Michael & Liz are Bloggable

Anyone who knows me, knows that I enjoy New Year's Resolutions. Now I will also say that I think they are dumb but I do think they important. Why are they dumb? I don't think it should take a new year for you to decide to change something about yourself. I think that should happen all the time and anytime that is necessary. Why are they important? Because it invokes the motivation to change in people who otherwise wouldn't do it.

Throughout the year I am constantly trying to change or improve in any way that I can. It doesn't take the new year for me to start a training program for a marathon or make an attempt at losing weight. But every year I take the opportunity to write down my New Year's Resolutions and because this is not my blog, it's the Fulton Family blog, both Liz and I will document what we are looking to achieve in the new year. And here they are:

Liz:
1. To go as long as possible without drinking a carbonated beverage (coke, sprite, diet sprite, etc...). We talked about it last night and Liz's record for the longest she has gone without a soda is 1.5 months and mine is 2 months. She is aiming to beat both those records in 2008.

2. There are two goals in this resolution because they go hand in hand. One is to not gain any weight and the other is to go to the gym AT LEAST twice a week. Back in May and June before the wedding, she was always going to the gym and doing cycling classes and lifting weights and she wants to get back into that routine. For a wife with a full time job this will not be easy, so this is an awfully lofty goal that we think she can achieve.

Michael:
1. My first goal is the same as Liz's, and that is to beat my record for the longest I have gone without a carbonated beverage (beer excluded).

2. To build at least 4 wood projects this year. Recently I have been working more in the garage on some wood projects. I wanted to include a couple pictures from the recent projects. The top one is the islands of Hawaii with pictures on the islands that we went to. The other one is a magazine rack I built for my brother-in-law for our Secret Santa Christmas exchange. I learned a valuable lesson, that glue does not stain the same color as wood does. Well, I want to improve my skills in woodworking and I already can tell you that the first project will be a coffee table for our "sweet room" and another project will be a woodworking work bench. The last project will be something made out of wood for my Secret Santa person next Christmas.

3. Teach Daisy 4 new tricks. The reason why 4 makes sense is that it gives me 1 trick and 1 wood project every 3 months. I think 6 would be too much and make it a chore rather than a goal. I want to have motivation to teach Daisy some commands so that she becomes better behaved. She is such a great dog and I don't want to be complacent.

4. The last resolution is to finish the projects that I started or intended to start around the house. They include finishing the deck, finishing the bead board around the blue bedroom upstairs and putting up peg board in the garage for better organization.

So what are your resolutions going to be?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Ok we had to do it. I am seeing these links everywhere and curiosity got the best of me. Go to the link, it's hilarious:

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1847136791

I think anyone with a blog would understand the feeling of sitting down to write an entry and not knowing exactly what to write about. So I thought I would just start with the events from our lives as well as the holiday season and we'll go from there.

New Job for Liz:
In early December, Liz started a new job. I would say the company but I don't know if that's an appropriate thing to say on a blog, besides, I think most everyone who reads this blog knows what it is. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a huge step forward for her in career growth, personal growth, and personal happiness in general. Her job title is the administrative assistant to the Senior Vice President. There are tons of reasons why this job is much better than the last one but I think there are two pros that trump all the rest. The first reason is that she is just a happier person for it. She is working with reasonable people and is working in a quiet atmosphere. You'd think in most jobs you'd take those characteristics for granted but we know now that you shouldn't. She is no longer in an office in which her clients have the opportunity to yell at her. When she comes home from work she may still be tired but she is anything but unhappy. The other glaring reason is that she is seeing how her work makes a difference and that it's appreciated. At her old job, no matter what she did or how good of a job she did, it was never recognized or appreciated. The clients still treated her like crap when she tried hard to make them happy and her superior gave her no respect when she worked so hard to deserve it. But I think it's nice for her to see exactly how she is making a difference and that what she is doing is benefiting the company in a way for it to prosper. I hope all these good things won't change because it looks like she is setup to have a fantastic year in 2008.

Our Pups, Daisy:
Daisy has had a rough December and it is not going to get any easier. At the end of November she had a bout of diarrhea that she got from my cousin's dog Yoshi. She got over it pretty quick but then in the middle of December it came back with a vengeance and we had to take her to the Vet where she got some good canned food as well as some medicine. She is finally over it and back to normal which is fantastic. Then this past weekend we went down to Hilton Head where we stayed in a resort where they don't allow dogs. She being so small and quiet, we figured we'd have no problem taking her. For the most part we didn't have any problems but it also meant we had to be conspicuous and take her out after dark in the woods and take her out in the morning before the sun came up. Since it was winter, it was much more manageable since the sun came up at 7 and went down around 5. So this meant we had to make one trip out during the day with her so we took her to the beach during those times. It was impressive she did so well in a new place but it was rough on her when you consider the 5 hour drive both ways. This coming weekend we are going down to Atlanta but we aren't able to bring her so she is staying with our friends Matt and Meg. This is awfully generous of them since they have two cats who aren't exactly friendly. We visited once and one of them liked her and the other one slapped her in the face, so we'll make one more visit tonight and see what happens.

After having Daisy for 4 months now, Liz and I both agree that getting her was a fantastic decision. It was a lot more work than we anticipated but she has just been a dream. I don't think we could have asked for a more well behaved dog and while she still has her annoying habits, they aren't things we can't work on with her.

Happy Holidays:
Like I said we went to Hilton Head this past weekend and that was a lot of fun. We went down with Mama and Papa D (Liz's Parents) and Scott, Hillary, Brynn, and Callie. Her parents drove almost 1200 miles from Michigan and Scott and Hilary flew all the way from Colorado to be there. We arrived on Sunday night and on Monday we went for a very long bike ride all over the island. I mapped it and it was just about a 19 mile bike ride, and for a group of 6 bikes, I'd say that is pretty good. I have to give a little recognition to the seafood place we stopped at for lunch on Monday, I think it was called Captain Seafood (creative). I had the best tilapia or fish for that matter, I've ever tasted. It was awesome. Then on Monday night we went in the hot tub and enjoyed the night together playing Mexican Train. While we couldn't stay past Christmas because we both had to work, we spent the morning opening presents and down by the pool swimming and playing shuffleboard. I'm sad we couldn't stay longer but it was a great time.

This coming weekend we will be driving to Atlanta to see my family and it will again be a shortened weekend, we will only be there from Friday night through Sunday.

Biggest Loser:
Just to give an update on the competition, it looks like as a group we have lost about 60 pounds so far. For 20 people after a month, that's a little disappointing, but 60 is better than 0 and that's the point. I personally am down about 5 pounds but I think that will be changing very soon since I've been biking and lifting so much.

Also in case anyone wants to know, on Tuesday the greatest show in the world starts back up, The Biggest Loser season 5. Liz and I are super excited.

Contrary to popular belief, I am not obsessed with television, but there are 3 relatively unknown TV shows that I have to advertise for because they are the epitome of awesome.

American Gladiators:
I am probably far too obsessed with certain television shows but American Gladiators was a childhood favorite of mine and it is coming back on TV on January 6th. I've never been so excited and it looks better than ever. Why am I excited? Because when I was a kid this show is what I lived for. I had to watch it. I lived for the action and competition. I wanted so badly to be on it. There were two things when I was a kid that I thought, "that is something that I want to eventually achieve". The two things were be on American Gladiators and run a marathon. Well with 2 marathons under my belt and a 3rd looking more and more likely, American Gladiators looks about as unlikely a reality as sliced bread, or something like that. Well all I can do is watch and live for the nights that it is on. This might be a group watching type show, because I have a bunch of friends who are excited for it as well.

Lost:
Lost is another show that Liz and I love and it is coming back for something like 20 straight episodes beginning on January 31st. We might need to get the last few episodes from Netflix because I am not quite sure I remember everything that was going on. It was such an awesome show when it started out because while it had a ton of mystery and secrets, it didn't feel like it was dragging it's feet on the action. There were always things going on and information being handed to you as vague is it might have been. But into Season 2 and 3 it fizzled out because it got to the point where you stopped caring about the secrets because the show would go so slow and your attention span was just lost (ha! pun intended) every episode. But with the ending of Season 3, it looks like it's heading in the right direction. We'll see what Season 4 has in store.

Battlestar Galactica (BSG):
This is another "Lost" type situation where it stopped early last year and hasn't had a new episode since. It will be starting back up in March 2008 and I am frakking excited!! I think a lot people look at this show as a geeky show and just write it off, unwilling to watch it. Well it's on the Sci-fi channel and the premise is that humans created robots (on the show they call them cylons (sigh-lons) also referred to as toasters) and the robots turned on the humans. They created the capability to think on their own and realized humans used them but they wanted representation (sounds familiar based on US History). Well humans wouldn't give it to them so the cylons retreated to another part of the galaxy. In BSG, they could travel through space very quickly. After many many years of hiding the cylons came back and attacked the humans in what was almost a complete obliteration of human life. Only a few survived and they are traveling in a fleet of ships fleeing from the cylons. The leader of that fleet is the Galactica, which is a ship from the Battlestar class, just like we use the words USS for the Navy. What the humans find out is during the time, the cylons were able to duplicate the human form and now the humans don't know who is a cylon and who isnt and there is only a certain blood test that can determine it. There are 13 cylons that look like humans and we are just now finding out who they are as we move into a new season. So this whole time we could have been watching our favorite characters assuming they were on the human side but really they were cylons in disguise.

That is just a rough description of what the show is about. There is such a dumb stigma that comes along with Sci-fi, that you have to be a dork or a geek to enjoy it. BSG is just an action drama staged in a different environment. And it's one of the best shows I've ever watched.

Well that concludes an awfully bland blog posting, just informational information, imagine that. I will try and come up with something more interesting soon.

I have to give picture credits to Hillary for posting them to her album. Here's a link

So I realize this blog is reserved for the lives of Liz and I and what we do on a daily basis. But I have taken on another project at work that I just couldn't resist sharing. I personally don't think it falls into the scope of the blog but oh well...

So I'm sure most people don't know what I do and while everyone has their main job role at work, they also understand that they are constantly thrown other projects that keep you very busy. Well one outside project of mine is that I manage the websites for our department and a few others. And recently I took on another project that is somewhat related to the website but has nothing to do with work. Let me explain:

A week before Thanksgiving I was talking to a friend of mine at work named Charlie and he was telling me about how he just started his own weight loss program. He was really excited about it and said he would really love to work out with me because he knows I am really into exercise (not so much into the eating healthy though). I told him since we were members at different gyms it couldn't happen but I offered him some motivation. I told him that in order to do any more marathons, I would have to drop 20 pounds because this recent marathon would have gone better if I was lighter. So I made a bet with him, the first person to drop 20 pounds wins. The loser would pay for the movie tickets on a double date between Liz and I and him and his fiance. Or at least that was the origin of this story.

So we tell my boss and a few other people in our department about it and we very soon are getting a lot of interest from them to participate. After some braintstorming we came up with a biggest loser competition that involved around 6 or so departments in our area. So far we have about 20 people participating with people trying to lose anywhere from 20 pounds to 150 pounds. There are no winners or losers, we are just equal motivation for each other to make changes. It's an amazing thing what we've started and even though we are just a week into it, it has been crazy enjoyable.

So why do I mention the website I manage? Well I have set up individual pages for everyone participating that only they can see. This keeps their weight secret in case weight privacy is a big issue for someone. That is the place where they log their starting weight, weight loss and weight goals. I then created a common page that everyone can see where it has a table that shows the percent that everyone wishes to lose and the current percent that they've lost. This common page is dynamic too so anytime anyone joins the competition or anytime someone updates their individual pages, the common page shows the update immediately. I have to be honest, I'm very proud of the pages I've created in order to track the competition. I have gotten a lot of great comments about it, how everyone enjoys seeing the goals and status of the other participants.

Another feature of the competition is that the first Tuesday of every month, everyone participating is going to go to lunch together to talk and discuss strategy and accomplishments. We are also setting up daily lunch walks in small groups to keep exercise motivation up.

Every Tuesday Liz and I sit in front of the TV and with cold and sweaty palms we squirm over the stress and anticipation of what is going to happen on our favorite show, The Biggest Loser. There are a ton of narrow-minded people who hate reality TV and would refuse to watch it for that reason. But this is not a drama-filled popularity contest, these are real people changing their lives right in front of your eyes while advertising a healthy lifestyle of eating right and exercising hard. What more could an American want out of a TV show? And hey, if it rubs off a little motivation, then fantastic. I always thought it would be cool to be a part of it, from the perspective that your life revolves around being healthy and exercising with a trainer. If my full time job would be to lift weights, run, and exercise, I'd be the happiest person on earth. So even though we don't have a Bob or Jillian or an awesome biggety scale, it would be cool to see some people at work change their lives and I can only hope I played a part in it.

So it's about time that you blogged, I mean jeez, come on Michael, you even put a date on when you would blog next and you didn't do it. Or at least that's what I'm thinking anyone who read the last blog would say. So the experiment I would say was a tremendous success relative to where she was before the experiment.

Results:
Daisy is a much better walker now. I followed the advice from Jon Chase and put some food in my pocket on walks and whenever Daisy would lag behind, I would say "Daisy Come" with some food and she would start to run so that's fantastic. She is not lagging behind as much. She knows the amount of time she has at each mailbox now so whenever I pass her and tug slightly and say "Daisy Come", she starts running again. She still isn't great about running ahead, she runs as far as we let her though so whether the leash is long or short, she tugs the same so I guess that's good. If we keep the leash short she is always walking with us. One thing we are doing now is anytime she is running out ahead, we'll stop and she'll sit immediately (which has become voluntary now) and then we'll make her come so she runs back to us. It's working really well. I think the next goal is teaching her to "heel", which I realize will be a bear of a task. So overall Daisy is a much better walker. One thing she loves to do is just run in the grass between the sidewalk and the street with her nose down smelling everything. That way she gets to smell and we're not held up. It's great.

As far as waking up early, it's totally not happening, or at least all the time. I still have trouble getting out of bed. I do think I will take Daisy on walks more often then she had been before but I am just far too tired to be hopping out of bed like I'm happy about it.

Conclusions:
This dog is smarter than we give her credit for. After not taking her on walks in the morning for a few days now she is starting to beg for it. She'll get to our driveway and tug and then turn around and look at us like "let's go". And if I start walking towards her, she'll start walking away with her head slightly turned to make sure we're following. I don't think there is a trick we can't teach her or an action we can't get her to stop, it just takes patience and time, something we are willing to give.

Well this week should be fantastic because we are driving to Cincinnati for Thanksgiving. We are really anxious for my parents to meet her and for her to get a lot of attention throughout the week. But for now I'm gonna take her to the dog park so she's all tired out for the trip!

Marathon:

So I wanted to update everyone on how my marathon went this past weekend. I don't know if everyone knew, but I ran the City of Oaks Marathon here in Raleigh this past Sunday. I ran it with one of my groomsmen named John. We had been training all year although within the last few months we've somewhat fallen off. I can honestly say that I didn't prepare for this one as well as I did for my first one back in 2005 but going into it, I still felt like I could do it. This race however was much more difficult than my first one. It was much more hilly and part of the race was on a gravel/dirt trail so that made it tough as well. For anyone interested in seeing the course, here it is:

http://cityofoaksmarathon.com/course_info/

We started off rocky. John has had knee problems in the last few months and within the first .5 mile he said it started to hurt. Although as we went on, it didn't get worse so he continued. We made it through the first half in 2:08 which is a great pace and exactly where we wanted to be. Around mile 15 we started to alternate between walking and running. And somewhere between there and the finish line my left foot started hurting. It's known as plantar fasciitis. It's basically pain in the ligament or tendon that connects to your heel from the balls of your feet. We finally hobbled in, finishing the race in 4 hours and 47 minutes (27 minutes slower than my first marathon).

Now 3 days later the pain in my foot is still there but it's healing up. The marathon is a funny race. I realize this is going to sound ridiculous because not everyone can run 26, 13 or even 3 miles, so stick with me when I say this. The first 13 miles feel fantastic... I don't feel tired and I don't feel winded. If I stopped, my muscles would be sore but it wouldn't be a big deal. But that second half is when the muscle pain really comes. It's a feeling you just won't forget. It's a feeling you never want but you have to have in order to finish such a grueling race. I can't imagine ever being in good enough shape to ever not feel tired during the second half of the race. Although I trained really hard for my first race, around mile 20 I completely hit the wall. My muscles would not function and running was an impossibility. This race however I never hit "the wall" however my muscles still were in pain but not enough that I couldn't easily keep going. So it's interesting to me that even though I didn't train as hard, I never hit the wall. So will I do another one? Probably but whether that's sooner or later, I don't know. It's such a commitment to train for that I don't know if that's something I want to put myself through again anytime soon.

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Dog Experiment:

So there are a few behaviors in our family that have become readily apparent to me in the past few days and I am on a mission to fix them, or at least run an experiment for one full week to see if I can fix them. These few things are as follows:

• I do not like getting out of bed in the morning.
• Liz does not like getting out of bed in the morning.
• Daisy loves getting out of her crate in the morning.
• Because of our work schedules, Daisy only spends an hour or two between getting up and getting in her crate for the day, so she's understandably wound up when we get home.
  
• Daisy is not great on walks. She smells things too much, will not keep walking when I tug on her, and she also likes to run ahead, pulling on the leash.
• I do not eat any breakfast in the morning.
  

So because of these things I have decided to run an experiment with Daisy. Here it is, and probably far too structured for a blog:

Purpose:
To change my view of getting up in the morning from being tired to being awake and ready for the day. This is also to see how Daisy's behavior changes not only towards me as her Dad but also towards Liz and the day in general as she gets a little more exercise in the morning. It is also to change her behavior on our walks. See procedure below.

Hypothesis:
Daisy will not be as wild and wound up when we get home from work. She will also become very pleasant to go for a walk with. I will have a reason for getting up in the morning and getting a small breakfast and it will not be as hard to start the day. Liz will be happier to not have to get out of bed on the mornings she usually takes Daisy out.

Materials:
Ms. Daisington and her leash as well as very warm cloths.

Procedure:
Every morning at 6:30AM I will get up and take Daisy downstairs. I will get a glass of water and a snack before doing anything. I will then take Daisy out on a leash and walk at least the small loop around our neighborhood with her. Whenever she starts to sniff or smell I'll try using our "Daisy come" command and when she does, I'll praise her. Whenever she runs out ahead I will stop in my tracks and will not keep going until she sits, stays and stops tugging. When we get back, I will not get back in bed.

So that is the extent of my experiment. In exactly one week, that being next Wednesday night, I will let everyone know how this experiment goes. I will include the Results, Conclusions and Acknowledgments.

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By the way, during this post, Daisy wanted to help, so she laid her head on my laptop. Check it out(too cute, Liz came over and said, "I had to take a picture"):

So it has been about two months now since we got Daisy and while she has always been kind and nice to us, lately we feel like she is finally loving on us as if we have always been her owners, and as if she always wants us to be.

Today I went to see the Bengals game at a local bar and when I came home Liz was napping on the couch and Daisy met me at the door. I picked Daisy up and sat on the couch and she immediately went into hibernate mode and just closed her eyes and went limp on my chest with the occasional kiss here and there. After about 10 minutes I put her on the ground and opened the sliding glass door to let her out. She ran out and then turned to see if I would follow. I closed the door to stay inside and she ran up to it and starting scratching. I opened it up and she just stood in the doorway waiting for me(see Exhibit A above). I made my way out and she wagged her tail and led me down the stairs into the yard. We played fetch for a bit and when I got bored and went inside she came right in after me. I sat on the couch to check some fantasy football scores and Daisy climbed up to the couch and slowly walked over to Liz, walked all the way up her legs and plopped right on Liz's stomach into a ball to go back to sleep(see Exhibit B, Daisy tried to get up when I got the camera, so she was no longer in "ball" form). This of course woke up Liz but it's without a doubt the greatest way to wake up, let me tell you. And while this is not the first time this has happened, it has been much more frequent and we feel like she is finally 100% comfortable with us.

I must say there are times when this love waivers, and that is any time we put her in the car to go anywhere. Up until 2 months ago, car=bad. It was either to go to the Vet to get spayed or even worse, to be taken to a new home and will not come back to where ever she was. But we are beginning to change that because everyone at the Vet loves her, and by loves her I mean I'm lucky to walk out of there with her in my arms, and any other car ride is to fun places where she can run around. We think she is beginning to know what the words "go to the vet" or "going to see cousin Dewey" mean.

It has just been nice to see her transform the way she has and I'm sure she will continue to do so. After all the reading I have done about dogs and dog training, people always say that a dog won't obey you and won't want to do tricks for you unless it loves, respects, and trusts you. So now with that being said, it seems like lately she has been a lot more well behaved. Whenever we say "no bite" she actually stops, she hasn't gone to the bathroom in the house in at least a month, and she has very quickly picked up on the tricks we are trying to teach her. She has mastered, "sit", "stay", "come", "no bite", and "go to the ramp". And now we are working on "shake", "stand up", and "lay down". She will willingly do these tricks but we have to show her. We'll see how long it takes her to do them herself. Luckily for us, dog training has been a ton of fun so I see no reason why she can't learn English by at least next September.

Tonight she has another full night of fun. We are going over to Jon, Julie, and Cousin Dewey's house for dinner, pumpkin carving, and some scary movie fun. Probably going to watch "The Thing" and another scary movie like "The Shining" or something. She'll of course be preoccupied by the Deweymeister.

Here is one more picture of Daisy sleeping on us:
I also want to include one more thing. Liz came home a few days ago with a surprise. The back story is that on our honeymoon the cruise ship sailed by the Na Pali Coast on the western side of Kauai. When we were sailing by I took the camera and took as many high resolution pictures as I could and there was one clear and overwhelming favorite of the bunch. For a long time I had it as my background on my computer and just love it. Well Liz took that picture, and with the help of Stacy, they got it blown up and framed and Liz brought it home the other day. It is absolutely amazing and is a perfect picture to put above the mantle. I really love having meaningful things hung up around the house rather than just a generic picture we buy at the store, so that picture will be a reminder of the awesome time we had on the trip to Hawaii. Here are 2 pictures of the picture:


PS - I love the Bengals, but they depress me. Fire Bresnahan and draft 7 players for the defense.

After coming home from the hardest day of work I have had since working at IBM, I must blog about how awesome life is. I realize that this blog is about Liz and my lives and what we do and where we go, but I want to take a second to say just how awesome life is when you have a wife like Liz. I realize we only have 4 months experience in the marriage department, but I feel like our lives flow like peanut butter and jelly. Whenever she falls off the side of the sandwich, as that tends to happen in PB&J's, I flow right off the side with her. And the bite of a PB&J isn't as delicious without a little bit of peanut butter and a little bit of jelly. Metaphors and jokes aside, we just don't have arguments, I feel like we communicate a lot about life and the daily events, and we always know how the other will react in most situations which makes it very easy to live with each other. I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that this paragraph is just about as long as a reader wants it to be so I will leave it at, life is great with Liz.

So as far as the events in the past month or so. Momma D came to visit and that was a lot of fun. She came with her sleeves rolled up and boy did she change this house around. She painted one of our guest bedrooms royal blue, our master bathroom a dark cappuccino color, and kick started my deck project. She also got to meet Daisy for the first time and I know that they both loved that. We are so appreciative of her visiting and helping us out around the house. We look forward to more of that in the future :).
The weekend after Momma D was here, we went to the beach with Jon and Julie and Cousin Dewey. It was a great time and we will remember it most by our lack of preparation. Liz and I didn't even pack enough for a night of sleeping on the couch, let alone camping near the beach. A full change of clothes, a bathing suit, sandals, flashlight, matches or fire starters; these are all items that make sense at a camp site near the beach, apparently not to us. But regardless we had a fantastic time. We'd like to do again sometime soon and possibly make it a tradition. Here are a few pictures from the trip(you might have to click on them to see them better):

Being a small dog, Daisy has trouble getting on the couch, but we're doing our best to help her out. Tonight while Liz was making dinner, I built a ramp in the garage out of a piece of wood we bought and the rest out of the loft that I owned in college. That loft is coming in pretty handy. She usually just puts her feet up on us and we lift her up. Well we decided to make it easier for her with the ramp and we will no longer be picking her up and no longer be letting her jump off. It just looks like it's hard on her legs and body so we'll encourage the ramp as opposed to jumping. Check out this video of her accomplishments:



Last weekend we had a party for her so she could meet all of our friends and also so she could make new friends. We invited a bunch of dogs over and Dewey came of course, and also our friends dog named Pepper came as well. Dewey is big boy and Pepper is hyper so Daisy was definitely intimidated but after a while they all got along great. Here are a few pictures:

We also have a few more pictures in our web album. The link is on the right under "Clickability". Do it.

Future videos will consist of her burying things in the corner and also her going crazy whenever we sing. The other day I started singing randomly and she was practically sleeping on the couch and all of a sudden jumped up wagging her tail like I was singing to her or about her. So I kept singing and she attacked my face with kisses. So last night Liz and I were talking and I go "OH!! Check this out" and started singing and Daisy again went nuts... So you'll have to see what we mean with a video at some point.

That's all for now... folks!

ps - it says posted by Liz, but blogspot is a filthy liar.

OK OK OK, We know we know. We should have blogged long ago, when we first got the pup pup. But we're lazy and enjoying her far too much. So as you can see from the title of the blog, we decided to keep her name Daisy. But we like to come up with cool ways of saying it, like Daisers. We will probably post a lot more pictures soon to show off her cuteness but we only have a couple good ones for now.

This little doggy is just the sweetest thing. She loves to play with her stuffed animals and her favorite game is to bring us one of them and try to wrestle it from us. She's so nice about it too because she'll be holding on and growl and snarl like she's trying really hard, but then if we lean down and try and give her kisses, she pauses her snarling and just holds very very still as if to say "I'm not falling for that". And if we start to wrestle again she starts back up with the tough talk. She even holds on tight enough so that if we hold the animal high enough, her feet will leave the ground and she'll just hang there by her teeth. But she loves to run around and throwing her toys.

She would also make really good friends with squirrels because for some reason she has a habit of "saving" her food. Whenever we give her a treat or a bone or anything awesome, she takes it and maybe nibbles it a bit, but then she'll run around the house trying to find anywhere to hide it. So when she finds a spot, she'll scratch and paw like she's digging, but really doing nothing at all, and then she'll put the item down, poke it with her nose to push it into place, then she'll take her snout and shove imaginary dirt into place. We'll be walking around the house and just laugh at all the things she's "hidden". We find half eaten rawhides on the stairs. The other day I put my shirt on the couch so she folded my shirt around a treat I gave her. And just yesterday Liz was sitting on the ground and Daisy tried to hide a bone under her leg. Liz said "well that isnt going to work at all!" and the second she stood up it was right in the middle of the floor.

She loves to give kisses. If you sit on the ground, eventually she'll very slow and timidly climb your legs and up your belly and raise her head up and start licking your face. She's cute about it too, it's not like we dont see it coming. We know exactly what she's gonna do but she goes slow and is very careful about letting us know she's gonna do it.

One thing she does that we don't like is when she gets too playful and doesn't have anything in her mouth, she tries to bite at us... we were lying on the ground the other day and Daisy bit Liz's nose. We think it's cuz she is only 4 months old and she's teething so she really is biting on things to test her teeth out. It's totally not a vicious bite but more of a misdirected playful act. She also likes to bite pant legs and we're trying to break her of that as well. I don't think it'll take very long because she's already recognizing our command: "NO BITE!".

Speaking of commands, we're still working on "Sit" and "Stay" and also are taking a page from Jon and Julies book by doing that before she eats. We'll say sit and stay so she doesn't attack the food bowl before we put it down, but then when we say "OK" and she just looks at us thinking that she still has to wait... so maybe we need to work more on the "OK" command, to teach her she's free to do as she pleases. The problem with the training is that Daisy really loves the sitting position... so when training her we have to catch her off guard with the "sit" command otherwise, she's always sitting anyway. I'd pull out a treat and she'd run up and plop, sit on the ground... so maybe she doesn't need any training? The other problem is that she doesn't really value food like most dogs... If she hasn't eaten in a while, she'll be excited about her newly filled bowl, but if we get her a treat, she takes it and hides it away. The funny part is when she randomly comes running into the room because she retrieved a hidden treat from earlier in the day. She'll run in and throw it in the air and then pounce on it, and pick it up and throw it again in the air and pounce again... and Liz and I look at each other, like "where did she get that??". She's very smart in that way.

The one thing I love to do (because I did this to Lucy when I was little) is anytime you want tons of kisses, you lie on the ground like your hurt and you whine like a dog, really loud and squeaky. Anytime I do that with Daisy she sprints over to me with tons of kisses. She'll then get really low and push herself as hard as she can to get under me all the while still kissing. It's too cute.

As far as potty training goes, she started out having a lot of trouble, we realized this is mainly because we don't pay attention to her signs. Anytime she is just walking around and whining, that's why, it has absolutely nothing to do food... before we would say "What do you want Daisy?" and just question her needs, that was dumb. We also let her run loose around the house, big mistake. We have now got a baby gate and keep her in our sights at all times. She used to go to a secluded area of the house and poop there but now that she has nowhere to go, she is a lot better at telling us to go out and she hasn't pooped anywhere but outside since then. Even her accidents don't really bother us though because her bladder is the size of a mini-squirt gun... anytime she goes it only takes one paper towel to clean it up. And the best part is that, if she does have an accident, she knows it. She'll look very depressed and sometimes will go and sit in the corner as if to say, I know that was wrong but I can't help it. Liz and I have been great in the respect of scolding though, they say never scold a dog because it doesn't know what you're scolding for, and so far the only time we've scolded her is with a "NO BITE" if she bites our hands too hard and she knows immediately that she did wrong, so that's good.

I hate to end the blog on a negative note because we love her to pieces and feel so lucky that we got her seeing as so many people applied. We can't wait to take her to see our family and go on trips with her, she's just so much fun.

Anyway, I gotta get goin but we promise to post more info and pictures. We're just loving her so much and couldn't be happier.

Here's the picture of our family:


This, by the way, is Daisy's best friend Cousin Dewey. They got to play at the dog park together. Daisy was a little shy at first but after a while she warmed up and before you know it they were wrestling around. Daisy's gotta watch out for Dewey, he's sneaky with the steamroller.

The countdown is now on... we got a call from Mickey, who has been our contact person at the Carolina Animal Protection Society, and she told us we will have our home visit on Wednesday afternoon. Which means after that, she will have her appointment to get spayed on Thursday and we will pick her up on Saturday!! We have already been reading a doggy training book and have bought all her toys and crate and doggy beds and everything. It will be a really long week but the next blog you see will be about us bringing her home to our house! Until then we will just be admiring her pictures and thinking of a new name for her. Feel free to send suggestions... she's small but thinks she's a big, tough daredevil and is also very adventurous. These are our favorite pictures:

So yesterday we went to see Daisy. We couldn't possibly want her any more (that's two words, not one =P ), so we are hoping that the process of adopting her isn't stopped by something stupid at this point. After this visit the only 2 things that need to happen before we can adopt her is a home visit to see our house by someone in their organization and then she is getting spayed on September 6th. We hope to have the visit done this week and then we'll go pick her up next weekend.

But she is just as small as advertised. She is just about 4 pounds and they don't think she will get very much bigger so it'll be like we have a puppy forever. When we walked in she came right up to us tail wagging and was very playful. She immediately gave us tiny kisses and was very into playing. She had this little pink stuffed animal she loved to wrestle around with and it was funny to watch her struggle to get any grip on the hardwood floors of the house. As you can see from the pictures below, she looks like a 4 lb. version of a golden retriever, she must have gotten the looks of one breed but the size of a chihuahua. She doesn't shed at all but we are told that her "baby coat" will be shed and once she gets her adult hairs she wont shed much after that. Either way it won't bother us because she is so small and any shedding she does won't be seen because it's so light colored. She was definitely all about being held and carried around. She seemed so content. And when we were sitting on the couch she enjoyed sitting there on our laps with us. After a while she became fidgety but that's expected with all the excitement. I think we got the biggest kick out of her tackling normal dog tasks but because of her size she struggles. Like getting up on her padded bed, she had to hop and bounce in order to get into it. When she jumped off the couch she was as clumsy as possible, just 4 paws out like she was trying to fly and then she would just bounce right onto the ground.

Being just under 6 months old, she doesnt listen very well. We will be uploading videos soon and it's obvious in the videos that when we say her name over and over and she just looks at us. We'll have to work on that. She does seem potty-trained which is nice but I think the crate we get her will help as well.

Well here are all the pictures of her that we took while we were there:

No we didn't have a baby! But let me update you on what has happened since the last post:

• We didn't talk to the lady from the organization until Sunday when we went through a brief interview and the conversation was a little odd. She started to divert from talking about Daisy and I had to bring the conversation back to her because that's all I wanted to talk about... I think she was trying to give us a different dog. At the end of the conversation she gave us the phone # of the woman named Jane who is fostering Daisy and taking care of her.
• Just talked to Jane and the only concern she had was that we weren't home 24/7... I tried to let her know that we come home a lot and it's not a big deal. And by the end of the conversation, Jane said she is going to give her recommendation to the Carolina Animal Protection Society to let us adopt Daisy... WOO HOO!
  

So all that needs to happen now is the following:

• A home visit from someone in their organization to see the environment that Daisy will be living in. I'm guessing that will go well because we are not liars.
  
• We also will be driving down on Friday to visit her in Jacksonville, NC. Gotta get our playtime in!
  
• Daisy will be getting spayed on September 6th along with getting some rabies shots. Ouchy, snip snip.
  
• Then we will go pick her up ASAP! (Maybe September 7th or 8th?)
  

We also found out that the foster mom thinks Daisy is a mix of Chihuahua and Dachshund. Soooo without further ado... let me show you the two pictures of Daisy:



We are both ecstatic at this point, hopefully nothing changes! ... it's just a waiting game now...

Boy has this been a long week... it sure has tested both Liz and my patience. Some of you may know that we are looking to adopt a dog soon. Well we found one but that doesn't mean we get to have it. This past Tuesday we found a dog online named "Daisy". She is a little Chihuahua mixed with something (we don't know). I would post a picture of her but we don't want your hopes to be as high as ours are once you see a picture of her. She basically looks like a terrier in a chihuahua's body. So adorable. They say she loves to "romp" and "roam" when she isn't sitting on someone's lap, which tells us that she is a lovable thing and would be a good family pet. She is a smaller dog than what we were looking for but just too adorable to not want.... Let me outline the timeline of events:

• So after finding her on Tuesday we applied for her that night.
  
• Wednesday night we got a call that I unfortunately missed. The lady who called left a message asking if we were still interested and to call her back.
• I immediately called back to say "YES, YES WE ARE!! PEEZ GIVE US DOG!"
  
• On Thursday morning we went to look at her on the petfinder site again and she had disappeared! No longer posted there. I called back and left another message saying "umm... is she gone? what is up?"
  
• Friday morning I got a call from a different person at the rescue center that said Daisy was still available but they were getting bombarded by so many calls and emails that they had to take her off the site, and are fairly confident they can find a good applicant in the bunch. She also told me that we were the first to send in an application even though it's not a first-come-first-serve process. She then gave me a phone number to call after work to reach the person that will be going through the applications and deciding on the best applicant.
  
• This afternoon I called that woman and she hasn't answered yet. Will be continuing to call.
  

Just thought I would give an update on the excruciating waiting period we have been going through to hear about this adorable doggy. We have been getting far too attached seeing as we have only read a description of her and seen a few pictures... but that's all we have to go on...

What will be will be so we will see... and we'll let you know.

Cross your fingers for Daisy.

So I realize that the only thing we posted about since we got married was the fact that our plumbing exploded. To rap up that story, the pipe going from the house to the street was clogged so it was just a matter of unclogging it with a snake.

Married life is wonderful. I always thought Liz and I would get along as husband and wife but I didn't think it would be this easy! With one month under our belt, I thought I'd review the highlights.

Wedding: It probably couldn't have gone any better than it did. We had our food, we had our cake, we talked to everyone, and it was as drama free as it could have been. The place was decorated exactly how we wanted it. The dance floor was a little small but that ended up being perfect but it was basically packed during the dancing times. I think what Liz and I were most impressed with is the dancing skills of our families. It was just so fun to see the kids out there and all our sisters and brothers. The food was amazing and tasted exactly how it did during our tasting. The schedule went according to plan and Rob just rocked the house with DJing and MCing. The whole night was amazing. A lot of people say that your wedding day just flies by and it's like it never happened. Well we are certainly feeling that way. I remember every bit about our wedding but it already feels like it was so long ago and just disappeared in a flash. Like everything in our life right now, it was bittersweet. We enjoyed it while it was here but it's sad to see the days just flitting by.

Honeymoon: We had such a great time. I think despite a few disappointing times it was overall a relaxing yet packed with plans to see many different places. For anyone who doesn't know, we went on a cruise through the Hawaiian Islands seeing the Big Island for 2 days, Maui for 2 days, and Kauai for 2 days and then we spent an extra 4 days on Oahu when we got back off the boat. I'll first say that all the islands were exactly what they were advertised to be. Tropical and lush and full of sun. Each island was also different so it was cool to see what each island offered the state. We also learned so much about the state. Did you know there is an island that is uninhabited by people because the U.S. used it as a target for missiles and mines and military operations? Groups are working on restoring it but it's a slow process due to the extensive damage. And this island is one of the main ones named Kahoolawe. Did you also know that there is another main island that is designated and set aside only for Hawaiian natives? A family bought the island a long time ago and told the natives, if you want to live the way your ancestors did and live off the land with no interference to the outside world, you are welcome to live there. So there is a population of about 250 hawaiians who live no technological advances of any kind and live like hawaiians did centuries ago. This island is called Niihau. It's fascinating.



Now of course there are things that went wrong on the trip. The cruise ship DID NOT live up to our expectations. We will probably never be cruising with Norwegian Cruise Lines again due to the disappointing experience. The offer "free-style cruising" which they advertise as a "no schedule" type situation where you are "free to do what you like". Well it's garbage first off because most cruises only have one thing that they schedule, and that is dinner. So really it should be advertised as a "free-style dining" cruise, not free-style cruising. So as for dinner, the boat has 10 dining rooms, and 4 of which are "free", in other words included in the price of the cruise, the other 6 you pay for your food (bogus). So we get on the boat and they say you don't need to make reservations for dinner if you are in a group under 8 because the dining rooms are normally pretty free. Awesome. First night, every free dining room is a 1.5 hour wait. So we quickly figured out that you are forced to make reservations in order to have dinner at a normal/reasonable hour. (FYI, making reservations is the exact opposite of free-style).

So OK, we make reservations every night and at times the 2 cooler restaurants are already completely booked so we sometimes get stuck in the normal regular "not-cool" restaurants. So on most cruises since you are on a schedule you get the same staff every night, so they invest personal attention to you. Free-style cruising makes it almost impossible to have the same staff even 2 nights out of the 7. They don't have any investment in who you are or how much you care about their service. 5 out of the 7 nights the waiter then comes up to us and greets us with "I'm here for your order". So we spit out our appetizer, main meal and dessert and from then on it's just a here's-your-food, may-i-take-your-plate dance between us and the staff until we are gone. The 2 exceptions were a waiter and waitress who were genuinely caring and jovial with us and we certainly let them know how much we appreciated it. All the other nights were the impersonal waiters.

We are unhappy with the staff and the reservation making but to make it even worse is the fact that when we get to every restaurant there are empty tables everywhere, which is only for 1 reason, they are short staffed. Why are they short-staffed? Because they don't have to seat more than the number of people they make reservations for. Where are all the other staff? Up in the non-free restaurants earning more money for the cruise ship. Where are all the other people who are either rich or didn't make reservations? Up in the non-free restaurants paying for their food. It was such a money making scheme it made us sick, and not once was it even considered to go to a restaurant on our very expensive cruise to once again pay for our food.

I have so many more gripes with Norwegian Cruise Lines that it has provided me with enough of a motive to let everyone I know to not go on a NCL cruise. We wouldn't cruise with them again, and neither should you. It doesn't even touch the all around quality of Princess, Royal Caribbean, and Carnival. The food and restaurant situation was just a drop in the bucket but the one that was always in our face and the most annoying.



I just had to blog about how bad NCL was but the cruise was basically the only thing we had to complain about on the trip. Everything else was amazing. When we got off the boat we stayed in the Hyatt Regency Waikiki Resort and Spa and boy was that a treat. There weren't a lot of other hotels in Waikiki I would have rather stayed in. The staff was so helpful and the building was gorgeous and was basically a mall on the first few floors. The elevators were faster than anything I've ever been on and it took about 15 seconds to get to our 28th floor room. We probably won't stay there if we go back to Hawaii though because the next trip would be more of a relaxation type trip since we've seen most of everything. They Hyatt Regency is in downtown Honolulu and relaxing is the last thing a downtown atmosphere is. But it was a treat for sure.

Dewey: Once we got back, we spent two weeks with Mr. Dewey Chase. Jon and Julie (Liz's Cousin) went on a trip through the Baltic Sea (reference: http://bobcatjulie.blogspot.com/ ) and Dewey came over and stayed at our house for the time being. For anyone who doesn't know Dewey, he is a 9 month old Lab/Golden Retriever mix. It certainly took some adjustment as any dog would but by the time they came back we realized that we were really going to miss having him around. It was a joy coming home from work and hanging out with him. We learned all about the customs of the Durham Dog Park and it was a blast taking him there and watching him interact with all the other dogs. Today was the first day that I had to get up for work without him and it's no wonder I was a half an hour later to work than I was any day last week. While we will be going over and visiting him, it made us realize just how much we would like to have a dog and it won't be too long before we have one of our own. The only thing stopping us is our own slight anxiety... once we make the leap into doggy parenthood, there is no turning back. There's no question we want one, it's just a matter of getting up the courage and going.

Well that's all for now. Look for more posts in the near future on our dog hunting (that sounds terrible btw).

ps - for those of you who heard about my '1000 miles in one year' goal, I am now at 606 miles on the year. only 394 to go!

As some of you might know... we are taking care of Mr. Dewey Chase for the next two weeks as Julie and Jon are in Europe. Well today was far too disastrous to not blog about. We have been updating a google doc for them so they can see what our days are like and I thought I would post the info we put in there from today for everyone to see:

"Well I(Michael) am physically and mentally drained after today. I will try and keep this more on a Dewey note than "what our day has been like" type note but they really coincide. This afternoon we laid down and watched Six Days, Seven Nights and I pulled Dewey up to lay next to me. Don't worry, I know it's PG-13 and he's only 9 months old, but I dont think he was paying much attention to the movie. After 10 minutes he was snoring and was out for 2 hours.

"Since every Sunday is my marathon training running, I had to do 11 miles today which is 9 laps around the neighborhood. I took Dewey on the first lap and about halfway around the neighborhood, he found a tree off the side of the sidewalk and ran right into the shaded area and did a "home base" type slide to the ground. It absolutely cracked me up and I couldn't help but yell "SAFE!" It was definitely more than just collapsing to the ground, he all out sprawled and slide through the grass. I gave him a minute or two for his efforts and we kept going. I dropped him off at the house after the one lap and kept going. After 7 more laps I picked him back up at the house for another lap and that lap turned into my "warm down walking lap", he was not having any of the running this time so I obliged. When we got back to the house I was about as tired as could be and had no desire to do anything but sit and do nothing... yeah... not gonna happen.

"When we got back, Liz was preparing dinner and running the washer upstairs. Ever since we replaced the sink in the kitchen (the week before the wedding) we have been having plumbing venting issues in the house. We'd flush the toilet and the kitchen sink would gurgle and at times a geyser type water fountain would put on a display. Well tonight was the icing on the cake, when the washer went to drain the water from the system, the downstairs toilet overflowed, and "flowing" out of the top of the toilet is an understatement, it was rushing out. So Liz grabbed Dewey and put him in his cage and ran up for towels and to turn off the washer. I took whatever cloth material I could and made my very own Hoover dam around the water filling the kitchen, however it was much less effective than the one in Nevada. I turned off the water to the house and we spent the next hour wringing out towels in the backyard. The kitchen was 100% flooded and our only success was keeping it out of the "sweet room" and the living room and dining room.

"Once everything was calm and the kitchen was dry, we called roto-rooter to make an appointment. We will keep the water off all night and will be seeing the guy in the morning. After that we took Dewey for another lap around the neighborhood, this time for his benefit doing the normal walking and letting him sniff thing.

"All is quiet now as we are all pooped and hopefully will be goin to bed early. "

This is just a test really, but here are some pictures from Liz's graduation.