Happy Birthday Laura!!!!

Laura and me at the zoo last June

A new addition to the family!

It's name is Nori which means Law in Japanese. It is a snail. Here is a nice picture of it.



We also got a new tank, in which Kenji and Nori can peacefully co-exist. We also got another plant.

Check out the new abode.

Goodnight Moon

My Two Front Teeth

(Radar at the vet's office)

When we adopted Radar, all but 4 of her teeth had already been pulled. She still had her canine teeth. But they begun to fall out one by one until she only had one tooth left-- her upper left canine. Well, at Radar's yearly checkup, the vet discovered that her last little tooth was infected.

Radar had surgery yesterday to remove her tooth and it went very well. She has stitches all in her mouth, poor little baby, but she seems to be doing just fine. The only strange thing is that her meow sounds funny now. It sounds like she's been smoking cigarettes. Or maybe she's just hoarse from crying while she was at the vet's office. Can cats get hoarse? I have a hoarse cat with no canines.

Soup Bloggy Blog

I am cataloging delicious vegetarian soup recipes on a new blog. It is located at souperduper.blogspot.com. Each post is a different soup recipe, and some of them are recommendations by my lovely friends. If you have a favorite vegetarian soup recipe (or one that is easily converted into a vegetarian recipe), please send it my way. I love making soup.

Also, I realize that a blog isnt the BEST way to organize recipes. But at the bottom of each is post a little place called "labels" and they are hyperlinks to a page that will compile all of the recipes that have the same label. So if you see a recipe with the label "tomato" at the bottom and you dont like that recipe, but you want to see other tomato recipes, then click on the hyperlink and you will see all of the tomato recipes.

Another way to navigate the page is to look in the top left and find the archive section that is organized by month. You can click the little arrows next to each month to drop down all of the recipes that were posted. So if you are looking for specific recipe and cant remember exactly where it is, open all of the months and if you still dont see it, then click (ctrl + f) to open the find box and start typing one of the words in the title. The find box will help you locate the recipe you are looking for by highliting the word you type wherever it is located on the page.

So eat more soup. And send me some recipes to try!

Thank you, Maki!

Once upon a time in college I took a nice Japanese girl to a dance. It was the dance class final exam and her name was Maki. We went and had a nice time. We, well I, got a ribbon even. Then a few days later she sent me something in the school mail. It was a cute home-made puzzle that when put together looked like....

this!

How wonderful and cute of her! I just found it and thought I would share her niceness with the world.

Flower

Elliot took this pretty picture in Gainesville, Florida in 2004.

Newest Addition

Welcome to Kenji Valentino!

Elliot got me an early Valentine's Day present when we went to the pet store today. Kenji is a male betta. You can read more about bettas here.

He seems very happy in his new home (which is at least three times as big as the cup they were keeping him in at pet store). Elliot also got Kenji a banana plant to liven the place up.

He's so pretty!

PS~ "kenji" means "public prosecutor" in Japanese.

On Belay!

Mary and I decided to go rock climbing today! It was very fun and generally awesome. They taught us how to tie in and how to belay each other which is basically managing the ropes so the other person can't fall very far and then helping them down. When the climber is tied in and ready they must say "on belay!" Once ready the belayer must then say, "belay on!" Then the climber says "climbing!" and the belayer responds "climb on!" Then you can start to climb. When you are ready to come down you must yell "Hey, I am ready to come down now!" You get the idea. Mary and I both went all the way to the top of at least one of the walls we climbed. The walls are all at least three stories tall.


Here is a shot of me belaying Mary.


Here is a shot of Mary belaying me.

Atlanta with kitties!

This last weekend Mary and I went to Atlanta so that we might visit our friend Byron. Bryon has a cute little kitty named Sophie.

We went to numerous good restaurants and also visited the IKEA store, which was AWESOME.


Here is a picture with Byron and I

Garden Party Photo

Brendan took this picture of us at Kelli's reception in December.

Before the Digital Camera

Here is a picture of a photograph that was taken when Elliot and I were in high school. We're at a shooting range. The thing about Elliot is that to truly bond, dangerous weapons usually have to be involved. Dangerous weapons or video games. And I don't play video games.

Katydid What?

A lot of cool bugs live in our yard. Here's a katydid that Elliot and I found a few months ago. I tried to identify it and I found some katydid species that look very similar, but I couldn't find a perfect match.

What a friendly Christmas time we had!

In addition to spending some of the best ever quality time with my family, Mary and I also spent some great quality time with our friends. Thank goodness for family and friends. The above picture was taken at Brendan's Parent's house.

Who is in the picture from left to right: Jen, Chris, Brendan, Taryn, Mary, Elliot and Randy.

Mary and I went away for the weekend.

We took a trip to Apalachicola and stayed in a nice little bed and breakfast called the Coombs House Inn. Here are some pictures.


This is the back porch of the inn.



Here is Mary near a little shop.



There is stuff like this all over the place here!

The restaurant called Owl Cafe was exceptional and I would go back just for the food there. The service at the Inn was great and innkeeper was very nice and accommodating. Mary and I rode some bikes and had a great time!

Anyone wanna see my grandma playing the Wii?

Well look right here!
By the way she is over 80 years old and still, quite obviously, going strong.

I had heard all about how non-traditional gamers were supposed to be able to pick up and play the Wii. I decided to put that to the test.
It was mostly a success.
Both my Aunt and My grandma seemed to enjoy playing the Wii though to be perfectly honest it did take them a while to get used to the controls, but probably a much shorter time than would be required for any other game controller. The fact that my Grandma even played at all is a testament to the ease of use and intuitiveness of the Wii-mote. I am not sure she didn't have too much fun but she definitely had a good time overall. Congratulations to her for playing videogames! Thanks Mema!

Mammaw

My mother found this picture of her mother posted on the internet. Isn't my grandmother pretty? She must have been a teenager in this picture, if the date is accurate.

De-evolution of the Modern Bride

My dear friend Kelli (whom I've known for over 10 years) was given a bridal shower just before Christmas. It was tons of girly fun; Kelli was crowned Queen, had presents bestowed upon her, and was served a feast fit for a king. Even though there was no official medieval theme to the party, I think it's pretty obvious that we reverted to the laws and customs of feudal England.

Here is a picture of Kelli ruling over her subjects (see how sad and oppressed I look?):


(l-r: Taryn, Kelli, Mary, Kelli's mother)

And here I am sacrificing a pinata donkey for the entertainment of all who are present:



(Click to enlarge photos, which are courtesy my most newlywed friend, Kelli.)

A Christmas Miracle!!!

Applesauce was diagnosed with diabetes this past June. The vet told us that in very rare cases cats can recover from the disease after several years, but that we shouldn't expect or even hope for that to happen.

But guess what! After just 6 months of twice daily shots of insulin and a special diet, Applesauce's glucose levels are normal! We're keeping him on a special diet, and it's possible that he may develop diabetes again later in life, but as of right now he's no longer diabetic.

I feel so lucky. And I'm sure that Saucey does, too.

Cat TV

Applesauce came with me for a visit to my parents' house and he was awed by my dad's fish tank. Applesauce was a good boy and he didn't try to chase the fish or stick his paw in the tank and catch them. He just sat down and watched "Cat TV" as the fish swam back and forth.