Girl's Weekend

You know those friends who will just always be lifelong pals? They cry with you in the hard times, scream and dance with you in the happy times, and no matter how long you go without seeing each other, you always pick right back up where you left off? Well Lauren, Kaylee and Janelle are definitely 3 of mine. With all we have going on- new babies, husbands, Grad school, jobs, etc we rarely get to see each other for more than a dinner or lunch when we visit our parents every other holiday! We decided it was high time to spend some quality time catching up, eating , laughing, talking about the good ol' days, and just having tons of fun together! We spent the weekend in Utah at Lauren's gorgeous new house. Here are just a few pictures of our weekend, I wish I'd taken more!!


At my request we watched my favorite Christmas-time movie: White Christmas

We did a Christmas decoration craft and they all turned out so cute!


Finally, deliciously, Cheesecake Factory at Kaylee's request-and boy are we glad she requested it!

No Longer a Todd

They say it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I'm not so sure. We have had our Duke since he was barely old enough to leave his mum. Ever since then, we've been his family, and he's been ours. We thought we would have him forever, until he died in fact, which we of course dreaded, but that's the circle of life, right? The inevitable. But we never expected we'd have to give him up before that. With Adam graduating this upcoming April and us moving to Los Angeles where he has an internship (and indeed, we hope, a job to follow), we will be moving into a small apartment. We did a ton of research and found that in order to have a dog in an apartment, you have to pay an extra deposit, and extra rent every month. Yes Duke is worth it to us, but after living in a home with a yard where he can roam and do his business whenever he wants, living in an apartment for the foreseeable future would be tough for a pup.
After much denial and belaboring the moment, we put Duke on Craigslist (a very cute posting, if I do say so myself). We thought we'd do it now so we'd have plenty of time to choose a good family before April. We didn't quite expect what we got. Within 15 minutes we had our first call. Within 48 hours we had had about 10 calls. We know he's cute, but come on give us some time to come to grips! We met a few families and were NOT impressed. I mean I don't think we were asking that much! We wanted to find a good family with kids who would love Duke and raise him like we would. Pampered, yes, but simply keeping him clean, buying him bones now and again, keeping him trained and well-behaved, getting him to the vet once a year for his shots, etc. Not so hard, right?
Well yesterday, we found the right family. A mom, dad, and 2 adorable little boys. They live in an apartment for now, but are building a house that will be done this summer. The mom's father has a farm close to where they live where all the family takes their dogs to run around and play together with all the kids. I mean, come on, pretty good setup right?? This made things a little bit easier, I didn't feel quite so possessive and protective of him with this family like I did the others, and he seemed to really take to them the way he didn't with the others. But *sigh* it still wasn't easy.
You have to understand on what level we loved this dog. He was more than a dog to us. As I'm sure is no secret amongst family and friends a.k.a. most of you blog readers, Adam and I have been struggling for some time to get pregnant. Those of you who you who have or are going through infertility know what a difficult (to say the least) thing it can be to cope with. Well, Duke was my coping mechanism. He was always there to snuggle up to me when lonely, he was always attentive and worrying when I cried, and heck he was just something, someone to take care of (there's Adam too but he's quite self-sufficient!) So although it may sound very silly to some, Duke was our baby, the third member of our little family. And now he's gone. No longer a Todd. We had a good cry together, Adam and I, but it's time move on. So here's to you Duke, you'll always be OUR pup.

Thanksgiving Oh-Ten

Adam and I had a great Thanksgiving this year. We drove to Salt Lake and FLEW to San Diego. Boy O Boy was it great not to have to drive the whole way yet again. We spent the week with my family, immediate and extended. Although we missed Brandon, Melanie, Ty and Tyler, it was super great to spend time with Ryan, Rachel and Liam. We're lucky when we get to see them once a year, since they live in Alexandria, VA. We often feel sad that we miss out on so much of Liam's fun formative years, so Thanksgiving week was a really fun catch-up!

We did lots of eating, game playing, Rock Band playing, movie watching, and even went to sea World. We had a great time and can't wait for the next time we're all together!
Here's some pic-a-tures.


Everything Tanner did all week, Liam did. He just followed him around mimicking everything-it was adorable!







I spent all week trying to make him love me. This picture obviously doesn't show it, but by the end of the week he was just randomly saying my name in a sing-song voice "Tonna, Tonna, Tonna" and actually would come to me without being forced. AHH sweet victory.