My Hobbies

Here are some pictures of 2 of my favorite hobbies - my annie girl and my paint by numbers.




my annie girl loves to sit in the sun - sorry for the not so clear picture, i didnt want her to see me through the windows so i was hiding behind the couch holding the camera in front of the mini blinds, the screen and the closed window - but you can see how she loves that deck and the texas sun - thank goodness its been cooling off, its only been in the high 80s low 90s which has been such a refreshing change from the past 4 or 5 months


i finished another paint by numbers on friday, i went out yesterday on my way home from work and got a new one, an underwater scene with 4 dolphins and some fishes - ill post a picture when im done - i know you all cant wait

Hurricane Ike

I know I got quite a few phone calls on Saturday asking about the Hurricane and Austin, well, we are fine. I believe the eye was still somewhat close to Austin (maybe 60 miles away), but luckily we were on the west side of the hurricane which is always the weakest, plus there was a pressure system (low or high, I dont remember) that was pushing it even more east. We were prepared for power outages and high wind, we had water, flashlights, candles, and pulled in both cars and the grill, but of course, we didnt get anything. No rain, 15 mph winds, yup, thats all :)

Because of Ike we actually have a cold front this week, it was 68 on my way to work today and the highs are supposed to be in the high 80s, so I am very excited about that. It is supposed to last all week, but Im not holding my breath, but will enjoy it as long as its around!!

We're Alive!!!

OK, I know, its been like forever, its been busy. I cant event think of all that has happened since I last posted, but we have both been busy with work and stuff. Nothing big has happened that I can think of, so you havent really missed much.

I did go home mid August for Gma & Gpa's 50th anniversary as a surprise. It was a good time and great to see everyone. I took some pictures, they are posted online if you want to check them out. They are at www.flickr.com/mimilach.

Lisa might get her neck brace off today, so everybody think happy thoughts for her. I hope it comes off, 13 weeks is a long time and I think I would have lost it by now.

I have some more pictures (again, they are pretty random). The captions and stories will be below each one as usual.


the dogs just love our backyard and the deck, i see them just sitting like this, or annie just chillin while sunbathing all the time. the also enjoy just watching all the backyard creatures we have, i am guessing this time they might have been watching for birds. jaska managed to catch and kill one a few months back and annie loves to bark at them, as long as they dont kill a squirrel i will be ok


speaking of backyard creatures, annie had a little run in with one. she was bit on the tail (right behind her little butt) by a snake. luckily we live near an emergency vet so on a friday night at like 10pm in early august i got to drive her there as i was freakin out because i was afraid she was gonna die or something. the vet said it was a canine bit, but everyone who has seen it (and ian did some online research) said it was a snake. jaska would never bite annie that hard and while annie is stupid, she is not dumb enough to bite herself in that location that hard either. anyway, they had to shave that part of her tail and put 3 staples in, so she had to wear the collar. she becomes paralized with it on, so it was quite interesting, after 2 days she figured out she could walk backwards, and then after another day she found out her legs did infact still work to move her forward. but she cant walk up or down the stairs, or get on or off the bed with the collar on (actually she cant do a lot of things since she is so short) so we had to take it on and off a lot. but she is all healed now thank goodness!!!


another backyard creature, i have become very fond of the squirrels. this one was eating an acorn and ian used his great live action nature photography skills to get this great picture. he was on our fence but then he jumped up in the pecan tree to hide, but ian still managed to find him. isnt he a cute little squirrel :)


we finally got a dining room table, another IKEA purchase, just gotta love that store. i really like the table, we havent used it yet because we eat on our couches (which i will eventually take pictures of, i promise) but i plan on using it at thanksgiving for the first time (hopefully)


i finally started working on my paint by numbers again. i had started this one over a year ago and finally finished it over the weekend (finding a house and moving made it hard for hobbies). i started the one with the 3 wild horses that i got for christmas last year from the richardsons. there are 3 new ones i saw online that i want to get, a lion & lioness, a panda with bamboo and an african animal collage thing. hopefully ill finish the horses this week (i worked on it all day yesterday and have a good start) but i have 2 library books i need to finish by the 23rd, i think i am taking on too many hobbies, i need to just focus on one at a time

i will try to keep this thing updated more often, i am not going to promise it will happen, but i will try ;)

Random Pics

I know its been awhile, just been busy. I'm gonna post a bunch of random pictures from the past month or so - so enjoy!!


i went home in late june and was able to be there for eric's 13th bday - here is the teenager with his new hair style


ian & i celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary on july 2nd - he got me the pretty tiffany's jewelry box ive wanted for awhile - of course i liked the gift box and the bag too!!


my little old lady - getting so old she needs glasses :)


this is our super cool new Weber grill, we have been all about the BBQ now that we are in Texas





there were lots of baby ducks at the lake near our house today, so we took our black oil sunflower seeds that the ducks and geese like and went to feed them some dinner, yes, i actually stood there with a bag full of seeds and fed all those ducks, and didnt run away until i was out of seed because i feel they would have tried to kill me then, those ducks are HUNGRY!!!


here is a new backyard creature, we have lots of lizards, but this one is much bigger than the little green one i posted awhile ago, this sucker is about 8 or so inches long and about 1 inch wide, he hides under the deck, jaska really wants to catch him, but he is fast




this is why texas is a state full of fat people, its so hot it even makes the squirrels lazy, this squirrel lays like this not only on our deck, but he also just chills out on the tree branches like this :)


this is jaska trying to catch either the squirrel, the lizard, or just a random bird. she did manage to catch a bird the other morning and kill it, luckily i was not here, but ian of course got video, just what everyone needs to see :)

we got some new furniture and are slowing making house improvements, so stay tuned to more pictures to come in the next few months!!

Lisa

For anyone who doesnt know yet, Lisa was driving home to attend Sara's high school graduation on Friday and was in a car accident. A car was trying to cross the highway and ran right into the front of Lisa's car. Lisa, Shawn & T were all in the car, Lisa & T were taken to the hospital (they were in the front seat) and Shawn just had some cuts and was ok at the scene. Both Lisa & T are fine, T was released on Friday, Lisa was just released today about 30 minutes ago. She fractured her neck and wrist, injured her ankle, and her pelvis area is brusied from the seat belt and she has some cuts and stuff, but is doing ok considering. She will be in a neck brace for 12 weeks and will not be able to work or really do anything, but thank god that there was no nerve damage with it being her neck. Its been a scary weekend, but she is doing much better and has a few months of rest ahead of her.

More House Pics

We have finally started to buy some furniture, with the first purcase being the best of all, a king size bed (even got a bed frame)!!! So we moved our bed into the guest room, where we finally got 2 DVD shelves that hold 360 movies each, so they can hold all our dvds and ians computer and video games.


***pardon the mess around the bed, the master bedroom is still a work in progress plus we were tired after putting that thing together and just wanted to go to sleep**





I have also been trying to make this place look a little less boring, so I got Molly all set up on her little shelf, she looks so pretty.



My next goal is to start hanging up some of the pictures Ive had in boxes for a few years and come June we will buy the rest of the furniture (we have a lot to get). Ikea is gonna be getting a lot more of our money soon :)

Basset Hound Picnic

Today was the Helping Hands Basset Hound Rescue's Family Picnic. They had all sorts of fun events that Annie didnt want to participate in, but we did watch and enjoy.



The biggest hit of the day was the Snasage Toss, which surprisingly Annie didnt participate in either, she was too busy just walking around.







There was a costume contest which only a few dressed up, got a picture of "Harley Dog" and his crew. There was also basset musical chairs, which was pretty funny, basically the parent couldnt sit down until the basset sat down first. But the basset that won only won because he sat down and wouldnt get back up, so he was blocking the pathway and the game had to end :)





Annie had all sorts of fun as you can tell by the pictures, Jaska even had a good time surrounding by bassets. They were exhausted on the way home and slept the entire trip.

Pecan Update

So I said in my blog from earlier today that I probably kept about 75 pecans and threw away 75 more. I am not very good at guessing quantities evidently because as I washed them off I went ahead and counted them and had 198 sitting on my kitchen counter. So that means I probably threw away close to 200 and still have a ton in my front yard!!!

The Puppies

I wanted to post some new pictures of the puppies for everyone. I tried to get them to sit down together but had no luck. They really arent puppies anymore, but I will keep calling them that anyway. If you look closely at Annie's face you will see she has all sorts of gray hairs, she is becoming a grumpy little old lady. Tomorrow we are going to a basset hound rescue picnic (we are bringing jaska along as well), so I will have some pics of that which should be pretty funny.

Backyard Adventures

Ian and I have been to finally pay attention to our huge backyard and have discovered some neat little treasures.

Ian found a bright green lizard hanging out on our deck and managed to get a few pics before it ran away. We have also seen some really big black lizard thats probably 6 inches long that I guess hides in the slits in our brick, but I saw him just chillin on our deck, I tried to grab the camera because he was impressive, but he was gone when I turned around. But below are pics of "ian's lizard"





Today I went pecan hunting in our yard. Our neighbor has a huge pecan tree that extends into our front and backyard. I went out to fill a hole jaska had made trying to get the kitty next door and discovered there were tons of pecans. I tried to pick up as many as I could find (but gave up after about 45 minutes since I could have kept going for hours). I threw away any that had large cracks in them (afraid the bugs got in) and kept all the nice ones to sample and keep for mom. I probably have about 75 and probably threw away about 75 and I would guess there are probably another 50 or so still in the front yard. I am gonna go pecan hunting every weekend to try and keep them from getting out of control as summer approches.

Grand Hyatt San Antonio

I got to help attempt to open the new Grand Hyatt San Antonio last week, they were supposed to open over 3 weeks ago, were behind (as usual) but they are the headquarters for the Final 4, so had to open up over the weekend, so they called in everyone they could for help. I went to help for 2 days, each day being about 26 hours of working (manual labor) and 4 hours of riding on a bus. Needless to say it was a long few days, luckily I had off the next 3 days or I dont think I would have made it. We spent 2 days cleaning up a hotel that was still a construction zone (yes, it was pretty pointless) but it was fun to get away from the office and experience a hotel opening. I have heard many horror stories but didnt quite believe them, well let me tell you, after only 2 days, I will never open a hotel :)

The fun thing is that a large group of helpers managed to get bronchitis, and not realize it was that bad because everyones throat hurt and was itchy, but we all thought it was just the dust we inhaled for 2 days (or more). Luckily I was ONLY just sick for 5 days, but that still wasnt fun. I spent all day on Ians birthday and our 3 day weekend (which we never get) alseep or grumpy because I felt like crap.

Anyway, I thought I would attach some pictures of the hotel, when it is done it will be beautiful, but right now people are sleeping in rooms without bathroom sinks and constructions workers all over the hotel. We got to wear hard hats, too bad we didnt have a camera, we looked pretty stupid, but we had fun.

So enjoy the pictures and take my word for it, if you ever end up working for a hotel, make sure it is open before you get hired on, and never volunteer to help open it, unless of course you are crazy!!

Trip Home

I got to spend 10 whole days in IN with the familly during Sara & Eric's Spring Break at the beginning of the month. It was great, I wish I could go home more often, but they should be down in the summer some time. Lisa also came home from DC for a few of the days, so we were all together again. We of course took pictures to show everyone. I am not including captions, I think everyone can pretty much figure out who the picture is of, but if you need a hint, its either me, lisa, sara, eric, mom, dave (or kari the dog)




i do need to explain this one, she made my facebook picture a ducks ass and a seagull, so i was getting her back for that

House Picks

I know its been awhile since we moved in, I took a few pics. We are hoping to get some more furniture in April and will have more pics then.


our cute doggie hooks - annie has a blue one


our perfect miniblinds - amazingly they all fit!!


our utility room, i dont have enough to even fill the shelves


our freakin awesome washer & dryer, i love them!!


ians desk on his side of the loft


my super cool bright teal desk and white chair from ikea - on my side of the loft

Almost Closing Time!!

Its almost time for us to close on our new house!! We close at 9am on Friday, and we move at 9am on Saturday, Im sooo excited. I'll email everyone with our new address, so stay tuned.

House Pictures

So we took some pictures of the house, they are kinda boring since it is just a bunch of empty rooms, but if you want to check them out feel free.

Go to: www.flickr.com/photos/mimilach

I will post more once we actually move in and get things situated.