One Room Down

Living Room is done!!! I think that Cory needs a little break now though. But then on to the front room then what will be the baby room. Although I don't know if baby is the right word since he will probably be older than a "baby".

I think I'm actually going to do pretty well with the wait though. I've estimated that it should be anywhere from 7.5-10.5 months waiting for a referral. So a lot like being pregnant, right?? Well, its already been almost a month down. And the next month or two should fly by. I'll be in Phoenix for Memorial Day, then off to Seattle with Jenny the next weekend, home for a weekend, then 50/50 chance we'll be going to D.C. for a conference for about a week, home for a weekend, then San Francisco for another work thing. Summer is always really busy..... Actually when you really break it down, I ONLY have until this time next year to have all my crap together before my whole life changes. See how prepared I am? hee hee.

Home Improvement - Pet Crisis

As some of you already know from personal experience at my house, or may remember from an earlier post, we have some fecal issues at our house. Especially with Chivas. He REALLY likes to pee on things. I asked the dog trainer if there was any way to solve this problem. He asked me if Chivas is fixed. But of course. All of my pets are sterilized as soon as a vet is willing to put them under the knife. Well then, says dog trainer, there is nothing to be done. He's just a boy. Fantastic!!!!

So, in typical Cory/Stacy form, rather than try harder to watch the dog, stay on top of him around the house and teach him, we have decided that it is easier to just rip out the carpet. Do I have some fantasy that this will cure his urge to pee? Hell no, I'm not that delusional. However, a wet spot on a hard surface is much easier to clean up than urine on a fabric surface. We knew this coming into it and why when we were sitting in the flooring store, four years ago, picking all of this out, we chose carpet, I will never understand!!!

Anyway, here is a picture of the living room right now, the first one that we and by we I mean Cory, is tackling.



So this leads me to the second part of the post. The crisis.

Cory started on the floor Wednesday, ripping up the carpet and installing the laminate. (3 dogs, a child on the way, and parties where spills that were never identified, do not bode well for hardwood) So of course he has the heater vent covers pulled up. Neither one of us though anything about it. It's hardly a safety hazard.

Well to understand where this is going you should know that Sake loves balls. I mean LOVES balls. Have you ever seen the Eddie Murphy version of Dr. Doolittle, where the little terrier is OCD over balls. That is Sake, except she REALLY LOVES them. I am not exaggerating in any way here either. In obedience class the teacher brought out a tennis ball for the sit/stay with distraction exercise. I thought her head was going to pop off. Seriously.

So, Sake had a green and red PetSmart tennis ball - the Christmas edition - that she had been playing with pretty regularly. She had a little string torn off one side so that she could throw it in the air for herself whenever mommy and daddy got bored, or had thrown their shoulders out from playing ball for hours on end. Well, suddenly, with no warning, the ball was taken from Sake. Yup, she dropped it down the heater vent and it was GONE. I've got to give it to her. She remained fairly calm. Not really crying or anything. But she did stand by that vent for the rest of the night, looking at it, looking at us, Dad when are you going to make it give me my ball back??



See, it went down there.

Yesterday I finally found a ball that was similar to the one she had, two different colors, and she seems to be somewhat happy with these. The best part was though, that she took the new ball over to the now covered vent and rolled it back and forth over it, just to be sure. My dogs kill me.

Which leads me to a quick question. Has anyone else noticed that before bringing home a child, people have pictures of their dogs on their blogs, and talk about their dogs regularly and once child comes home, the pictures of the dogs disappear and no mention of them anymore unless its a quick little aside, along the lines of look at little Tommy, he's looking at the dog.. but you don't see the dog.

Still Snowing....

So last time I looked outside, we were still having a nice little white out. So nice for May 1, huh? I hear that Snowbird got 17 inches yesterday/last night. Crazy! Although I can still remember the stories my Grandpa would tell me about tents being collapsed on them in August from the snow that fell out of nowhere the night before. Gotta love the Rockies!! Obviously Utah is not nearly as bad as Wyoming.

So to pass the time we are going to institute a pool. When someone is pregnant, people always have pools to guess the date, time, size, etc.. that the baby will come. So, we are going to have one for referral date. Anyone who wants to participate, and I expect people to participate, just leave your guess in the comments. I'll start a column off to the side somewhere to keep track. We can either do this for money or a prize. Let me know what you think. I prefer the first because then it encourages more people to participate. It might also be fun to add the age of the child at referral to this. Sorry, I just need something to amuse myself with!!

Graduation

Congratulations to Chivas and Sake. Tonight was their graduation class and they both received their certificates of completion for beginning dog training (with one class to make up next week from when mom and dad were in Prague..) But yay! Good dogs. Of course thanks to Jessica again for being the surrogate trainer for Chivas since Cory was MIA again. ;) End of the month.

Reply to Jenny..

Before we left for Prague, Jenny had made a few comments regarding the fact that we were leaving before them. I can't find where that was now, and I had tried to post a comment on her blog from the airport that day, but my phone's browser would not let me. Kind of a pain.

Well I still saved it and I am putting it here because it gives a good description of what we went though to get out of here.

"Well Jenny, I must say that your little tirade was quite productive because it is 11:45 and I am sitting in the Wasatch Brewery Bar... Little tip, I was supposed to take off at 9:30 and currently it looks like we are another hour away from taking off for Cincinnati. Which was originally supposed to be Boston.... Prague is at least 5 hours further in the future than originally planned and I am working on a pretty good buzz.... 5 hours sleep + no food + 1.5 hours in check in line..total 4.5 at airport now + vodka... Yup I hope you're happy now. Let's not even go into the litany of Dante inspired fiascoes that have happened so far... NO let's do, but condensed.. Packed and I mean PACKED shuttle, freaking cold, international line out the door, humanitarian aid fruit loops backing up the whole thing, screwed up kiosk, idiot agents (multiple) one of which I owe a serious ass kicking to and that lazy eyed bitch knows who she is, delayed flights, cancelled flights, and busted ass planes... AND I'M STILL IN UTAH!!! Holy shit where's the Tylenol??!!"

Maybe not as funny now but it would have been hilarious at the time if I could have gotten it to post.

Ethiopian Food

I have never had Ethiopian food, but from everything that I read about it, it sounds delicious. The problem is that I cannot find any restaurants in the area. I was hoping to try some made by someone who knows what they are doing before I gave it a go, but I don't know if I'll be able to. I think that we are going to Phoenix next month, and I found one or two restaurants down there, but I highly doubt that I will be able to talk Christie into going to one. Maybe if I go to Seattle with Jenny I can try one there. Does anyone know of a good restaurant in either place?

On the same note, does anyone have a recipe that they would recommend. I have found some on line, but a tried and true one would be lovely!!!

Last weekend we bought some flooring so that we can get started on the carpet replacement. Hopefully we can start on the living room next weekend. I'm not kidding myself that this will end the peeing in the house, but I am hoping that it will discourage it a bit, and at a bare minimum, laminate flooring will be much easier to clean up than carpet! Supposedly this is really easy to do so Cory shouldn't have too much trouble figuring it out. ;) I had originally wanted to do the baby's room first, but I need our living areas cleaned up, the spots on the floor are driving me nuts! Plus, I think that I will just rip the carpet out up there and then paint before we do the flooring, so I don't have to worry about spilling as much. Originally I was going to do an animal themed nursery but now that we have upped the age on our referral, I've decided that shapes, something more neutral is probably best. Hopefully we won't have to change it as soon this way, when he decides he's not a "baby".

Pictures

I have a lot of random pictures from Prague. Some that I really don't think is a good idea to put on here. =) Hopefully I can remember what most of these are from.



The Kafka Memorial. I really know nothing at all about Kafka but thought that the statue was pretty interesting.



A picture of the whole medieval castle complex. I know that it is the largest medieval castle in Europe, but I don't really know a lot more about it than that, other than the a lot of the outside stuff is from the Hapsburg era (listening in on someone's tour group!)



This is a picture of the awesome little kilbasa stand that Cory and I found one of our first days there. It was just off the Charles Bridge, and when we were walking across I could smell this wonderful thing, and I was starving. We went down here and this is just a little tiny stand. A window with a half door, and a dinky little grill outside where this man was making the biggest kilbasa's I've ever seen. When we walked up this older woman was yelling at everyone, "This Czech fast food, not MAC Donald's!!" You did not want this woman to yell at you but of course we ALL got yelled at for one thing or another. Not paying before we got in line, or asking for the wrong thing. Cory asked for 2 hot dogs, and that just about killed her. Hot dogs are different, do you want a klebasa?? Yes, two of those heavenly looking/smelling things that the man who looked a little bit younger than her but was probably her husband, was lining up on the rinky dink grill and cooking while he was drinking a beer!!




Look at Cory moving up in the line for our snausages.... slowly but surely. SOOOO worth it!!!!



U Fleku. Here we are a while after Troy had ditched us. ;) This was the nice waiter, the one that could crack a smile without sneaking off for some sort of "refreshment".




No sooner did Troy leave, than Svarn had his little wooden head in his beer. tsk tsk. How does he ever expect to become a REAL boy. Lush.




What would Jimminy Cricket say???


Okay, maybe more pictures later, but I am getting a little bored with uploading these now. On a side note though, we are officially on the wait list for a referral. As of April 12. Did anyone else have a little wave of panic at this point, realizing that you are seriously going to have a child? It's not an abstract thought anymore, it's almost like being pregnant. Not quite as final as being pregnant, but still.............

Obedience Class

So Cory is out of town on a training - for commercial trucks woo hoo! - and tonight is obedience class with Sake and Chivas. Since we missed last week when we were in Prague - crazy to think that is where I was this time last week!- and Cory has to miss next week as well for end of the month, I didn't want Chivas to get behind. We wouldn't want Sake passing him up in class.

That said, Jessica has kindly agreed to go to class with us tonight. This is a big deal since class is at 8:30. Almost her bed time. ;) I think that she might actually have better luck with Chivas though, even over Cory, as she is a girl. Chivas does not like to be touched by men in general, and especially not in his hind area. It is weird. He has nipped at Cory and apparently even nipped at the instructor when I was not in the room two weeks ago. But, he is a ladies man, so I am thinking that all should go well with Jessica. Wish us luck!!! If I had a camera, maybe I would take pictures... hee heee. My new one is on its way!!! And I purchased the user damage coverage, so I told Cory that he has 2 years to smash this one!

On that note, I know that I need to get some pictures of our trip up, but I have been kind of busy since we got back. I actually think that it might be easier to do it when you ARE still on vacation.. hint hint to someone in particular. I will definitely try to do it by the end of the week though. I think that I will have some time tomorrow night. In the mean time, if anyone is dying to see us acting like fools, or to see the lovely scenery of Prague, Jenny and Troy have pics up on their blog - found to the right.

And for another quick clarification for anyone who is confused, as far as I know we are currently on the wait list for the referral of a little boy in the 0-24 month range. So, by this time next year, I would imagine that we would at least have the referral. Hopefully not too much later or it is going to get a little sketchy on whether or not Cory can go with me and I know that will NOT make him happy because he is really looking forward to the trip! We're planning on a stop over in Paris for a few days before and then on to Ethiopia. So fingers crossed that referral works so that travel does not occur in the summer months.

I left my liver in Prague....

Hee Hee... Not really, but I think you get the jist of things. Some good news and bad news here. First of all... The USCIS approval came and is on its way to Wide Horizons, I sent it this morning... Scary huh. ;) When it came and I read it to Cory, something along the lines of You have been found able to provide for an orphan... Cory said, Good thing they didn't see us in Prague. No hint of humor or irony.

Picked up the dogs today and other than what looks like an exploda-poo blow out with Sake, and moving pretty slow, everyone is in good working order. No fights though, yay!

I am pretty much bruised from head to toe. Big shock.

My camera met with an unfortunate end. Cory+lots of beer, and I mean LOTS of beer+ shots, and an errant sugar packet = Poor smashed camera. It was pretty funn and I have always wanted the red or the silver one anyway!!! Plus I stole some glasses from that place shortly afterward anyway.

Pictures to follow, but just thought I'd give a quick update. I'm tired!!!

Almost out of here...

So, Cory and I are leaving tomorrow morning for Prague. So, obviously no posts for at least a week but I will definitely post some pictures when we get back..

And of course, no news on the immigration form. Those speed little government workers.. Ahhh, our tax dollars at work!!! Yet another reason to run away from home while I'm in Europe. ;)

Doggie 911

Okay, I know that anyone who reads this will think that I am crazy - all of my friends already do, but we have a bit of an aggression issue between our two female dogs. 90% of the time they either stay out of each other's way or they are cuddling and hanging out together. But then suddenly, they will snap and they are all over each other like a pack of wild animals. Has anyone every seen the third Look Who's Talking movie, with the dogs (don't judge me, it came out a long time ago, and I only had HBO in Wyoming)? The scene where the wolves attack them and you hear one of the wolves say "The furs gonna fly, the furs gonna fly". That pretty much explains my house. Then after I am sufficiently traumatized, they go back to life as normal.

We have started some obedience classes and we'll see how it works. I realize that this is fully our responsibility for not doing more to nip it in the bud - it's just been getting worse the last year or so, but basically I'm wondering if anyone else has ever experienced anything like this and if you have any tips. I don't want to pawn a dog off, I mean especially with these issues, you know all that will happen is she will end up being passed from home to home until she runs out of places to go, but this needs to end before any children are in the house. So by my calculations I have about a year to fix it.

Anyone else every had anything like this happen or know of any GREAT trainers, Dog Whisperers (I've emailed Cesar but have not heard back) or books, training methods, etc..... I'm all ears!!!

Happy Birthday ... Ouch

So, my birthday was this last Saturday, and I don't know if its because we're adopting or what, but I partied like I was 21. And I am sore today still. And I really blame Jenny for that.

Jenny knows that I am a clumsy person. I ALWAYS have bruises on me. A lot of them come from going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, tripping over the dogs, getting a snack out of the cupboard. I have problems. Well, knowing this for x number of years, she still bought the house that she did. It is a house with five levels, and a million stairs. For someone like me it is basically a house of horrors. So of course I am sure that everyone can tell where this is going. YUP, I broke my ass. I didn't have x-rays taken or anything but I am walking around like I'm 82 instead of 32. That's okay, her birthday, we'll be in Prague..... We'll just see what happens. ;)

Two Posts in One Day

Talking about vacation made me start to think about today, and that, plus all of the pictures that Jenny already has on her new blog made me look up a few from an old vacation and so...



On Papeete looking at Moorea - wish I was there!!!




Look at those little urchins. The little snots would move out from under our deck every night and then go back under during the day. You had to be very careful when you got in the water!

Just a couple of pictures of my favorite beach vacation ever! I loved having the over water bungalow and the lack of sand that came with that. That is the one thing that I don't really like about going to the beach. Sand everyone. Sand in places your not even aware of. Definitely won't have to worry about that in Prague!



This is me on the South Island in New Zealand getting up close in person with a cute sea lion. Right after Cory snapped this one the seal showed me what big teeth he has, oh my, and let me know that I was definitely getting into his personal space. That is when I realized that I was one of those dumbasses at Yellow Stone trying to get an up close picture of a buffalo, moose..take your pick.



For those of you who like New Zealand wine, this is what it looks like before. =) For those of you who haven't had it, I highly recommend it. They have great Sauvignon Blancs and good Pinots too. Actually, I have not really had a bad wine from there. It is just so clean too. The air is clean and the produce is insane. We picked up sandwiches from a mall sandwich shop one day and at first I thought that there was a special sauce on mine, it was just soooo good. It was the tomatoes!!! OMG! So good. Well, I think that's enough pictures for one day. I just realized my blog was getting a little boring.

I lied, one more!!!!




Cory and I out in the rain, fishing for fresh water shrimp. We didn't catch any, too cold for them apparently, but lucky for us the restaurant right behind us had plenty!
Two more....



Yummy New Zealand Elk... I also have pictures from the elk farm right down the road. Kind of an unintentional before and after. That's it. I don't share pictures all that often though so I'm growing!

Vacation

Jenny pointed out that I have not talked about our upcoming vacation. I think that is because I usually don't get too excited about it until we're at the airport about to get on the plane. But, we're leaving in about two weeks to go to Prague. We'll be there for a week and Jenny and Troy are coming a day after us to hang out before they go to Ireland and then Scotland. It's a tough life in the Routh household.

Anyway, if anyone else has ever been to Prague, please let us know if there is anything that we should not miss. Personally I'm looking forward to a relaxed week hanging out in a lot pubs. Although I want to take a train or something out one day to check out the vineyards. Apparently the Monrovian wines are supposed to be pretty good. And the buildings will be fun to see too. It is the only major city in Europe that was not attacked during any of the world wars, which is crazy, considering that Hitler was storing all of his ammunitions in a network of caves about an hour North (my mom was watching the History Channel).

So, if you or anyone you know has any suggestions, pass them along!!!

Hello Immigration....???

So, as you might be able to tell from the title of this post, still no word from immigration. Its only been 5 weeks and I've heard of some people waiting up to 4 months, so I knew it would take a while, but when I'm waiting on paperwork, I get anxious. I can't help it. It's just so bureaucratic, you know? Pointless, like the IRS.

On the bright side though, Stephanie, our homestudy case worker already finished up our addendum and has that off in the mail to us. She is so easy to work with. I had some trouble getting started with the agency itself, but seriously, if you can guarantee that you'd work with her, I recommend them highly to anyone in Utah!! I mean seriously, I just asked her on Monday if she would do the addendum and the copy and 3 notarized originals are already off in the mail to us. I even told her there was no big rush since we were waiting on the I171, but she still got it done. Wow, just think, someone who actually cares about doing their job, and is on top of it. Will wonders never cease.

Also, realized the other day that because raising the age means that we will be shaving some time off, I won't have quite as much time as I'd originally thought to work on his room. Not that it needs to be done now or even in the next six months, but people averaging a 7-9 month waiting time as opposed to 18 months, definitely raises the bar a bit. Oh well!