Sad News

I bet most of you already know from Facebook that we lost Owen over the weekend, but I just couldn't stand for my last blog post to be talking about having fun with Owen and "going to war" with him over the backyard, especially now that it seems so trivial. He fell victim to distemper and by the time we caught it, he had already gone into the "neuro" stage. For an adult dog who had all of his vaccinations to even get distemper said a lot about his weak immune system...poor little guy.

It was pretty much one of the most awful things to go through, especially because I had a bit of an unhealthy love for that dog. This was me for the last 5 days:

Anyway...that's what's new with us. Wish I had better news or something exciting to report, but I'm sure in due time, I will. Especially since I've already talked with Santa about what he better bring me for Christmas.

All of our love....to you and your pups :)

It's war, Owen!

And we'll win, because we're the humans!

That's right - we are RECLAIMING OUR BACKYARD!!!

Owen rules the roost in our backyard and honestly, it's been great to have a huge porch for him to have shelter during rain, storms, etc. while we are away at work.

But.

That also means our porch is covered in Owen's prize sticks he wants to show us and a bunch of other nasty crap that he drags in from the yard (i.e. buried dog collars from previous residents, or the Saint Joseph figurine that previous residents buried to try to voodoo someone into buying the house...the list goes on). So the porch has been a glorified dog kennel for the last year... and that's got to change!

My dad recently visited and he was going on and on about how he loved our house. And then he said, "But let me be clear. When I say your house looks good, that does NOT include your back porch."

So last night, we bought an outdoor dining table on Craigslist and I just had to share!

A view from afar...

A view close up...

And of course, Helper Owen who doesn't realize we're taking over!

Console Table...

I tried my hand at re-doing a piece of furniture for the first time...it's not QUITE finished, but it's close enough to show some of the progress.

The table I got is a big tall console table for our entry way. Luckily, I found one that was pretty wide. It's the perfect size......but very ugly colors:

You'll notice Helper Owen in some of these pictures...

Then, I painted it brown because I was thinking I'd do white with brown showing through:

And I officially made it even uglier...

And here's Helper Owen

Then I made it....EVEN uglier!!

YES!

The white ended up not looking good up against the wall color (beige)...so I put a light gray/blue coat of paint over the white....

But here's how it looks now:

I bought some knobs for it, but we haven't quite gotten to that yet.

It was a fun project, but I think I'll let a professional paint my furniture from now on, if I can help it.

Or wait til winter.

Have a great week! XOXO

toetally bummed

So about a month ago, my pinky toe nail started to wiggle around a bit. I figured I stumped my toe and that it was no big deal.

But then.

It started to come loose, just like a baby tooth.

And now, it's gone.

Justin says it's gone forever, but I think he just likes to say that because I freak out every time he does.

He also calls me his "9 toed wife" which is lovely.

WHERE DID IT GO!? Why did it fall off!? If it's been gone over a month now and shows no signs of growing back, do we think I'll EVER have my left pinky toe nail back again?

What do you think?

Call me crazy....

but I actually prefer to watch TV when it is live as opposed to recorded...here's why:

1. I always forget to fastforward so I end up watching 2/3 of the commercials anyway.

2. My attention span is only about as long as one segment.

3. This gives me time to get up & move around, love on the pup, look at the computer...do something else besides be glued to the TV for 2 hours straight.

On another note, Frank is a ding-dong. I'll be interested to see how the rest of the Bachelorette turns out tonight...

Have a great week!

We got married 2 months 2 early

I think I was supposed to walk down the aisle to this song!

P is for Productive!

Well Justin has been a GREAT sport and he's let me go to town on overhauling our house. We've painted, we bought a dining room table, we've moved everything around...and then around again...the list goes on!

And then I thought it would be so funny to post pictures that are not our house and pretend it is, but then I don't want it to seem that I'm not thankful for what we DID do! I just haven't had time to take pictures and post them.

All I'm sayin is, once it's finished, I will post the heck out of some pictures because I am so excited to share the change!

So I guess here's a few pictures of inspiration....that are NOT my house:

Stay tuned! I'll have something posted hopefully next week.

All the best to you and yours!

YAY!

I got great news today...wedding pictures will be in late this week!

Emily Brenner did such a fantastic job and I swear, I will probably spend 3 hours going through every single picture and enjoying every single detail.

It was the best day of my life.....I can't wait to relive it. Not to mention, Justin and I are so lucky to have had such a genius behind the lens! Her work is genuine but she's incredible at maximizing every opportunity to make art out of the time she spends with you.

I don't know that I can ever tell you enough, Emily, but you far exceeded my expectations.

My many, many thanks to Emily...if you're looking for a photographer of any kind, please do yourself a favor and give her a call.

Her website is: http://www.emmebphotography.com/

Also, if you'd like to troll through some of our photos, you can go to her website; click on 'Clients' and our password is dillon.

Much love to you and yours....have a great weekend.

Sick Puppy!

Last night when I got home from NYC, Owen was acting normal & fine...bouncing off the walls like any other day.

Then all of a sudden, he wasn't himself. He was trembling and whimpering...he even crawled into his mother's lap for some TLC:

So what did we do? Got online to diagnose the problem ourselves! Ha! I decided he might have low blood sugar and the almighty world wide web recommended that I feed him a few spoons of honey.

This was the poor sap when I fed him honey:

I think he thoroughly enjoyed the honey...but turns out that he hurt his spine (glad I'm a recruiter and not a vet)...probably doing something crazy like chasing a horse or clearing a king size bed in one swift jump.

The vet gave me some meds to keep on hand in case he throws out his back again. And she wasn't as proud of me as I was of myself for feeding him honey...since it made no sense to do it in the first place.

But! All's well that ends well. Today he's acting normal, dragging limbs in from outside that at a glance look like human arms. We're glad he's back to normal, even though he's a world-class snuggler when he's sick.

Hope you all have a good week....

(and Owen)

Photo Booth!

We are waiting patiently for our professional photos from the wedding but in the meantime, I thought I'd share some of our photo booth pictures! Justin's brother, Josh, set up this awesome area where people could use props and take pictures to document the "fun". As you can imagine, the later into the night we went, the more entertaining the pictures became.

But here are a few of the Bride & Groom:

And to leave you with one sweet quote I found today...words I'd like to live by.

Our wedding was many years ago. The celebration continues to this day....Gene Perret

Happy weekend, everyone!

Pizza Pizza!

After hibernating for a most of the honeymoon, we decided we wanted to engage in some social interaction so we had Jeff & Tara over for dinner to make homemade pizza..

We had been organizing and cleaning for 2 days straight so we figured there is no better way to celebrate being done than messing things up again!

Justin & Jeff tossin' the do'

Also, Justin is the best pizza-maker I've met. Which works well since pizza is my fave food

Me & Tara chatting while the boys slaved over the pizza-makin'

Now after writing this, I am hungry for pizza again.......

Alternate Internet Personality

Haha Justin thinks that I've been "keeping" my blog from him and he says I'm trying to achieve an alternate personality online..... Every time I log in, he goes, "Ahhhhh it's your other life..."

If only he knew that I basically gush over him or shopping. Depends on the day...

But anyway, we're back from the wedding & honeymoon - safe, sound and healthy. We're glad to be home, deciding where to put the pots, pans, towels, Tupperware, etc. will go......poor Justin, haha.

The wedding was more than we could have ever asked for. We're thankful & lucky for the people who have loved us and supported us, both individually and as a couple. I'm happy to see the wedding go so we can revisit normalcy, but I hate to see it go because I, not for a moment, took for granted the love everyone's poured on us.

It's been a wonderful season in our lives....

I "vow" to post more about details later.

I can't really think about work or the wedding.

keeping my head above water!

Well....only 16 days left!

With a job change and a wedding coming up, it's safe to say that I am just trying to keep it together. Well I say that...and I think I have prepared myself to break down at some point, but I feel great. I am loving the job change, I am loving wedding prep, I am loving every bit of everything going on in our lives right now.

We are so blessed. God is so good.

And only one more week of work until I can totally switch gears and be devoted to preparing for one of the best days of our lives. And then only two weeks and I can make a promise before friends, family and God to love and cherish Justin. Forever. :)

Two weeks doesn't seem like a long time until you're waiting to be MARRIED! But it'll come soon enough. That's what I'll repeat to myself every day, every hour, til it's time to pull the trigger!

Wedding Prep!

Farm appeal...

Farm House

Justin hanging the lights!
I told him all I needed for our wedding
was a white dress, some kegs and Christmas lights..

Me and the ring bearer

Bride and Groom!

Only 34 days!

In the Dog House

Am I crazy!?

Why....on the exact same day that Owen did this:

(Yes..that's our beloved arm chair)

.....all I can think about is this:

This is the e-mail we got today from our breeder

of the last puppy left of his latest litter...

Is it motherly love? Owen can do no wrong so now I need two (that can't be it)? Who knows. All I know is, I will go to sleep with two things on my mind...1. wishing that puppy was MINE and 2. wishing Owen hadn't eaten our chair....perhaps opposites attract.

I think the PERHAPS is that we are not ready for a second puppy, no matter how cute that puppy is or how much of a sucker I am.

Goodnight OWEN. I hope you have sweet dreams of the days you were allowed up on the furniture.

Cake Walk

So I can't/haven't/won't decide what kind of cake(s) to do for the wedding! My mom is making them and she's spending the week before the wedding up at the farm with me so the nice thing is, I have some time to decide....but I'll share a few images with my fan base (of 6) and see if anyone has any thoughts/suggestions. Enjoy.

This one "takes the cake" - maybe not so outdoorsy?
But repetition is the way to my heart. Especially clever repetition.

Like I said...repetition is the way to my heart...
I'm thinking 3-4 totally different shape/heights but all really simple.

Simple - also the way to my heart.
And Justin actually said he liked this one instead of saying
those three little, magical words, "I don't care."

This is a piece of ART...and probably not fair to spring on my mom.
Plus I think I like the repetition better but....howwww bee-utiful!

IS IT MARCH YET!?