Marla

We are dog-sitting for one of our neighbors. We have little Marla until Sunday night. She is a puggle. MacKenzie is still getting used to sharing her toys.
Marla made herself right at home and hopped on the couch with one of MacKenzie's toys.
Marla looks innocent, but she's not! She peed on my balcony. She rooted through my outdoor flower pots. She has already ripped up 2 of MacKenzie's toys! EEK!
I came out from cleaning the bathroom to find that Marla had rearranged my entryway. Grr.
Oh and here they look so innocent begging for a treat!

Today was a half-day at work for me so I got to spend the afternoon with 2 wild dogs. We are having our friend Meg over for dinner tomorrow evening so I had to really clean my place. We are talking cleaning with a toothbrush kind of cleaning. Ever since Meg has chemotherapy, I have been very cautious about getting her sick and since we are finally better I wanted to make sure that we didn't infect her! I read something about a "nesting" today. Those new moms have nothing on me getting ready for Meg. :)

We took a break from the wild dogs tonight to go to dinner and run errands. We came home and walked them and hope that we wore Marla out enough to get her to chill out!! We are certainly not going to get a second dog- EVER. :)

Car for Christy

As most of you know, I (Jenna-the one who writes this blog 99.8% of the time) am from a very small town in Indiana called Upland. I like to call it "God's Country" because there are about 7 churches to each person, 2 Christian universities within 15 miles or so and Madison-the best dog ever- lives there. All in all, it's a wonderful place. (I do enjoy being from Upland, but I don't know that I could ever live there again- boredom would be the end of me within 3 days.)

Anyway, Upland is your typical small town. Everyone knows everyone. Everyone loves Ivanhoe's (the only real restaurant in town). Imagine the shock in the town when a few weeks ago a man walked down a "major" street in town with a gun, broke into his ex-wife's mother's apartment, forced the mother out and killed his ex-wife. A hostage situation lasted quite a few hours- police didn't know the victim had already been killed- and ended with the man killing himself. (You can read about what happened here: http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/news/crime/hostage-situation-under-way-in-upland )

They had two young daughters. As it turns out, the ex-wife always knew that her ex was going to kill her. She had lived in fear for years about it happening. About a month before her death, she signed over custody of her youngest daughter to a family in town who had a daughter her age. They were willing to take care of her should anything happen to the Mom. Well, something did happen. That daughter is now settling into her new home. They're adding on to their home to accommodate their new addition to the family.

The other daughter, Christy, went to Taylor University- located in Upland. Her Mom worked on the cleaning crew at the school so that her daughter could attend. I understand that Taylor is going to let Christy finish her degree. The sad thing is when Taylor's classes release for summer break, she has no place to go. She does not have a car. She does not even have parents anymore. My heart just broke into pieces when I heard this. It is bad enough to lose your Mom at your Dad's hands, but to then have no home? Awful. She needs a car to be able to get to work, etc. and had no one to help with that- until now.

My Mom's church has started raising funds to buy Christy a car, pay the insurance for a few months and provide her with some gas cards. We will certainly be donating to this cause. Your donations are tax-deductible as the church is a 501(c)(3) charity under the Internal Revenue Code. So if you're looking for a great cause, please consider to giving to "Car for Christy."

Upland United Methodist Church
P.O. Box 11
Upland, IN 46989
Memo Line of Check: Car for Christy

Thanks, guys!

Cleanse

I'm going to be taking a break starting on May 1. May is going to be a really busy month as I prepare to GRADUATE from graduate school by taking classes each Tuesday & Thursday from 5:30-9:45, take an auditing class to prepare for the CPA exam every Monday night from 6-10 and continue to work 3-4 days a week. (No more working Fridays until August. WOOT!) Anyway, I am forcing myself to give up Facebook for about 6 weeks- from May 1 until June 14 (also know as my 26th *gasp* birthday). I know. It is going to be really hard, but I feel like I need to focus on finishing strong.

I have 35 days until my graduation in which to lose about 100 pounds so that won't be happening, but I will be focusing more on working out, eating better and spending more time with my family and less on the computer. On Sunday, Jackson and I are beginning a salt cleanse to try to jump start our weight loss. Did you know that Americans eat an average of 2 tablespoons of salt each day without knowing it? No wonder we're all bloated and irritable!

Anyway, I've become a bit addicted to knowing what is going on with other people. I think I need to take a break and focus on what is going on with me. I need to figure out what God wants from me and where I can be the most useful. I'm going to even delete Facebook from my iPhone. Whoa.

Fear not, I'll still blog because where else could I get my thoughts/rants published?! ;)

SO sick

Jackson was sick all weekend while I was in Indiana. I thought that was good timing- if there is good timing for being sick. When I got home Monday evening, he still wasn't feeling well. He was all clogged up and snored really loud that night (aka I slept like crap). So, of course, by Tuesday I felt like crap. I went to work until 1 when my boss decided not to work anymore and we went home. I did, however, get a fat bonus for all of my hard work during tax season. Woot. :) Jackson came home after a half-day so I knew he was pretty sick- he hates to miss work if it is not for something fun.

Today was my day off so I got to rest up. My temperature has been well over 102 all day. Eeek. I NEVER run a fever. My temperature is normally around 97.2 (random fact- very few Americans run such cool temps- I'm special) so I decided to take it easy today. I didn't clean the house. Gasp. I only did 2 loads of laundry. Gasp. I had to go to the grocery store. Gag. It was 80 degrees here today and I didn't even put my convertible's top down on the way to the store. At this point, I called Guy and told him to prepare my eulogy. I was fairly certain that I was going to die.

We're still not feeling great. It really stinks. The weather is supposed to get nasty tomorrow again. We're seriously supposed to get snow on April 29th. It makes me angry, really.

Here's to hoping we're on the mend soon.

Coyote down

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/27/AR2010042705323.html

I saw this article this morning and read it to MacKenzie. She was thrilled that a fellow Republican took down one of her arch enemies. I was a bit surprised to hear of someone running with a pistol, but I guess the Gov. is afraid of snakes! (What a big man. ;))

I've heard a lot of sad stories recently of pets being lost to coyotes. I wish Colorado would allow owners to defend their pets, too.

Way to go, Texas! :)

The Porterfield Family

My good friend Christina and I went to visit Andrew, Heidi and Jax in Marion today. It was so good to see the little guy again. And catching up with Heidi wasn't so bad either. ;)
Christina playing with Heidi's nephew, Hunter.
Heidi's niece, Gillian, stealing most of her dessert! It is a good thing Gillian is so cute or I'm not so sure Heidi would have shared! :)

It was such a fun day. I hung out with the Coomes family this morning. Then Mom and I drove to Muncie for lunch with Guy, Shannon and David. It is always so good to see my bestest. Then I came to God's Country for a minute before heading to see the Porterfield family with Christina. It turns out Heidi's family was having a big family gathering and Christina and I crashed it! I didn't care because I love Heidi's family. It was so good to see everyone and catch up. They're such good people! And I always love seeing Bluey (Christina). I love coming home and seeing all of my friends. Sigh.

Tonight we had ice cream from Ivanhoe's and my day was complete. Now I am hanging out with Madison and Macy- the dogs here in Upland. Love it. :)

Alex comes to the Coomes'

Monty, Grace's dog, kept a very close eye on Alex during the whole dinner.
I love this picture of him in his "My Aunt Rocks" t-shirt. :)
I was feeding him until my Mom took him away. Hmph.
Grace, Kathi, Mom and Alex. :):)

Kylie was making Alex dance and it was pretty much the funniest thing EVER! :)

Aunt Jenna meets Alex!

Friday afternoon I escaped the snow in Denver and headed for Indiana. My Mom picked me up at the airport and we made the looooong drive to Newburgh. It is so funny that both of our sisters live in Newburgh. They're only about 2 miles apart! We headed right to Kylie's to meet Baby Alex. He was such a sweet boy. Oh, I loved him!
He was so tiny. I describe holding him as holding an empty milk jug!
I was just so happy to finally hold the little guy that I'd been praying for forever! He was perfect!!! He was not fussy. He was just a great little baby.

I got to stay with Grace across town from my sister's place. Kathi & Tom's "new" (they've been there 18 months or so!) house was gorgeous. It was such a nice place to stay. Grace's room is awesome. I made a video that I'll post when I return to Denver.

I enjoyed my time hanging out with all of the family, but I missed Jackson terribly. :( I wish he had more vacation time and could come home with me.

BAH-STON

We got into Boston just in time to take in some of the marathon- it was pretty awesome.
We walked down to Fenway to see it. The Red Sox were in the middle of losing their 5th straight game. Whoops. Better luck next time, Sox.
HUGE crowds!


I cannot believe 26,000 people signed up to run the marathon! Crazy!

Another feel of how crowded it was along the marathon's path.
We had lunch at Legal Seafood- it was just as good as we remembered. YUM! All in all, we really enjoyed our time in Boston and cannot wait to go back. :)

I made a quick video with my camera to give everyone a feel for the masses of people.

Rock Climbing

Jackson felt brave on our last morning and climbed down these rocks to the beach.



Doesn't he look COLD?! It was super breezy.

As we were walking back to the hotel to leave for Boston, an old lady stopped us and scolded Jackson for worrying her. Apparently she'd been watching him from the pathway. Classic. :)

Toaster Strudel

Since our room has a kitchen in it, we went to the grocery last night and got a few things. They had toaster strudels! I had not had them since I was a little girl at my Grandma's house. They were just as tasty as I remembered them being, Grams. I get to have them again tomorrow, too. Yum!!!

More Maine

Jackson was so excited to eat his lobster that he could not even smile for the camera.
There we go- now he's smiling.
We got MacKenzie the summer collar we'd been looking for in Portland, Maine this afternoon. Portland was a really cute city that reminded us of a small Boston.
We got to Portland by going through Kennebunkport. The Bush family has a compound there. We didn't see it, but we're certain it is pretty nice.
These are lobster fishing boats. Pretty cool, huh?
We really wanted a fresh lobster from their boats. That didn't happen. :(
Jackson thinking about his lobster dinner- see above.
Some kind stranger offered to take our photo. I look terrible. Awful. So that photo isn't posted. HaHa. :)

We had a nice day today and we even got to see MacKenzie at Camp Bow Wow!! :)

Ogunquit, ME

Jackson wanted you all to think that we were staying in this really cool hotel. Nope. :)
This morning it finally quit raining. Woo hoo! We went for a walk down to the beach and climbed on the rocks.
It was soooooooo pretty!
We didn't find any little creatures on the rocks, but there were certainly some kids looking really hard.
We love the ocean!
We're actually staying at a B&B type place here in Ogunquit, Maine. Ogunquit is a sleepy little beach town just north of York- where we were yesterday watching the surfers.
This is our hotel. It is classic. It really isn't terrible- just more funny to me than anything. It's definitely quaint.
We are staying in the "Shore House." No, not the Jersey Shore. ;)
We're just up the stairs there. We even have a little porch. Woot.
Mr. Petefish taking a walk on the beach.
A man fishing.
A great view of the beach.
J loves J :)

A rare shot of the blogger herself (sporting Jackson's Boston Red Sox cap from our last trip).