Molly loves the snow

I'd forgotten how much she loves to dig!

It's Snowing!

Molly doesn't understand why I'm so excited...

Superdog

Molly thinks she's Superman apparently. I really don't want the dog to take over the blog, but she keeps doing ridiculous things!

Also, she was dreaming and twitching in her sleep. So cute.

Zoo Lights

So Stefano and I went to the Denver Zoo tonight to see Zoo Lights. We got tickets with our membership package for next year, and I figured we didn't have anything to lose by checking it out. I was actually worried that it would be dead since it's a Tuesday night after Christmas.

Boy, was I wrong... It was so crowded that we drove around for almost 15 minutes looking for parking, and ended up parking about a 10 minute walk from the doors.


View Zoo Lights 2010 in a larger map

Not that I minded the walk, but it was insanely busy! I can't even imagine what it's like on a weekend. I was really grateful we had tickets already, since the ticket lines were crazy long and we were able to basically just walk right in.

But anyway, it was really cool. I was expecting lots of normal Christmas lights on trees, etc., but they had lots of animal shapes and really cool animated scenes. I laughed at all the people trying to take pictures a) on their cell phones and b) with flash on. Some of mine turned out pretty cool, especially the videos.  The lights are all LEDs, by the way, so it's not bad in terms of energy wastefulness.

Look, it's us!  Not bad for it being really dark.

Awesome super-long icicle strands.

Big-horned sheep!  I love these guys, whether they be lights or real.

Special advertising for the Asian Tropics area which is currently under construction.

Monkey

Camel!  I took this one just for you, Dad.

Please note my husband excitedly yelling about the flamingos.



The strange noise that Stefano and I are discussing is a helicopter going overhead, btw.









And even though most of the animals were sleeping or hiding in the dark, the arctic fox was sleeping out in the open, curled up in a ball.  It was especially cool since we'd seen him over the summer when he had his brown summer coat, and now we got to see his beautiful white winter coat.

Without flash.

With flash.  Which surprisingly didn't wake him up at all.

The end.  Time for bed!  Oh, and as usual, more photos on my Picasa site.

Surveys, Mormons, and wrong numbers, oh my!

I had a half-hour span earlier today that made me want to embrace my introverted side and hide for a while.  I got a phone call asking me to do a survey, but since the name on the caller ID and the company name they gave me lined up, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.  Usually, I hate people calling for surveys, and I think it's complete BS that they can legally call people on the "do not call" registry as long as they're not selling anything.  But usually the quickest way to get them to go away is just to cooperate.  She said it was a survey about allergies, and asked a few seemingly-harmless questions-- does anyone in your household smoke, do you have pets, how new is your car, etc.  She said I'd be entered into a survey.  Yeah, yeah, don't care.  I wasn't paying attention at that point and got off the phone as quickly as possibly because someone had just rung the doorbell.  It turned out to be an overly friendly Mormon woman, who, thankfully, just wanted to give me a pamphlet.  Yeah, sure, whatever.  I'm Catholic and happy with it, and frankly the idea that the way to heaven is to convert others is kinda wacky, but it doesn't hurt me to take a piece of paper and toss it in the recycle bin.

So after I got back to my desk, I googled the phone number and company name, and according to other people's experiences, the call is pretty much a scam.  Apparently they call later on, say that you've "won" a trip and all you have to do to redeem it is schedule a sales visit, during which they try to sell you a vacuum cleaner.  Ugh.  So I'll have to keep that in mind and have an excuse ready next time they call.  Like that we don't have floors.  Yep, we don't have floors.  Just bare dirt.  Don't need no vacuum, k, thanks.

About ten minutes later I got a call on my cell looking for Travis.  I say "sorry, I think you have the wrong number".  Her, annoyed, "isn't this ### (my correct cell number)".  Me: "yes, but there's no Travis here".  Her: "oh, he must have..." and then hangs up.  Seriously?  At least apologize for interrupting me and accusing me of answering Travis' phone and refusing to let you talk to him.  Yeesh.


Tonight's excitement?  Going to see the Zoo Lights!  Mom and Dad got us a zoo membership for next year (Thanks!!!!), and it came with tickets to this year's Zoo Lights.  I realized today that they end the 2nd, and we're going out of town for the weekend, so we'd better go check it out!

Ok, enough of this.  Time to go sort laundry and reheat dinner.  Yeah having enough leftovers to not cook for a while!

Favorites

So my dog has been laying around depressed all day, probably because Kristin (AKA Molly's favoritest person in the whole wide world) finally went back to Chicago.  Possibly also because it's Monday and now I'm working again instead of walking her and playing with her.  Though deep down I think she's also grateful to finally get some rest.

Hopefully all of you had a wonderful Christmas-- we certainly did.  Way too much food (and sweets), but it wouldn't be Christmas without it.  I got a Kindle! :)

Ho ho ho!

Happy Christmas Eve, everyone!  Kristin got here on Wednesday, and we spent yesterday baking cookies and finishing up shopping.  We all split up in the same store to get stocking stuffers, so we'll have to see if we all ended up getting the same things for each other :)

We joined Christine's parents for brunch this morning at a little local spot up the street from us.  They're visiting her for Christmas, and we'll probably meet up again tomorrow evening to play games at our house after Christmas dinner.

Plan for this afternoon: making pierogis.

Peppermint Ice Cream

1) I made peppermint ice cream.  It's delicious!

2) My husband is a cutie.

That is all.

I wish I had a tail...

Molly chases her tail!  I never had a dog before who chased her tail... Of course, Kanga had an excuse because hers was just far too short to chase:

And wow she's really wooly in that picture.  Seriously?  Dog or sheep?

Anyway, so it amuses the heck out of me that Molly chases her tail.

But not only does she chase it, but she can grab onto it.

And then she WALKS AROUND WITH HER TAIL IN HER MOUTH.  Sorry for the internet shouting, but it's seriously the cutest and funniest thing in the world.



Please excuse the shirt on the floor.  It's not mine.  Well, it used to be, but it's Molly's blankie now.  I gave it to her when she was really little and freaked out at night from not being around us.  So now it's hers and she carries it around everywhere.

In other news, *hack hack cough cough* I've been sick all week, and I'm getting really fed up with it.  Dear immune system, fight harder please.  K Thanks.

Ketchup!

See, I made the title that because I need to catch up on my blog.  Get it?  Get it?  I made a funny!  Sorry... I'm tired and fighting off a sinus cold so I'm a little punchy right now.

We enjoyed the joy that is flying through Chicago during a winter storm this weekend.  We flew into O'hare Friday and then drove down to my company's holiday party which was on Saturday.  Absolutely awful weather in Champaign, by the way.  Yay wind and heavy rain!  We don't miss Illinois weather at all.  Got to meet up with old friends still at school, and the party went great.  But we woke up Sunday to an email from American informing us that our flight was canceled and we were rebooked for Monday night.  Mind you, the email was phrased "you've been rebooked" not "we're sorry  and our flight was 7:30pm and the email was sent at 7am and the weather remained pretty clear until midafternoon.

But oh well.  Our travel agent (the company's, not my personal one.  I'm not fancy enough to have a travel agent) got us on a flight at 2:40 yesterday instead of 7:30, so we were able to get home in time to go to the hockey game.

Ok, enough babbling.  Picture time!  You can click on them to see a bigger version.

Spinach pasta dough!  It was sooo pretty.  Probably just looks weird in the photo though.

I delegated the pasta rolling and cutting to my resident Italian.

Cut pasta drying.

Here's our car at the tree farm.  All the trees were this spread out.  If you look closely, Molly is perched up on the center armrest looking at us.

A lot of the trees looked nice from a distance, but once you got closer, they were two trees growing close together. :(

Stefano, Molly, and Pepper.

Me, Molly, and our tree.

Molly wanted to help cut down the tree.

Pikes Peak!  It looked really cool through the clouds.

How much is that doggy in the window?

Stefano going up to put up Christmas lights.

Stefano on the roof-top.

Molly was apparently making sure Stefano didn't run off without her noticing.

Charlie Brown tree.

First victim of Christmas.  Molly thought it was a chew toy.  Thankfully she didn't get one of the ones with more history.

Home

Molly is happy to be home. And so are we!

Posted using my Android phone

Listening

So I knew that I was overwhelmed and stressed out lately, but today my body just yelled "stop!!!". Unfortunately it did so by throwing me one of my worst migraines in years. I had to stop working a few hours after lunch, and it hurt so badly I could barely even nap.

I don't even know what really pushed me over the edge. Work is always lousy this time of year; I usually don't have enough good work to do, so it's extremely hard to work a full week and stay motivated and productive. And then of course if I'm unproductive I feel really guilty, and it just puts me in an awful mood the rest of the day. Add in Christmas shopping and chores looming, cold weather, short days, and trying to make the house nice and Christmas-ey so I don't get homesick, and I guess I was asking for a breakdown.

So here's hoping tomorrow goes better. I have a ton of hours to make up, and I don't really have time off to spare. We're heading to Chambana on Friday for my company's holiday party, so I have to leave early to catch our flight, but it should be fun!

Posted using my Android phone

Ugh

Dear Vet,

Thank you SO much for warning me that the meds you gave me to give to Molly have a very common side effect of vomiting.  Maybe if you'd've warned me, I wouldn't have brought her with us to the tree farm today, including an hour and a half of driving, during which she puked in the car three times.

Love,

Carrie

Also, Christmas tree farms in Colorado are awful. :'( Apparently the soil and/or climate here is terrible for them.  And the people who ran today's one did no maintenance on the trees-- i.e. every good-looking one was actually two that had grown together and they never came along and weeded out the second tree.

Oh, and I ran yesterday (I know, try not to die of shock) and I am incredibly sore today.  As in, I can't walk properly.

Whazzup?

Hey blog.  Sorry it's been a while.  Last Tuesday thru this Monday morning Stefano, Molly, and I were in Illinois.  Yep, they let us take her on the plane, and she was a perfect angel on the way out (slept soundly the whole time), and mostly an angel on the way back.  We're all glad to be home, though.  Traveling with her was definitely stressful.

Thanksgiving was great.  Time with the in-laws was great.  Molly loved everyone she met (even the other dogs, eventually) and everyone loved her.  Several people offered to take her off our hands... Sorry, relatives.  Even when she's being horrible (like she is today), I can't give her up.

Here's my parents, horsing around at the Christmas tree farm.  I think my mom was trying to hide from the camera and my dad was trying to make her hold still.

Three lovely ladies!  My mom, grandma, and aunt Sue. It was really cold this year so everyone was bundled up.  And everyone picked out a tree REALLY quickly.

This is Molly play-fighting with my in-laws' dog, Bailey.  I don't think Molly has ever slept as well as she did while we were there, mostly because she was so exhausted every day.  Bailey is a very mellow dog, and was very patient with my bitey little puppy.

Sorry about the lousy lighting and the fact that I really needed to cut out the first minute or so... I'm really tired tonight.  Molly kept hiding under the table since Bailey couldn't get her under there.  Then she'd lunge out in sneak attacks and try to bite Bailey's ear.

See, this is how tired she was... She went and curled up on a pile of dirty sheets and towels in the laundry room since it was quiet and peaceful in there.

Here she is once we got home.  She has a wonderful comfy bed, and a cozy crate, but she chose to sleep on top of the suitcase instead.  Maybe she was making sure we weren't going to leave again without her?  My dog growing up used to climb in the car as soon as we started putting suitcases in it to make sure we couldn't leave without her.