Dogs and Snow

There were two things on my mind today - the dogs and the snow. Maybe it's because we were just outside, where I let Cruiser off the leash. He was running around having a blast in the 3"-4" of snow outside. He loves running so much and being cooped up in an apartment all day gives him an excess of energy he wants to run off. Tonight we let Bow off his leash also and he was running around. Cruiser bounds around in leaps and sprints, and Bow runs with little steps, all four legs moving at different times, it's kind of funny to watch. Since there was no snow on the ground this morning, and all this snow came down since this afternoon, I received a call saying we have a two hour delay for going to work tomorrow - sleeping in! Woohoo!!

...Dogs...
When we went to Minnesota we put both dogs in a kennel recommended by one of our neighbors. When we picked them up, Cruiser had all this stuff gooped up on a huge scrape by his eye, they told us that the dogs got in a fight with each other and Cruiser was scratched, but he saw a vet and the vet prescribed an iodine based antibiotic. When we got home and gave them baths (they were a little stinky from being in a kennel for 10 days), I discovered a few other long scratches on Cruiser. He was clearly in a dog fight. Since 1) Cruiser and Bow have never fought each other in the 5 years they've been together, and 2) they didn't charge us for the vet bill -- I'm convinced they put a third dog into the kennel with them and the dogs fought. Since other dogs were multiples in the kennels (our neighbor's dog was there with 2 other dogs) this is clearly a normal practice. Looking closer at Bow we saw he had scrapes on his nose and lip (like his lip was caught when he was biting something) so we suspect the other dog went after Cruiser and then Bow weighed into the frey...

Five days later, I noticed Bow was scratching his nose and it was swollen. Later that day Brad noticed his ears were all swollen. If you felt his ear flaps they were 3 x thicker than normal. Since it was late Friday on a holiday weekend, and everything we read on the internet indicated this was due to an alergic reaction, we rushed out and got him some benadryl. The swelling started coming down and is much better, though we need to keep putting neosporin on his nose - he's scraped it raw - to keep the itching down. Poor dog!

As to that kennel - we're never going back!

Projects

Today Brad and I finally hung up all my plaques and diplomas on the hallway walls. I've been meaning to do it for months and just haven't gotten to it. After we hung them up Brad commented that "now we've moved it". He said it doesn't seem like we've finished unpacking until all our stuff is up on the walls.

Another thing we hung up on the wall was a needlework of bi-planes and tri-planes I did when I was a kid. I guess I did it just cause I liked it - who would have known that I would end up marrying a man years and years later that loves bi-planes and tri-planes. Here's a picture of it on the wall next to some paitings we had done by our friend Buddy last spring. Buddy's art is at : http://rcwindward.googlepages.com/gallery

Family Photos

Before we departed Minnesota, I got everyone to pose for a couple family photos - I realized we ad never taken one! Here's everyone - from left to right: Macie (our 14 year old daughter), Mark (my brother-in-law), Andrew (my nephew), JoAnn (my mom), Jessica (my niece), Kaylee (our 11 year old daughter), Shelly (my sister), me, and Brad (my most wonderful husband :-) )

Then there's our much less serious photo:

Crazy kid...

I was telling Macie and Kaylee that when my brother Justin was young he had problems with his "TR" sound -- it always came out as "F". Every time he'd be talking about his "truck" it would come out as the four letter word "*uck".

Kaylee thought about this for a minute and then said "I have problems with my "F's", they all come out sounding like "TR".... truck!" After we finished laughing we told her to watch her language - but what a clever thing to come up with :-)

New Year's

Happy New Year everyone!!!

We didn't go out last night since there were ice warnings and the roads got extremely slick. But we still had a good time hanging out together, watching movies, and drinking wine together. We then watched the fireworks - and boy do German's do fireworks. At midnight, and for about 30 minutes afterwards there were fireworks going off everywhere - and we're not talking about those little fireworks they sell to consumers in the states - these were the big ones, and everyone was shooting them off - it was really neat!

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I decided that I wanted to have a few New Year's resolutions this year. While I normally don't believe in that kind of thing, this year there are five things I really want to accomplish, so let's call them resolutions:

1) Learn basic German
2) Post to the blog once a week
3) Read 10 military reading list books
4) Knit a pair of socks
5) Lose 20 pounds

Christmas in Minnesota

We have a couple traditional things we do for Christmas in Minnesota. There's the present wrapping.

Then the events - first, we go to my Mom's house on Christmas Eve where we have fondue and open presents. Then we go to my Uncle Jim's for socializing and the kids get some presents.
Then on Christmas morning, we all open our stockings, which everyone has snuck some stuff into.This year we then went to Mom's house and ate Christmas dinner
... and played some Continental Rummy.

Travel to Minnesota

We went to Minnesota and spent Christmas with my family. The girls flew up and joined us there. Brad and I flew in, via Amsterdam on Thursday - the Stuttgart airport was backed up due to the weather - our flight was at 6:20 a.m. so we headed to the airport at 4 in the morning (yuck!). After we boarded, we had to wait over an hour to get the plane de-iced and were delayed some more waiting to take off. Then, when we arrived in Amsterdam to switch planes, we had to wait 30 minutes for them to bring stairs over to our plane so we could debark! The good thing was we had a 2-1/2 hour layover originally, so we rushed from one plane to the next, going through customs again and being some of the last people to board the plane - we both needed to go to the bathroom, but there wasn't any time for that even. We then flew straight to Minneapolis, flying over Scottland, Iceland, Greenland, and Canada - specifically the Hudson Bay. The flight was shorter than flying from Stuttgart to Atlanta, the joy of a great circle route to the north. And then we arrivedi n Minnesota around lunch - it's strange to be there at noon, but we've already been awake for 15 hours.

The girls flew to Minnesota on Saturday and they were affected by Mother Nature. In their case, a snowstorm hit Minnesota the morning they arrived and they ended up flying in circles overhead for over an hour while they waited to land. Brad and I had checked in since the girls were flying unaccompanied and were waiting at the gate. The grumpiest ticket agent ever came up to the gate for American Airlines. She was yelling at people one after another - I guess Northwest airlines had cancelled their flight to Dallas so they were rerouting their people to the American Airlines gate - but there were no seats available. I listened to here telling one person after another that they were out of luck, and those people arguing with her that the Northwest agent had told them it was all taken care of - most likely just to get rid of them. I was somewhat scared that the flight wouldn't be able to land since the time kept moving back and back and the ticket agent was telling people she didn't know where the plane was going to land since no planes were coming in at all. If we couldn't see the planes landing out the window at the same time, I would have been much more worried that the girls would get diverted to another airport due to MSP being closed - but as long as we could see them coming in, I knew they'd eventually get in. We were both greatly relieved when they landed :-)