upon this. :)
Naughty naughty puppy. (She pushed the floor of the crate out, peed all over the hardwood floor, pulled the blanket that had been covering the crate into the crate and started ripping it to pieces.) Long story short, we took Rosie back to her kennel that afternoon. She was a very nervous puppy and really hated the city. When we took her back we realized why.
This was where Rosie had been currently living. I would never want to live in the city either. (Pictures don't really do it justice, especially from the car.)
These pictures are actually from two days ago. We went back to visit Rosie (who was actually a happy dog here) as well as volunteer to help walk other puppies that live at the kennel there.
It's absolutely beautiful and we really had fun walking these other GIANT pups.
Can you believe Buttercup here is an actual puppy?
Don't worry here. The one jumping on my back is the mom. (Not a boy.)
Um... his head is twice as big as mine.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Robert The Bruce gets a makeover!

Sadly when we tried to get our 1990 Honda Accord (aka Robert The Bruce) inspected for registration in Virginia, he didn't pass. They said he needed new rear brake shoes, and that our red plastic and tape job on our broken tail light was not up to par. To explain.....

On Valentine's Day 2008, Sydney and I were returning to Logan from a lovely day in South Jordan with my family. There was a huge snow storm and Sardine Canyon was bad news! We ended up getting rear ended and spinning across the opposite lane of traffic. Lucky for us, the car wasn't damaged other than the rear tail light and the trunk is a little funky. So, I got some red cellophane and taped it on the rear of the car like a light. It worked great.....

Until we came to Virginia. So, last week, Syd and I changed the brake shoes, and installed a new tail light for old Bruce. It took a little hammering on the car to get it to fit, since the metal was pretty bent from where we got hit. I think it looks pretty good.

We also had a ward activity called a
"Fish Fry." It was a great time. Our ward mission leader, Brother Chambliss deep fried up a bunch of fish and it was delicious. There were a lot of people there and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. I made a new friend with a little boy in our ward named Skyler. We started playing games with my wedding ring. Spinning it around on the table, hiding it behind our backs, putting it in our mouths....well...I guess only Skyler did that. He loved it!




That's all for now. I think I will need an entire new post to include all the detail about Damon, the incredibly awesome street wanderer I met while working on the car at our parking lot. Words can barely describe. I'm trying to find him again so I can get a picture and maybe a video. As a preview, for most of our 2 hour conversation, he referred to me as Kurt Cobain, but asked me why I'd had plastic surgery. Later, he told me of his wonderful business idea to grow Indian-grown colored popcorn. He was talking about how much money we'd make and how we should do it. I was trying to be nice and just said, "Yeah, that would be sweet." He looked at me and said, "No. It would be salty." What a treat!

Monday, September 7, 2009

Our poor car. :( On the weekends we are allowed to park our car in front of our apartment building. Unfortunately most of the free spots are under the poop trees. We left Bruce under one of these poop trees on Saturday night, and when we walked out of our apartment building Sunday morning we found this lovely sight.

We were so embarrassed that we refused to park Bruce in the church parking lot and opted instead for the street.

As you all know, the BYU game was on Saturday night, and since they were playing such a big team Josh and I were lucky enough to get to watch it. So for fun we decided to make the special pineapple/beet/egg burgers introduced to us by Rachel.

Josh's burger turned out to be quite large. :)

So, of course, I had to record him eating it. (He did much better than I expected.)

Since we've been saying we were going to do it for a while now, Josh and I finally took a walk and snapped a few pictures of our new Virginia home. And now we will grace you with them...


Here is Josh pointing to our apartment building from the Capitol's sidewalk.



A beautiful panoramic from the Capitol.

Some more.


Just trying to fit in with the other statues.

Here we are on Cary Street. We love the cobble stones and I made Josh go stand by this fountain as if we were in some foreign country with cobble stone streets and beautiful fountains everywhere... but we're not. It's just Virginia.

Josh pointed out this wonderful saying the fountain had engraved on it. ...? It seemed a bit random.



This is where Josh walks everyday on his way to classes.

And here is where Josh has all of his classes. The EGYPTIAN building.

Here are some of the statues I was talking about, as well as a really cool church just behind the capitol.

A fun little walk way past the capitol. Here all the squirrels gather and feast in the garbage bins.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

100%!
That's right! Josh took the first two tests of his medical college career, and his very first score? A 100. :) (We know he did well on his other test too, but he still hasn't received an official score for it.) I think he felt on top of the world when he found out. ;)
Yay Josh!

We Have Somewhere To Eat

We finally got our table!
... oh wait, it's damaged. :( That's right. After waiting patiently for our table to arrive we opened up the box to discover a chewed up table top and two damaged stool seats. We were a tad bit annoyed, but contacted the company we bought it from and they have been working with us to get us a new one. However, Josh and I are impatient and we feel we've lived without a table for long enough. So, instead of taking the whole set apart, shipping it back, waiting for a whole new set to come, and then putting everything together again... plus being true Josh and Sydney style, we've decided to get 15% off of the purchase price and just live with what we have been given.
Other than the damage, Josh and I are very pleased with our purchase. It's just the right fit for our little apartment and the colors look great with everything else.


So, here we go. Here is our horrible "before closet." One shelf to hang our clothes on. We were shoving as many clothes as we could into our dresser, and the rest we were forced to throw random places in the closet.

TA DA! Our fantastic "after closet!" We finally made it to Lowes where we picked up a new rod. Then Josh removed the previous shelf and raised it so we could put the second one below. Now we can fit more clothes in this closet than we could in the last one we had! (Pictures don't quite do it justice, but we love it.)

While at lowes we also found some tools to build josh a tie holder. It works great, looks great, and fits all his ties! And it's the picture that makes it look crooked. We didn't hang it that badly. :)