Here Today . . . Gone Tomorrow

Or in this case it should read Hair Today . . . Gone Tomorrow!

It finally happened. I have been so excited for this and I finally did it. Last Friday I cut off all my hair! This was the final part of my milestone birthday celebration. It's been in the works for a year and a half or so. I decided that I really wanted to donate my hair to Locks of Love and so the growing out began. This also meant I had to take it easy on the hair color. That was very tough. You see, I really like to have fun with my hair. I had a stylist once that used to keep an index card file box for all of her customers so that she could remember exactly what was done to their hair from one visit to the next. She kept teasing me that she was going to have to get one box just for me. We never did the same thing twice. I guess when your hair tends to grow pretty quickly you don't have to worry about "mistakes". So, I have fun with the cut and the color. Let me tell you, I am so sick of black right at the moment. I had my cut picked out since last summer.

Here is my hair two days before the cut. I have never had my hair this long before. It was kinda neat to get to this point:

Getting ready for the big moment. I'm not sure who was more excited me or Jennifer - my wonderful stylist:
The ponytail:
Just after losing the pony and before any styling and coloring began:
All done:

I absolutely love it! I am having so much fun doing different things with it already. This was such a great experience for me.

It's the Return of . . .

We have two of the greatest beagles in the world. First we got Ranger and after an unfortunate peeing accident (which I will not go into here, if you want details, you will have to ask me for them - it's a very funny story!) he was given the nickname Ranger P. Danger.

Then, along came Sam. He was already named when we got him. His name is actually Sammy. He's never really called that. He is much more a Sam. So, this dog as I'm sure you have read already has quite the unique personality. He has acquired many nicknames. Here are a few - Scammers, Sam-a-lam-a-ding-dong, Scampers, Shuffles, Samuel, Salmon, Sammers and so on. There are too many to remember!

Well two of my favorite nicknames came about a couple of years ago when we put their first bandannas on them. It was the birth of BANDANNA SAM and BANDANGER!!!

Every so often we will break out bandannas and bring those two infamous characters back. And they came back just this week.

Happy Birthday to . . . Me

A couple of days ago I celebrated my birthday. Ryan was so excited that they gave me my presents first thing in the morning. I received some Hexbugs, yoga cards, a guitar, and some new boots!!! It was a very nice day for me. I took the day off work and just had a relaxing restful day. Doug and I watched a couple of movies on DVD while Ryan was in school. Two movies we've been wanting to see but not watch with him around. It was fun. For dinner, we went to one of my favorite restaurants and ate outside in the cold with my family. Doug & I split the Portobello Mushroom sandwich - YUM! Then we got a hot fudge cream puff ice cream dessert to pass around the table. Thanks to everyone for all my wonderful birthday wishes throughout the day!

Gift from my parents and brother Kelly - shopping coupons. I am the last of four boys in my family and by the time I came along my mom had spent so much time doing boy things - camping, scouting, cars, sports and such that she found the joy of shopping when I became a teenager. We used to enjoy shopping a lot together. She always used to tease me about my shopping style. We would go looking for shoes or accessories or dresses for special occasions (although she made every formal I ever had except for one - and that one was the worst one I ever wore!) and everytime I would want to buy the first things I tried on. She would convince me to continue shopping in the rest of the mall to see if there was anything else that I might like even more. Everytime, we would return to the first store and purchase the first items tried on. Well a couple of weeks ago, my mom and I went shopping again for the first time in a long time - years probably. It was really fun. Just the two of us just shopping and shopping, eating lunch and shopping some more. My mom wore me out! We both had a great time and when she saw this pillow she knew she just had to buy it for me and attached coupons for me to go shopping, I mean retail therapy sessions with either her, my dad or my brother Kelly. I can't wait to turn them in! And as a bonus, she attached the coupons with a pin made by one of my Grandmas many many years ago. I love it!

You're not supposed to hurt YOURself

Let me tell you a story about a "special" beagle named Sam. He was a unique find and a very good fit for our family. He's definitely a one of a kind and I cannot imagine our lives without him. He is always up to something and brings lots of humor into our world. Don't get me wrong, we love our first beagle Ranger too. But Ranger is different. He's a VERY good boy. He hardly ever gets himself into trouble. The only "strange" thing about him - he is afraid of everything (and I mean everything) - OH and he has the worst breath ever!!! I think Ranger is the best dog I've ever owned. Very easy going, if not a little snobby at times. And then there's Sam. One look in his big brown eyes so full of love and you will be hooked. I love that every time he comes over to the couch how much he loves and appreciates every ear stroke he gets. He's the sweetest dog I've ever owned - even with his crazy food obsession!

So onto the hurt yourself part . . . Sam has this strange way of walking. He doesn't pick up his front paws when he walks. I'm not sure if it's laziness or how he is built but when he is walking on any surface besides carpet it sounds like he is shuffling in his old man slippers. One afternoon, before Ryan got out of school, Doug had gotten off work early and my work load was really light so we decided to take the dogs for a walk around the neighborhood. We don't walk them nearly as much as we should and this was a treat. The dogs were in heaven! Sam did his usual shuffle with his nose sniffing at everything that he could. Later on that day, we noticed blood on the floor. After doing some investigating, it turned out that Sam had filed his own nails down to the quick which was causing them to bleed every time he walked.

Quickly, we jumped on the Internet to look up options for this. So, we washed his paw with antibacterial soap, stopped the bleeding with corn starch, put on some antibacterial ointment and then wrapped it up so that he couldn't lick at it. He was pretty good natured about the whole thing. I think once we got it wrapped it actually felt better.

For two days, he walked around with his leg bandaged up. We removed it to take a look and the bleeding was stopped and the nails were actually okay to be let out again. They haven't bled since. We are keeping an eye on the length of those nails now. And, no, he hasn't learned to pick up his paws when he walks. He still shuffles like an old man wearing slippers.

Doug washing Sam's hurt paw:

Sam taking a nap under my desk with his bandage on:

New Years Day - Avatar

Ever since seeing the trailer for Avatar, we have been counting down until it hit theaters. I decided that New Years Day would be the perfect time to organize a viewing for family. I invited my family to join us to see it in 3D on New Years Day. It ended up being me, Doug, Ryan two of my brothers, a cousin and a neice. We loved it! What a great movie! Now we are counting down the days until it comes out on DVD!!!

I didn't take many pictures, just this one - how unlike me I know. In my defense I'm not sure I was fully awake and was too excited for the movie to start!

New Years Eve 2010

We had our traditional New Year's Eve at our house this year. My family came over for movies, games, food and chatting. I think everyone had a good time. We had plenty of activities going on this year including Guitar Hero or Rock Band or some such music video game, tons and tons of food and yummy treats, we watched the movie Up, a dice game was played and Christmas puzzles were worked on.

Sam loves when my family comes over - there is always lots of food to drool over:

Here are pics of some of the games that were played:

My dad looking through the photo book I had made for Christmas:

Ryan actually fell asleep around 11:30 - that was a first. He did get up to make some noise at midnight and then went right back to sleep.

Making lots of noise at midnight. This year, for the first time in like 13 years, we weren't the only ones out making noise in our neighborhood. There were also some fireworks being shot in the park behind our house.

Celebration Dinner at Ted's

Two days before New Year's Eve, my dad got some really great news about his health! We were all very excited to get the "official" word on something we thought was going to happen we just didn't know when. And because of these health concerns he had he was put on this ridiculously strict diet. My mom showed me the list they got from the dietitian. It was a full sheet of paper - a little bit larger than the standard 8 1/2 x 11 full of all the things he could not eat. That's right I said COULD NOT eat. It was absolutely crazy. I got done reading through the list and asked what was left that was okay to eat? Well, she found the things he could eat and their whole house began a very restricted diet. They lived on that for several months. One of the things I got to participate in was changing the way I prepared my sweet potato dish for Thanksgiving and Christmas. So, the day before, we peeled and cut the potatoes into little squares. Then placed them in a very large bowl and covered them with water. This was put in the refrigerator for a minimum of four hours. After the four+ hours was up, we drained the potatoes, washed them and put them in the bowl again to be once again covered with water and placed in the refrigerator for another four+ hours. We left them in the fridge over night. Then the next morning I drained them, rinsed them and completed the recipe as normal. Luckily there were no ingredients in that particular recipe that my dad was not able to have. After doing it the first time, it really wasn't that bad - and probably made the potatoes that much better for the rest of us to eat it. It just took some extra planning to allow for the time (and some extra room in the fridge).

Well after getting the news that his health issue was no longer - we went out to dinner to celebrate at Ted's Hot Dogs! Ryan was very happy to be able to go there with his grandpa again. They had been discussing that this would be one of the first places Grandpa would want to go to when he was able again & Ryan was anxiously waiting for that day. We met up there with two of my brothers, a nephew and my parents to enjoy our yummy treats!

My dad after his first bite:

He was so happy to get a taste of Ted's again that somehow he managed to get a streak of mustard on his glasses:

My brother's and my nephew enjoying their meals and talking about cars:

Doug, Ryan and I:

My mom & dad:

What a great looking hot dog:

The Christmas Music of Mannheim Steamroller

On the day after Christmas, we went to see The Christmas Music of Mannheim Steamroller in concert. Santa put a ticket in each of our stockings - well not in the dog's stocking. They just got a couple new toys and dog treats (which they were very happy with!). And if you know Sam, he probably would have eaten the ticket anyway.

On the way to and from the show, Ryan read us puzzles from his new THINKlers book that he got at the Christmas Eve gift exchange. That book is really fun and works perfect in the car - he read them to us and we tried to get the answers. The ones we did this night include a list of three or four items and you have to guess the missing item or what connects those items. For example: John, Paul and George? And the answer is . . . Ringo. Or jalopy, lemon, junker . . . slang terms for cars.

The concert was . . . well kinda weird. I love their music. Those are some of our favorite Christmas CD's - they even beat out my new Sting Christmas CD - shocking I know! But, the concert was strange. I mean the music was great, especially the second half. God Rest Ye Merry, Gentleman played in the traditional Renaissance style and then again in the Mannheim Steamroller style blew my socks off. Remembering it right now is giving me goosebumps all over again. I have never seen a recorder played so brilliantly before. The brass section consisted of one trumpet and one French Horn (and they were both played amazing and with such a huge sound it was hard to believe there were just two of them). I would say over half of the group played at least four different instruments. But the show itself was well not the most entertaining show I've ever seen. I mean at times I felt like I was watching some kind of strange basement rehearsal or something. I could almost hear them saying "wouldn't it be cool if we did this or we did that and then the audience would think that was funny", only the audience seemed more confused than amused. It was an experience, just not the one I was expecting.

We did have fun and are very grateful to Santa for indulging our love of music and allowing us this wonderful experience. However, I am looking forward to the next time All-American Rejects or 30 Seconds to Mars or Def Leppard or Star Wars in Concert or even better STING is in town! (He is forgiven for his Christmas CD already in my mind.)

Doug & Ryan waiting for the show to begin:

Ryan and I. And even though it looks like I'm jamming the program into his face, I am not, he is! He was the one holding the program up to his face.

The Day After Christmas Shopping Experience

Usually, we avoid any shopping on the day after Christmas. Especially since we were returning, or I should say exchanging something. We thought we might be safe since it was at Ikea - plus they were offering breakfast for 99 cents. We gave Ryan some new dressers for Christmas, thought it was time to replace my old dressers from when I was like 20 or so. But, one of the boxes that got picked up was the wrong one. We loaded up the car and off we went. No Crowds! We ate breakfast first and then took care of all the exchanging and finding the right item.

Here's Doug pushing the cart with our trays on it. The total for all three of us to eat breakfast was less than $4.00!!!

All three of us we filled up. We each got eggs, hashbrowns and bacon, plus a side of sausage for Ryan. I mean it wasn't gourmet or anything, but it was tasty!
Ryan & I enjoying our meal:

Christmas Morning

Ryan is always up at the crack of dawn - literally! From the time he was born, if the sun is up, he is up. No matter how late he stays up the night before. He just does not sleep in. Except on Christmas Morning. He is the only kid I know that always sleeps in on Christmas Morning. This year he didn't get us up until almost 8:30!

We peeked over our landing to see if Santa had been here yet and sure enough, he had!

Ryan was very excited to get downstairs and see what Santa had brought him this year:

Our stockings were placed on the sofa full of goodies!
Ryan is checking the letter he left Santa to see if he got a reply - and he did!

This years addition to his nutcracker collection - a Rock star Nutcracker!

Sam really liked the smell of my stocking - over the smell of the goodies that Santa brought for him & Ranger:

This must be why - CHOCOLATE!!!
Doug opening a present that seemed to be particularly interesting to the dogs:

What on earth is this big package?

Ryan's first electric guitar!

Ryan has been telling us for months that he is ready to learn a third instrument - the guitar. He was getting pretty disappointed in us because we hadn't bought him one yet. Well, little did he know, we had been dealing with Santa in hopes of getting him one for Christmas!Sam is not so sure about all this excitement:
What is this? Another guitar - this time an acoustic that was given to us by a friend! That is the face of pure joy!

Now for the really hard decisions - which one to build first?

After we got everything opened and fully checked out and I got my sweet potatoes going for Christmas dinner, Doug made me Eggnog Pancakes. They were very yummy!

Enjoy this video of Ryan playing his new electric guitar for the first time!