Puppies!!!

February 3rd Jason had his first litter of puppies at our new home. Ruby had 5 live pups. Three days later one of Jason's other females (Storm) had 7 live pups. During the nights prior to the puppies arriving I'm not sure Jason slept more than an hour at a time. He set his alarm to get up and check the dogs, but I think I am the one that the alarm woke up and in turn I got to wake him. During the past few weeks I think Jason has spent more time outside with the dogs than inside with me! He really loves being outside and piddling around. This winter Jason didn't get to run his dogs much and there aren't very many rabbits over here so we decided to downsize and sold Ruby & her litter as a package deal, but we still have Storm & her 7 pups. Here are a few pics of them.

Storm & her pile of puppies

They have their eyes open now and are starting to move around

Me with one of the pups

Jason with Blaze Jason got Blaze as a puppy when he was 15 (9 years ago)

California

Last Monday afternoon I flew to California for work. The weather was nice, but not exactly the sunny California I was hoping for. My plane was late leaving St. Louis so I arrived in LA almost an hour late and after a 2 hour ride to the hotel I was ready to call it a night. The training was good and I met quite a few people that were fun to hang out with. Our training ended Thursday at noon and I was supposed to fly back that night, but St. Louis got some ice and my flight got cancelled! The earliest flight I could catch back was Friday at 2:00 so I had another night in Ventura, CA. Luckily, some of the others hadn’t scheduled to fly home until Friday so I had some people to hang out with Friday night and I caught a ride with a couple of them to the airport the next morning. After sitting in the airport for 3 hours my flight left about 40 minutes late and I had a connecting flight to catch when I got to Kansas City so I was hoping I would make it in time. I shouldn’t have worried about it though because once we landed in KC I found out the flight to STL was an delayed hour! After sitting in KC for an hour and a half we boarded for the final leg of my flight to STL. Jason was patiently waiting for me when I arrived and we stood at the baggage claim for a good 30 minutes. After realizing my bag was not among the luggage on the carousel we headed to the baggage claim office…luckily my suitcase was there and we were able to head home. We made it back to our house by 12:30. After making it home Friday night I had a very relaxing (read lazy) weekend. I didn’t get many pictures on my trip, but here are a few.

The Seminis plant where our final day of training was held.Taina, Leonor, & I at the Pier

Looking at the ocean. It was super windy that night and really cold!A view of the pierThe view from my hotel window (in my 2nd room)

Weekend Visitors!

Last weekend my Uncle Heath, Aunt Katie, and their 4 boys came to visit. The boys went straight to the PlayStation and had fun playing derby and crashing the cars.

Heath, Preston, Conner, Jason & I went to see the puppies outside. It took Conner a while to warm up to the dogs, but Preston wasted no time.

He took Daisy for a walk and really wanted to take her inside, but Jason thought she would get too excited with all 4 boys so instead he took one of our pups in.

After all the boys had a chance to hold the puppy Jason got him back to his mom and we all had some cheesecake.

Yes, for those of you in shock I know how to use the oven…finally! My Uncle Heath even said it was good. It was really easy and Katie- here's the recipe like I promised.

Easy Cheese Cake

2 pkg crescent rolls

2 pkg 8 oz. cream cheese

1 c. sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Mix together cream cheese, sugar, & vanilla

Spread 1 pkg rolls in bottom of lightly greased 9x13 inch pan

Spread cream cheese mixture over rolls

Top with 1 pkg rolls

Sprinkle cinnamon & sugar mixture over the top of cheesecake

Bake @ 350 fo 20-25 minutes

Then we ventured to Mount Vernon to go bowling and eat out with the Eckler crew. Bowling was fun, but I haven’t been in a while. My score definitely showed that - the first game Conner had a better score than I did (the kids played with gutter rails so they had a bit of an advantage).

Chili’s was a little chaotic at one point the waitress asked Katie if all those kids were hers! After eating we went to the hotel where the Ecklers were staying and Jason, Heath, and the oldest 3 boys swam while Katie & I visited.

Jason & I used to baby-sit the Eckler boys while we were in high school and college, but since our move we haven’t got to spend a lot of time with them or Heath & Katie so it was great to have them come visit us!

Our First (married) Valentine's Day

For our first Valentine’s Day after getting married Jason surprised me by sending me roses at work and then even made supper that night! The roses were beautiful as you can see below and the frozen pizza was the best we had that week!

Here We Go...

Since we moved to Illinois it has been great to be able to keep up with family & friends by checking out their blogs. My aunt Katie does an awesome job of keeping us updated on her family and their busy lives and recently my sister & sister-in-law each started a blog of their own. So I figured what better way to let everyone see what we have going on than starting a blog of our own. We don’t have kids so I don’t know how exciting or how often our updates will be – especially since our exciting times usually include working on our house or something with Jason’s dogs.