tHe lAnDlOrD

Okay, I know... two posts in a day... sorry. But my husband convinced me to watch this short 4 minute video with Will Ferrell and I about died, it was so funny that I thought I would share with everyone else. If anyone has had a landlord they know the troubles he faces in this clip. Anyhow go and watch it. You will love it!!

www.funnyordie.com/will_ferrell/videos

it is at the bottom titled, "the landlord". Check it out... if you like that one check out the other video with Pearl, "good cop, baby cop"

Okay that is all for today.. Promise!

rOxY's aDvEnTuRe

Well today we had an interesting scare and outing by a member of our family. For those who don't know, Cody and I live with my parents currently as we are saving and getting ready to buy our new townhome in springville. Well I had to run to a doctors appointment and upon my return home I find a huge van and an ice skating rink in the driveway. My mom had hired a local duct cleaning company to come and clean out the vents in our house, since it has been 14 years since they have been cleaned. Well as they went along cleaning with their hose leaking all over the driveway and instantly freezing... they were getting ready to finish up. Well they went to do the last vent, the dryer. Well our vent exits into the backyard.

If any of you know Roxy she is a master escape artist. She will run at any open door, fence or crevice she thinks she can squeeze through. Well once she is past those points... she is gone. Well the techs just decided to walk in the backyard, which would have been okay except one decided to walk into the house and in so doing let both Tyke and Roxy out the back door. Well I managed to call Tyke back into the house... thank heavens, but Roxy had made her break. The tech guys didn't do much, just watched her run away. I hurried to see if I could spot her but I couldn't. I looked like a retard walking around the neighborhood banging the treat jar and carrying a open package of sandwich meat with hopes she would decide to come back. Well after looking for about 30 minutes I decided to return home. I came home to find my mom in tears at the table. Followed shortly by my frantic sister who was determined to drive all over until she found her. I coaxed my mom into calling the shelters with me and telling them about Roxy. Then I convinced her to take a shower and get dressed so we could go around the surrounding neighborhoods and look for her. Well as I sat in the front room making a flyer, if it came down to that I heard a familiar whine.

I hurried to the front door and sure enough there she was walking in our neighbors yard looking for a friend or food. I hurried and called her and coaxed her into the house with a piece of sandwich meat and she was home. She took and hour and a half adventure, who knows where she went or what she saw but we have decided that as long as any repairman is in the house she will be placed in her kennel or on a leash to avoid further adventures in the future.

oUr sAd nEwS

Well recently we have noticed our little tyke acting a tad funny. It all started to worry us when my younger brother was playing tug of war, his favorite, with him and went to tug on his leg to complicate things. When he tugged, tyke started yelping and crying. He let go thinking that he had a cut or something of that nature. My mom decided to help check him out. Upon lifting his leg he started yelping again. After talking about it we decided to take him to the vet's just to make sure that he was okay. Upon his check up and a set of x-rays we discovered that he has hip dysplacia. Below is a x-ray of a normal hip....





Here is a x-ray similar to what tyke's hips look like





In case you can't tell, and don't worry I couldn't tell until they told me what to look for, what it is is the femur doesn't fit in snug to the hip socket. It makes the leg drop more straight down instead of out sideways. Consequently every time he walks, sits, runs, jumps and lays he is in pain.

The vet put him on a strict playing schedule, no tug of war and really be gentle. He can only go on short walks every once and a while. He has to eat ONLY Science Diet and now takes Rimadyl, an anti-inflammatory and arthritis medication once daily.

It is sad and other than the medication the only other option that we have is to do surgery, where they reshape the hip joint or they replace it all together. We had his x-rays sent to an orthopedic surgeon in Salt Lake... he called us back and wants to meet with us and check tyke out himself on February 4th. However, without surgery if we stay to what he needs like a healthy diet, exercise and medication he should be able to live a full and fun life without too much pain!! Wish us luck!!

mOnStEr tRuCk sHoW

So I thought I would share pictures of our experience at the Monster Truck Show.. Cody has taken me the last few years since we got married. We have made it a point to go and just relax and laugh at all the sights that are there... like the people and the crazy drunks.. This year, after talking to my mom... we decided to take my younger brother Jarett with us to the show.



We owed him for his birthday cause he never took us up on going to a movie, so we decided this would work. We had convinced him though that we were going to a imax movie instead. He had never been to the ecenter so we were in the clear on that. He didn't realize until we were in line to get in that we were at the monster truck show instead of the imax movie... It was a fun event, we saw the motorcycles to all these daring tricks...



the tough truck competition (which was my personal favorite).... and of course the Monster trucks... All in all I would say it was a success of the evening.. Jarett was so excited, I have never seen him so stoked about something so little like the monster truck show. He talked about it the whole way home and all throughout the show. We had a great time and can't wait to do it again next year!!

hElLo 2008!

Alright so I had all these plans of really posting pictures and what not on New Years Day and when it turned out that I was sick and then we were gone all day that dream went out the window. So here is the New Years Day and Christmas post only about a week past due. It seems that every year we watch as the months just fly by, but in the moment they take forever to make it through... but here we are at the beginning of another year.

Over the past week I have reflected back on the past year and the decisions I have made and the great improvements that I would like to make. It all started with a change. First was I graduated from College, yes... I finally made it!! I received my Associates Degree in Art and Visual Communications. The next was pretty big. I cut about 4 1/2 inches off of my hair and went back to the short and somewhat sassy look that I have had in the past. I am still a little unsure on how or what I feel regarding this new do, but I am sure with time I will be able to perfect the look.

It is funny as I have thought about New Years Resolutions... what a funny idea. We all wait until the beginning of a new year to make the changes that we could have easily started months, weeks or even days prior to the year starting over. I too, waited for the new year to roll in to decide what things I would like to set as goals for this new year. A few are things like writing my little brother, who is on his mission in Cincinnati Ohio, at least two times a week and make sure that he knows that I am there and that I love him more than he knows. Another is to start up my workouts again. I have been such a slacker in this area, I think mostly because I have been so stressed regarding school and life in general. I start up dance classes this week and I am hoping to have a lot of fun and dedication to this...

I have often heard about people who make the choice to not set New Years Resolutions because they will make goals that they can't keep. But in all honesty I encourage everyone to make at least one new goal and shoot for the stars with it, at the least you will land on the moon.

Well we had Christmas and it was loads of fun.. it was tyke's first, he didn't really get the whole open a present thing, but he loved what he got... white chocolate bones, a few chewy toys and treats... yay!!




Cody got some magic DVDs so he could learn some new tricks, I am sure he will be good in a bit... I got a photo printer and a digital picture frame. It was so neat to see and will be fun once it is really up and running. The best part of Christmas was the chance that we had to talk to my brother Matson. He is doing so great, he was just made a trainer in the Oxford area and is loving driving a truck.

New Years seemed to come all to fast. It seemed like Christmas one day and then the next day was new years... where does time go? We celebrated by playing some Guitar Hero on the Wii and paper airplane races.





We also watched a movie and played around. It was a great new year... at midnight we went outside to set off fireworks to introduce the new year, tyke didn't love the noises of them but he sure loved the colors and lights.. everytime one would go off he would run and hid behind our legs in effort to deafen the noise of the firework.

We hope that your new years was full of fun and joy and that you are ready like we are to tackle 2008!!



With much lOvE ~ the aLeX fAmiLy