Valentine's 2011

Last weekend Kody and I trekked to downtown Chi-town to enjoy some good music, good food and good company (each other).


As a Christmas present for each other, we bought tickets to see Les Miserables - a show I've been wanting to see since high school. (Shout out to Emily, my junior year Les Mis buddy!) We saw a high school production and fell in love with the story and the music. Emily has now seen it four times, but I've been waiting patiently until it came to Chicago!


Les Mis = AMAZING. I didn't want it to end. I never want musicals to end.

The weekend was made extra special by an amazing meal at The Melting Pot (can you say 5 courses, complete with shrimp cocktail, spinach artichoke dip, salads, lobster/shrimp/filet mignon, white chocolate strawberry shortcake dessert). YUM! And we ate it all!

At The Field Museum with Sue the T-Rex

And the extra, extra special part was the free two night stay at the downtown Chicago Hyatt, compliments of Kody's Aunt Lisa (thanks again soooo much!!). We definitely took advantage of the hotel - working out in their weight-room TWICE (I've never done that on a "vacation" before! But the treadmills had personal TVs in them - maybe best part of the weekend!) and enjoying the television we don't have at home.

View outside our hotel window

I'd definitely vote this as our best V-day to date and it'll probably take a lot to top it. But I'm willing to try!

Happy 1st Birthday!

Happy 1st Birthday to our favorite puppy in the world!

While he doesn't look too happy in these pics, you know he was loving wearing this awesome Thomas the Train hat (in honor of his favorite nephew, Elijah).

The pup spent the morning (2/11) chewing on a birthday bone, along with enjoying some of our bathroom trash, while we were at work. Then off to doggie daycare for the weekend while we enjoyed an awesome few days in Chicago for Valentine's Day!

Noodles, it has been quite a year (or 10 months since we adopted you). You started out as a fun-loving, cute, LITTLE pup who loved his bear toy and had a broken/scrawny front leg. Now, you're a crazy, wild, high energy, LARGE pup who still hates it when we leave and gets soo excited when we come home. We tried to change your name, but nothing fit you like Noodles does. You're tall, lanky and still slightly awkward. We were told you were a black lab/terrier mix. Come to find out, you're half giant (aka great dane). You've made many a mess on our carpet, ruined three pairs of shoes, chewed up a few cords and destroyed/loved on too many toys to count. You used to be scared of the water, but now you love it (except baths). You're always up for snuggling, which often turns into rough-housing. And your large size has helped you acquire many nicknames - monster, beast, horse, Noodley-Doodley, Mr. Noodles, Mr. Noo-Noos and Noody. I can hardly remember a time when my carpet wasn't covered in dog hair and my kitchen floor didn't have small puddles of water. You have tried our patience, you have shown us we have no patience and you have taught us how to learn patience. You're not exactly the most calm or obedient dog, but that's probably our fault - we never got around to obedience school (still on the to-do list) or really any substantial/dedicated training. But you do know a few tricks - sit, down, come, turn, speak, shake, up and we're working on settle (aka "calm down, you crazy dog!"). You ate through one kennel, outgrew another, and now we leave you free to roam the apartment, hoping everyday that we don't come home to a mess. You're trustworthy about half the time. There have been many days when we've wondered what we got ourselves into, but now, when we leave for a weekend, we worry about how you're sleeping at night, if you got enough food and if the other dogs are being nice to you. (Oh man, how in the world are we going to handle children??)

You grew from this:

to this:

and ten months ago, I hated big dogs.

favorite thing

Besides my hubby and my puppy, of course, I LOVE being greeted by the sound of piano playing!

This past summer, my Nana and Gramps gave Kody their piano and it's been so fun to hear him tinker around on it and come up with beautiful melodies. He sits down almost every day after work to help him relax and unwind.

Kody isn't a typical piano player. He can't read music, but he has an amazing ear. Before Christmas, I asked him if he could play some Christmas carols. He said he didn't know any, but we started singing a few, he began playing some notes and 30 minutes later he could play five or six Christmas carols!

I love it! But the best part is when he writes his own music.

Recently, Kod got together with friend and recorded/edited a song that he'd written.

Last Friday night, I spent almost THREE hours trying to figure out how to put the song on the blog ... and at the end of the night I had nothing to show for it - except converting a wma file into an mp3 file. BUT I FIGURED IT OUT TODAY!! Yay!

So feel free to click the play button on the top right-hand side of the blog and enjoy the beautiful song! If you're getting this in an email, you'll have to actually go to the blog to hear the song (and see the Noodles video from the previous post).

Snowpocalypse 2011!

You know what 20 inches of snow in Chicago means?

Snowpocalypse 2011! (aka SNOW DAY FROM WORK!!!)

Here are a few highlights of our wonderful, snow-filled, sunny day:

We slept in and had a delicious breakfast - omelets, homemade hash browns, OJ and grapefruit. (Notice how nice this picture actually looks - I never take pictures during the daytime! Amazing what a difference it makes!) We then headed over to Kevin and Marla's house, so Noodles could play in their yard (and so Kody could try his Jeep out in some real snow).

The view out our front window:

And a puppy having way too much fun in the snow: