A follower and a catcher complemented by the cuddler.

This is Tyson. Or Tyson the Bison. Or Ty. He loves to play catch. He's like a dog, literally. Emerson played catch but not with the gusto that Tyson does. It is probably the most adorable thing I've ever seen. He also appears to guests to be the more antisocial of the two cats but he just absolutely loves Tim and I. He follows us around everywhere and he cries (IE: screams) when he can't find us. Wherever we are, he's lying right beside us. He also plays so hard chasing stuff around that he gets out of breath and can barely stand up straight. It is hilarious. He is definitely the more athletic brother.

This is Calvin. Or Calvin the Kitty. Or Cal. He is the sweetheart. He just loves to be around anybody and loves cuddles. He loves to get licked by the dogs and to put his face in yours to get as close as possible. It is very cute! He doesn't play as hard as Tyson does but he likes to chase around obnoxious things (IE: things that jingle loudly). He explores a lot and generally just seems to be happy go lucky... especially if he has someone to cuddle with.

These boys just turned 1 on March 17 (which was also Berkeley's 6th birthday- unbelievable that I've had her for 6 years!!) It is so funny to me how each animal has their own distinct personality and quirks. I love them all so much!

How I know.

It is the end of the 5th day of a battle with the flu. The second battle of the year and the one thought that might reign over me. Tim and I both have missed days of productivity because we have been crippled with fevers over 101 degrees and aches that make us feel like we are 101 years old.

Today we were feeling slightly better. Sleeping an average of 15 hours a day for the past 5 days coupled with a slight addition to pain/fever reducers (aka Tylenol) has kind of boosted our bodies back into semi-functioning. We have actually regained our appetites and tonight we decided to actually make food. We were also starting to get slightly bored... another sign that maybe we see the light at the end of the tunnel. We thought about going outside but wait. Oh, we can't. Why? It's SNOWING. ARE.YOU.KIDDING.ME?! Last Saturday it was 82 degrees and now it is snowing. I think, just maybe, I could possibly be back in the midwest without knowing it.

Anyway, we decided to make burgers tonight and it was a royal disaster. We were going to make sweet potato fries to go with the burgers but those turned into a sloppy orange mush. It didn't really matter because we probably still weren't hungry enough to eat them anyway. The burgers were done long before we decided to chuck the fries and as we were putting mayonnaise on their rubbery goodness (as a result of getting overdone), I look up from what I was doing to see Tim bellowing over me with mayonnaise on a knife over my head. Uh oh. I grab the jar as my defense.

And then I have a smear on my nose. Damn. Score one Tim. I then chase him with the jar and get some on his face. Yes. Nicely done!! We are then running around the island in the kitchen full on in our mayonnaise war when it happens. I am held down by Tim with the knife of mayonnaise coming straight for my hair and screaming about how I have bad mayonnaise/hair related memories.

Flashback: when I was about 12 years old, my mom read some health article about how mayonnaise and the egg whites in mayonnaise is good for your hair. Well, my mom only used to buy miracle whip. Um, has anyone ever SMELLED miracle whip? In my 12 year old innocence, on a HOT summer day I allowed my mom to put miracle whip all over my hair. Though, I'll have to ask her why she thought that her 12 year old daughter's hair was in such bad shape to need this mayonnaise treatment... I know she had good intentions but the outcome? Horrible. I smelled like miracle whip for WEEKS. And not just smelled. Reeked. I do have to say though, my hair was incredibly soft.

To the present.... I am currently getting globbed by big knife fulls of mayonnaise. In my hair. On my face. On my clothes. I then, intelligent person that I am, decide to jump so that I can get mayonnaise in his hair. He was already in the process of washing it off his face though so in the meantime, he is protecting himself by the spray sink water. I got drenched.

I'm not exactly sure who won this impromptu war although by the end we were both dying laughing and hacking so much that it would have been amusing for anyone to watch. And here is how the story ends. At the end of a horrible sick week, on the verge of a disaster dinner, with mayonnaise in my hair, my shirt soaking wet, hacking up both my lungs, and looking at the snow falling outside on April 18, I am happy and content. Laughing.

Tim's version: Hi blogger land?!?!?! So apparently I'm talking to who knows who?? But anyway, I was about to spread some mayonnaise and decided to smell it myself when I got a tiny dab on my nose, but Jenny didn't see that, so I got the BRIGHT idea, but NO. I'm way too nice, so I tell her what I was going to do.. Then I proceed to tell her that it really DOES smell bad.. SHE BELIEVES ME?!?! Why? Must be her good faithful heart in her fiance. So naturally I put a HUGE smear on her nose! :) And thus the war started..

Hawaii

I think that the title of the post should be more appropriately titled...


HAWAII!!!!!!!


That is about how excited I am. I can barely contain it.


Tim and I are taking a 2 week hiatus over there at the end of October... leaving on October 15 (the day pension auditing season is over) and coming back on October 30 (we have a red eye flight on the 29th). Um.... I cannot wait. We will be spending a week on Maui and a week on Kauai.


The tickets were bought last night. I got a smokin' deal. Now is the hard part... waiting for six months!! Sigh. I will try not to talk about it too, too much in the next six months.

Spring Day in Seattle.

Today it was 65 degrees and sunny here in Seattle. I'm kind of laughing at myself right now because a day like today in Phoenix was a relatively "cold" day... not warm, by any means. It was a day that was used as an excuse to wear a sweater just because it was cold enough to. Today? Today at 65 degrees in Seattle? I skipped happy hour to go run. In a tank top and short pants. It was amazing. It was the first day since spring hit in March that I've actually felt like it's spring and legitimately going to be summer soon.

I also didn't have to go to my least favorite clients today. I'll go back out next week... which is fine because it wasn't today. Next week I'll just complain about it and it will suck even more because the deadline will be that much closer. Oh well.

I was feeling so springy and cheery today that I decided to paint my toenails pink in honor of spring. [Right now Tim is on a 48 hour shift but if for some reason he reads this before he sees me and my cute little toes, I know he is silently high five-ing some god of toes.] My toes have basically been neglected since the holiday parties back in December. Gulp. I know. Bad, bad, bad. But what's the point when you wear socks and shoes and have no reason to bare your toes?

Tomorrow is the last Saturday we have to work in busy season. Our busy season as auditors technically won't end until May but we are lucky in this firm to still be consistent with tax... at least in our work schedule. We'll still be busy but hopefully (fingers crossed) there will be no more Saturdays after tomorrow and there will be no nights at the office past 9pm. And at the end of this month? I get two days, repeat, TWO days off work for a long birthday weekend. I cannot wait.

I can't even tell you how happy I am today... I finally see light at the end of the tunnel. Summer is right around the corner and these mad work hours are this close to being over.

Happy birthday month to ME!

Rock Chalk Jayhawks!!!

I am and will probably always be a Kansas Jayhawk basketball fan at heart. It probably started because my dad is such a die-hard fan even though I didn't go to school at KU. Anyway, every year I follow them and faithfully pick them as winners in my brackets and usually just lose money. Not only did Kansas WIN the 2008 NCAA tournament last night, it was probably one of the best games I have seen in a long time. ROCK CHALK JAYHAWKS, baby! Ah, how sweet it is.

Random...

I am eating about 400 organic disney animal crackers. From the pile of crap that can be found around the office this time of year. Now, this is what I don't understand. WHY, WHY, WHY during this time of year, do we have to keep so much food around and fully stocked when all any of us do is just sit at our desks for 12+ hours a day? It seems very contradictive. I would think that even though we are working hard, this is the time of year when we should be eating less because, seriously? Who has time to work out?

So I have since gained 7 of the typical 10 pounds I gain during January to April of each year. Although in December I lost 5 for some reason so I guess now I'm only 2 over normal. It's probably not a healthy cycle to be in though. Gain 10 pounds in 4 months, hit June, lose it all in a month... simply due to being able to actually move again. It's a bad sign when now just going on a walk can make me sore. I TRIED to get up everyday and do yoga. It worked for about a month. That ended, um, about a month ago.

I have to do my tax return completely over. It's been done since the end of February but because March 2008 SUCKED I totally forgot to file until yesterday I realized it was oh, April 1, and I am actually one of those many millions of people who do have to file my return by April 15... two weeks away. Oops. Good thing I didn't realize that April 16. It's pretty stupid too because I'm getting a decent enough refund. You'd think I'd be jumping at the bit to file. Nope, I'm retarded. Anyway, so I used turbo tax online because I know how to do my own taxes (thanks to starting off as a tax person... and, um, HATING it). So I had already figured out how much I was getting back before I even entered the stuff into turbo tax mainly because I'm a nerd and as I was collecting my various W-2s and 1099s I was figuring it out. So putting it into turbo tax took all of two seconds. Then I forgot about it until yesterday.

Yesterday I go to e-file and problem 1. I have to have my 2006 return #'s if I don't want to sign a paper form. Ugh fine. Call Arizona and check. Problem #2: I owe turbo tax $90 dollars to file my return. UM, HUH?! Apparently even though I clicked the FREE turbo tax box, I somehow got "upgraded" to the $60 "deluxe" edition. ($30 I expected to pay to e-file AZ taxes). Well that's retarded. So I call turbo tax and they tell me to delete my whole return and start over. So NOW it's going to take me longer because I have to get all of the information again and re-input it and hopefully not forget about it for a month. I was so annoyed. I should have just used the tax software at the office. Now that would have been smart.

Last week I lost my last contact. Because I haven't been to the eye doctor since 2005 in Arizona (and thus, my prescription had expired so I couldn't order more of the same contacts), I had to wear my glasses that I got my junior year of college. Do the math... it was about 6-7 years ago. And every year my eyes seem to get worse. The prescription was just a little bit outdated. So I have spent the better part of the last 5 days squinting and walking around feeling like a little old blind lady. Yesterday I FINALLY had an eye exam. Everything went fine... he told me he couldn't believe I was walking (much less driving) with that prescription. Well, duh, I'm the one who knows how blind I've been! My eyes, again, have gotten worse. THEN he freaking dilated my eyes. I don't even remember the last time my eyes were dilated. Well, it kind of sucked because my appointment was over lunch. And apparently when your eyes are dilated you really can't see anything. I probably wasn't supposed to be driving. I got back to the office and realized that I couldn't see ANYTHING. So for four hours yesterday I was basically out of commission. On the plus side though, this morning on the way to work, I was absolutely amazed at how well I can see now. Oh, and I'm going blind. Apparently I have a thin cornea. Maybe I'll get a seeing eye dog named Sophie. Hopefully she will be an english mastiff and be Simon's girlfriend.

I am done eating animal crackers. I'll stop rambling now.

Quote of the Day

"I see many people who depend so much on information they have lost their sense of direction- and the basic understanding and perspective of living. I find that our culture is in an epidemic state of misdirection as well. In some very fundamental ways, never have we had so much information and knowledge, yet been so lost. Information is good. But wisdom is even better. And life is best when you don't divorce living life from that which most gives life. Use information and knowledge but don't ever let information dissect and diminish your living and cause you to lose your way."
-Dr Mark

Hmm. Food for thought first thing in the morning.

Several months worth of pictures, as promised. And not an April Fools Day joke!

On Christmas, our favorite 3 year old, Savannah.


Jordan, our favorite 5 year old with her new recorder. We might have received a phone call a few days later regarding the revenge that we are owed for buying such a Christmas present.

Our favorite baby, Mackenna. I think maybe we just woke up.

Going back to Christmas, I got literally 4 coats (one of which is the black and white one behind me-Thanks mom!), hats, sweaters, gloves, etc. Washington is a LOT colder than Phoenix in the winters. Apparently I was quite vocal about how unprepared I was.

Happy new flat screen TV! Funny that all of the men are surrounding it...

When I went back to Kansas City just after Christmas, I was able to make it to an old family friends wedding reception. His sister, Katie (above) was my very best friend through elementary school and middle school and we have remained friends since. We were fast friends the day she moved to Kansas City from Pennsylvaina and sat next to me in Mrs. Parish's 4th grade class. It was so good to see her! Plus, I found out that SHE is getting married this summer!

Happy 2008!!

A rainy day in Seattle in January... but clear enough to see the mountains when crossing Lake Washington. It was pretty.

Please show me some other state where people wash cars WHEN IT'S RAINING. (Hence, the lovely hard hat). I cannot even tell how hard I was cracking up that day (and still even when I look at this picture).

The truck was also washed on this rainy day. It might have been its last car wash. Sad.

SIMON (the English mastiff dog... he weighs more than me!) and Meg. He might be my favorite dog ever.

Kaylene, Meg and I at the "Don't wear black" party. The theme came as a result of Simon (who kinda drools). And the party was thrown in honor of the first working Saturday of busy season at the end of January.

Girls valentines night out. Love it.

Anchorage, Alaska. Beautiful city. February 2008.

There were dog races going on up in Anchorage when we were there for the Fur Rondy festival. It was pretty cool.

More of Anchorage.

More Anchorage mountains. They are HUGE.

Beautiful sunset in Seattle, February 2008.

Sunset in Seattle over Lake Washington, February 2008.

New FJ. His name is Duncan, February 2008.

Different view of Duncan, February 2008.


I think that's all of the pictures that I have...and done. Told you I would get them up sometime. Happy April!