Our Valentine: The Swine

Hola friends! Hopefully everyone's Valentine's was romantic....ours was somewhat. We did dinner Saturday night at Brio, it's a little Tuscan cafe close to us. It was very nice, but also very packed.

Dave worked all in the ER all weekend, so Sunday I spent the day with Oscar. He was a good date, we took a nice long walk. We did meet my great-uncle Marv and my 2nd cousin Mark for dinner. We took them to a sports bar, On Tap, that has tons of beer on tap. It was a lot of fun, and great to see people from home. They're in town for a soy-bean conference. It was nice.

For Valentine's day I bought Dave an overnight shoulder bag to take on is night calls, because before he was taking a recyclable Publix bag. (Publix is a grocery store here, absolutely love it!!) Anyway, I guess some of his guy friends were giving him crap about it, haha, I decided that maybe I should be a better wife and get him a respectable bag. He wouldn't get it for himself, because he really sees no problem with carrying a grocery bag to work full of his clothes.

Speaking of Publix, Dave and I have gotten very in to cutting coupons. There's this website, southernsavers.com that is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. It tells you what's on sale, where to find the coupons (from the Sunday papers) and then you can even print more of them off online. There's a special class that the lady puts on that one of the girls from work is going to have at her house in March. I will be attending, as will Dave if he's not working. It's a game to see how much we save. Last week we spent $80, saved $60. Hopefully we'll get much better! I do feel like my Grandma Marceille, I remember her sitting at the kitchen table on Sunday's going through the coupons. :)

Dave has the swine flu. He just went to a doc-in-the-box this afternoon, and tested positive. We don't own a thermometer (until tonight, b/c we just bought one) but last night he was fever-ish and chilling, and just miserable. Not to mention super congested and coughing. He moved to the guest bedroom at around 11pm, the living room at 1am, etc, he just couldn't get comfortable. It was a long night for me..... Haha, just kidding, I felt really bad for him. He got 2 shots in the butt, and is on a couple of antibiotics not to mention hydrocodone cough medicine..... Which is great since our honeymoon is within the next week. I also am taking Tamiflu to prevent me from getting it.

We're soooo ready for our honeymoon. All inclusive resort in Mexico= pure delight. Oscar is going to the nanny's with a lot of other puppies so he comes back so tame and exhausted, we love it. It's a win-win for both parties involved. Okay, well it's after 10, so I'm late for bed. Hope all is well!

Catching up

Hello all! It's been awhile, so let me catch you up....My parents and Michelle were in here last weekend. That was fun, we did nothing but wedding things. This means spending 50 million hours at fabric stores and Hobby Lobby. I spent about 49 million of those hours in parking lot waiting in the car. (I do love Hobby Lobby though, don't get me wrong.) My Dad did random things around the house which was much appreciated. He always needs things to do, he can't just lay on the couch all day, which I don't understand.

They got to meet Oscar in all of his glory! My dad did well with him, he kept him under control on his leash while Michelle's wedding dress fabric covered the dining room floor. Oscar did jump on it a few times when we weren't paying attention. :) He's just excited....he gets to be a ring-dog! We're really excited, and hopefully he'll be very well behaved and not chase squirrels. My sister's wedding is going to be outside. I want my mom to make him a little vest out of Michelle's dress material, but a bandana like scarf may suffice.

Oh! So Dave was working in the ER Tuesday night and they were slow, so he came home early. At 4 am. And did not call to warn me. I thought I was dreaming of our alarm beeping. I roll over and happen to peek my eyes open to notice the hall light was on, then heard something drop in the kitchen. At this point my heart is pounding and I'm brainstorming of what to do next, hide....call the cops....get something to knock this robber out? Then I heard my so-called ''robber'' peeing. I figured that if this was a real robber, he wouldn't stop to pee. Then Dave walks in. He didn't want to wake me up by calling me, so instead he woke me up making me have a heart attack. Of course, the dog didn't bark....at all. He was in his kennel, and he doesn't bark when he's in there. Instead I hear these big happy yawns....thanks for protecting me.

Then while Dave was sleeping during the day, he let Oscar sleep in our room. He normally does well during the night if he's in there, but he's not dumb. He knew it was day time and he should be playing. Or chewing on my rug, same thing. Well, Dave woke up at noon to little Oscar destroying our rug in the bedroom. He had unraveled one whole corner of it. And when I called him at 3 to wake him up, I asked, "The dog didn't eat my rug, did he?" And Dave responds, "Yes." I thought he was kidding, because I always tell him, DO NOT leave that dog out while you are sleeping during the day. When I came home both father and son accompanied me to the bedroom, with heads hanging and their sad little puppy eyes. They both knew what they had done, I didn't have to say anything. Needless to say, I'm getting a new rug.

Yogurt Mountain is still our weakness, we frequent it waaaay too often. Dave thinks we need to open one up someday. We'll see...

Oh yes! And fellow Nebraskan's would appreciate this: our gas bill last month?? $400. Not kidding, houses must not be nearly as insulated down here. (The lows were down in the teen's last month, and our heater never shut off) I wanted Dave to call and see what was going on, since I'd never had a bill that high in Nebraska....where it was -18. But he says to me, "Sarah....do you think they're going to care?" Whatever. Come to find out, a lot of people's gas bill were comparable to that. I think we may add more insulation in our attic before next winter. Dave doesn't know this yet, but we will.

Well, that's all for now! Have a good weekend and enjoy the Super Bowl! I'm really excited for the commercials! We're going over to a friend's house, with other friends...all of whom are from New Orleans. They're going to have Louisiana themed party. (Food wise) I'm excited!

Puppy needs disobedience.

Well just an update on the training. He was the most well behaved dog during and after the trainers left. However, now......he's mad. Very mad. He's on a leash with us in the house (unless we're playing) and he does. not. like. it. It's been a parenting lesson to us. I'm tempted to send him to my friend Erin's elementary classroom up in Omaha, for children that cannot function or behave properly. He needs a beating.

Come to find out, though not surprising, Dave is the sympathetic one, and I'm the enforcer. I relate it to the fact that I'm the primary caregiver to Oscar most of the time, so sometimes I'm about ready to kill him. I did about kill him last night with the scissors after I found a large tuft of wool missing out of my new rug and had to cut the wool to make it look normal again. Dave protected him. We've had some 'come to Jesus' parenting talks, about how he's like a toddler and he's walking all over us. It's exhausting.....this is why we don't have children.

Completely random but funny thought for the day: I was walking through our waiting room the other day to hear a 5 year old try to explain to an innocent volunteer, around my age, ''about how those tubes in my head work to wash my brain." It was quite amusing. She had a perplexed look on her face. Love it.

The puppy is puking.

So this week has been eventful (with the dog.) Oscar has been sleeping in our room instead of his kennel....he loves to be under the bed. So, Dave was on call Wednesday night so it was just me and puppy. At around 2 am I hear Oscar pop up under the bed (he forgets that he can't stand while under there.) He then starts heaving, and pukes. I flip on the lights, and check on him because he's never done this before. On the floor I find this big ol chunk of something that looks very similar to poop. I clean it up---thank God for hardwoods!-- and even smell it to make sure it's not poo. Sorry if that grosses people out but I wanted to make sure he wasn't obstructed and puking up bowel contents. Anyway, we go back to bed and have no more problems. People at work reassured me that's what puppies do, and there vomit is always chunky depending on what they got in to.

So the next day I tell Dave, but puppy is still fine, so we think nothing of it. That evening Dave was in the shower, and I was in front of the TV, and Oscar....wellll, I thought he was eating. Dave gets out of the shower, and I hear a "SICK! OSCAR NOOOOO!!!" Oscar had gotten into my box of tampons, and was eating the cotton absorby things. I thought we had gotten them all away from him, but come to find out at 2 am again Thursday night that he had eaten another 2 and a half. It came out again in his puke. Dave came to the end of the bed when I was cleaning that mess up, and says, "Sarah....that could kill him! But I could see how thought that could be poop." Thanks honey, I know that it could kill him, it's not like I put the tampons in his food bowl and begged him to eat it. It's been quite the conversation piece. :)

Other than that, we have discovered our new guilty pleasure. It's a wonderful, magical place called Yogurt Mountain. Holy smokes, it's a little piece of Heaven in our mouths. They give you a bowl, there are like 15 soft-serve style yogurt options on the wall, and then on the other side there's a ba-zillion toppings. You then weight it, and pay. It's dangerous. Dave said we're going to have to work that into the budget every week.

Oh, and we're very excited that the dog trainers are coming this evening, in about a 1/2 hour. Oscar is getting very nippy/barky/hyper. Things that we don't need. This program is supposed to be wonderful, and they come and work with us and Oscar for around 4 hours. It's called How to Talk Dog, and we've been looking forward to it all week. I'll let everyone know how it goes. Maybe I'll be able to move my trash cans and plants back down to the floor and he won't eat them. That's a wonderful thought.....

Sorry I'm always talking about Oscar, but he's our little toddler. Our pride and joy. Most times.

When Dad's away, the child will play.

I thought I'd share this with all of you. It's amusing. This was the other night when Dave was on-call, I hear lapping water and walk in to find this.... He's never been big enough to do this!

He always behaves worse when Dave is gone.

Another on-call day and I'm bored....

Oh goodness, I really need to start updating this more! The first half of the month has gone by quickly, and we've been busy!! Dave's on gastroenterology (GI) right now and is on call every 4 days. He's been learning a lot I suppose, but it just feels like he's never home. (He feels the same way, it's not just me whining.) But we're going on our honeymoon next month to Mexico so we have that to look forward to!

Let's see....oh yes! Alabama obviously won the National Championship. Most everyone was very happy at work---except the Auburn fans that were cheering for Texas. :) I was dying laughing because they were displaying the trophy at local Walmarts, but was quickly informed that it had something to do with the a deal with Dr. Pepper? I guess that makes it a little better.

Work has been really busy!! I am starting to get into the swing of working 5 days a week. I'm not as exhausted as I used to be, and the weeks normally fly by! I still really enjoy the weekends though, and this weekend we get a 3 day one because of Martin Luther King day. I love clinic hours!!!

I was just complaining to my mom about my Saturday routine: cleaning and catching up on laundry. I wish I could teach myself to do these things during the week so it doesn't ruin my weekend, but I'm just too tired once I get home. And Dave doesn't clean up to my expectations, so I don't even ask him to do it.

Speaking of Dave, he made the comment this past week that he feels poorer now than he did when he was in med school. I assured him it's because he's now making his own money, instead of spending the bank's loan, so you feel worse about spending it. He has us on a strict budget. It makes me smile....he'll sit on the computer for a long time and look at our budget through Quicken and try to cut back on things. It's cute. I brought up the fact that maybe we could get rid of the satellite and just stick to cable. We couldn't have that though, we'd lose our Big Ten channel (i.e. Michigan State Basketball) and then the world just may end. It's been an adjustment to have joint accounts....I can't just go out and buy things anymore and just tell him it was on sale. He can see how much it was. :( Sales in my eye's are a little different than sales in his eyes.

Oh! Also, he has decided on a career path. He is going to do his fellowship in GI (gastroenterology or the gut) and then he wants to specialize further into hepatology, more commonly known as liver. The only bad thing, GI is quite competitive so it makes me nervous about where we'll be going for fellowship. Also, the fact that it will probably be an additional 4 years after residency. We were talking about it at work the other day, and he'll have either been in school or training for 15 years after graduating high school. Yikes, I wonder if pre-med college freshman think about that? Maybe that's why so many change their majors. Probably a smart choice.

Oscar is getting big! I took him to the vet this morning and he weighs 21 pounds! The vet told us he'll most likely be over 60 pounds. He still thinks he's a lap dog. Next weekend we're doing a training session with him, trainers are coming to our house, so we're really ready for that! He's at the groomer's right now, getting his toe-nails cut so he doesn't scratch our wood floors, and just getting trimmed up around his privates so he stays clean. Mommy's anal about cleanliness.

Hope everything is going great for everyone back home! I hear some of the massive amounts of snow are melting! Praise God!

Our little family

This is an updated picture of our little family....I have no make-up on so try to look past that. It's new years day and I had a late/crazy night of watching TV last night, so I was too tired to do anything with myself today.

Oscar is getting big, and we get many compliments on how cute he is. (He gets it from his momma, obviously!) He was able to go leash-less today so he was quite the adventurer in the boulder fields. Jerris, Michelle's boyfriend, told us about it when he was up from Florida because there are HUGE boulders that people rock climb on. It's very pretty.

Lindsay, Dave's sister and her boyfriend are down for a few days so it's been great to catch up with them! Lindsay took this picture from her phone, so it's probably not the best quality...but it definitely works! Happy 2010 to all!!

Is it weird for anyone else that we're no longer going to say o-9 for the year, or 0-8? Now we just say 10, and that seems odd.