happy birthday ezra!

today is ezra's 2nd birthday, which makes him officially a teen. (great....2 teenagers) today he got to go for a brisk walk in the park and go to the pet store for some new toys (and dog cookies, of course!). this dog is so spoiled he even got a birthday card in the mail from my grandma!

here is the b-day boy with his stash of goodies,
and also wondering why brother william
gets the first sniff
happy birthday big guy!

also....for those of you with animals that have strong jaws, i now only buy products from here. Fat Cat toys are heavy canvas on the outside, reinforcement canvas, stuffing and squeaker on the inside. out of the 3 ez has he has only been able to de-stuff one (and that was thru a 2" hole. it was alligator, if you remember dr.ez). they're seriously the best!

we made it home today from a wonderful vaca. when we got home william was a stinky mess so both he and ezra got much needed baths!

also, i have determined that i'm getting old because i now consider true love when your husband buys you a new dish washer! yahoo!!!

i also put up the tree today! our tree is ultra ghetto but its just big enough for our house and comes 99.5% assembled. how could i not like it? also, since we're doing the martha stuff this year, martha suggests that you make your tree more fantastic by putting lights from the edge of your branch to the inside of the branch.... to add depth, of course. (my mom made us do this growing up and we all hated doing it and so we made beezer do it every year). anyway, the tree comes PRE-light-put-on martha style! it was definately worth the small amount of money we invested at hobby lobby.

may i point out some fantastic features of our tree:
1) lights come pre assembled
2) it is decorated with "fancy" plastic balls. this is for william, who usually knocks them down. (we usually find them all year under chairs). there will be extra this year since he is angry i gave him a bath.
3) our tree skirt is phenomenial. it's an old cloth i once used in college for a toga party (i have no idea why i still have this). sophisticated, i know. nothing but the best for our tree!

whew! this thanksgiving break has been awesome and really relaxing! hard to believe that it's almost over already!
this is what we all feel like....

after this 1 full week of school left, finals and done till mid january! between that time we have cookies to make, a house to paint, christmas..... WOW!

Happy Thanksgiving!

down in u-town this is how we do thanksgiving....
everyone gathers elbow to elbow at this "small" table
for an afternoon of food, convo and coffee.
this year there were 27. YEOW!
(the table was gorgeous when all set but didn't have a chance to get a pic before everyone showed up!)

ezra loves coming to ulysses
he loves cousin amosand is very tolerant of obie one's attacks

a&p take 3

today during our a&p class one of my classmates had yet, another stupid question. after just going over the bone structure of the spinal cord for our last test, we are now going thru cranial and spinal nerves.

class: (looking at Cranial, Thoracic, & Lumbar nerves on slide)
student: what does C stand for?
andi: banging head on table
student next to me: also banging head on table
teacher, who somehow kept a straight face: cranial
*pause*
student: what does L stand for?

oh dear....

chem test!

ez gets pretty peevedwhen william studies for his chemistry test all day

today we celebrated my brother's birthday. since we had a gift card to outback we automatically chose that restaurant for lunch. when you're in my family, it is important to make sure that you leave with plenty of time to make sure you find the destination ok....because it would, after all, be very awful to be late. the outback strangely enough doesnt' open until noon on sundays.

today, like usual, we overestimate the time it will take for us to get there, so this is us... the nerds waiting for it to open. (if you can't tell, everyone in the car is waving, and look how full the parking lot is!)
of course it would be embarrassing to actually be the first customers in. so a couple other families show up and they too, wait in their car. we all look at each other to see who will be the daring group to go in first. it wasn't us.

we also tried the self timer on the camera. it's pretty much the most uncomfortable looking picture in the world

Concert

my parents came up for the Mannheim steamroller concert tonight. actually they came to town, we went shopping, did all my laundry that i've been putting off for the past 2 months, fixed one of the doors and started on the dishwasher. PHEW. too bad they don't live closer!! so tonight we went to the concert. it was a real interesting experience. the music was really good. the graphics, possibly from the 80s with a strong emphasis on mid evil. at any rate, the only pic i got of the entire evening was this, in the parking garage:

why did i take this in the parking garage? well, maybe perhaps because we were in there for 50 minutes talking to my poor sister on the phone for lack of better things to do.... and then, broke open the trail mix for something else to do (eat). i was driving my parent's vehicle and couldn't stop laughing. here's what it was like for 50 min:

mom: oh my gosh! those fumes! i can hardly stand the exhaust smell
beezer (sister, on speaker phone thru radio thing in car): phyllis! bad kitty (talking to cat in apartment)
mom: andi, stop tinkering with that
****** pause*****
mom: andi, put that down! i think i'm getting sick off emmissions....
dad: (trying to figure out why we are going so slow, as in not moving)
andi: this is totally like the seinfield episode..... JJJEEEEERRRRRRR-RRRRYYYY!!! ELAINE!!? KKKRRRRAAAMMMMMMMEEEERRR!!
beezer: you are stupid. that's why i don't watch seinfield
andi: this is SO funny
mom: oooh my stomach does not feel good....
dad: (pulls out trail mix)
mom: wait! we all have to sanitize our hands before we eat this!
andi: are you picking the m&m's out of the bag?
mom: andi! you cannot eat while driving! you need to foucs! (not moving)
andi: we're in park........ this is like when we go camping and i try to pick all the good stuff out of the bag and leave all the peanuts .... digress into camping story
beezer: hey! that's what i do too! phyllis! bad girl!
dad & andi: beezer, why don't you put her in time out again? ha ha ha!
mom: everyone is required to take random handfulls. no picking
dad: (best line of the night...) i've taken 2 random handfulls and only got 1 m&m!
everyone: aaah! we're moving! wait, what's that parking guy trying to signal to us? look.....? uhm....
dad: oooh! turn your lights on
everyone: thanks for entertaining us beezer! bye!

i know, it doesn't sound entertaining but i loved every minute of it!

finally feeling better!
i always forget how miserable it is being sick.
you know it's winter when, once again, the olive oil freezes in the garage

what we've been up to...

andi: has sinus infection, which makes every life activity a complete "blow" (as in, yes, lots of kleenex)

ezra: has sprained knee and is to do nothing for 2 weeks. we might drive each other nuts

william: as you might guess, william can get pretty cranky to live with when he gets cabin fever. (he hates snow). today he pulled a daring venture out. here is trying to take the biggest strides possible to avoid it as much as possible. right now he is still enjoying his box

also, here is another gem from a&p:
we take a quiz about every other class period. after the quiz we go over the answers together.
today, one question was:
which of the following is a part of the CNS?
teacher: what are the two parts?
class: brain and spinal cord!
student (who ALWAYS asks annoying questions, AND i just found out shes in my class next year): so what is the answer to the question?

as in HELLO!? you only have TWO options!!!!!
if you didn't pick one of those then you probably
didn't get it right!

snow day

william is having a productive snow day

whew! busy week!
here's a short recap:

the waskily squirrels finally dug into their winter present. now they won't be able to find it because of the snow, but that's their problem
heating pad, day 14:
heating pad has been retired. i'm thankful that ez is still alive. fortunately the thing shuts itself off after being on so long. also fortunate that ez decided to wait till it was off to chew through the cordafter baking on a whole 15 sq ft of counter space i decided to invest in a lowe's special and get this for our kitchen. it may not look like much to you but MY GOSH! where has this been the last 18 months!? (its even on rollers! how cool is that!?)

i dont know if you remember last year or not but my mom gave me a huge wonderful pumpkin for our porch for fall decoration. after 1 day it was devoured by squirrels.

this year i decided to get a smaller pumpkin to display inside and then give it to the squirrels (as much as i hate feeding them) as a winter present.

ok you waskily wittle squirrels... it's been 3 days...
yo'ure making me angry...
EAT YOUR PUMPKIN!!

another convo from: A&P I

if you've asked me how class is going within the last semester you've probably heard my frustration with my a&p class. not only do the students ask ridiculous but they also get absurd answers from teacher.
my fav 2 examples from the last couple classes:

example 1 (learning about muscles):
student: so when your IT band is tight, is that your vastus lateralis? (which is one of your quad muscles)
teacher (looking at me, while i'm shaking head no): uhm, i don't know on that one. it could be. i'm not sure

ACK! OUTRAGED!

example 2 (learning about tendons and ligaments):
teacher: moving on, the achilles tendon was named after some Greek god who had it as his weak spot..... but i don't know the god it was named after....

PLEASE!
i'm very much looking for the end of the semester to be here so the agony of this class is done! i was so frustrated after lecture i talked my lab partners into skipping half of lab and getting cold stone for my birthday instead. (it didn't take much persuasion). after finishing our ice cream we all agreed it was a good choice.

when i'm gone all day and come back, ezra is a complete momma's boy.
check out this "lean in".
ez gives pit bulls a sissy name!

***note on hamstring: no i havn't been racing this season due to an old running injury. today was the day i was supposed to be cleared but something happened over the last week and i'm starting at square one with a different part of the leg. any chances of end season racing are gone! nuts!***
.....back to making a's and cookies.....

for the 2nd year in a row i've got to spend my birthday with some of my favorite people! it was so fun going out w/ the girls for the evening! bobbi, are you sure double fist-ing is a good idea?

tonight i got to spend time w/ the family, but forgot my camera, of course! thank you for such a great birthday everyone!

happy birthday to me!

today is my birthday! YEAH!!! every year i celebrate two things: #1 is "birthday month" in which anything goes and i'm always right for at least 1 month of the year, and #2 my actual birthday!

dallas took me down to REI this year and got me snow shoes! i'm so excited. of course he doesn't get anything but the very best (which i really dont need) but they are beautiful and even have glitter on them. how could i resist?

when we got home i decided to try at least one on in the yard. i find it pretty funny that i'm wearing flip flops while buying snowshoes, and, probably more pathetic i have one of each trying them on in the yard!

hurry up snow!!!

i have some really great friends who moved to germany. luckily phillip had an army conference in denver this week and we got to go eat with him last night.

kim! I MISS YOU!!!!
we wish you were there too!

i'm going to go out on a limb and say that dallas' rear drop out, sheered in half, means his bike is broken.
just a guess....

heating pad day 3

everyone is finally content with their time share portions

it only took william 1 day to figure out that the heating pad was money. currently william and ez are duking it out. william, the alpha animal is winning and will put up with just about anything to be king of the mountain. he has tolerated ezra chewing on toys all night.
amazing....
i love how annoyed william looks in this picture