Cool Hand Luke

I forgot to mention that I read over the weekend that Paul Newman died. He seemed like such a great man, and obviously, an amazing actor and philanthropist. And apparently, a romantic! He was married to his wife, Joanne Woodward, for 50 years and when people would ask him about how his marriage survived in Hollywood, he would say, "Why would I go out for hamburger when I have steak at home?" Even a vegetarian can appreciate that statement! :-)


I've never seen Cool Hand Luke, so I think Joe and I are going to rent it this week. And maybe The Hustler. Paul Newman truly lived his life to the end, and I respect and admire that.

Reunion

As I mentioned before, my good friend Heidi was relocated to Washington D.C. for a couple months, starting last week. We had dinner with her last night, and it was so nice to see a familiar face!

We were going to meet her in D.C. and see some sights, but it was pouring down rain last night, so we decided to meet her at her place for dinner. Wow, did she get set up in a nice condo! It was fully furnished with NICE furniture, new stainless steel appliances, jacuzzi bath, the works! And it's on the 16th floor, so it's got a great view, too!

Her bedroom was especially beautiful and included a flatscreen TV!

Well, I guess they should have set her up someplace nice, after uprooting her for two months! Anyway, we had a wonderful dinner prepared by Heidi (she is SUCH the hostess!) and shared a bottle of wine while we got caught up with each other. 

We did see one thing that was pretty crazy. As we were walking to her place from the metro, we saw a fight between this couple. Well, right when we got past them, the girl hauled off and smacked the guy on the face so hard that the sound of it echoed! He stormed off in the other direction, toward us (and a bar) and when he walked past us, we saw the outline of that girl's hand on his neck. Pretty crazy. Oh, and did I mention Heidi lives next door to the U.S. Courthouse? Pretty ballsy to start a fight right there!

Anyway, it was a great night. And so easy to get to Heidi's place with the Metro. I love big cities and their public transportation! It's just too bad we have to drive to the nearest Metro station... 

Fun at the Farm Part II

So, I know those videos don't really show much, they are pretty pixilated, but I got some good pictures, too. Here they are:

Fun at the Farm

First of all, let me wish Ava's very best cat friend a happy birthday! Dugan, who still lives in the Seattle area, turned 1 yesterday! Ava was sad she couldn't go to his party. :-)

We took the dogs to another playdate at the Farm yesterday. They had so much fun! They are really loving this place, with it's agility course. We also tried the lure coursing section this time. I wasn't really interested in it, but everyone else was trying it, so we joined them.

Well, once again, the dogs surprised us. They absolutely loved it! Jack especially. He was instantly excited when he saw the lure. He's got a bit of a squirrel obsession and is always pissed when we don't let him chase them around the apartment complex, so this was a way for him to get that fantasy fulfilled! haha.

So, what they do is attach a fluffy bag to this pulley and race it around this field and the dogs are supposed to chase it. It's like those greyhound races you've seen... except this is just in someone's backyard and for us, just for another way to get them exercised.

Ava also loved it and went the whole way around the field chasing this thing. When she was done, the whole group tried to convince me to race her because she took to it so well and was so good at it. I'm glad she had fun with it, but I will NEVER race her.

They also had fun going around the agility course. Here are a couple videos. They are pretty pixilated and hard to really see, but I'm experimenting, so I thought I'd post them anyway. And in the one of Jack lure coursing, you can only see Jack for a couple seconds, and then he's GONE, but you get the general idea. Pictures in the next post.

Crazy Ava Picture

Joe was trying to take a picture of Ava the other night and she took off running, and this is what the result was. Crazy, huh?

Bad Dog

So, Joe went home for lunch yesterday like he always does, but this time he came home to a mess! Once again, little Miss Ava must have jumped up onto the counter and knocked off a casserole dish that was sitting up there. It SHATTERED all over the kitchen floor. Ava got little cuts on both her back paws. There was a little blood, but by the time Joe got there, she wasn't bleeding anymore and had licked them clean.

That casserole dish was huge and probably weighed almost as much as her! Thank goodness it didn't hit her! On the one hand, I'm sorry the poor girl hurt herself, but on the other, what a BAD DOG!! Little jumpy thing thinks she can do whatever she wants! Okay, okay, she can, but still... bad dog.

I guess we have officially learned our lesson about leaving dirty dishes on the counter. We're going to have to actually not be lazy and do the dishes after we've eaten. What a crock.

In other news, Jack got a gift yesterday. After him having so much fun playing with the soccer balls at the dog park, we decided he needed his own! He LOVES it!




And Joe had his first "public speaking" event today. A few weeks ago, he joined the Chamber of Commerce and joined the Membership Committee. They had a meeting today and he had to stand up in front of 50 people and give a 15-20 second infomercial about his company. Anyone who knows Joe will know that even though it was only 15-20 seconds, it was still his personal nightmare. But he got through it, did a great job, and even ended up finally meeting some fellow golfers! I'll probably never see him now.... :-)

I also found out that my good friend Heidi was relocated to Washington D.C. for a couple months, starting today! So, I'll get to hang out with her while she is here, which I'm VERY excited about! I keep joking that I move over here, and all my friends follow! (Stuart will be here October 1st).

That's it! Hope everyone is having a great week!

Another week gone

I can't believe another week has gone by. These weeks are flying by, with all the new things we're doing and the new people we're meeting.

Friday night we did our first happy hour, at this cool sports bar near our apartment. We're really trying to save money, so we haven't been going out at all, but we decided to splurge this weekend. It was a great place. I'm sure we'll be going back.

The rest of the weekend, Joe spent working. On Saturday, he did an event at a Sleep Country store in Frederick. He offered free massage to the customers who came in looking at beds. Those people who work there actually get to come to work in pajamas and lay on beds all day. Maybe I should have looked into that....

The store was in a mall, so I went with Joe and did some shopping while I was there.

On Sunday, Joe hosted a booth at a local festival. It was called "Old Town Days" and it was actually a pretty cool event. I came and hung out for the last couple hours and had a great time. The Gin Blossoms were playing, so I listened to them for a bit. I guess the Rembrandts played earlier, but I missed them. There was a huge crowd listening to the band. Here are some pics:



Joe was super busy during the fair. He had a lot of people interested in chiropractic and I guess two people have already scheduled appointments. So, his hard work is paying off. Here is Joe at his booth:



Right after the fair on Sunday, we went out to dinner with one of the girls I work with and her boyfriend. They are a really nice couple - she's a vegetarian and he isn't, so it's a good couple for us to hang out with. :-)

Her boyfriend, Trey, is the drummer of a death metal band, and I guess they are pretty well-known. Of course, I don't know them because I don't listen to that music, but they tour all over the country, Europe, Australia - all over the world! His band has opened for Kiss, Slayer, Iron Maiden, and others. He has a tour bus and groupies and everything. He was telling us all sorts of stories about being on tour. Are you ready for the name of the band? Dying Fetus. Yes, that is the name of his band.

He is playing a show in Maryland and said he could get us on the guest list. Joe and I were pretty pumped at the opportunity to be "on the list" for once in our lives, but I'm not sure we would fit in with that crowd. :-) We looked up their music online.... and I'm pretty sure they conjure Satan at one point.

Anyway, so that was our weekend. Hope everyone is doing well back home. Miss you!!

What a Weekend!

First, I want to with Roxy a happy birthday today!! That is Joe's parents' dog (Jackson's... um... aunt? haha). She turns two today!

Well, Joe made it home safe and sound at about 8:30 p.m. Saturday night. He was exhausted from driving and the stress of the test, but said he felt good about how the test went. He will find out his scores in about 4 weeks or so.

Sunday we took the Metro into Pentagon City (Virginia) to check out an apartment that Stuart is planning to rent. Stuart will be here on October 1st and wanted to make sure this guy he will be subletting from was on the up-and-up before signing the paperwork. We gave him the go-ahead. :-)

We came back to the apartment and had a nice evening, cooking dinner and watching a movie (Baby Mama - got horrible reviews but I thought it was hilarious!). Right before bed I noticed something wrong with Ava's eye. It was all swollen! Of course, I freaked out, and started researching emergency vets online. By the time I found one online, Ava's eye had gotten worse, so I made Joe get out of bed and drive us 20 miles to the ER hospital.

I, of course, was panicked the whole way. Well, you can imagine my embarrassment when we got to the vet and noticed that the swelling had completely disappeared! I mean, I was completely relieved and happy, but so embarrassed! We went in anyway and the doctor came out, looked at Ava's face, and asked me, "So, which one was the swollen one?" He said he could see me and charge me $80 or I could just go home and keep an eye on it (since it was no longer an emergency). We went home.

I swear, that dog will be the death of me. I don't know if you can see anything in this photo we took. I was trying to hold her still so we could take a photo of it, and she was struggling, so it's not a very good one.

So, that was our weekend.

Home Alone

Well, Joe left for Seneca Falls, New York today. He has his third set of board exams tomorrow morning at 7:15 a.m. He's been studying for the last two weeks. He feels pretty confident about it, but still pretty nervous. Plus, it's a 7-hour drive to Seneca Falls from here, so he was NOT excited about the drive. Jackson has tried helping Joe study many times this week.


Since Joe's gone, I will spend my first night alone in the apartment. What to do? I feel obligated to do something girlie, like watch "The Notebook" and eat bonbons. But I'll probably just end up playing VirusBuster on the Wii like every other night. :-)

Another week down at work. We had a "Marketing Team Lunch" today at Red Robin. It's so fun to be in a work environment that does morale-boosting things like that. The company is also planning a company picnic in October. Fun! Still really liking it at work. As the weeks go by, things are becoming more comfortable and I'm taking on more responsibility. It's nice.

Joe is still liking his job, too. He's still doing a lot of marketing stuff. Last night he did chair massage at a gym right by our house. He offers free massage to customers, in the hope that if those customers ever need chiropractic care, they will remember him and come to his office. He has a lot of those planned at different businesses in the area through the rest of the year.

Well, not much more to report. I'll leave you will a cute picture of the pups:

New Couch!

We got out new couches today! They are big and shrink our living room quite a bit, but we love them! We had a great experience with the delivery guys, too. They came on time and had them in the apartment and unwrapped in a matter of minutes. I was very impressed. The dogs are already making themselves at home. :-)

We got some of the effects of Hurricane Hannah today. We had to make a run to the grocery store and got completely soaked just dashing from the apartment complex to the car... about 3 yards away. The dogs are feeling a little cooped up today because they haven't been able to go out and play.

Nothing much else going on. Another successful week. Stuart sent us his Wii for safe keeping and we've been playing that... I actually bowled a 205 last night! :-) We also like to play Super Mario Bros and Ava wanted to make sure she wasn't missing anything.

First Day Trip

Since it's Labor Day and we had the day off, Joe and I decided to take a day trip into Washington D.C.! We took the Metro in and it worked out really well. We got off the Metro and were right downtown. We had lunch first, at this really great little restaurant. We had this waiter who was a real kick and he told us that the person sitting at the end of the bar was the President's tailor. He said he's been the tailor for every president since Lyndon Johnson. He was a crazy looking old guy. Joe got a $10 "Bloody Maryland" to start the afternoon off right.

We then went and looked at the White House and walked around all the parks. It's actually really beautiful all around there. Joe kept wondering how long it would take to get shot, tasered or tackled if we hopped the fence. :-)

Then we went to the WWII Memorial, which was awesome. It was this circular memorial with a fountain in the middle. On each end was an entrance marked "Pacific" and "Atlantic" and was joined by stones with all 50 states written on them. It said it was constructed when there was "unparalleled national unity". Wish we could say that now.

Then on to the Lincoln memorial. We sat on the steps and looked out on, in my opinion, one of the coolest views in the country - of the pond, the WWII Memorial and the Washington Monument. Very cool. The Lincoln memorial had the Gettysburg Address written inside and it really made an impression on Joe and I. Such a famous speech, such wonderful words.

It was SO hot there today, and we were both kind of fading, so that's as far as we made it for this trip. It only took us about 40 minutes to get down there by Metro, so we're looking forward to taking day trips into the city when we can.

So, we thought it was a perfect day, then we came home to a huge mess in the kitchen. Apparently, Ava jumped up on the counter and knocked down my bowl of morning cereal. It splattered EVERYWHERE. The whole kitchen was covered. I got to spend the next 20 minutes on my hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor. Awesome. The joy of having pups.