Reasons I love family dinner: Weiner dogs, Babies, and Old Pictures.

So today, we had family dinner at my house (complete with the leaves in the table to make it long enough to fit everyone- I'll have you know that our table is pretty imperiously huge). Tonight for me was a particularly awesome night, because my family just makes me happy like no one else can. There were three things tonight, though, that made me really happy. We'll start with this.


That, my friends, happens to be my sister and brother-in-law's new puppy, who happens to be among THE coolest dogs I've ever encountered. And that is saying something, because I have worked at the vet's, a dog daycare, and the animal shelter, so I've worked with quite a few dogs in my day. This little dog is a piebald miniature dachshund, with gorgeous green eyes. Her name is Magda, and I can't help but think that I might have to steal her. That being said, Amy and Jon, I promise I will give her back when you ask me to puppysit, but just know it's very tempting. The next awesome thing about tonight was this.

This is Jack, my 2 month old nephew. He weighs in, currently, at 13 lb. What a little chunker!! He is so cute though, and today was a huge milestone for my aunthood- I made Jack smile. Not just one of those weird newborn muscle-spasm smiles that disappear within seconds, but a prolonged, huge, gummy smile. And it was adorable and it melted my heart. Remember how I'm an aunt? Me too. Then, this:

Lauren, my big sister, was looking for pictures to put in Brian and Ali's wedding slideshow, and discovered this gem. Yes, that is me and Lauren, and yes, she is, as a matter of fact, holding my head like a football. For most of our growing up years, Lauren and I shared a room, and in that room, we shared a queen sized bed. Inevitably, it led to some pretty strange night-time antics, such as "steam-rolling" (the objective of this game is to roll on top of, and consequently squish, the other person), me reading scary stories to Lauren before we fell asleep (I thought it was funny that I could terrify my older sister), "THE CLAW!!" (just don't even ask), Power-Ranger Gymnastics ("The splits, the splits, how does she do it?"), and a whole variety of other oddities. By the end of this, we were pretty exhausted, and that resulted in some funny (and in my mind, cute) pictures in the mornings. The thing I love about this photo is that it makes me think of all the times that Lauren would hold my hand or calm me down when I'd had a bad dream, all the stupid jokes we split our sides with, all the random pranks I pulled on her. It makes me remember how lucky I am that she's my sister. So the moral of this story?

I love family dinners.

I am now a protege.

So this past week, I was officially accepted to the partnership program at the Art Acess Gallery. Which means, I get to tag along and bother a really good artist for seven months, and then at the end, we get to show the pictures we made. My reaction to this? Joy. I am so excited! My artist's name is Erica Houston. She is an INCREDIBLY talented woman, and we're going to explore mixing mediums, interpretive portraiture, etc. One of the big bonuses of being in this program is that I get a $500 grant for art supplies! Do you know how many Prismacolors that will buy?? I am a little bit happy inside. :)



This is a picture I did about five months ago. I have room to improve.
If you'd like to see any of Erica's art, or her husband, Blue Critchfield (who shares a studio with her) go to either http://www.myspace.com/ericaehouston or to http://www.myspace.com/mothmind

I love my little brother.

My little brother Josh is quite possibly the most amazing person I have ever met in my life. When I first met him, he didn't know any english, he was severely undersized, and he hardly knew how to smile. Every smile we got we had to coax out of him. Now, his smile is the biggest brightest smile in the world, and his hugs are the best thing in the world. He has to deal with so many difficulties every day, but somehow he knows how to find the joy in each day. He teaches me to be a stronger and better person, and I can't wait for him to come home from the hospital. In short? Josh is my hero.

...And I'm back.

So remember how I'm not dead? Me too. Here's what I have to say right now:
School is an angry creature. It devours life. Help?
But also, I love little breaks from school, IE, the fishing trip with my family to the Green River. It was beyond beautiful, and Josh finally got more than 1000 in the dice game.

Yeah, I work for that guy.

Just thought I'd share this with you- This is Gerry, my seventy eight year old boss, showing one of the missionaries that lives upstairs from our shop how the Alpine Horn is played. He just carried it outside onto the grass strip on the side of Main Street and played it for a good twenty minutes. He also gave me a bunch of carrots from his garden along with my paycheck one time. Needless to say, I love this guy!

It's a land of sweets and joy and... joyness!

So this past week, my dad's work had the annual Lagoon party. I hadn't been in a pretty long time, mainly because I don't have thiry bucks to spend on a mediocre theme park with manic-depressive tigers and malnourished camels caged in dog runs as part of their "Safari Train" exhibits. Forget that I just said that, that's not the point of this post. The point of this post is, that as I watched Josh and Lydia work up the courage to go on the rides, and, depending on the ride, either laugh their heads off or look terrified and refuse to let go of the lap bar, I remembered how magical a place this filthy, sex-predator swamp had been to me (don't let your kids out of your sight at Lagoon... creepy fourteen year olds are the only people they employ). By the time we were riding our two last rides, the carousel and the swings, I had slipped into a strangely nostalgic mood, and I decided to take about a million pictures with my camera-phone. By this time, Lydia had stopped screeching every time we decided to go on a new ride (she couldn't bring herself to ride even the swings the first time around, we ultimately just started forcing her on the rides) and so she looked happy and she was actually smiling as we went on the rides, so she looked good in the pictures. Josh just looked happy the whole time, including when we rode the new rollercoaster called Wicked (he rode every ride I rode). He was doing the bird-calls he does when he's excited, and Lydia stood by watching and weeping at what she was sure was our impending doom (she looked a little surprised when we came back forty seconds later in one piece, mostly, excluding the fact that Josh was verbally unresponsive and somewhat wobbly for a good two minutes after, though when he regained speech he wanted to go again). Anyway, I just wanted to share the sweetness of my family having a day off. I love them, and those them who are in Texas or Poland right now- I miss you and I'm excited for you to come home!

Something I love and something I hate.

Today's something I love happens to be the Foo Fighters. I adore them. Particularly Dave Grohl. How can you not adore the man?? My favorite song by them is probably Come Alive. Listen to it- it's beautiful.




Something I hate? Missing Dan. While I obviously hope he's having an awesome time, there's that little selfish part of me that wants him here. At the moment, he's on Orcas Island with his mom, and just really miss him. The ironic thing is, today's thing that I love makes the thing that I hate even worse, because when I listen to the Foo Fighters I think of Dan, which makes it worse. It's a vicious circle. Long story short? I want my redhead back!