Long time no post

Wow I haven't made a post in over a month. Slacking. There are loads of things I should have been posting about as a lot has been going on what with the excitement of Christmas coming up and what have you.

The biggest thing that has happened is that we have a new addition to the family. Her name is Marie and here is a picture of her:

She is an adorable little tabby and she is four months old. It hasn't been smooth sailing though. Kodak isn't exactly thrilled at having his turf invaded so for now they are separated and we have slowly been introducing them. There is an improvement in his behavior towards her but it is going to take a while as he is naturally curious and wants to jump up and investigate. I would die if he bit her head off or something so we won't be leaving them alone together. I just want them to be able to tolerate each other because I already love her.

P.s. Don't you just love the do it yourself catbox. I'm sure she will get her own bed but for now she is loving the box.

A weekend full of adventure

This weekend was Halloween and I wanted to go to the Halloween thing they were doing downtown but I knew my husband didn't really want to so in the end we went to the drive in to watch The Vampire's Assistant and Zombieland. Both movies were good but I really enjoyed Zombieland. It was really funny and I will probably watch it again when it comes out on DVD.

Earlier in the day I thought it would be a great idea to make these little Halloween brownie things on the Betty Crocker website. They were shown as being easy to make. hahaha mine were not really anything like the ones on the website.
I took some pictures to send to my mother and she said she laughed so much she nearly wet herself. Here are my Halloween treats tricks.

my little ghosts

my spooky spiders

Here is a picture of how they should have looked and in case anyone wants to attempt to better mine then the recipe is at the Betty Crocker website. Click here for the official recipe.

So I think that pretty much wraps up Saturday.

Since we had so much fun at the beach the week before we decided to go again and to bring a picnic so we could make a whole day of it.

We had such a lovely morning and afternoon. The dog was having fun trying to catch birds and we had a nice picnic. I was collecting seashells as I want to decorate a picture frame with some.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from that day:

i think this one looks like a dinosaur

just a little bit of driftwood

one of many jellyfish we saw

So the day was getting on and we were getting a lot of sun so we decided to take a detour on the way home and perhaps go to another beach. We ended up going to a beach just a little way down the road and that is where our day took a turn for the worse.

First off, we stopped the car, jumped out to grab a lovely conch shell that was still intact. It looked as though there was something still in it so we bagged it and put it in the back of the truck. Then we drove down further and stopped again. I jumped out looking for shells and saw of all things....a dead baby shark! How I wish I had taken a picture of it but unfortunately I couldn't because as my husband was calling to tell me, our truck had a very very very flat tire. We had driven over some branches and pop went our tire.

It really wasn't funny because we were right on the sand and couldn't go back the way we came as we had had to drive over branches and water. So, off I went with the dog in the other direction to try and find an exit. I walked for ages and miraculously found a secret exit that I didn't notice until we walked past it.

The dog and I walked back and I felt so sorry for him because he has never had that much exercise in his life. I thought he was going to pass out. It was funny because he kept licking water up and I didn't have the heart to tell him that salt water wasn't going to help his thirst much.

Anyway, we got back to the truck with the good news about the exit but it was no good. It was too far for our truck to make it as my husband had tried to move the truck and nearly got it stuck in the sand. He got the jack out and tried to change the tire but obviously it kept sinking in the sand.

We were about to call a recovery company (which would have been a nightmare trying to explain where we were) when a good Samaritan stopped and went off to try and find some flat wood for us to use. Luckily he found some and it worked!!!

We had caught the sun and were exhausted by this time but we were in goodish spirits as we didn't have to spend the night on the beach.

Throughout all this drama my husband decided to take a picture of the flat and here it is:

Now I really wish I had taken a picture of the baby shark but at the time I thought it would have been in bad taste to be off taking pictures whilst we were stranded.

We got home later and we all had aching bones. The dog pretty much went into a coma for the next day or so.

I was gathering all my shells together and as I was admiring my beautiful conch shell it started to move. It was still alive! I felt bad and although if I had realized it was alive at the beach I would have put it back, since we had it at home and people do eat these things we decided to cook it and remove the stuff inside. Oh god it was traumatic. Never again. It was scary and gross but my shell is lovely and when I get it all polished up I will post a picture of it.

For the time being our trips to the beach are off but I'm hoping this won't be forever as we have had a really nice time there this past two weeks.

Concert and a trip to the beach

Not this weekend just gone but the one before I got to go see my favorite band, Alice in Chains. They were playing this all day concert thing sponsered by our local radio station. We had no interest in seeing most of the other bands so we went in the evening.

The place was full of youngsters and I felt a bit old particularly when htis couple who had to be in their forties walked pasted us and the man said....'oh look those people are the first people I have seen who are our age'. I'm a whole decade younger than that! So, a couple of days later I got rid of my grey hairs and now it is blue black. Hopefully I have shaved a few years off with the new hair color.

Puddle of Mudd came on whilst we were waiting for AiC and oh my god they were awful. I don't know whether their singer was wasted or what but he sounded bad. He was so bad I was cringing for him. The crowd was loving it although I think vast amounts of alcohol may have helped with that.

AiC were great. It was the first time I had seen them perform outside and whilst I still prefer to see them indoors in a smaller venue it was a good show and they played quite a few new songs although I would have liked to have heard Your Decision live. Maybe next time.

On the Sunday we went for a drive down to the beach. It was a lot of fun. The weather was nice and the beach was pretty deserted. I love being near water so it was a lovely day for me.

We found some animal skulls and after doing some investigating it turns out one of them was a skull from a wild boar. it had a full set of teeth and a tusk. Very bizarre.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the beach that day:

an egret

the beach

a weird fish head. so gross we had to take it's picture
egret flying away
the dunes
skull
clouds
beach
beach
my lovely puppy...and half my husbandif you look closely you will see a little crab

Dogsitting

This weekend we were looking after two little dogs. One is only a teeny tiny baby and he is so cute. He is tinier than the toys that my dog has. Not that my dog actually plays with his toys. Here is the cute puppy: It was fun to have them around but they woke me up on Sunday morning at 7am. I thought they were fighting but they may have been playing. My big dog got very jealous of the attention the other dogs were getting and he was behaving like a spoilt only child...which he is. Anyway he was very happy when the little dogs went home and he got us all to himnself again.
Here is my dog hiding:

My new vacuum

This is my new vacuum. It is a Bissell PowerForce Bagless Vacuum. The other one we have is awful. It is a million years old and it smells so I would rather not use it than stink the place up. Basically, it has long ago had it's day.
This new one is great. I wasn't expecting miracles because it was under $50 but oh my god it is amazing. We have a husky who is shedding big time right now and I was hoping it would at least pick up some of the dog hair. What I wasn't expecting was for it to fill up after I had just done the living room. I was actually amazed the suction was that good. The living room is the worst room for dog hair definitely and because I hate the other vacuum I have been cleaning it up with the dog glove which is good but means I have to get down on my hands and knees. Not being a fan of housework you can understand how much I don't enjoy doing that job.

I realize now that I am old. Why else would I be this excited over a vacuum. It's sad really but I love my new vacuum.

My almost runaway dog

We had a close call today. My dog likes to try to escape. It is what he does. He wants to break free into the great wide open. He is a totally pampered pooch though so I don't think he realises he hasn't got the wherewithal to survive without us. He is a really well behaved dog when he is inside but the moment he goes outdoors it is like another dog. He won't do anything other than what he wants to do hence the fact that he only ever gets off his leash at the dog park. Around here he just wouldn't come back if he was called. I'm really good about keeping a tight hold on his leash especially because he is a husky and therefore technically a "pulling" type dog but today ooooh it was a close one. I think he had thought out this elaborate escape plan and thought today was the day to give it a try. I had my hands full of mail and two (yes TWO) full poop bags and we were crossing the road when he suddenly pulled away. My hold on the leash was quite lax as he was totally faking being hot and pooped out (haha get it?). I'm not sure whether he realised he had gotten away or not but he started picking up his pace so I am thinking yes. You should have seen me move. I was good. I didn't want to run at him because then he would know he was free so I walked really fast behind him and then pounced. Yes, I really did pounce and stood on the end of his lease. It was so funny. He tried to make a run for it but couldn't. Hahahaha puppy you couldn't get away.

A couple of weeks ago there was a big dead dog by the side of the freeway and my husband jokingly suggested that we take our dog to show him what happens when naughty doggies run away. It was mildly amusing at the time but now I'm thinking we should have done it.