The bathroom is done!!!

before






















after

Haircuts

Here are the girls this morning:













Here are the girls this afternoon:

no survivor update

no survivor this week!!! i'm shocked...i wonder if because so many people have quit or had to leave that dont have enough episodes now. so they took a week off. oh well i watched basketball last night anyways. i just love march madness even though my team didnt make it this year. its always fun to do the brackets. alot of my teams are out already though. i think i only have 2 of the final 4 left. I think ryan wins every year out of him and i. next year...

this will be a nice quiet weekend, our last one until mid may. we have trips planned for most weekends of april and beginning of may. we are going to go see stop-loss tomorrow night i think. other than that just finishing up. we have to paint one more thing in the bathroom and then you can see pictures of it. its soooo nice now.

i forgot what a 'normal' vet visit is like. I have been going to a vet in portville for the last 2-3 years where you dont need a 'wellness' visit to get the annual shots. its like a lunch line to get shots on certain nights. just go in with 1-3 of your dogs and he gives them the shots they need, barely even noticing the dog- and poof you are done. cost is very low like $40 maybe. well we took linus to the vet last night to get all her shots and they want a poop sample, bloodwork for heartworms (which we should have been doing but anyways), her shots, and a checkup. $160!!! and we have 2 more dogs to take... i'm going to have take a loan out for our pet care.

work/rest weekend

we were suppose to tackle alot of our house projects this weekend- mainly the bathroom and the basement, maybe the garage if we got to it. but ryan came down with a terrible cold thursday so we rested alot too. i was actually more motivated than him which is very unusual. but the abthroom just needs a coat of paint and it is done. I cant wait to have a toliet paper holder again. the basement was half organized. i think i unpacked 15 boxes though. so i feel pretty accomplished.
i'll post pics of the bathroom once its done but here is the basement - the part i organized atleast.















the weather has been beautiful here- today is sunny and i dare say warm. the mud in the backyard is almost dry too.

Survivor Update #7

Surprisingly survivor was on wednesday night...making today feel more and more like a friday. poor carrie- both her people are gone not from tribal council but by their own accord or injuries. i'm glad they voted tracy and not ozzy. i wonder if ami and tracy could have pulled off the blindside ozzy. this might have been their only chance... i dont see erik actually voting for him though. other than that it was a pretty boring episode. they didnt even show the two who were on exile island.


Anna - James & Mary
Becky - Ami & Chet
Carrie - Jonathan & Kathleen
Dad - Parvarti & Erik
Emily - Johnny Fairplay & Joel
Hope - Amanda & Tracy
Luanne - Ozzy & Jason
Mom - Eliza & Alexis
Nicole - Yau-man & Natalie
Ryan - Cirie & Mikey B

American Idol

Is anyone watching american idol this season?

i find that david archuleta is creepy and annoying...does anyone else? i dont understand why the judges LOVE him. i cant even watch the tv when he sings anymore because of that annoying thing he does when he licks his lip every 2 seconds. i told ryan last night that if he makes it to the top 10 i wouldnt go see the tour.

oooh...he is awful.

just had to see if anyone else feels the same way...ryan doesnt get it

short week

I have a short week this week- friday off. i dont think i have had good friday off before. not too much planned except for some house projects to be completed. ryans parents are coming to help too. and for easter. Atleast our guest rooms in the house havent been wasted :) when we bought the house i was thinking that it was way too big (well i still do) and that we were going to have all this room and no one would actually come visit us. but last weekend we had a bunch of people stay for st pattys day, two weeks before that my friends came to visit and now this weekend too.

here are the pics from last weekend.

St Pattys Day was fun. It sucked pretty bad not being able to have a beer though...or 15 of them like i usually do :) i guess i should look at the bright side of not having a hangover the next day. i was hoping someone would have a hangover so i could laugh at them...but i think i am the only one who gets the terrible terrible hangover.

Survivor Update #6

Finally got rid of him...I was very glad to see Chet go. what a wuss-bag though. I wish they had shown us him telling his team not to vote for Ozzy but to vote him off instead. I also liked how Jonathan had already won the million dollars in his head- but because of his injury he wouldnt be able to finish the game. hello does he know there are still 13 people in the game?? its not like he was down to the final 4 and had to leave the game. i almost thought he was going to stay in even though he could die. Its funny that James is stuck with all the girls.


Anna - James & Mary
Becky - Ami & Chet
Carrie - Jonathan & Kathleen
Dad - Parvarti & Erik
Emily - Johnny Fairplay & Joel
Hope - Amanda & Tracy
Luanne - Ozzy & Jason
Mom - Eliza & Alexis
Nicole - Yau-man & Natalie
Ryan - Cirie & Mikey B

another trip

well i am in tennessee again this week. i'm hoping this will be the last time before the baby is born. no issues getting to tn, and hopefully there will be no natural disasters either. i slept the whole flight- i'm afraid i might have been snoring :) but oh well. i have been snoring alot lately. i think its a pregnancy thing. atleast ryan hopes so....
















here are some pictures from the weekend we went to the st patricks day parade and we got alot of rain saturday.

Survivor Update #5

This might be a record that after only 5 episodes someone is out....actually i think carrie once might have had the first and second person voted out. but it still sucks. i was torn too- because i can not stand Joel or Chet so I wanted either one of them to go- more so chet since i had Joel but oh well. i like how a few people wrote down "truck" instead of Joel. Chet is so unbelievably useless. He can talk to chickens though. And the fans camp was such a joke- it was funny how impressed they were with the favorites- like it takes going out on survivor one time to know not to put your fire pit in the oceans tide. helllloooooo....

Anna - James & Mary
Becky - Ami & Chet
Carrie - Jonathan & Kathleen
Dad - Parvarti & Erik
Emily - Johnny Fairplay & Joel
Hope - Amanda & Tracy
Luanne - Ozzy & Jason
Mom - Eliza & Alexis
Nicole - Yau-man & Natalie
Ryan - Cirie & Mikey B

tiramusi

this weekend some of my college friends that use to live in the Philadelphia area came to visit...it proved to be very knowledgeable for us, they showed us a new cool town we need to go to and they showed us the much needed shortcut into the city to avoid the always trafficy highway. we went to dinner at maggianos and had family style. it was soooo yummy. ryan had never been and was thoroughly impressed. i think we came home with over 10 boxes of food. granted some boxes had 2 raviolis in it, but still. i even had some tiramusi left over. so i left the house with the intentions of going to dinner and coming home. well my friends were going into philly to meet up with some of their old friends at a bar. and ryan couldn't say no to that, even though before we left for dinner he was saying how he could just sit on the couch the rest of the day... so we went to a bar and we got there pretty early- since both me and my friends wife are in 'non-drinking' conditions, we got to slurp down water with lemon- very fun :) the bar was nice but a few hours after we got there i started to get uncomfortable because i was dressed in my running sneakers, jeans, and a long sleeve t-shirt and this bar was turning into quite the trendy place. i dont think besides me anyone was wearing less than 3" heels and leaning more toward the hooker scale than the pregnant lady scale. i felt so out of place every time i had to go to the bathroom. luckily my friends had stayed up until 3 am the night before and were tired too and wanted to go home so we didnt stay too late. but on our way out i saw that the bar had put up ropes and people were waiting to get into this bar- they must have been aghast when they saw me come out and they were waiting in the freezing cold to get in! ha ha ha

Survivor Update #4

Did anyone else feel bad for the fans team? they were absolutly killed this week in both challenges. i wonder if thats why they are going to mix the teams up or if it was planned all along. I really think ozzy has gills too-- either they dont show him come up for air or he just doesnt... i'm so glad he got the idol- because he definately has a target on his back.


Anna - James & Mary
Becky - Ami & Chet
Carrie - Jonathan & Kathleen
Dad - Parvarti & Erik
Emily - Johnny Fairplay & Joel
Hope - Amanda & Tracy
Luanne - Ozzy & Jason
Mom - Eliza & Alexis
Nicole - Yau-man & Natalie
Ryan - Cirie & Mikey B

301st post

Wow- my last post was my 300th post! thats crazy. i wonder what % of those posts are survivor results :)

this weekend we went to portville to see the new baby- here are LOTS of pics of her and the trip, but mostly teagan.

The drive up was horrible- we hit a snow storm in scranton and had to drive about 35mph for a hour- we saw lots of cars in the ditches, and alot of them turned around in the road. i wonder how fast they were driving to manage that.... once we hit the NYS border though the road were a million times better. they actually plow and salt i guess. we made it though...just took longer.

We went and saw the baby- last wednesday when the baby was born i had said to ryan "oh we have to wait 4 more months until we get to see our baby..." and after this trip I think I am going to need those 4 months to prepare... So much to learn. luckily sarah and jr are keeping a little "tip" list for us. and they will be able to answer alot of questions since it will be so new to them. Plus it seems that EVERYONE has advice to give the new parents...so i dont think we will be lacking in that :) And i think i will take every baby class they offer at the hospital.

Survivor Update #3

I was so upset they voted off Yau...its very funny though how much more open the favorites are this time about who they are voting off. and i think they should have named this veterns vs fans or something, because name 1 person who considers Jonathan or Eliza a "favorite"? I can not stand Jonathan. my favorite line so far has been cirie talking about amanda and ozzys ozzlets. :)

Anna - James & Mary
Becky - Ami & Chet
Carrie - Jonathan & Kathleen
Dad - Parvarti & Erik
Emily - Johnny Fairplay & Joel
Hope - Amanda & Tracy
Luanne - Ozzy & Jason
Mom - Eliza & Alexis
Nicole - Yau-man & Natalie
Ryan - Cirie & Mikey B

baby tigers and fondue

yesterday ryan and i went to a pet expo to see some baby tigers and look at pet stuff. i was alittle disappointed in the baby tigers. i was picturing a little play area with the tigers running around and maybe even we'd be able to pet them. instead it was a cage inside a roped off area with a dog cage inside. two fat men sitting beside them eating food or reading a paper. looking VERY uninterested in the adorable baby tigers.














we then went to the melting pot for dinner. it was very good- we got there 5 minutes after it opened and were told they were completly sold out for the night but we could eat in the bar if we wanted to. so since the bar was empty we decided that was fine. the food was good, very overpriced though. we paid $92 for the 2 of us for a dinner with no leftovers. we got the fiesta cheese appetizer, the main meal - 1 lobster tail, 4 pieces of filet minon, 4 shrimp, 4 ravioli, 4 pieces of chicken, pork and beef tenderloin. We also got salad and some veggies. the dessert was amazing- i took pictures of it all. but really they make a killing at the melting pot- you pay for the setting. cause if you think about it they dont have any cooks to pay, they give you raw food to cook yourself. i think if i went back i would go for just appetizers or dessert. The one perk was they forgot to add all the beer ryan drank so that saved us some money :).

Survivor update #2

i just realized that i have the incredible hulk as my only player left...i dont think i am going to win... he is pretty annoying i think. now that my 'fan' is the only person i have left i really want the 'favorites' to lose the immunity challenges. why is it they are only doing one challenge an episode??


Anna - James & Mary
Becky - Ami & Chet
Carrie - Jonathan & Kathleen
Dad - Parvarti & Erik
Emily - Johnny Fairplay & Joel
Hope - Amanda & Tracy
Luanne - Ozzy & Jason
Mom - Eliza & Alexis
Nicole - Yau-man & Natalie
Ryan - Cirie & Mikey B

winter warning

this weekend K&NO came to visit- we had a good time. we did a whirlwind tour of philadelphia on saturday and then went to the king of prussia mall. we went to the cheesesteak sub corner in south philly. and while i was trying to find a parking spot i accidently bumped a car. no damage was done but it was nerve wracking all the same. i dont think i could ever live in a city. we saw the liberty bell, the rocky steps, and betsy ross's house-which we didnt pay to tour but you can. We ate at the cheesecake factory...yummy. i got the keylime cheesecake and it was soooo goood. next time i am going to try the tiramisu cheesecake i think. We went to the sanrio store there- and when we were leaving a store manager ran out and stopped 2 girls who were leaving at turned them around and took them to security. i think they were sticky fingers.... i wanted to go into urban outfitters and see if they had the linus blanket for the baby...but we got to go eat before i could and i forgot to go after we ate. i'll have to look online to see if i can order it.

murphy did not get along well with katie (NO's pug) i dont know if its the breathing/grunting that she does all the time or what but without being provoked murphy would attacked her. it was very stressful. murphy hasnt done that since camping in rollins pond i think.

its so funny today there is a 'winter weather warning' because 1 inch of snow *might* fall.... atleast the ground is frozen right now...

Survivor update #1

thank god becky loves that Johnny FP and wanted to trade with me...
does anyone else think that JFP is the most bizarro person? what was that last night? the funniest part of the episode was when Yau-man pushed JFP into the boat inorder to get the immunity idol. that was the best.

Anna - James & Mary
Becky - Johnny Fairplay & Chet
Carrie - Jonathan & Kathleen
Dad - Parvarti & Erik
Emily - Ami & Joel
Hope - Amanda & Tracy
Luanne - Ozzy & Jason
Mom - Eliza & Alexis
Nicole - Yau-man & Natalie
Ryan - Cirie & Mikey B

wreckage hunt

well in my efforts last night to find some good damage like the ones i have been seeing on the news i only saw one area with some apparent damage. i did alot of double takes with houses that i thought could be but there was actually nothing wrong- it was their normal house/yard. the one area that did have damage was crazy because only one house in the middle of a bunch of them had damage. all of the sudden there was metal scraps and pieces of trash (i assume the house) strung out along the road- a car that had looked like it was droppped in the middle of a field after hitting a bunch of things. but just that one house was damaged. i also found out today that the town i was staying in was in the predicted path of the tornado- only i was sleeping when that happened so i didnt know. luckily the weather people were wrong...

back to the safety of PA today...

tornados

Well i am in tennessee again this week for work- and i had no flying adventerous (but i still need to fly home) but last night there were tornados that went by just to the north of where i am staying. I woke up size to golf ball hail hitting the roof at the hotel. scared me a bit- we never lost power or anything though so that was nice. But right to the north of me lost power, tornado came through destroying houses, killing people, and started a fire at a natural gas plant. People are saying it looks like a war zone. I'm going to try and find some wreckage after work. (is that awful?) i do feel bad for these people but i want to see some of it. i dont think i have ever seen the wreckage from a tornado.