Puppy names

So, I know a lot of you voted on the puppy names poll and some of you may not know what name we decided on. I don't know why it took me so long to decide, but I guess I wasn't in love with any of the names or they just didn't seem quite right somehow. I eventually had to just decide though, and I ended up with Roxy. She actually hardly ever gets called that though. Roxy is her official name for the Vet, etc. but David had decided early on that her name should be Chompers. She got that name because since we've had her she often bites or chomps at the air when we are playing with her or when she gets frustrated or wants something. So, David wouldn't budge and refused to call her anything but Chompers, which is now usually shortened to Chomps. We do have a lot of other random nicknames for her also, like Flopper, Lil' Pup, Puppy, Pupper Poo, Little Chomps, Frogley, Bug eater, Fattie, Little Wag, Little Bear, and Wet Beard.

Jennifer visit

A couple of weeks ago my sister Jennifer came to visit for about a week before going on to Oregon. We didn't get to do a lot of stuff since I was still working, but we did some shopping, got to see a free show called Matsuri at Imperial Palace, and Jennifer relaxed in the spa a lot while I was working. She got along well with our puppy Roxy (aka Chomps or Chompers) and she was sad when Jennifer had to go. Jennifer is now hanging out at our parents house in Oregon until she goes into the MTC on the 21st.

Oregon Trip 2009

David and I went to Oregon a couple of weeks ago to visit my parents and my sister and her family, and David's brother Michael and his wife Kristen, who just moved there from San Diego.
It was good to see everyone and enjoy the cooler weather there. I was able to spend time with my nieces and nephews, although I guess I'm a little biased because my youngest niece got the majority of pictures taken out of everyone.
We went to an art and air festival one of the days with my family. My dad enjoyed looking at the classic cars and the kids got to make some crafts. There was a food booth there with deep fried twinkies and snickers, but I didn't try any. We also went to a rock house/museum with the kids that was pretty interesting.
We went with my parents to Foster Lake in Sweet Home and walked around. It was cool to see the blackberry bushes growing right along the water. My mom and David and I also went on a walking tour of some historic homes in Albany. On the last day staying with my parents, we went to the coast together and ate seafood (of course), went to the aquarium, and saw the sea lions at the pier.
David and I stayed with Michael and Kristen for the rest of the trip. They had just moved there about a week before, so David helped Michael move stuff into his new office at Oregon State and we went house-hunting a little bit with them too. They taught us a fun new card game that we played a couple of times, and we went hiking and saw some historic covered bridges (and encountered a snake). We also went to the farmer's market where I found a delicious orange watermelon, white peaches and yellow plums.
We drove up to Portland on one of the days and went to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry and saw an IMAX movie. After the museum we went downtown to find a place to eat, but couldn't find the restaurant that had come up on the GPS, so David and I ate at this area of ethnic food stands that we came across. David and I then met up with Crystal and her family and took the kids to the Portland Children's Museum while Michael and Kristen went to the Portland Temple. Then we all went to dinner at a Mongolian bbq restaurant at Brian and Crystal's suggestion.
It was a great trip and fun to see everybody and enjoy all the green. Until next year...

More pictures at this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/Oregon2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCKPX-tyWkcqKpgE#

Mission Call

My sister Jennifer just received her mission call yesterday. She will be serving in the Hawaii, Honolulu mission and will serve at the Laie Hawaii Temple in the visitor's center. She goes in to the MTC on October 21. I am very excited for her!

New Puppy

David and I just got a new puppy. She is a cockapoo (cocker spaniel/poodle) and is 12 weeks old. We are working on the training process, but she seems to be doing pretty well so far. She doesn't bark and seems to be a good puppy, besides the not sleeping through the night part. Hopefully that won't last too long...
Here are some pictures and a little video at the bottom (no sound though). We haven't decided on a name yet, so if you have any ideas you can give us suggestions in the comments section!

Backyard

We recently finished getting our backyard landscaped, and we're pretty happy with the results. Our yard was just dirt with a concrete slab by the sliding glass door before. Our yard is L-shaped, so we didn't have a lot of width to work with, and the HOA also said we had to plant things 3 ft away from the wall/fence. We put an area of artificial grass in for the dog that we are hoping to get soon (also, real grass does not do well here in Las Vegas). The plants will be getting bigger and start to look nicer as some time goes by. Here are some pictures!

Trip to Utah

Over Easter weekend (Thu-Tue) we went up to Utah to visit friends and family. The main reason we were going up was for David's Grandpa Lowe's 80th birthday, but it also happened to include Easter, Laura's birthday, and 2 anniversaries (David and myself and Michael and Kristen).

For Grandpa Lowe's birthday, the whole family got together for pictures and a luncheon. It was very nice. The food was great and they had memory books put together and shared stories about Grandpa.
We were able to get together with friends and eat at probably my favorite restaurant ever, Bombay House. That night we played Rock Band (for the 1st time) with Russ and Phoenix and Dadoo and Mandy. I figured out I am not very coordinated with the drums (unless I'm only over 2 of the 4), so I mostly stuck to singing.

For Laura's birthday, Michael made her a cake that we all enjoyed after our Easter dinner with the family. We also went to see the Draper temple which was recently opened.

We stayed over one of the nights at Dadoo and Mandy's house. I just had to include a picture of their dog Sancho. He is a Chug (Pug/Chihuahua). Even when he was a cute little puppy we all saw his ugly potential. :)
Clint and Emily also came over that night (with their daughter Eden) to play games. It was fun and Eden is quite adorable.
Josh wasn't able to make it to play games, so we visited him at his work earlier that day.
Josh really missed David, as you can see here.
It was a fun trip and it was great to see everyone. We spent our anniversary driving home and I had work the next morning, so we didn't really do anything exciting. We are hoping to plan a trip of some kind this summer for our belated anniversary.

The Weekend

We went to our ward's yw camp fundraiser over the weekend. It was a very nice spaghetti dinner complete with roses at the table, Andrea Bocelli music in the background, and the young women as waitresses. There was a dessert auction afterward, and although I got outbid on a couple other items, I came home with this cute yellow polka dot cake with lemon filling.
We also went last night to check out the new M Resort and Casino. We ate at the buffet and it was seafood night. The food was very good and the desserts were also great.

New Stuff

David got a new whiteboard for our office room that he's pretty excited about. Hopefully it will come in handy for school. We've been writing to-do lists and grocery lists and other random things so far.
He also got a big new desk/writing table and office chair. We got them both for a good deal at a clearance center of a company that rents furniture. The desk is actually a dining room table, and it wasn't very fun getting it all the way upstairs and through the door of the bedroom.

We also finally bought a matching loveseat to go with our couch that we also moved in the same day. Initially I thought, "oh, it's just a loveseat and a desk-they can't be too hard to move", but I realized that I'm weaker than I thought I was. I was quite sore for several days afterward.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I had to work all day on Saturday and it was very busy, so I was pretty tired when I came home. When I walked in the door, this is what I saw:

It actually looked nicer because it was dark and David had one light on that was right above it. As I walked up the stairs, I saw this on the window ledge (disregard our ugly lace curtains):

Under the vase and the box of chocolates were two funny love notes that David had written-he's silly and they made me laugh. When I got to our bedroom I saw this on the dresser:

Isn't that a cute monkey? And it's very soft. It's the first stuffed animal David has gotten me. Under the monkey was a more serious note that was very sweet. I think he did a good job at the Valentine's stuff, even though when I first got home he said he just wanted to celebrate Valentine's Day every two years because it was hard. ;) We also went out to dinner that night and David got steak and I had a delicious steak sandwich. When we got home I gave David his little Valentine's Day present which was a book of poetry by Billy Corgan called Blinking With Fists.

Christmas 2008

Ok, I'm finally getting around to doing my Christmas post. I'm sneaking it in the middle so it looks like I do things in a timely manner.
So, for Christmas this year my parents were going to come to Vegas from Oregon and my younger sis Jennifer was going to come here from Utah. We had the flights all arranged: Jennifer would come in the morning on Dec. 21 (her birthday) and then my parents would be arriving that evening. Well, it didn't quite work out as planned. Jennifer got here fine, we went to church and everything, but my parents called and said there was a big ice storm in Oregon. We were hoping their flight would just be delayed, but it ended up being canceled. And sadly, the earliest rescheduled flight they would be able to get would be on the day they had been planning to return home. So, no parents for Christmas. :(
I took Jennifer to see the Cirque du Soleil show "Mystere" for her birthday/Christmas gift. David and I had seen it together before, so he didn't go, but I really like it so I didn't mind seeing it for the 2nd time. Jennifer and I also took an outlet mall shopping excursion to Primm. We all went to see the Christmas light show at Sunset Park (which was somewhat disappointing) and the lights at the Cactus Gardens. We went to see the Christmas display at the conservatory in the Bellagio and took a bunch of pictures.

more Christmas pics here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/Christmas2008?authkey=Gv1sRgCIfq9d6M85uC9gE#

More Snow!

Ok, so I was apparently a little premature with the snow pictures a few days ago. It snowed pretty much all day today, which was crazy. According to the Weather Channel, it hasn't snowed this much since 1979. I just got a couple of pictures-I know for those of you in Utah right now it's not very exciting, but it's unusual for Las Vegas.

David and I were also able to visit with our friends Cyndie and Bryan and their little girl Kinsey tonight. They made a stop here on there way to Disneyland. We got some good food at Bahama Breeze and then played a German board game. It was good to see them.