Tis the Season

Christmas morning came, and we opened our gifts at home with Lily before heading over to David's brother John's house. David got me a beautiful diamond necklace (and some other things, which I forgot) But he did nearly give me heart attack when I opened the jewelry box and saw... nothing. I thought he had accidentally lost it, and I wasn't sure what to say - until he stared laughing. Apparently he had taken it out and hung it on the tree. I got him a receiver, which sounds lame, but he was happy. Little did I know that receiver would morph into a whole entertainment sound system! But I enjoy it immensely as well, so it was a great investment. Lily was quite ecstatic with her own gifts, chew toys and a gormuet cookie that mom sent - that lasted all of 15 seconds.

After that, we took off to John and Amber's to be with his family for the rest of the day. Thanks Amber for the great spread! I think the best part was walking by the little stream thing they have going through their neighborhood singing Christmas carols to the unfortunate masses. We got cheered once, and no one threw anything - I had a good time at least.

Deck the Halls

Christmas! I love Christmas – I’m one of those people that really get into it. I used to love coming home from school in December – when we left, it would be regular boring house. When we got home, it would be CHRSITMAS! It was great. The best part were the bowls with the Christmas M&Ms in them. Thus, David was a little confused when I would make us randomly stop at stores to look for those red and green M&Ms – for some reason I never found them, but not for lack of trying. David isn’t really big on Christmas, so he really did a good job of humoring me as I went crazy decorating the house, buying oldies Christmas music (Gotta have my Dean Martin!), looking for M&Ms, and contemplating carving my own shepards when I couldn’t find any to match my re-vamped nativity scene. He quietly endured it all, with the occasional “What did you get a Hobby Lobby for $85?!” thrown in.

Prior to our marriage we had the live vs. fake tree discussion. I told him it was a make or break thing for me – so this year David had his first real Christmas tree. We got in the car and headed up north to a Christmas tree farm to pick it out. After sipping our hot cocoa (cider for David) we jumped on the tractor and they took us out to the field to pick our tree. Naturally, our 5 year-old selves kicked in, and we jumped off the tractor to get to the good trees before all those other families got their first. Luckily, most of them had small children to slow them down. So, dashing through the trees, we eventually picked one out, which David proceeded to cut down and CARRY, because he didn’t want to mess up the branches. How cute. We took it home on my little Corolla (“Tiffany, it’s going to fall off!”) and put it up in our living room. It was so pretty – thanks to mom’s gift of a bunch of cool ornaments, we had the best tree in the building.

Today I'm 24

It’s my birthday, so I get to brag on my husband. As luck would have it, David was out in West Texas measuring oil drums on the day of my birthday, which was a Wednesday this year. He got special permission to fly back Wednesday night, and then fly back the next morning. He said he wasn’t going to miss my first birthday as my husband. Isn’t he sweet? So, naturally, it was the coldest day of winter, and was actually kinda snowing the day he was supposed to fly in. He came anyway, and we drove very slowly to dinner at this great restaurant, whose name escapes me at the moment. After that we went home and decorated the Christmas tree and listened to carols by the fire. We had my real Birthday Day of Fun that Saturday – he took me to the zoo (yay!), dinner, and a movie, which was a real sacrifice for David, since he had so much work and studying to catch up on. Is it weird that I still really like going to the zoo? It was like us and a bunch of 8 year olds, basically. At least I could see over all their heads. But I don’t care – we had fun trying to get this cougar to attack us. But apparently he wanted to guy with the small child behind us instead. Still entertaining.
David got to commune with a gorilla, as you can see above, which is one of the few shots I got before my camera pooped out. I had a great day – he even let me go to a girlie movie. So I was very well taken care of on my b-day – thanks for all the calls, everyone!

Lily's Getting Big

Lily is now officially the largest dog I have ever owned. She is doing well - hanging out. And cute as ever.

You can see she is meeting Katie, my Dad's dog, for the first time. Poor Katie got trounced, since she was so small. She can hold her own now, though.

Lily Update

Lily is growing like crazy, as you can see from the previous pictures - she is a joy to have, and unfortunately I am afraid I am spoiling her a bit....

We are trying to get her to like swimming - thier breed usually doesn't. We have figured out why - whenever she gets in the water, she sinks like a rock. Apparently they don't have enough body fat to help them swim. She is just wading for right now.

She has already learned 4 tricks - although for some reason the idea of 'shake' is eluding her. I mean really, come on! But she makes up for it in her sweet personality.

Labor Day Beach Trip

We took Lily on our first ‘family’ vacation this Labor Day weekend – we went down to the coast for a few days to introduce her to the ocean. In all honesty, we almost had more fun getting to watch TV for once. Lily had a great time on the beach, and did manage to venture out into the ocean – we were so proud. Her favorite game, however, was digging holes in the sand - and as they filled up with that watery sand-slush, she would shove her whole face into the mess. I don’t think she ever tired of this. So David and I lay out in the sun while she amused herself under the car. It was surprisingly quiet, and we enjoyed a non-crowded place on the beach to chase seagulls and tan to our heart’s content. There’s nothing like getting away for just a little while.

More Puppy Pics

Ok, I couldn't pick just 5 - she is too cute! I'm not subjective; but I'm the one in charge of the blog - so tough.

Lily Comes Home

It’s doggie time! David couldn’t possibly live alone one second longer, so we were on a mission to find a dog before he had to start work at Enrst & Young. We finally found her in Amarillo, and drove out to pick her up. (That first picture is us in her backyard.) She was with a family of four little boys, who took care of her when her mom was sick. As a result, whenever she sees a small child, she takes off to chase them down and lick them to death. They re usually not amused, nor are their parents. Her dad was this huge bulk of a dog, and really friendly. We picked her up, played a bit, and after all the paperwork was signed, and the photo taken, we took her back with us to Dallas, which took forever since we had to stop every hour to ensure there were no accidents in my new car. She was such a sweetie, and we had a great time playing with her and introducing her to new things, like the stereo in the car. She was almost asleep, and when we turned the radio on, she started freaking out trying to find where the noise was coming from. It was hysterical. She also freaked out at the Taco Bell and the sight more squeaky toys than she had ever seen in her life. I don’t know if I have ever seen a more curious dog. She was getting in to everything.







All of this resulted in mom getting overexcited and sending me some ‘It’s a girl!’ balloons attached to a toy for Lily at work – which resulted in everyone thinking I was pregnant. I kept getting congrats all day from customers. Lily liked the toy though – and the balloon. Not long after this pic was taken she mangled them both. You gotta love puppies – isn’t she cute!?

Moving Day

Today we moved into our new place, which I absolutely love. It is right south on the south tip of White Rock Lake, has a huge field across the street, and lots of trails. It’s a great floor plan, not a box, with a kitchen that isn’t a hallway. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still minuscule, and I’m sure that I will expand to other rooms while baking, much to David’s chagrin. We live on the third floor, so moving was great. And by great, I mean awful. It was just us for most of the time, although our awesome friends, Katrina and Simon helped one day. We are forever grateful. As we were sitting around in the chaos of our living room, we vowed to make many friends, for the sole purpose of being future movers. David’s family was in town, so they came to see our place, sitting on random boxes that were stacked everywhere. Not much to see, but it was nice of them to come over. That night David and I went downstairs to chill out in the courtyard – every building is built like a U, with a courtyard in the middle, and they have strung lights across the space. It’s really great, and one of the reasons we chose this place to begin with. I can’t wait until winter, when we can use the giant outdoor fireplace.

Island 4: Rangiroa

Our last stop was Rangiroa, which was the exact opposite of Bora Bora. It is an atoll, and basically just a ring of land – quite a few places you could see water on either side of where you were standing. We stayed at a cute little resort, but were a bit stranded, due to lack of transportation. One day we decided to ‘walk into town’ and about 45 minutes later we realized we had walked the wrong way. It was still interesting to see the non-tourism side of the islands. You could actually walk the beaches and pick up shells, which we had great fun doing. Also, it was here that we had our Great Moments in Scuba, by which I mean we acted like morons underwater. Our first dive was what is called a ‘drift dive’ – it takes place in a channel where you dive in and are carried by the current to the pickup location. We were all excited – and we set off, just the two if us and the guide. We jumped in off the boat, and immediately went straight down, to around 100 ft, where there were lots of gray sharks, which we hadn’t seen before hanging out on the ledge. The one rule the guide had given was to please not pass her. So, of course, I immediately began having major issues with this, as she was tiny and pushed less by the current than I. It must have looked pretty humorous – everyone drifting calmly along, with me trying to covertly backpedal like a madwoman. Other than that, it all went along fine, until she took us over to a shallow cave nearby – as soon as I turned against the current, my mask immediately filled with water. I never had any problems with this exercise during class, but let me tell you, it is very different when you are being dragged along; blind, knowing that somewhere in the murk they have both stopped, and you are floating out to sea. I finally got a hold of something on the shelf, and stopped myself to clear my mask. As soon as my vision clears, what do I see? We are in the cove, and David is reaching for the instructors’ emergency air regulator. Apparently, since we aren’t used to diving as deeply as we had, David had really sucked all his air up. Freaky. Finally assured that my husband wasn’t going to drown, the instructor beckoned us really close to a crevasse, which was blocked by a bunch of fish. After waving them off and leaning in, I see – eels. Tons of eels, which have always freaked me out and now I’m basically kissing one. So I backed the hell outta there, and we continued on uneventfully. However, we were too late to save our image from the instructor, who by this point must have though we were idiots. So naturally, we went diving with them again a day later, this time with her husband. We only had one moment of idiocy, when I went to David to ask for the camera (we had bought a special underwater housing for ours) and he looked at me and shrugged like “I don’t know – don’t’ you have it?” At which point we both freaked out, and started looking around, like it was going to stay with the group or something. Then we saw it – or the bright yellow strap anyway, way off in the distance. I could kiss whoever designed that thing with a brightly colored strap. So, our diver guy took off after it, so all our honeymoon wasn’t lost after all, and it didn’t become one of those ‘remember when you were an idiot’ moments in our marriage.
After that, it was a pretty chill last couple of days, only marred by a moment when this man/woman randomly put this lei around my head during the luau dinner with no explanation, which managed to make me uncomfortable for the remainder of the night. At least David had to get up and dance in front of everyone too, so I wasn’t totally alone in my embarrassment


So that was our honeymoon – it was wonderful, perfect trip. Tahiti is the realization of the idealistic island getaway. Hopefully we can make it back someday.

Island 3: Bora Bora

When we landed on Bora Bora, we immediately knew this was the tourist spot to be. Everything was done up luxury, starting with this huge two story yacht that picked us up from the airport, and took us to the island our hotel was on. So once again we got around via boat ferry; you can see my new best friend in picture above; she was always at the boat stop on the main island, and we hung out. She was very sweet and I fed her Cheetos, so she loved me too. Our actual resort was amazing - the whole thing was once giant landscaped extravaganza. You hardly even noticed the different bures scattered through it all. Ours was right by the pond and the spa, which was up in the trees to our right. You can see the picture of our bure above, from the back side, where it faced the beach. I can't even describe it really. I haven't ever stayed anywhere like it. They had many things to do to amuse ourselves at night; a really bad DVD library, a game room, and some tennis courts, which we proceeded to play absolutely terrible on. We went on our first scuba dives in French Polynesia here, so it was very exciting. Especially when we almost got eaten by a shark. David still plays it down, but I know what I saw. We were down there, looking at all the pretty fish, yadda yadda, and had been swimming around all kinds of sharks, who could care less. At the end, you have to stop at a certain level to decompress a bit, and as we were hanging there when this shark suddenly charged us. I kid you not, he just changed his mind at the last moment and veered off. David said it wasn't going to do anything, but whatever - I nearly had a heart attack. We did another dive with them later - a bunch of fun French guys - and saw a manta ray, which was amazing. I mean, I have never been so awed in my life - I felt like I was on National Geographic. The sheer size of these things is astounding. I really hope to see one again someday. Other than that, we just hung around, worked on our tans, scoped out the town, and built a sand castle, at my insistence. Also, I was beginning to see a new trend in David - apparently he gets crazy cravings for Coca-Cola when he is on vacation. At one dinner we ended up spending $15 on a single coke. I think in the end we might have spent $100 just on coke fixes. But what is vacation for than some pampering? So ended our time at Bora Bora - it really was the most picturesque of them all.