Bitter Yuck! And other Fun Tales.

Both her and Ally love to lay on their toys for a good nap.

This toy is the best. She will get inside of it and walk around. So funny. At this point, she had played so much that she just passed out in it. So much entertainment!

Well, it's been a couple weeks since we've gotten little Sophie and things are going pretty good. Ally has really taken to her and they pretty much exhaust each other playing all day. Exactly what we were hoping for! We're still working on the housebreaking thing (and hoping our carpet survives it!). Sophie goes in for her second set of shots this Friday and then hopefully we can take her on walks and other things.

So she has been chewing on my baseboards-A LOT. We decided to go to the pet store and get some of that chew deterrent spray. We picked out one called Bitter Yuck. Sounds yummy right? So this is how it's supposed to work. You spray it on whatever you don't want them to chew, they put their mouth on it and get a taste, then they are so disgusted by the bitterly yucky taste that they no longer chew on your things. Let's just say it did nothing. In fact, she started licking it off right after I sprayed and wasn't even phased. So fast forward to later in the night. I brushed my fingertip on my lip. What do I taste? The most horrible thing I've ever had on my tongue. It tasted like sucking on a bare aspirin. IT WAS GROSS. I drank water. Nothing. I ate all sorts of things. Nothing. I felt like I was going to throw up so I just went to bed. I woke up with the same nasty taste. Let's just say I've been trained to not lick my finger and Sophie stills chews on everything. How backwards is this? It was pretty funny though.

Also exciting was that last week Kami, Chapan, and Ron came to visit. We had such a wonderful time just visiting with them. It was our first time to really get to know Chapan since the wedding so that was nice. They didn't really want to do much- I'm guessing Ben and Mer wore them out- so we mostly hung around and watched movies/TV. We also checked out Lance Armstrong's bike shop, Mellow Johnny's. It was pretty cool. We ate at the usual places- Hut's and Trudy's, and again just hung out and played Wii and watched a lot of The Office. You guys promised me you weren't bored, so I hope you had as much fun as we did. So glad you made the extra drive to come see us! Love you!

Meet Sophie Jane!

Sophie Chillaxin in her new bed.

Ally and Sophie not knowing what to think of each other.

We finally got that second dog we've been talking about. She is a 7 week old salt and pepper Miniature Schnauzer. She has a natural tail and ears-breeders usually crop them, but it's purely cosmetic and tortuous, so we are glad she is al natural. I just felt really horrible that Ally was just laying around the house all day when she could be playing with a friend. So a while back we decided on getting a second dog, but let the idea go when we found out we were moving to Austin. Now that we've settled in and Ally was back to her I'll stare at you while you work because I'm bored routine I started thinking about it again. And alas, a new puppy. The sad part is, Ally isn't too thrilled, at least not yet. When I first got Ally, my parents had another schnauzer that we'd had since childhood. They became the best of friends and then Missy passed away. I thought she had been missing that companionship so we got the puppy. I think she likes her and all- they are just at different stages. Ally wants to play with Sophie and so she comes barreling at her and Sophie just freezes in terror because of this huge thing coming at her. It's been pretty funny. All in all though, I think they will become the best of friends- only time will tell. Total guilt trip last night was when Ally wouldn't get on the bed and sleep with us :( I guess I didn't factor in the jealousy thing. Oops. Well wish us luck as we head down this new road of adventure!

Hotel Breinholt Booked Again!

This weekend we had the pleasure of having our friends Joey and Kira visit from Houston. They came in Friday and stayed until Tuesday night. We ate at lots of yummy places, played lots of Mario Bros Wii, and just had fun hanging out. We had so much fun with you guys. Thanks for making the short journey to spend part of your Spring Break with us!

Heath also has Spring break off so we are just trying to get some stuff off our to-do list this week. That's pretty much it right now.

Visitors at Hotel Breinholt!

We had a great weekend with Heath's family. Thursday night Mom, Dad, and Ron drove in from Ben and Mer's and we took them to Trudy's to eat. On Friday we headed down to campus so they could see where Heath spends his days (and to visit the world's largest collection of things burnt orange- The Co-Op). After that we ate a place called The Mellow Mushroom which was one of Ron's favorite places from his mission- and there was one in Austin! Pretty cool for him. Next we took Ron to the Apple store so Heath could talk his ear off about all things Mac. Then we started our trek to find a movie theater that played The Blind Side which ended in an even crazier attempt to find one that played Avatar in 3D. We ended up watching Avatar, and it was pretty good. I think the visual effects were amazing, but I wouldn't say it was the best movie I've ever seen. Saturday Ben, Mer, and the girls came into town. We sat off to eat at this place that Ben has been dying to try- The Salt Lick. It was pretty good BBQ, but I'm not sure it lived up to its hype for everyone. Then we did a little shopping at the Round Rock Outlets- Mer and I love that place! After that we went home and hung out. Sunday started off with me getting to church early so I could talk to one of the bishop's counselors. Guess who got a calling? Primary, here I come! Then we just spent the rest of Sunday eating and hanging out. That night, after the girls went to bed, we had an exciting game of Super Mario Brothers Wii. It was great. I think we played one level a bazillion times. Monday morning we said our goodbyes and our house has been too quiet ever since. We miss you guys! Thanks for a great long weekend. We had a blast!

Best Sydney quote of the weekend: "I just want you and Xhaxhi to be my parents". Hehe, made our day. Poor Syd, she thinks we'd be cool parents. Little does she know.... :)

Best Malla quote of the weekend: Anytime she would walk around the house and say in her sweet little voice "Xhaaaxxhi" "Haaallllaa"

BEST WEEKEND EVER. Welcome home Ron! Thanks for everything Mom and Dad! We're so glad we got to see ya'll!

In your opinion....

Okay, so we've filed our taxes now and thanks to Uncle Sam it looks like we might be able to get that dining table after all (Yay for the whole new homebuyer credit thing). But, I have a problem. There are like three that we like. So why not throw it to the bloggers for a little help. Which of these tables do you like and why....


I realize that they are all similar but at the same time they are very different. I'm leaving the details out so as to not form any sort of bias. So, let me know what you think and thanks for the help!

Why DOESN'T money grow on trees?

Because if it did, I'd buy this little beauty....

Another great Costco find! But alas, we've exhausted our spending funds after the whole buying a house thing. Who would have thought? But if this ended up on my door step, I wouldn't mind. ;) It would be nice to have more then two people able to sit at the table- you know, without pulling up the desk chair.

Things are going good here. We had my parents stay this last weekend in Hotel Breinholt. We all went to the UT basketball game (we lost), and then drowned our sorrows in the greatest mexican food ever at Trudy's celebrating Lindsey's birthday (Matt's friend from high school). All in all, a great weekend.

Also, we are looking forward to Mom, Dad, and Ron coming down from Utah in March! It's been two years since we've seen the Ron dude and Kami's wedding (in October) since we've seen Mom and Dad. We look forward to our visits!

Hope everyone's New Year is going well. Love ya!

Our New House

We finally closed on our house January 15, 2010. The house buying process was pretty easy peezy until we got to closing and then the bank selling the house became pretty greedy and we had a long 2 week fight with them. NEVER deal with Chase bank. They are horrible. But all in all, it wasn't that bad, and we are very happy with our new home. Now to the good part... pictures! Blogger makes it kind of hard to organize so they might be out of order. (Captions are underneath the pictures).

The front at night. I will get a better picture later.

Welcome to our home!

Our New Address!

Our front window before being frosted.

Front window after being frosted. Yay for privacy!

The powder room at the front entry.

This is our bedroom.

More of our bedroom and new furniture.

Our new dresser.

Our bathroom.

Our closet.

Under the stair storage. IT IS AWESOME.

The dining room with our tiny table. Looks like we need to save up for a new grown up table.

The right side of the kitchen with our new appliances (A Christmas present from my parents- We don't normally get gifts like this but they took Mattie to California for the National Championship game and they don't like doing for one without doing for the other, so Thanks to my families obsession with UT football (and their love of course ;)) we have new, beautiful appliances.) We LOVE them. They really finished off the house.

The left side of the kitchen. Our stove/range was damaged when it was delivered so we are waiting on a new one.

A view of the whole kitchen.

Another view of our Living Room. Our bedroom is the door to right of the front entry.

View of Living Room from Dining Room. Complete with lazy dog.

View of Living Room from entry way. It is long and narrow so we had to get creative with the couches. Notice our lazy dog sleeping on the couch again. :)

TV area in Living Room.

The guest bathroom upstairs.

Another view of the guest bathroom.

The larger extra bedroom (AKA The grandparent's room- hint, hint- come visit!)

Another view of the larger extra bedroom.

My home office in the loft area.

Another view of my home office/loft.

The smaller extra bedroom/ Heath's Office. (AKA The Longhorn room)

Heath's study area in the smaller extra bedroom.

New front door hardware.

Old door knobs. I am not a fan of gold so these had to go.

Our new beautiful bronzed oil door knobs installed by my very own handy man Heath.

Old Sliding Door Handles

New Sliding door handles

The jungle up front that we need to tame.

My new nemesis- the common weed. I will kill them all!

Ally loves her new backyard! And we love not having to take her out on a leash!

So there you have it. We love our new home and have enjoyed getting settled and making it our own. The best part- Not having to move for like 5+ years and not having to live in an apartment! We feel truly blessed right now, especially as so many others struggle over in Haiti to survive after that tragic earthquake. Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected in any way by this sad event.

If you haven't already, please head to one of these sites and donate for the recovery and rebuilding of Haiti. Every dollar helps. We did the really simple text option and it will just add our donation onto our cell phone bill.

www.helphaitinow.org

www.redcross.org

www.clintonbushhaitifund.org