What a Weekend!

We have had a very nice, and very productive weekend. Yesterday we washed the cars in the morning with both dogs down at the car wash in our complex. I kept Ayla on a leash most of the time since she has a habit of wanting to go visit the golfers on the course below us, but Mac was free and mostly followed us around. Once the cars were clean we brought the dogs back to the condo, gave everyone treats and put Mac in his pen, then Chris and I headed out to Home Depot. We picked up gardening supplies for the patio, then went to Pet Food Express for pet supplies including a nice new bed for Mac's pen. Once we were back home the dogs, cat, and both of us headed to the patio where Chris gardened and I attempted to keep Mac out of the soil. I had to make a trip out to pick up a few more bags of soil, which blew up in the truck of the car (fun). We got the patio cleaned up just in time to enjoy some BBQ-ing in the late afternoon sun.

Today we did pretty much the same. We had to go back to Home Depot for another planter, and we came back and BBQ'd Gardenburgers for lunch. In the afternoon we piled the dogs in the car and went out for a drive, came back and played ball with Ayla while Mac explored, then BBQ'd dinner. Can you tell we like our grill? Mac even met one of our neighbor's St Bernard today, and was thrilled with the big guy. Oh, and Mac can already sit on command too!

Instead of putting up a ton of single pictures, here's a little slideshow:

And here's a little video of Mac and the Hot Dog:

Adapting

Christopher and I have been talking about adding another dog to our household for a while now, and specifically an English Bulldog. We were taking Ayla to visit her trainer a few months back and she had a bulldog puppy in her class. We talked with the dog's owner a bit and admired the pup, and our trainer insisted we take down the breeder information. The breeder just happened to have a litter that would be ready to go about a month later, so after much discussion between Chris and I, and many emails and pictures from the breeder, we decided to go for it.

Little Mac came all the way to us from Alabama. I picked him up at the airport this past Monday and we've all been in love ever since. He is a feisty little monster at times, but it also a sweet little lovebug. He snores, loudly. He grunts, snorts, and groans a lot. And he is completely adorable. Just look at this sleepy face:


He weighed 11 pounds when we brought him home, though he's gained half a pound since then. He's a roly-poly little guy:

And here you can she his stout little body, with plenty of wrinkles:

Ayla is adjusting to Mac. At first she was scared (yes, she is a scardy-cat Doberman - I even have a shirt for her that says "Wanna-Be Doberman"). Now she's interested and plays a little, though she's still a little wary. And she's lacking sleep since there's so much to watch. Come to think of it, we're all a little low on sleep:

We're working on penning/crating him for when we have to be at work. He doesn't like it, but its getting better. Its been interesting comparing Mac to Ayla as a puppy. She was a very quiet puppy, and she's always been so delicate and feminine. Mac is all boy, rough and tumble.

And he has so many wrinkles!!!

Meet Mac!

Say hello to our new addition, Mac. He's a 9-week old English Bulldog. I'll write more tomorrow (hopefully!)

Less Lazy!

So here's a bunch of recent pictures!

Ayla on our hill in February

With pretty wildflowers in the background

Ayla and Chris yesterday

Ayla and me (see how much the flowers grew in half a month!?)Where's Waldo?Here's a funny video of Ayla bounding through the flowers. That's pretty much how she always runs too. She looks like a deer and people point and laugh. :)

Here's a knitted shopping bag I completed last month

Its Knitty's Everlasting Bagstopper and it stretches like no one's business. The bagger at the grocery store was very surprised. I like to think of it as my Mary Poppins bag.

Ayla says, "Always have a sense of humor!"

Lazy

I've been too lazy to upload pictures and post a new entry. I think its because I have quite a few pictures to look through and edit, but I feel like I shouldn't post without pictures... *sigh*

The weather has been gorgeous out here lately, which is good because it was raining cats and dogs before that. Last Friday I took Ayla swimming at Shadow Cliffs. We haven't been in a while due to weather, though Chris took her a couple times when he was off for a week. I did my old routine of picking up a veggie sandwich from Subway, grabbed the dog, and headed out (I ate my Salt & Vinegar chips on the drive, but didn't share with the pup since I figured she wouldn't like them). There was a fire truck in the parking area when we got there, but they didn't say anything to me so I figured it was okay to go in. We walked around a while in the valley and an emergency helicopter circled above us for 15 or 20 minutes, but I didn't see smoke or anything, so we kept going. We got to our beach area and I set up my little picnic. There was a Parks police SUV on the road above us, but still no word. I have no idea what it was all about, but they all went away fairly quickly. Ayla played in the water and chased her ball a lot, so we had a good time.

Saturday morning we went on our hike. Someone please convince my dog to stop eating cow pies! Its funny though, a few of the other hikers really start retching whenever any of the dogs has a little snack. I just don't want kisses from a manure-mouth.

I watched Elizabeth last week, and Elizabeth: The Golden Age on Saturday. They were both great; Cate Blanchett was wonderful in them. I'm disappointed to hear that The Other Boleyn Girl is getting awful reviews from film critics since I've been looking forward to it for a long time now. I'll just wait until I can rent it I suppose.

Sunday we took care of things around the house, played on the hill with Ayla, and relaxed on the patio. I made French onion soup and Portobello Wellingtons for dinner. It was tasty, and I have a good base to add upon for the Wellingtons now. And puff pastry always looks so neat.

Now to get started on those pictures...

(Un)Forgettable

Chris and I have a history of being forgotten in restaurants and other service establishments. We've nearly walked out of a Baker's Square because they forgot us in an empty dining room and never brought us our check. When I go out to lunch with coworkers my meal has come ten to fifteen minutes after everyone else's, on many occasions, and its often wrong or cold when it does arrive. No wonder I'm such a critic of service in restaurants.

The worst case has probably been our first trip to Maui, at the car rental booth. We waited for more than an hour and watched car after car of people leave who had arrived and checked in far after we did. We'd ask about our car, wait some more, ask again, wait some more. Finally a supervisor noticed we'd been hanging around a long time and got a car for us. It all worked out quite well though, since he waived a lot of the fees (and the extra charge for renting a car when you're not 25 or whatever the age limit was) and comped a few of the days, so we ended up paying next to nothing for our rental.

Getting to my point, last night Chris and I went out to dinner at Marie Calendar's since we wanted to pick up Chris' birthday lemon meringue pie there anyway. They told us the wait was 20 minutes so we put our names on the list and took a seat in the waiting area. After a while we noticed that people (specifically, parties of two) who were arriving after us were being seated. I gave the host a quizzical look, he asked for our name, and then said they must have erased us. As we were being lead to our table Chris and I were joking about always being forgotten, but we weren't upset - at this point we mostly expect it and laugh. We had our dinner (its slim pickin's for vegetarians, y'all) and then waited for what must have been fifteen or twenty minutes for our waiter to bring us the check, with our plates on the edge of the table and obviously done with our meal, and him passing by us every minute or so on his way to another table but not noticing us. Finally he comes by and we order our whole pie to go. The manager who seated us must have overheard us joking before because he came over and smilingly told us that though other places may forget us, Marie Calendar's doesn't and dessert was on him. He didn't know that we were still forgotten in his restaurant, but it was awfully nice of him to give us a free pie!

Now, those of you who know I love to bake might be wondering why we were buying a pie. Simply, my lemon meringue pies are terrible. Really, they are inedible. I made two or three great ones the first few times, and after that they always taste like metal. I have no idea why, but its better if I buy them now. Unfortunately its Chris' favorite dessert and what he always wants for his birthday, which makes me sad that I cannot make it for him.

By the way, HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY CHRISTOPHER!!!

He took the entire week off for vacation and has had a lovely time. He and Ayla have done something fun every day, he and Ayla and Gretel have napped in the sunshine every afternoon, and he's generally just enjoyed relaxing without going anywhere and doing whatever he wants. He's requested my Bechamel Lasagne tonight (I'll post the recipe this weekend; its very rich and sooooo tasty) and the Marie Calendar's pie we picked up yesterday.

Here's a picture he sent to me this week on one of his outings with the pup:


I can't wait to get off work and get home today!

Catching up... Again

I was struck down by the plague recently, and it was terrible. I couldn't knit, nor read, nor cook. It was all I could do to lay on the couch under a blanket with a cup of tea and watch reruns of The Golden Girls while my head tried to explode.

Happily I am better now, back to work, and back to my blog. I have some pictures to put up soon. In the meantime, enjoy: