What happened?

Let's have a contest to guess what this is, shall we?

I experimented today with a banana bread recipe. It said to cook the bread for 1 hour. About 40 minutes into it, I decided to stick a toothpick in it since it looked a little brown. It came out clean and so did the bread. Being ever the genius, I thought you were supposed to get the bread out as quickly as possible and dump it on a cookie rack (hence the steak-looking markings on top). I shook the pan and out came the bread...without the bottom. Oh, well. It still tastes good. Now the real test...will Brian still eat it?

Backstory: A few weeks ago, Brian and his dad came up with an awesome plan for a new dog kennel. They made it out of wood and then put chicken wire on the inside so Lily wouldn't keep chomping on the wooden dowels that make up the bars. Present: I came home today, so excited to see Lily. She always is happy to see people, especially us. But to my shock and dismay, I notice that her kennel door is quite demolished. Not good. She was in timeout for a while so I could vacuum up the wood shavings that she tries to eat. Plan B for the new door: thick plywood. No more looking out the front, but Lily will live. Hopefully this solves the problem. And I can make it cuter in the future by painting it up nice. Purple should look good, don't you think? :)

Slow mo...

Currently, my computer program at work is in turtle mode, so this pic sums up my feelings at the moment. Plus, I really love posting pics of Lily; isn't she sweet? Get ready for some updates as well.

Brian and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary 3 weeks ago. Hooray for us! Since Brian had a math test, we celebrated early with a trip to Tucano's on Saturday. We filled our mouths and tummies, and still managed to eat dessert a few hours later. (Try the Snicker's cheesecake - heavenly!) We didn't do gifts this year; Lily counted for that.

My new job is awesome. I just feel badly that my co-workers have to babysit because it is very involved and complicated to learn all this stuff. But I am getting good reviews from everyone so that is a good sign. Plus my schedule allows me to have Fridays off which is always a bonus!

Lily is growing and growing! Brian wants her to continue and be a huge monster. She gained another 10 pounds this last month; up to 33 pounds now. She got her rabies shot and her first grooming done. I let the professionals clip her nails; I'm a woos! They put a little Halloween bandana on her after her bath and stuff; so cute! It remains to be seen how she'll do with a costume or if we get one. She's going to play with Dexter again and will meet Zoey on Saturday. That should be interesting…what a fun life for a dog!

Brian's doing well in his math class. Since it's word problems mostly, it is right up his alley. I hated word problems! I'm glad he has other resources if he gets stuck.

So…there's our life this past month. Hope all is well out there. Have a nice weekend, everyone!

Ah, sweet relief...

I don't know how fast news travels around here. For those of you not in the "know", I will update you on our little corner of the world.
1. Brian got into Math 1030. Yay! Why is this such huge news? Well, it means the end is FINALLY near for his schooling and bachelor's degree. He will not need to take pre-reqs. He will have just one class next semester and then be DONE!!! Yay! We are huge fans of SLCC. They saved us.
2. I got a new job. Yay! I have been looking around for a while and finally found one that will suit us perfectly. I will be working in cancer registry, starting on Sept. 14. I am stoked! I will get to work from home after a year, and when I am certified, I will make more money. Yay! You can't beat that, really.
So...that's my update for this week. We feel very grateful for all the good thoughts on our behalf. Things do pay off eventually.

Our 2009 Disneyland adventure...

I want to preface this post by saying there are no pictures of Brian and me. We had the camera phones ready and even brought a regular camera. But did we use them? No. We'll have to do better next time. I also think that if there were kids involved, we would have made sure to take some pics. Who wants to see pictures of us? BORING! Just enjoy this Buzz Lightyear shot. You can see we take the game VERY seriously!

We stopped over in St. George on the way down to Cali. I got to go-cart for the first time! It was fun! I probably looked like a loser cause I was just out for a nice ride. Everyone else was bashing into people or running into the side barriers. I saw Brian a few times mixed up in some collision. I was just crusing along.

L.A. had beautiful weather this year. The middle of June is the way to go. It was 75 degrees all week. How nice! We strolled and shopped and loved every minute! We went on Nemo at 11:45pm; only way to go. That line is forever slow, even when no one was there late! We caught the new Toy Story ride which was pretty awesome. It was a 3D midway game where you shoot different targets. It was cool! Favorite quote from the Monster's Inc. ride: At the end of the ride, Roz (secretary monster) says different things to people that are coming out of the cars. When we got there, she says to me, "Is that your husband? Ha ha ha!" Poor Brian.

We splurged A LOT on this trip. We felt we were overdue for a vacation and had been saving up extra dough to spend. We ventured over to the ESPNzone and Rainforest Cafe. Both were ok. Not really worth the money, but at least we can say we have gone. We also got a lot of fun souvenirs. I got cute clothes, and Brian ate food. We got our favorite pineapple whips outside the Tiki Room. So yummy!

We went to Santa Barbara one day. We love it! It is beautiful. We mostly window shop and stop for lunch somewhere. It is so laid back. Next time, we'll have to hit the gardens and/or tide pools. We'll also have to time our trip better. We were stuck in traffic FOREVER!

This year, we ventured out into the ocean at Newport Beach. I never thought I'd want to go swimming in public, but since the weight loss, I'm good with it. I got my shorts and tank and dove in. Well, really the waves knocked me over a few times. I was eating sand a lot. Eventually, I learned my lesson and swam out farther where Brian was enjoying just floating on the waves. So nice!

Such a nice trip, far too short for our liking. We are already planning for next year and looking forward to more adventures. Au revoir, Disneyland. Until next year...