Life with Clark

We've had Clark for two and a half weeks now, and things are going well. He sleeps through the night in his crate, doesn't bark all day while we're at work, and has fun at doggy day camp once a week. We took him to his first training class last week, and we're looking forward to the next one tomorrow night. We've found that he actually does like chasing things like frisbees and balls, although he doesn't always bring them back. And he loves to run- really fast- anytime he gets the chance at the dog park.
Here are a few more pictures we've taken of him lately. He always pays attention to the camera when we take it out, so it's hard to get candid shots of him.
This is Clark with his favorite toy, Toothpick the dog:
Our other news is that we've been working on getting ready to landscape the back yard. We rented a ditch digger last weekend so now the ditches are ready for the sprinkler system pipes. During this coming week when Logan is off work he's going to work on getting those in so that we can lay sod soon. It will be really nice to have something other than dirt and weeds in the backyard again, and also nice to not have so much dirt tracked into the house on Clark's feet.

We're getting ready to go to Tahoe for a few days in the snow this coming weekend. Clark will be staying with my parents, so we'll see how Bailey (their almost 10-year-old Yellow Lab) handles having a young house guest. I hope Clark doesn't drive him too crazy.

Lastly, here are a few pictures of the completed front porch. It was finished back in November, but I never got pictures of the painted final product up on the blog, and Logan's dad has been requesting some. So, here they are:

Where did the last month and a half go?!

Well, I suppose I was wrong in my last post when I said I might be blogging more over the holidays. I did have a lot to write about, but no time in which to write. In early December (right about the time of my last post, curiously enough), I received a huge new assignment at work that is taking a lot of my time and all of my patience. I am now in charge of scheduling all staff at the branch where I work. I make the monthly schedule, the weekly schedule, and the daily schedules. I have to make sure they're updated whenever anyone calls in sick, make sure there is someone assigned to cover the desks and phones each hour, and make sure everything shows correctly on our online scheduling blog. And I'm doing all of this on top of my already busy job of running the children's room, presenting the programs, and ordering children's audio visual materials. It has been a nightmare getting used to this new assignment. Lots of sleepless nights in December...

Christmas was nice. It was low-key this year, since we stayed in the area and spent Christmas Day with my family. I worked the week between Christmas and New Year's, but then I was off the following week. It was nice to spend some time just hanging out at home. We did take a few days to go down and visit Logan's parents near San Luis Obispo, which was a very nice trip. And we made it through a huge storm just after New Year's- the storm cracked a window pane in our guest bedroom, so we had to get that replaced.

Logan and I took a day-trip over to Pescadero, our favorite beach, last month when we were off for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. We drove over in the truck and Logan found a nice muddy area off the road where he could test out his 4-wheel drive. He had a HUGE grin on his face the whole time!

Our biggest news, however, is that we adopted a dog last weekend. On February 1st, Clark joined our family. We adopted him from the Humane Society, and he's already stolen our hearts. He is the sweetest little guy, and has such a happy personality. He's about nine months old and weighs about 40 pounds. We're not expecting him to get a lot bigger. He's part Chesapeake Bay Retriever, and we think part Pit Bull. He loves to go to the dog park, play with his squeaky toys (especially the green dog from Aunt Katie!), and go for jogs with us in the morning and afternoon.

I will add more pictures of him when I'm at home, but here are a few to start with:

(this is the photo we saw on the Humane Society website that made us want to adopt him.)

Clark on the couch playing with his "Dirty Rotten Kitty" (that's what the cat's nametag says!)

Tree hunting and other pursuits

Now that December is here, there might actually be more for me to write about in the next few weeks. So here we go...
Last Saturday my mom and dad and Logan and I drove up in our truck to cut down our Christmas trees. We have gone to the same Christmas tree farm up on Skyline ever since I can remember. (At least since Katie was a baby, since we have pictures of her trying to eat the Christmas trees when she was eight months old!) Logan decided that Steve- yes, the truck has a name- needed to be dressed up for the occasion. So, here is a picture of Logan and Steve just before we took off up the mountain:
I didn't take many photos of our tree hunt this year. It was rather uneventful without Katie or Bailey along for the trip. I'm looking forward to next year when Katie will be local, and that pesky thing called "college" will no longer be in the way of her joining us for family outings. At least it didn't rain on us this year. It was COLD, but a gorgeous day. Here are the Santa Cruz mountains in all their fall glory:
And trying to tie the trees into the bed of the truck:
Logan and I picked a HUGE one (by accident- it didn't look that big until we had cut it down and tried to carry it up the hill!)
It took forever to cut the tree down because, as Logan said, the saws they had for us to use were so dull he would have had better luck using a spoon.
Once we got the tree home we cut off the bottom third of it- I am not joking, it was giant- and got it inside and decked out with lights. Logan also got the outside house lights strung up last weekend, but I haven't been out to take any photos of them yet. We still haven't added ornaments to the tree. I have been sick this week, so I haven't been in any mood for holiday decorating. But I'm sure we'll get to it this weekend.
A few more photos:
The beautifully lit tree:The cute train Logan got to run around the base of the tree:One of my most prized possessions- the tree skirt my grandma made for me:
The original tree skirt was made for my parents years ago. Maybe when they first got married, which would make it almost 35 years old. It has scenes following the song of the Twelve Days of Christmas all around it. A few years ago, my mom decided that the old tree skirt had seen better days. It was made of felt, and had pine needles and dog hair from three consecutive dogs embedded in it. She bought a new tree skirt and never told me what she did with the old one.
It turns out she saved it and gave it to my grandma. My grandma cut the figures out of the old skirt and sewed them onto a new skirt she made for Logan and me. This was our Christmas present from her the first year we were in our new house. What a treasure!
By the way, if you have tried to post comments before and found that you needed to log in with a Google account to post a comment, I have disabled that function now. I didn't realize that was the default setting. Now, anyone can post and won't have to sign in.

Family, Football and Fresno

Today is unfortunately the last day of a much-needed five day weekend. It has been a busy weekend with us hosting Thanksgiving again, but a lot of fun.
Wednesday and Thursday morning we cleaned the house and got ready for company. This Thanksgiving was special because my aunt, uncle, and cousins from Colorado (hi Aunt Cindy!) came out to spend the day with us. We had a very nice dinner, with good conversation and lots of food. And, of course, the required group photo:
On Friday we did a little bit of shopping, although we didn't brave the malls. Getting up at 4am to shop isn't my idea of fun. Then Friday evening we left to drive down to Fresno and stayed the night at Katie's apartment. The reason why my Colorado relatives came out this year is because my youngest cousin, Corey, is a long-snapper on the Kansas State Football team.
On Saturday we got to see his team play against the Fresno State Bulldogs. I had never been in such a big college football stadium before. We had fun watching the cheerleaders perform their formations.
The whole experience was a lot of fun. Even Grandma had a great time! We didn't get to see Corey for long after the game, but we did manage to get a few group photos of the cousins.
We're looking forward to our next visit with the Adams family, which will be next August in Colorado when Meghan and AJ are married. It'll be here before we know it!
(In case the family is interested in getting copies of the pictures I took this weekend, they are available for printing or download at: www.dropshots.com/melanne)

Weekend Warriors!

At our house, there is no sitting around relaxing on three-day holiday weekends. We don't take our precious vacation time to actually go on vacation. And going to see a movie? That would be too much fun. No, on our three day weekends we work on the house! And this three-day Veteran's Day Weekend was no exception.

Logan's dad and stepmom arrived on Friday evening and stayed with us for the weekend. It was so nice to see them, and fun to have houseguests. But we worked!

Logan and his dad (with minor help from Sue and me) built a new front porch for us this weekend. Poor Logan is already looking forward to Thanksgiving break so that he can rest for a while, and I'm sure his dad is too! But the finished project is absolutely gorgeous- it just needs some paint. We can't wait to string it with Christmas lights. Here are some photos (before and after), along with a shot of our new driveway:

Halloween and a driveway

We had a fun Halloween this year. I took the day off and went with Logan's class to trick-or-treat at a convalescent home near his school. The kids were so cute, especially little Bradley who dressed as a shark! Logan dressed as a Nascar pit-crew chief, and looked very official with his headset and jacket.In the evening we went over to my mom and dad's house to carve pumpkins and pass out candy to trick-or-treaters. We don't get any kids at our house since it's on a busy street.Logan and I (successfully) attempted to change the oil for the first time in the Volkswagen this afternoon. The dealer was going to charge an exorbitant amount to do it, so Logan thought we should try ourselves. It was a little messy, but now that we know how it's done it'll be a fast job next time. And the car is running great.

In other news, we have a new driveway now that is big enough to fit both of our cars. The pictures below show the demolition of our old driveway and the readied site before the cement was poured. It was poured and finished this morning, but it was dark by the time we got home tonight, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow morning to take a photo of the finished product. It's beautiful!Next on the home improvement agenda is remodeling the front porch, which will happen next weekend. We're looking forward to Logan's dad and stepmom visiting us to help with the project.
By the way, if you're reading this, leave a comment sometime so that I know I'm not just talking to myself!

October musings

It's been a month now since I have added a new post. Maybe no one is reading this anymore! Life gets busy and the weeks fly by. But somehow there's never much interesting that happens during the busy-ness.
However, we've had some exciting events during the past month. Here's a recap:
We can grow watermelons! I decided to buy some watermelon seedlings last spring to grow in our garden because Logan loves watermelon. We harvested two cute watermelons- 7 and 8 lbs. Here they are with the gardener:
The highlight of this past month for me was getting to see our friends a few times in the last couple of weeks. We often don't get to see our friends for months at a time, but this month was different. We all got together for our tenth high school reunion at Gordon Biersch Brewery in San Jose. Then, this past weekend we got together again- this time at the Tied House in Mountain View- to see our good friends Sam and Harmony who were making a rare California visit. It was a really fun evening, and I made sure to get the requisite group photo:
Our final fun event of the past few weeks was Logan, Mandi and Geoffrey becoming members of our church. When Mandi and Geoffrey said they wanted to join, Logan jumped at the opportunity to have friends to go to the New Member's class with. So they went to five weeks of classes, stood in front of the church on Sunday morning, and are now officially members. Here are a few pictures I took after the service on Sunday morning: