Home, Sweet Home

I had to get up bright and early to catch a 6:20 flight back to Nashville. Pat got me to the airport about 5:15 and I made it back to Nashville by 7:30 am. My flight was smooth so I wasn't too nervous, but I am never a good flyer so I was glad to be back on the ground when I got here. Tom picked me up and we had some time to hang out before he had to go to school for the day. After he left I was able to get about a 1/2 hour nap in before I had to get up and get ready for my eye appointment at 10:30. I got home from that and got caught up on some of the laundry and vacuumed the floor for when Tom got home we had another guy coming over to do another estimate on carpet. I had to go to work early this Monday (I usually don't go in until 2 on Monday's) I had to have my yearly performance evaluation... Like always, I did great and actually scored better this year than last. But because of the "economy" Vanderbilt isn't giving out any salary increases so my efforts won't be rewarded this year... What a load of *&%# (sorry)

I got to the high school and we had baseball and softball games. However our boys run ruled their opponent and our girls got run ruled so it wasn't a long night. I got home about 6:30 which was great because I was soooo tired. Traveling really takes a lot out of you.

It was a beautiful day out Monday and when the sun went down our backyard was shaded and Tom had the puppy pool out for the dogs. I got to spend some time splashing around with the dogs and Tom cooked me dinner and we just hung out on the porch for a while.


Tom went into to study and the dogs were wore out, as you can see. I decided not to make noise so I spent the rest of the night finishing washing and folding the laundry, getting the dishes done and getting my stuff ready for the next day.

After I was done with all that it was about 9:30 and time to settle in for the evening. Tom finished up with his homework and we ended the night watching a little Law and Order SVU from the DVR and called it a night...

Today was back to same 'ol thing. I had to work in the clinic this morning seeing patients. We had a staff meeting at lunch then off to the school. We only had a soccer game today so I actually got home somewhat early today too. 7:00 is not that bad these days. The good news is, that I only have about 2 more weeks until all of our teams should be done for the season and my short works weeks will begin!!! Yippy!!!!

Rainbow Cone!!!

After the shower Pat and I decided that we needed to go out for dinner!!! That means a trip to Rainbow Cone, the best Ice Cream Cone ever!!! Well, except for home made ice cream, but how often do you get that!! Only in Iowa!!! We got done with the shower around three and headed back home to drop Grandma off. We got her back home around 4 and she was pooped!!! We got her changed and convinced her to take a nap, which is hard becuase she never thinks that she is tired. Then we headed over to Kathy Smith's to pick her up so she could come with too.


This was Kathy Smith's very first Rainbow Cone...She's lived there her whole life and never had one. My mom and dad have even had it in Iowa, when I brought them a half gallon there for Christmas one year. She thought it was good but too sweet. Oh well, to each their own...

Here I am eating my cone...See all the colors... Orange Sherbert, Pistachio, Arnold Palmer, Chocolate, and Strawberry... Doesn't sound like a good combination but trust me it's good!

Kathy and Pat outside the Rainbow Cone...

Me and Pat outside the Rainbow Cone!

The Shower

Mike and Lisa's shower brunch was from 11-3 on Sunday and they had it in the same banquet room as they had their wedding reception. Lisa's sister did an amazing job of decorating the place with all kinds of fun baby stuff. She had a great turn out of guests... I think there was about 50 people there so you can imagine the amount of gifts they got.


They opened their gifts for about an hour staight. They got so much stuff, I am not sure if I had a baby soon if we would even have enough room in our small little house to fit all of that in.

Here is Pat with her girly girls....ah how cute...

This is what she usually looks like around us!! :)

The proud Mommy and Daddy to be. I am so happy that I was able to make it up to see you guys before the big day. Lisa you look so cute with your little baby bump, I am so excited to meet little Baby D!!! Good luck with your last month, and have fun putting the rest of that stuff together, Mike!!! Love ya!!!

Saturday April 25th.

I had the opportunity to go to Chicago this past weekend to see the Donohoe's for Lisa and Mike's baby shower. I had to work Saturday morning for a JV baseball game so I had to take the late 4:20 flight. I was suprised to find out that Patrick and Soumya were going to come in Saturday night to Pat's house to see me and hang out. When I got there Patrick and Soumya picked me up from the airport and we got to Pat's around 6:00pm. Yeah!!! We were ordering PIZZA!!! Oh, how I miss that yummy stuff! Then I found out that Mike and Lisa were coming over too. I am sooooo loved!!! We had a great time catching up and playing Clue. Besides the fact that Tom couldn't come with me because he was stuck at home studying for his upcoming finals, I had such a great day!

"Invincible Chains"... Not so Invincible

So, Tom was out of town not this past weekend but the weekend before. When he is gone I always feel bad for the dogs because they don't get as much attention when he isn't around. We are usually home at different times during the day so the dogs don't get left alone for more than about 4 hours by themselves. When he is gone it turns into more like 8-12 hours so you know why I feel guilty. Lately it has been really nice outside so most of that time is spent in the yard but when they have to stay in the house I like to make it up to them by getting them treats or toys. I went to Target and they had these monster looking chain toys that were called..."Invincible Chains" well...nothing is truely invincible when it comes to Shirley.


However, I never thought she would get through these things as quickly as she did. I really thought that Shirley and Riley would get right into a match of tug of war with the things. Shirley wouldn't let Riley near the thing. She took it and immediately (I'm talking less than 30 seconds) had the thing broke apart. I was so mad I went right to get the camera and she already had 4 chunks eaten off like little rubber tootsie rolls!!!

This is where her obsessive compulsive doggie disorder takes over and she is not satisfied until the thing is in a million pieces! I decided to let her go for a while just to see how quick she could demolish one ring.

Less than 3 minutes later she had one ring completely into 1/2 inch to 1 inch pieces...she just kept going around the ring and spitting them out!!! I decided to take the pictures and attatch them to an angry email to the PW pet product people. I told them how much their Invicible Chain sucked!!! I got an email back the next day saying they think the toy we got must have been defective and they would send me a new one. Well, its been a week and we haven't got one in the mail but I will keep you posted, until then I would stay away from the Invincible Chain toys for your dogs, cuz they aren't so invincible!!!