Feeling Christmas-y

This last week has been all about the holidays.  It’s started to get pretty cold, which mean hot drinks, fires and the holidays.  I love fall, but I also love winter almost as much 🙂  We picked up a tree yesterday and that evening I spent putting up the lights and ornaments.

We’ve also started a few fires this week.

And of course put up some more decor; and what are the holidays without some yummy seasonal beers?

Another thing we try to do every year is get together with my family and put together some gingerbread houses.  Usually we are up in the mountains but since we don’t have a cabin anymore, home it is.  I don’t know what it was, but this year everyone had the hardest time ever trying to make the houses look at least decent.  The kit that Chris and I (mostly me) had to deal with was a “mini” gingerbread house village.   No words are necessary to describe this mess:

Yeah, no comment.  I was beyond annoyed with the whole situation (but the spiked eggnog helped!).  And for any Bakersfieldians, we dubbed this “Oildale Village.

And today, I took some Christmas photos of my cousin’s freshly born baby boy, he is SO sweet.

Isn’t he sweet?  So precious.

Well, our little family also attempted some photos today.  Sadie was good at first, and Tundra wasn’t having it.

But somehow we got one, WITH the dogs. I know right? It was chaotic. I will probably share the outtakes later…hah.

Just Beachy

Last weekend we headed west to the coast for a little day trip.  We grabbed the dogs, a beach blanket, and some sweatshirts and hit the road mid-morning.  I did a bit of pre-planning and found some dog-friendly places, including a restaurant that provided our pups water and treats, and an off-leash beach. Perfecto.

Huuuuge sea lions basking in the sand.  It was funny, they were continuously flicking sand in the hair to cover themselves.  It was pretty cute.

Otters! They were just sun bathing/napping 🙂

The drive home, the hills looked pretty rad, and we spotted a huge heard of deer at one point, the photo above was a random deer that ran across the road.

Even thought it was SUPER nice to get away for a bit (it was 100 degrees at home and 65 at the beach!!!), it is TOUGH to take the dogs and do all the stuff in a short amount of time.  Next time we’ll stay the night and relax a bit more 😉

beers. beets. battlestar gallactica.

This weekend was so great! And I am, of course, ridiculously sad it’s over and once again feeling like it went too fast.  Saturday was a trip up to Kern River Brewing Co. in Kernville.

The brewery was actually  better than I had anticipated. I mean I knew their beers were good, we’ve had them before and we actually had them at our wedding; but they restaurant itself was really yummy and I loved the whole ambiance.  I recommend if you’re in or around Bakersfield you definitely make the hour trip up the canyon to check it out!

The rest of the weekend we spent doing stuff around the house and working outside.  This morning we took our dogs out to play:

Progression of the frisbee catch 😉

Reunited, and it feels so good.

Let me just preface this post by saying this afternoon was a roller coaster.

12:00 pm – Get a call from a veterinary hospital 4 miles from my house telling me they found my dog Sadie running behind their office; HOWEVER, could not catch the Husky that was running around with her -.-

12:01 – Leave work to rush across town to pick up Sadie and search for Tundra.

12:05 – Call Chris to help me look for her.

12:20 – Pick up Sadie and start driving around looking for Tundra. It starts pouring rain outside.

1:00 – Call Dad to see if he can help. Keep driving around, start crying.

1:30 – See a dog on the side of the road – freak out. Not Tundra, but another lost dog (Aussie) on the side of the road in a field, in the pouring rain, eating grass.

1:32 – Call Chris to come get the poor dog.

1:40 – Take found dog to a nearby doggie daycare place. They agree to keep the dog for a few days. Think to myself that this good deed will bring us some luck. Keep crying.

2:00 – (Still looking for Tundra) Call Mom to see if she can help. She leaves work to come drive around.

2:15 – Drive back home, still looking for Tundra. Drop off Sadie, pee, grab a bite, and call animal shelters. Leave to keep looking.

3:30 – Still looking, decide to drive back home again looking for her. Dad calls and says he’s going to go look. Still crying.

3:40 – Decide to drive out to the shelter 25 mins away to see if she’s there.

4:05 – Arrive at shelter (which is technically closed), look through kennels and do not find her. Fill out a lost animal slip.

4:20 – Head back home. Cry more.

4:25 – Get a phone call from our neighbor, “umm, you’re Husky has been sitting outside your house for 30 minutes, do you want me to put her in your backyard?” Me: “WHAT!!?!?!”…….etc….etc.

4:30 – Keep being amazed that they ran at least 4 miles from our house, through neighborhoods and busy streets…and 5+ hours later she finds her way back home???

4:45 – Arrive home and snuggle the crap out of my dogs.

Seriously, wouldn’t you cry if you lost that face?

Shed. It Happens.

Just when you thought you have seen it all, no, you have not.

I get a text message earlier from Chris: “When you get home, google ‘shed happens’”

What the what? Don’t you love random text messages? So when I got home, I googled that shizz to see what was up.

Either he was referring to websites that sell sheds or this:

I am assuming because we have a Husky, that is what he meant. “Do you want me to buy that shirt?” Chris: “It’s a lady that makes purses and clothes out of pet hair”

WHAT!!!!!!!?????

Okay so I found this article on it. Read that. Right. Now.

Are you kidding me? And the further you look into this, the more you find. Like, kitting with dog hair. Because, that’s what you should be doing with that hair you brush off your dog. HOW UN-GREEN OF YOU TO BE THROWING AWAY DOG HAIR!

I decided to browse Etsy to see if I could find any pet hair goodies. Oh boy, you bet your life I did. Etsy is the best place to find the weirdest things you could never imagine other people buying. So in case you feel like purchasing handmade pet hair items, here are a few of the best:

A…troll.

Yarn. Made from YOUR dog’s hair. Yeah, just send it in! I think I found my niche, knitted Husky and Aussie hair products.

Or! If you really love your dog, you can send this lady it’s hair, and she’ll make you a hat. All of a mere $1,000…..holy moly.

I don’t know, hopefully I’m not the only one that finds this as kind of creepy.

This Year

The time it was 70 degrees in January.

The time I re-did the guest bathroom.

The time we got a new puppy.

The time we ripped out our planter and made it our own.

The time we took a spontaneous drive.

The time my sister was having a baby.

Madelyn Rae…I’m an aunt!

The time I made a bomb cake for Mother’s Day.

The time they were best friends.

The time I saved a life.

The time of year when the flowers are amazing.

The time we took a walk by our cabin (the parents).

The time my cat drove me crazy.

The time we hiked down to the lake to watch a fireworks show.

The time I found a birdhouse in the forest.

I just love this.

The time we had a blogger birthday retreat.

The time we were going to meet more bloggers, and be ridiculously silly.

The time we saw the big trees.

The time we hiked to an old logger camp.

The time we went to Michigan.

The time we drove to Mackinac bridge.

The time we become one of those people.

Thanksgiving.

My favorite picture of us.

The time I was really bored and she is obviously very happy.

The time we got new carpet!

The time he surprised me, and i said yes.

The time we got engaged.

Here’s to a much better year, if that is even possible. I think it is!

PS. Thanks to all the lovelies that made this year possible 🙂

Lovely Things

Ah, so much going on…yet so little blog about. Let me share with you all a few (or a ton) of recent purchases that I L.O.V.E.

More importantly, NEW CARPET! We used to have those ugly white tiles under there, so gross and COLD! Can you guess what the first thing I did when it was installed? Rolled on it, like a 5 year old. I’m cool.

This whole carpet buying thing was kind of a long process, but OH SO WORTH it. Unfortunately, we still have ugly white tile. Pray for us to save money soon for wood floors 🙂

They love it, too.

I didn’t actually buy this, I WON it from a contest that Michelle Woo had on her blog. The lovely frame was from a company that her sister started, Name That Frame. I got to pick what it said and obviously I gave her some cheesy word 😉

Are those not the cutest little winter birdies you’ve ever seen? (have you even ever SEEN winter birdies? Probably not!). I got them at a little gift shop at Shaver Lake.

I also got these adorable salt and pepper shakers at the same place as my winter birds 🙂 CUTE.

The best shoes, ever. I had a brown pair of these Sanuk’s, but they may or may not have got covered with an explosion of purple nail polish when we went to Michigan.

This big, yellow, warm scarf from Target. I’m kind of obsessed with this color lately, not gonna lie. And I just LOVE this scarf. I’m one of those people that wears something new that I buy basically all. the. time.

I bought this headband from an Etsy shop a bit ago. Seriously so cute. Of course, I do make my own headbands but I just loved this fabric/color combo. Plus, Etsy seller love ftw. I also bought this yellow one. I’m such a sucker for cute hair things.

Oh and just for good measure, a picture of the lovely Sadie McWhinerson.

Hope you all are having a lovely winter! 🙂 Stay tuned for more posts, I promiseeeeeeeee!!!

Because I have nothing more exciting to talk about

A series of random little conversation’s between Chris and I over this past weekend:

Whilst at Target…

Me: Ohhh I need new mascara!

Chris: That stuff you put around your eyes?

Me: No, that’s eye-LINER…get it..it LINES your EYES.

Talking about the dog…

Chris: Tundra has pretty mascara around her eyes.

Me: Um, it would be called EYELINER. Her eyes, they are lined.

i may or may not have uploaded this picture saying “not eyeliner”…apparently I don’t even know what eyeliner is!

Getting ready in the AM…

Me: (Putting on mascara)

Chris: (looking at me) Put some of that eyeliner on my lashes!

Me: Dude. It’s MASCARA!

/punch

I’m not even kidding. this all took place over the span of two days.

A Doggie Love Story

One of the first things we wanted to do when we bought our house was fix our fence that was falling over so we could have a dog. Chris had always talked about wanting a Siberian Husky, but we definitely wanted to adopt – it’s the right thing to do and hey, it’s a lot cheaper! I wanted an Australian Shepherd. Anyways, We kept our eyes on the various local shelter’s websites (they post pictures of animals as they get them in). One day we happend to see TWO huskies at the kill shelter (sadface), so we rushed down there right after work to take a look.

We walked down the first building of dogs, looking for those two dogs we’d seen online. We saw the first one, a black and white husky that was basically going nuts-o, jumping up and down on the chain link fence and barking. Poor thing. Then we walked down a ways and found the second, a sweet red/white husky with one blue and one brown eye – she was in a cage with 3 other dogs who were going nuts, but she was sitting calmly in the back. Both of the dogs had just arrived to the shelter, so they had a TWO WEEK waiting period before they could even be adoptable. If they were not claimed by their owners, they would have health and behavioral test done to make sure they were adoptable. So, we put our names down on a “waiting list” for each dog. Honestly, I didn’t get my hopes up…I definitely though they would be claimed.

About a week passed and I receive a call that the red/white husky was adoptable, and that if we wanted her, we could take her. Um, YES! But, they had to do her behavioral test and make sure she was fixed, or have her fixed..it would be a few days. Of course it was more than a few days…it’s always LONGER!!! Finally, finally, we were able to get her.

Chris picked her up after work one day, and when I got home they were sitting in the yard waiting for us. That was a year ago, today!

Tundra has pretty much been the greatest dog (doesn’t everyone say that about their dogs?). She is ridiculously sweet, LOVES to be pet constantly, gives you kisses ALL THE TIME, and she is so smart! I was scared of the breed because of the time I knew they would need and the habits they can have. Now I absolutely want ANOTHER one…as soon as we get a bigger yard :p

She lovess-errr-tolerates, her lil’ sis!

Your Cliche Happy Halloween Dog Pictures

We’re now one of those people.

Happy Halloween! Love Sadie, the A.D.D. bumble bee.

Love my nuts! (LOOK at the pitiful face!!!)

The only way to get them to sit still when there is a camera out: whipped cream! (As you can see, Sadie already ripped the bee antennas off…_