So excited for Christmas!

I can't wait! We fly home on Saturday and are going to spend a day or so in Philly at Tom's parents before heading up to the LBG to see my fam. Christmas Eve is always fun....we go to my Uncle Dan's (same uncle that hosted the rehearsal dinner) and hang out there for a while after church....usually my brother does or says something stupid to entertain us....ahhhh, some things never change :) And Christmas day the EAGLES are on! I don't want to jinx them but they've been lookin' pretty good! I was so psyched when they beat the giants because the first time we played the giants Tom and I went to this sports bar down here and if you recall the game at all....the eagles were winning going into the 4th and then blew it and the giants came back in OT and won. Anyways there were these completely obnoxious giants fans at the bar...and when we were leaving they were like "good game" to us (they weren't saying it to be nice, they were saying it because they won and were trying to rub it in). Anyways on Sunday when the Eagles kicked some giants butt I was sooooo happy :) I don't know where those giants fans were, but I know they were watching and hopefully thinking of what jerks they were being several months earlier :) ANYWAYS, CHRISTMAS! I can't wait! Here's a pic of downtown Bham....all lit up for the holidays :)

I did it!

I ran 20 miles! It was so hard but I did it! We ran up some killer hills too. Ugh, I HATE hills! Disney only has one tiny hill and it's actually an on-ramp to the interstate. I guess it's a good thing though because the Mercedes Half in February is going to have a few hills. And my fundraising is finished! I've raised $3,215 total! Thank you SO MUCH for donating to such a worthy cause! I'm so excited! Less than 3 weeks! Disney does this really cool thing where they put a chip in your racing number that can be tracked when you cross certain points in the race. If you'd like to track me and get updates on my time at various points in the race or just get an update when I finish the race, follow the instructions below to sign up via email or text messaging on your cell phone.

Go to http://www.disneyworldmarathon.com
Click on "2007 Walt Disney World Marathon"
On the right, under "Event Info" click "Live results"
Click "Track a runner today!"
Then just enter your info online
Don't forget my new last name is "Bodenstine" when entering my name!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We got our tree!!!! Yay! I love it. There's a few pics below! My big 20 miler is this weekend! I'm so nervous. I know I can do it, because I did 17, so what's 3 more, right?! Ha.....we'll see! I'm trying to surround myself with any motivation I can think of because I'm running a little low in that department right now. We've got a lot going on this weekend too! But hopefully it will keep my mind off of being nervous about the 20 miler (think positive, think positive, think positive). Anyways I can't really think of much else that is going on right now. Running has consumed my mind, body, and soul, and will keep it for the next 26 days so I apologize if I'm a little spacey or not updating as much!

Our TREE!!!!!!!

Tom decorating our tree

Tom and I in front of the Poinsettia tree at the Botanical Gardens

One month to go!

My marathon is officially ONE MONTH FROM TODAY (the 7th!!) Ahhhhhh!!!! I'm glad it's only a month away because I'm kind of getting bored with running but I'm also very scared because I don't know if I'm prepared for it! I'm sure I am....I did 17 miles a couple weeks ago and in a week and a half I'm going to do 20!!! That'll be my longest before the marathon. And everyone says if you can do 20, you can easily do 26.2. And I feel like if I can do 17, I can do 20....so we'll see!

Last night I ran with a girl from work and with a group of people that meets every wednesday at the Trak Shak (a local running store). We did 5 miles through a residential area in one of the suburbs. It was good because there was a huge group of us, but it was dark and it started to HAIL during our run!!! But that only lasted like 60 seconds. Everyone always says "If you don't like the weather in Birmingham, wait 5 minutes!" We are learning that is very true!

I'll leave you with a pic of Santa Chin. I was bored the other night and found this hat in one of my boxes of Christmas Decorations :) (It must of been during half-time of the Eagles game ;)

Third Annual Holiday Weekend!

Well, technically it's the fourth. A few years ago some of my good friends from college started coming down to Philly to visit the first weekend in December. We made it an annual event, and would go out in Philly, exchange Secret Santa gifts, eat a lot and drink a lot :) When I told everyone I was moving to Alabama they said we were going to do holiday weekend in Birmingham this year....so we did! Brie, Margaret, Carrie (all bridesmaids) and Carrie's husband John were all able to come down. Carrie and John flew in Friday morning and Brie and Mags arrived Friday night. We had such a GREAT weekend! It was so nice to see everyone and Tom and I are so grateful to them for taking the time and money to come visit us! We explored some of Birmingham's finest attractions and of course, ate and drank a lot :) Pics will be up soon!

Ok, so after Brie and Margaret flew out on Sunday, we had a few hours before John and Carrie's flight left. John LOVES to explore and check out new things and loves to cram 18,000 things into their vacations :) So he picked up a "2006 Birmingham Activity Guide" and we went exploring :) Actually, we just went to this one place, which was an old mansion from the 1800's that was supposed to be all decorated for Christmas (I forget who lived there....I think the cousin to the guy that shot Abe Lincoln???). Anyways, so we went and it was kinda decorated for the times, not anything too spectacular to put us in the Christmas mood. They did have yummy hot cider and snacks at the end though :) Ok, POINT OF THE STORY, so John and Carrie say they initiated our Christmas season and we have to do something "Christmas-y" every weekeend between now and Christmas. Which is fine with me because I LOVE doing Christmas-y things. Sunday night at the mall, you could bring your dog or cat and get it's picture taken with Santa. Tom and I thought about bringing the chins for like a millisecond but then decided against it. ;) This weekend we are going to get our Christmas Tree on Saturday! I can't wait!! Decorating our tree will be our Christmas-y thing we do this weekend :) Here are a few pics from Holiday Weekend :)

Everyone at dinner in the Lakeview District

The girls at the Rare Martini

Sunset at the Vulcan

Gorillapod holding John's cam to take our "artistic pic"

Painting

So Saturday night Tom and I were sitting in our living room, hanging up Christmas lights, and something just didn't look right. We decided we had too much "white" in our apartment. I suggested the idea of painting one wall and having an "accent wall".......half joking/half serious. The more we thought about it.......the more we liked the idea. So Sunday morning (after my 17 mile run!) we went to Lowe's, got some paint, and came home to paint our accent wall :) We needed the color to be something dark and bold to get the full effect of the accent wall, and we have a lot of tan and brown in our living room so we opted for dark brown. We LOVE it! I think it turned out so well because we painted the wall that has our doors to our balcony on it, so the accent wall is accented nicely by the white doors :) There are a few pics below.

Me painting

The finished product :)

So yeah I ran 17 miles on Sunday! It was hard, but not too bad. My legs hurt more than anything else. I think that has something to do with the fact that my current running shoes have over 400 miles on them since April....TIME FOR NEW SHOES! My team in training coach was actually surprised that I haven't injured myself yet running in my shoes because they were so worn down on the inside. So I have new shoes now so hopefully I'll be as good as new on my 15 mile run this weekend. I've also almost reached my fundraising goal!! Thanks to EVERYONE who has donated! I think I have like 20 more dollars to raise to meet my goal ($2800). Unfortunately, I have one more person that I would like to run in memory/honor of. Tom's nephew Michael's good friend, Nick, just passed away from lymphoma. I think he was only 20 or 21. Hopefully he passed peacefully and painlessly. Please keep his family and friends in your thoughts and prayers.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Unfortunately, Tom and I were not able to make it home for Thanksgiving this year so we had our own little Thanksgiving....just the two of us. We even cooked a turkey....and it turned out yummy!!! Everything actually turned out really well except this one dish that I tried to make....it kind of tried to explode (ok, not explode, boil over) in the oven but it still tasted good :) And we went for a nice run in the morning too so we didn't feel guilty about stuffing ourselves. I tried to trick Tom into running 6 miles....but he kind of figured it out.

Today we got up at 4:45 to hit the Black Friday specials (If you don't know me too well, I'm kinda obsessed with finding really really good deals on things)....like for example.....my 200GB Internal Hard Drive that I got today for only TWENTY DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!! My computer won't know what hit it! (which I'm kinda worried about....hopefully it will still function after I install it). Ok, enough of that :) Tom came with me this morning but slept in the car while I faced the masses and waited in line FOREVER! But well worth it. Oh yeah, did I mention the weather was beautiful yesterday and today? Mid 60's yesterday and low 70's today! Hopefully it will be like that on Sunday morning for my 17 mile run! Here are some pics of us on Thanksgiving....they're not the best quality b/c they were taken with my phone camera and our disposable.....but we shouldn't be having that problem anymore after today's Black Friday sales O:)

Tom carving the turkey

Tom is hungry!

And so am I!!

Tom and I before Thanksgiving Dinner!

Weekly ramblings

I can't believe Penn State's football season is over! Except for their New Year's Day bowl game in Orlando, of course :) Too bad Tom and I don't have a lot of money and I don't have a lot of paid-time off at work or we would go to the PSU game in Orlando Jan 1 and stay there for the week for my marathon on Jan 7! Oh well. Next year hopefully we'll go to a BCS game and then we'll go to that :)

I ran 15 miles yesterday with Team in Training! I actually ran the last 2 miles by myself because yesterday I happened to be the only one there training for Disney (everyone else was training for Mercedes which is a month later) so they were only doing 13 and our Team in Training coach ran an ultra-marathon (40 miles!) on Saturday so he only did 13. And I think he was ready to stop after 7 but the rest of us were afraid we were going to get lost on the 13 mile course because I had only done it twice and everyone else had only done it once. Anyways, 15 miles was a pretty big accomplishment...but we do 17 next week!!

So we don't have a dog yet ;) IF we get one it probably won't be until the spring or summer anyways. We'll see. The chinchillas are doing well. I think they're getting fat. We let them out to play last night...we let them run around in the one bathroom and close the door so they can't get out. They like to think that they are participating in the X games or something because they always like side-jump off of the walls and stuff. It's cute. They also like to hide in things that we put in their cage....Tom will use cardboard and make a little house for them. Here's a pic of Chimu who decided he wanted a window in their house so he chewed through the cardboard. They are so cute but such brats sometimes :)

Happy Anniversary to us :)

Yesterday was our Five Year Anniversary from when we started dating! Unfortunately, we didn't do anything to celebrate because I had a casting lab at work until 6 and then Tom had a dodgeball game at 7:15 and I had to train as well. But I think we're going to go out to dinner tonight :) I'm not sure how much longer we'll celebrate our dating anniversary now that we are married but we thought 5 years was special.

So we went to the Gala last Friday night and had a fabulous time! They had all these decorated christmas trees up in the lobby area that people could buy...they were pretty. Guess what? I bid on something at the silent auction! And guess what?! I won!! :) Haha, it was this really cute little doggy water and food bowl that was in the shape of a dog (painted black and white-just like a border collie!) and said "Merry Christmas" on it. I bid something really low...and really I just bid on it just for the heck of it. After dinner, we went back to the silent auction before it closed and only one more person had bid on it and only $5 more than my bid. So with 8 seconds before the auction closed I made an impulse bid (that was only $10 more than my original low bid) and I won! Here's the best part....after winning I realized that I had won more than just the really nice food & water dish....I won a certificate for a free annual checkup for a dog and free vaccinations for 1 year! Now, some of you may be saying "But Anne and Tom don't even have a dog." Well, you're right.....but I really really really really want to get a border collie and now we can take it to the vet for free! Plus on the SPCA website the feature dog is a border collie....coincidence? Plus my brother just got a really cute border collie from his local animal shelter too! Since our certificate to the vet is good for a year, we may wait until the spring or summer to consider getting one. We'll see :) Oh yeah, here's another best part about my silent auction bid. When you went to pay and pick up what you won, it gave you the retail value of the item....My bid was 80% off the suggested retail value!!!!

Ok, so that was just all the news about the silent auction. After dinner there was a live auction as well. Ok, let me back up...the whole reason we got to go to this Gala was because The Lakeshore Foundation buys a table every year and donates some of the tickets to the PT/OT department at Children's. The Lakeshore Foundation is this really amazing place that is a paralympic training site as well as a recreational facility for children and adults with physical disabilities (and it happens to literally be right down the road from our apartment). Anyways, sitting at our table were two people from Lakeshore...one of them one of the administrative directors and the other a paralympic world champion in water sports! He actually owns his own non-profit business, Adaptive Aquatics, and teaches kids with physical disabilities how to water ski and stuff. Amazing. Anyways one of the prizes up for bid in the live auction was a one-week trip to some resort in Colorado for 7 people. Rhonda ended up bidding on and winning this trip! It was crazy....it went for like $3600!! And when she was bidding she kept looking at us asking if we "were in" or if we "want to go." And we are all sitting there thinking "Um, does she want us to go in financially or is she just being nice and inviting us along?!" Haha. I think she was just inviting us, but not seriously. We'll see....my boss that was there with us has her email address. We took pictures with my new digital camera (aka disposable camera from walmart) so as soon as I get them developed I'll post them. I'll leave you with a pic of Haleigh....my brother's new border collie :)

Gala

I'm such a bad blogger...no posts in over a week! People are going to stop reading because I don't update enough (or at least that's what Tom says ;).....j/k). Anyways, I've been keeping really busy, work, run, eat, sleep, sometimes run, work, eat sleep.......but my days have been consisting of some variant of that schedule. We ran 11 miles last week for our long run....we do 13 again this week. I also think that I'm going to run the Mercedes Half Marathon here in Birmingham. My full marathon will be in Disney on Jan. 7 and the Mercedes isn't until Feb. 17 or something like that. It'll give me an excuse to keep running but I'll have enough recovery time in between the two events. Plus I know a lot of people who are running the half so it should be pretty fun :)

And now for more exciting news. Every year Children's Hospital has this really fancy Gala that they put on and each year the Gala benefits something different with the money that is raised. There is dinner, a live band, a silent auction (I've never been anywhere with a silent auction before!). This year it benefits surgery at Children's I think. Anyways here is the best part. Tickets sell for $125 PER PERSON but Tom and I get to go FOR FREE :D One of the PT's husband's company buys enough tickets for a table every year and then donates the tickets to the PT/OT department. On Tuesday she still had 3 extra tickets so Tom and I get to go! It's Friday night at The Sheraton downtown. We can't wait! Maybe I'll bid $5 on something at the silent auction just to say I bid on something at a silent auction! (Apparently last year a dinner for 10 made by a chef at your house went for $1800.....some doctor's wife bid on it and won).

Unfortunately, my camera broke so I'm not sure if we will have pictures of the event. Seeing as how I'm photo-obsessed I'll probably buy a disposable before we go. Maybe Santa will bring me a new camera for Christmas......or Black Friday ;)

Go State....Beat The Owls!

P.S./Head's up: Next year PSU plays Temple IN Philly. We are definitely going up for the game and making a weekend out of it.....two of our favorite things in the world in one place....Penn State and Philly :) Now if only the Eagles play at home that Sunday...........

Happy Halloween!

The Matrix

Roller Derby Girl and.....Girl

Happy Halloween everyone! My first Halloween down south! How exciting (well, technically my 2nd since I was down here visiting Tom last Halloween). Anyways the Halloween festivities have started and will continue through the weekend! Working in a children's hospital on Halloween is like the best way to spend the day. There are A TON of activities set up for the kids (including trick-or-treating!) and they really all enjoy themselves. Plus all the little ones are dressed up in those little full body costumes like dragons or lions or turtles and they are so cute!

Tom and I are going to a Halloween party tonight and are dressing up like Neo and Trinity from The Matrix. I'll post pictures as soon as I get them up (which reminds me, Kansas pics are now up http://community.webshots.com/user/awesomeanne Page 3, "Kansas and Joe & Laura's Wedding). And we're having a "Post-Halloween" Halloween Party on Friday night. I'm going to be a roller derby girl and Tom's going to be a girl. Should be a good time.

My running has been going pretty well. I guess it's decided that I'm going to do the full marathon because I ran a half-marathon (we ran 13 miles) on this past Sunday! I didn't know if I was going to finish or not around mile 6-7, but I felt great when I finished! We drop back to 11 miles this weekend so that will be nice to look forward to!

Hope everyone has a great Halloween!

We're not in Kansas anymore!

Actually....we are. Our flight was delayed 3 hours (grrr!) so I'm blogging live from the KCI airport. Tom's best friend from home (Joe-who now lives in Kansas) got married this weekend and Tom was in the wedding. We had an absolute blast. We all stayed at this ranch (Circle S...highly recommend if you're ever in Kansas!). Anyways it was like a giant farmhouse with probably about 10-12 rooms and the wedding party, Joe & Laura, and their immediate families all stayed there. The guy that owned it was like a real cowboy too. And they cooked all of our meals there and there was an awesome hot tub in the back of the house. It was also in the middle of nowhere with no tv's and no one got cell phone reception (Imagine us trying to find out the score to the PSU game on Saturday!) Ohh yeah and they had a herd of buffalo! Apparently there was a peacock too but we didn't see him. The wedding itself was beautiful (even though it POURED rain the whole day) and the reception was a blast. The whole weekend was just amazing. The travel was (is) a pain in the butt but well worth it!

Since I missed my team run this weekend, I had to run when we got out to Kansas on Friday. I did 10 miles! Ok, also, I always hear how flat Kansas is and in my head pictured absolutely no hills, so I was pretty mad when I decided to run through Kansas University only to discover that it was ON A GIANT HILL and I almost died twice trying to run up those stupid hills! Haha, enough complaining. The university was actually really pretty and the town of Lawrence seemed pretty cool too.

As always I took a ton of pictures and I will post them on my webshots as soon as Tom and I get home and unpack and settle in(which at this point I'm not even sure we'll get home today!)

Whirlwind travel!

So Penn State on Saturday was an absolute blast (would have been better if we won, but considering the facts that 1) we were down to our 3rd string quarterback, 2) We held michigan to 17 points when they're averaging 30+, and 3) we only lost by a touchdown, not too shabby).

Saturday was my cousin Andrew's 21st birthday, so we started off downtown at a few bars before we headed up to tailgate. Let me just tell you that having a bloody mary on the trip up to PSU from my parents house and 3 beers without eating breakfast isn't such a good idea! Happy Birthday Andrew! Then we went up to tailgate and were able to see a lot of our friends that we haven't seen since the wedding...so that was really fun to see everyone and hang out before the game.

The traveling on the other hand was absolutely horrible. Never again will we drive 3 hours to Nashville, fly to Philadelphia, & drive 3 hours to Lewisburg....no matter how cheap the flights are out of Nashville. Waaay too much of a hassle! Anyways here are a few pics from the game! This weekend Tom's best friend Joe is getting married! Tom's in the wedding so it should be a good time! Hope everyone has a great week and weekend!

The Girls!

Game

Getting all bundled up for the game!

Slacker

Hi everyone. Sorry I haven't blogged in so long!!! Running and fundraising is like having a second full time job! My running has been going pretty well. 9 miles on Sunday! That was pretty exciting for me. Fundraising is going ok too...although I'm a little concerned about reaching my goal of $4000....but there is still some time left. The Jim 'N Nick's fundraiser went pretty well I think. I still don't know how much money they are going to donate (I tried calling the manager on Monday, he didn't have the totals then, I didn't want to seem pushy so I didn't call him back until Wednesday...he wasn't at the office). Hopefully I'll know by tomorrow! I raised $120 with just the raffle!


So, I have to blog about this one Sonic commercial that is on down here. If you don't have Sonic near you, you probably haven't seen it....Sonic is like a fast-food restaurant that is famous for their desserts/milkshakes. So anyways, there is this guy and girl in a car and they are drinking some milkshake and talking about how good it is and the conversation goes as follows:
guy: "I think I'm going to have to blog about this so all of my loyal readers can know about it!" girl: "all of your loyal readers? So you mean like, your mom?"
guy: "My mom's neighbor reads my blog too"
girl: "Score! Your mom's neighbor!"

Haha, I guess that doesn't really do it justice...you kinda have to see it. But it's pretty funny and it reminds me of me and my blogging.


We're going back up to PA this weekend for the PSU-Michigan game. We were able to get an unbelievable deal on flights out of nashville, and we have tickets to the game, so we couldn't turn it down! Plus it's PSU vs. Michigan and it's a NIGHT GAME :D If you're gonna be up there, let me know! Can't wait to be back in Happy Valley!

Fundraiser

Hi everyone. In order to raise more money for Team in Training/Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, I decided to see if a local bar/restaurant would donate a portion of their proceeds from Happy Hour one night to LLS. So Jim 'N Nick's, a really yummy bar-b-q restaurant/bar down here agreed to help me out. I have been soooo busy trying to promote this event and advertise for it. I could never do this full time! It is stressing me out like crazy. I'm sure it will be fine, but I'm just worried that no one will show! One of the radio stations agreed to help me out, and my Team in Training coach sent an email out to everyone on his list-serv......so I feel like at least 500 people have to know about this by now.....I'm just praying that enough will show so Jim 'N Nicks will generously donate a big portion of their proceeds to LLS!
I'm also holding a raffle at the happy hour.....so far I have a $45 gift card to Outback Steakhouse, a $20 gift card to Locos Restaurant & Bar, a $15 gift card to McAlister's, some gift cards to Planet Smoothie, & 5 free cone certificates to Ben & Jerry's. I'm only going to sell the raffle tickets for $1 each so hopefully people will buy a lot! So if you randomly happen to know anyone in Birmingham, send them to Jim 'N Nick's in Five Points this friday from 4-7!
Anyways keep your fingers crossed for me that this goes well! I'll keep you posted and let you know how the happy hour goes!

Twice in one week!

Look at me! I'm blogging twice in the same week! This week has been going pretty well....pretty quick which is good. We're down 2 people at work and amazingly it hasn't been ridiculously busy so that has been awesome. (fingers crossed!). I've actually been hanging out with a couple of people from work and meeting new people, so that's been nice. One of the girls I actually used to work with in Philadelphia is now in Birmingham and is going to start working weekends at Children's Hospital....that's kinda random. And yesterday I went to happy hour with an OT that I work with and we went to this really super cute area of Birmingham that I never knew existed! I was so excited! It reminded me of Philadelphia. There were a bunch of cute little restaurants and bars and a lot of outside seating. Which is perfect for this time of year because it's finally started to cool off (again) and it's perfect weather to just sit outside and enjoy some drinks and food. So we're definitely going to have to explore that area a little more.

I've also been making an effort to cook more (if you don't know me too well, the extent of my cooking is hamburger helper or Lipton pasta sides with some chicken). I made baked ziti the other night and it was really yummy. I'm also big on quick and easy recipes that makes enough food for us to have leftovers for lunch. I found this really good sounding broccoli and cheese (and ham) casserole that I'm going to try to make tonight. I also organized all of my recipes last weekend. All of the ones that people gave us for the shower and also some random ones that I had written on scraps of paper. So if you have any super easy yummy casserole recipes, send them my way (alb245@yahoo.com) :)

This weekend should be pretty low key for us....which will be nice. We really need to clean....do some fall cleaning. I think we're going to make Jackie's pepperoni dip again for our tailgate snack for the PSU game on Saturday. It was so good and we can't stop thinking about it! Ok this blog is getting long, you probably stopped reading somewhere in the middle of the second paragraph.

Happy Birthday to all of the late September birthday kids......John, Carrie, Dad, Kathleen, & Dorothy....and anyone else I forgot!

Oops!

Eeeek! Sorry I haven't blogged in a week! Work and Team in Training has kept me extremely busy! I'm bummed right now because I thought we were going to get the Eagles game because on the schedule it says "televised nationally" but apparently not because we're getting the giants/seahawks game. At least the seahawks are up 21-0. And Eagles are winning right now too so that's good.

So yeah we have been down a couple therapists at work so it's been really busy. But it's going well so I can't really complain. I'm at 24% of my financial goal for Team in Training. I have to be at 60% by October 23 so keep your fingers crossed for me! (or donate! or give my website to friends you have who might be interested in donating :)). I'm going to try to get some corporate sponsors, because that would help me out big time. So if you work for a major company and have any contact info with HR/annual giving please email me! (alb245@yahoo.com)

I ran 7 miles today for Team in Training. I had to run by myself though b/c the team didn't run together at 6:30 because it was thundering and lightninging (is that a word?).

And oh yeah, it was HUMID! I got really excited last week because for 3 days it was nice and cool and I thought fall was finally here....yeah, for the past 5 days it's been mid-high 80's and HUMID. I'm ready for fall!

We had some people over to watch the PSU game yesterday (so close psu, so close). We made Jackie's pepperoni dip from the recipe she gave us for the shower...it was AWESOME!!! It was gone in like 5 minutes.

Everything else has been going well. I'll try to blog more than once this week! Here are a couple of pics of Bham from The Vulcan (second largest statue in the US next to the Statue of Liberty)...there's a fun little Alabama fact ;)

Mississippi

So I can officially check Mississippi off of my states that I've been to. Although I do have to say, for anyone who has never been there, you're not missing anything. My cousin Todd's wedding was this weekend back at home. Unfortunately Tom and I couldn't make it :( So as soon as Children's found out that I was going to be around, I was "strongly encouraged" to attend a bracing workshop in Oxford, Mississippi. It wasn't all bad, and I learned a lot at the workshop, but Ole Miss is missing something.

For people who live in Alabama, the joke about Alabama and Mississippi is that if it weren't for Mississippi, Alabama would be the worst state to live in (haha, it's not as bad as it seems). The only "hick" thing that I saw was this beat up old black school bus on the side of the road that had an air conditioner sticking out one of the windows....so I'm guessing someone lives there???
Anyways I got back last night and had to go to bed almost immediately because our first Team in Training long run started this morning (see website for more info on how that went). http://www.active.com/donate/tntagc/awesomeanne

I feel like I was going to tell you all something else but I can't remember. Notice I said "you all" and I did NOT say "y'all." Although I find myself saying "you all" instead of "you guys" so I'm wondering if "y'all" is not far behind. Hopefully not.

Happy middle of September :)

Weekly Update

Man....Penn State.......what was that all about?! We are a young team, we are a young team, we are a young team. Seriously though, we are. Plus if Ganter could actually hold the ball for a field goal the whole game might have gone differently. Hopefully he's the last Ganter playing for Penn State solely because his dad used to be the offensive coordinator. At least the Eagles won! E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES!

I ran 7 miles yesterday for my long run! Our official "team runs" start this Sunday for Team in Training (at 6:30 in the morning!! ahhhh!). But at least we'll be done running before it gets hot out. It's been low to mid-80's this week and it's been great! This morning it was 73 degrees and I was about to get my winter coat!



Here is a pic of my hair right after I got it cut! I haven't worn it curly yet because it turns into a fro after about 40 minutes ;) I really like it though! I'll post a pic of it when it's straight (how I normally wear it) as soon as I get one.




There are a few updated pics of the apartment in this album. I think they're on the 3rd & 4th pages.
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/552366746kmCnOj?start=0

Enjoy!

Just for Fun

Keepin' busy...livin' for the weekend

I've been trying to get over a cold for the past few days so I apologize for not blogging. First football weekend was wonderful. We watched Penn State kick some zip-butt with some friends, ate yummy tailgate food (Ciara-everyone loved your buffalo chicken dip recipe!), and drank a few cold ones. Did any of my loyal readers watch the game and see the (crazy) (drunk) guy in the raft that they showed toward the beginning? That was my dad's friend Earl in my dad's raft...too funny. We're sitting there watching the game and then we see Earl paddle by in a raft on national tv.

I got my haircut! I'll have to post a picture....it's really short (for me)! It's above my shoulders. I love it, Tom's getting used to it. It's a big change but I was mentally prepared for the short hair....I'm used to it already.

My training has been kinda "eh" this week for Team in Training. I want to keep running but I don't want to get any sicker than I am right now. I ran 6 miles on Sunday (a new personal best for me) and 3 miles yesterday. Hopefully I'll be able to run at least 3 more days this week. Check out my site (link to the left under "links") to see all the fun people who have donated! (Your name could be on there too!)

Work is getting pretty busy....like CHOP busy. But everyone is really good about helping out other people when we get crazy so that's really good.
I'll try to blog again before the weekend....but if not.....


GO STATE, BEAT IRISH!

FOOTBALL!!!

I CAN'T WAIT!! Penn State kicks off at 2:30 tomorrow (3:30 for all you eastern time zone folks). I'm so excited!! I was so excited last week for football too, and we were watching games from last year on ESPN classic and it looked so nice outside....all cool and crisp and like great football weather.......then I stepped outside on our balcony and got a rude awakening when it was 97 degrees and the humidity was like 70%. Oh yeah, I live in Alabama and it doesn't get cool here until November! Fortunately I've adjusted to the heat down here so 85 degrees feels like a brisk autumn day! I hope everyone has a good labor day weekend and enjoys the start of football season! I know I will :)

Relaxing Weekend

What a wonderful weekend! It was very relaxing and just what I needed! Friday night we had some friends over so that was pretty fun. Saturday...hmmmm...what did we do Saturday? I think just a lot of catching up on things...laundry, recycling, etc. Sunday we went to the gym. I ran 5 miles! (One of my Team in Training goals for this week) and then went to the pool Sunday afternoon.
I'm SOOOOOO super excited for football to start! I can't wait for Saturday. Tom and I decided we are going to "tailgate" at our apartment every penn state game. I'm going to try to cook some "tailgating food" every week....each week something different. So if you have any good recipes...please email them to me at alb245@yahoo.com This week we're doing some sort of meatballs. Basically I just want an excuse to use our new crock pot :)
That's all for now. Feel free to check out my TNT website for updates on my running progress! Please donate if you can! Even donating as little as $5 or $10 can help make a huge difference in the lives of people with leukemia or lymphoma!
http://www.active.com/donate/tntagc/awesomeanne

Atlanta Pics are up

http://community.webshots.com/user/awesomeanne/3
"Atlanta Trip"

Atlanta trip

We had a good time in Atlanta this past weekend. I’ll hopefully post the pics soon on webshots. We went with some of Tom’s friends from UAB so there were 7 of us total. We drove out on Saturday and went to the Bodies in Motion exhibit at the civic center…which apparently was the same thing as the bodies exhibit at Franklin Institute but I was never able to go because I was always busy with wedding planning. Anyways it was amazing and right up my alley. The bodies were dissected and then plasticized using this new preservation technique they are working on. The muscles were really cool and a good anatomy review for me :) But the cardiovascular system was by far the coolest. They injected all of the arteries and veins with red and blue dye and then somehow miraculously dissected everything else away except for the arteries and veins and they were able to preserve them in their original shape. It was amazing.

Saturday night we went to Underground Atlanta for dinner which was kinda scary…I do not recommend it. Then we went to a bar that had live music and ended up across the street at Hard Rock so that was fun.

On Sunday we went to the Georgia Aquarium (and Ikea! How I miss Ikea!) The aquarium was really cool and I have some cool pics of that I will have to post. My favorite part was the giant whale sharks. They only ate plankton, and for some reason each one of them had their “posse” of little yellow fish that swam in front of their mouths. There’s a pic of one below but it’s kinda hard to see the little yellow guys. This might be Ralph…one of them was named Ralph :) These 2 pics are from my camera phone so they’re not that great. All in all it was a good trip.

Team in Training

So if you are reading this, that means I have your email address, and most likely you received an email from me earlier today about The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training. I have decided to join Team in Training and train for and complete a half-marathon in Phoenix, AZ on January 14, 2007. I have always been active in sports my whole life, but by no means have I been a distance runner (or even liked running that much!).

Running a marathon or half-marathon always seemed like this amazing thing that I secretly wanted to do but never thought I could. But now I believe I can for two reasons: 1) I ALWAYS tell my patients that they can't say "I can't" until they try. So I at least have to try. And 2) Team in Training benefits such a wonderful cause and I have talked to several people who, like me, were not big on running but completed a marathon with Team in Training and said it truly was a life-changing experience.

I have set a personal goal for myself to raise $4000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Any donations, big or small, would be greatly appreciated not only by myself, but by everyone that the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society benefits, including patients, their families, and the doctors and researchers who try to find cures for such horrible diseases.

You can donate securely online at my Team in Training website at
http://www.active.com/donate/tntagc/awesomeanne

I will also be tracking my progress on there so if you can't get enough of my blog, you can read my TNT page as well :)

Let me know if anyone is interested in joining Team in Training in your area and running with me in Phoenix in January! That would be so fun and some extra motivation for me as well! Visit http://www.teamintraining.org to find a local meeting near you.

Jet lag

We've been back from Portland for a week and I think we just finally recovered from our jet lag....maybe. We had a nice and relaxing weekend....hung out with some friends Friday and Saturday nights (and I hung out by the pool saturday and sunday during the day....LOVE having a pool to go to in this heat!) I was looking forward to another relaxing weekend this coming weekend but it looks like we are going to Atlanta with some friends. Should be a good time.

My work is going pretty well too. It's starting to pick up quite a bit and I'm seeing a lot more patients. And Tom and I manage to walk down the street to Starbucks for a lunch time pick-me-up at least once/week. We are obsessed with Starbucks! Carrie gave me a gift card for my bday and it was gone in 2 days! And we just found one near our apartment too....that could be dangerous!

The chins are doing well. They missed us when we were gone last weekend but they're all better now. They LOVE when we come home because they think we have food to give them. They jump up on the side of the cage. And whenever we have leftover random cardboard boxes we put them in the cage because they like to play in them. I still have my heart set on getting a border collie.......maybe next Spring when we have a little more money and are really settled in. We'll see. Drop me an email if you have some free time...I'd love to hear from everyone! alb245@yahoo.com

Portland and Dot & Juan's Wedding

Portland was amazing! We were able to see and do a lot while we were there and we have some pretty awesome pictures. We explored some of the microbrewery brewpubs and had some fine beers. We also saw a bunch of waterfalls on Saturday. Three of them were along this small road on the mountain but we didn't have to go far off the road at all to see them. Then we went for a longer hike with Carrie & John and we hiked up this mountain to see this amazing waterfall.

We also went into Portland to go to their "Saturday Market" which they have Saturdays and Sundays. It was like a mini- Arts Fest! We couldn't believe they have it every weekend. We got a really beautiful picture for our one bare wall in our apartment. It's a picture of this rushing stream that is almost turquoise and has green trees in the background. It is perfect and exactly what we were looking for.

Dorothy and Juan's wedding was absolutely gorgeous. They got married outside at a lodge that was overlooking the mountains and the Columbia River. It was really beautiful and I was so glad we were able to be there to share their day with them. The reception was fun too, and of course John (some of you may know him as Meatball) and one of Juan's friends ended up having a dance-off to early 90's music...quite a site.

Overall it was a great trip but we are very much looking forward to a low-key weekend! Here are a few pics from out west. The rest are on my webshots page. Scroll down for the url...I know it's on some other posts.

What would YOU do?

Not much to write today. Getting ready for Portland tonight...I'm sure I'll have a lot to write about when we get back! Like how we will be eating ramen noodles for 2 weeks because we spent all of our money to go to Portland....whoops! J/k....kinda.....

Anyways, someone forwarded me this the other day and I think it's hilarious. I probably wouldn't think it was hilarious if it were my kids and my stuff...but I still hope I would have at least gotten the camera out like this poor soul did.........

Nashville

So the beer festival was pretty fun. They had a lot of different breweries and a handful of our favorites. We tried a good amount of new brews but it was very tempting to go back to the ones we liked the most! After the beer festival ended, we went downtown (well, we were downtown, so we walked a block to the main area of downtown) and went into one of the tons of bars that had live music. We ended up making a good decision, because the guys that were playing/singing were really good! The one guy even busted out the banjo for a few songs....good stuff :) We met some interesting folks from Bham while we were there....now they were some talkers! ;) They also informed us that Birmingham has it's own college football bowl! We were hoping it would be earlier in December so we could go and tailgate (I'm ready to tailgate this weekend if I could!). But unfortunately it's not until December 23 and we hope to either be home by then or be coming home on that day.

Maybe Penn State will make another bowl run this year (they better!) and we can go to that instead! We actually will probably go to some UAB games. Tom went to one last year and said it was fun. Besides, they're free with your "campus card" which I now have. 31 days until Penn State Football!!!

Music City Brewers Festival

Wedding dvd

So I watched our wedding dvd last night (Thanks Jackie!) and got all sentimental. It was so fun! I got really sad though because I so thoroughly enjoyed having all of our friends and family there and there won't be anything like that again where everyone gets together all in one place! Maybe we can throw a big 5 year anniversary bash and invite everyone :) And maybe we can do it at Penn State so we can go to a bar and see Velveeta play! I just really valued having everyone together like that. Not to mention the whole thing was an absolute blast :) Ahhh, memories ;P


Tom and I are going to Nashville this weekend. We flew out of there to go to Chrissy and Bill's wedding and ate lunch downtown. We both agreed that it seemed like a cool city and we wanted to go back for a weekend. Then I found out they have this Music City Brewers Festival where they have like 35 breweries from all over the country and you pay like $25 and go in and try all the different beers all day. And they have food and bands/live music too. It's right up our alley. And I loooove microbreweries and trying different beers that I don't usually have access to. We really can't wait. It should be a blast. Hopefully we will be able to make it out Saturday night after the "beer festival" and see some good ol' country bands ;) I'll blog about it next week after we get back.

Then the following weekend we're going to Portland for Dorothy & Juan's wedding. Should be a good time, I've never been to Oregon and rarely get to see Dot & Juan (except weddings) since they moved back to the west coast! Carrie and John are coming too and we're sharing hotel rooms to save some money, so that will be a lot of fun to see them again. Then we have the rest of August off to rest up for FOOTBALL SEASON!!! :) Hope everyone has a good weekend!!

Are you ready for some football??!?!?!?

Tom and I got our PSU/Michigan tickets in the mail the other day! I'm so pumped! It's going to be a whirlwind weekend but I can't wait! Happy Valley, in October, against Michigan (grrrr!), under the lights....eeeeeeee! It's payback time! Just like it was time to payback Nebraska in '02 and Ohio State last year.......I LOVE NIGHT GAMES :D Anyone else going up for the game? Let us know!

GET READY!!!

Chinnys.....again......

Man, I feel like every other post is about our chinchilla saga. As you all know, Tiago passed away last week. Our new little guy Quito, was very active and kind of a brat while Tiago was still with him. However, after Tiago left us, Quito became very melancholy and didn't move around a whole lot. Tom read online that chinchilla's really do have personalities and you can usually tell when they are depressed. Regardless of whether that's true or not, Quito was definitely acting differently.

So Tom and I had a talk and he really wanted to get a new buddy for Quito. My main concern (see first chinchilla-related blog) was that we are going to be in this never-ending cycle of buying chinchillas after one dies, but Tom promised that if we get another one and something happens to him or Quito, that will be the end. No more chinchillas.

So I went to the pool yesterday and Tom went to the pet store to "look" at the chinchillas. There was one left in the cage and he came home with it. We think it might actually be the same one that was in the cage with Quito when we bought him, so that would be pretty cool.

Anyways, I am in love with our new little guy. He's so docile and kinda clumsy...I Love him! We think we are going to name him Chimu. It was either Chimu or Chako....the only 2 cities in South America that we liked as pet names.

So we have two chinchillas again.......*sigh* Hopefully these guys will be healthy and happy and we will have them for a long time. They sure are cute when they cuddle together :) This is how I found them when I got home from work today.......I can't tell which one is which in this picture. Quito is probably on top.

P.S. Tom took a video of them with my camera when they were taking dust baths/running around in the tub. I submitted it to Planet's Funniest Animals on Animal Planet so if you see 2 chinchillas running around in a tub-one taking a dust bath, one trying to jump out of the tub (Quito!)- that's them! :)

Apartment

Soooo, I've been meaning to post pics of the new car and apt on here since we moved in. But everything looked like a mess with all the boxes, etc and then we finally got settled and I forgot about it! (Thanks to Aunt Judy for reminding me!) Anyways, here are a few pics of the apartment and car. For more, please visit:

http://community.webshots.com/album/552366746kmCnOj

Our Saturn VUE

Living room

Kitchen

View from 3rd floor

Sad news

I'm afraid I have some very sad news to share with you all. Yesterday we came home from work, went in to say hi to the chins....and Quito was happy to see us....jumping up on the side of the cage. Actually he was probably just looking for food. But then I looked down and saw Tiago laying on the bottom of the cage. I couldn't tell if he was breathing or not. He looked like he might have been breathing a tiny bit but he really looked like he wasn't moving. I yelled for Tom and he came in to take a look. He picked him up and Tiago definitely wasn't breathing :( He was still warm though, and not stiff, so we think he must have just passed before we got home. I started looking up emergency vets online and I was going to call them but it was definitely too late :(

We did a lot of reading online last night about what could have caused his death. A lot of people who have lost chinchillas said that they often die suddenly. We're not sure exactly what happened to him, but we think it was probably a contribution of a number of things. He did have glaucoma and couldn't see, so he wasn't as active as he used to be, and it is important that chinchillas get exercise every day. Also, on Tuesday Tom noticed that he wasn't eating as much, but didn't really think anything about it (especially because Quito usually hogs the food bowl anyways).

One of the most common causes of chinchilla death is gastroenteritis. The signs and symptoms are lethargy, loss of appetite, and death. We think this may have ultimately caused his death. But we're not really sure how he got it. Quito likes to sit in the food bowl and sometimes he poops in it...so we don't know if that contaminated the food and then Tiago ate some of the food? It's possible but who knows.

We don't know if Quito had anything to do with his death or not. It's possible but it's also possible that it was just random chance. We have had Quito for almost 2 and a half weeks and apparently chinchillas die pretty quickly after they get sick...so that leads us to believe that it may have just been random and Quito might not have had anything to do with it. Regardless, Tiago had a buddy during the last few weeks of his life, so we think that made him happy. They were so cute when they snuggled up together and slept.

RIP Little T. We will miss you.

Scary story

Soooo, we had our first official bug spotting last night. Needless to say, I flipped out. We were watching tv and I got up to go into the bathroom. I used the one in the guest room because it was closer (which makes me feel better, I would have truly flipped out if it was our bathroom). I closed the door and spent like 1.2 seconds looking at my hair in the mirror........and that's when I spotted it! It was this water bug (I said cockroach...Tom said waterbug......whatever they are both big and disgusting and I don't care to get close enough to examine the difference between the two). Anyways it was crawling up the door and then went through the crack between the door and the wall. So (again, needless to say) I started screaming and jumped up onto the toilet. Tom came in thinking that I had died or something and walked right past the icky bug and didn't even see it. I had to tell him where I thought it went and he got the RAID and killed it. (Meanwhile, Tom was on the phone with Michael, heard me scream, told Michael to hold on, went to put down the phone and accidently hung up on him. Michael called back when Tom was trying to kill it because he thought something horrible happened because he heard me screaming). Then it took some convincing to get me to come down off the toilet and out of the bathroom because I had to step over it to get back to the living room..........YUCK! So we're thinking it just came up through the drains so we sprayed in the bathroom and we're going to get the exterminator to come just in case. Hopefully it's just a one time deal.

In Philly when I lived with Jess we only saw 2 for the year and a half we lived in that apt and when I lived by myself I didn't see any (Thank GOD because I would not have been able to deal with it by myself!) I hate bugs worse than mice....somehow I think bugs will be more of an issue down here, not mice.

Oh yeah and the recycling place wasn't that bad...so I don't have any scary stories from that. It was kinda gross b/c it was like drizzling outside and EVERYTHING was full/overflowing. But there were other people there recycling when we were there. Maybe if we were by ourselves it would have been a little scarier. Regardless, we now know where the recycling place is...yay :)

The end.

Wedding pics are up!!

Wedding pics are up!! They are NOT the professional ones....they are compliments of me, Dad, stacey, curry, liz, & brie/jim :)

http://community.webshots.com/user/awesomeanne/3

Update

Soooooo I guess it's time for a new blog entry. I knew this whole "work thing" would drain me and I wouldn't keep up with my blog as much....and it's only my 3rd day! Work is going pretty well. Orientation was boring as hell.....and now I'm just kind of following people around to get a feel for the hospital and learn the ropes.....which will become boring probably by tomorrow because I tend to zone out when I am not actively doing something. But it all seems pretty cool. Everyone seems nice so far, and I'm super excited to start working with the onco kiddos again. I miss them!

Let's see....what else is new.....I got a new phone...I LOVE it. I have the new-every-two with verizon and I can't believe it's been over 2 years since I got my last phone. I remember getting it and thinking "Oh my gosh, I will be MARRIED before I can get a new phone!" and I remember thinking that July 2006 seemed soooo far away! Not anymore :P

Oh yeah, we FINALLY finished all of our thank-you notes (sorry it has taken us so long!) So they will be going out tomorrow.

That's it for now! Sorry it's nothing too exciting! This weekend we plan on venturing into the ghetto to find the like one recycling center B-ham has so I'm sure I'll have some crazy story about that. I'll keep you posted.....

:)

Top 10 Lists

Sooooooooo, if you know me at all you know that I've been doing Top 10 lists on instant messenger FOREVER! So anyways, here are some updated Top 10 lists from the past month or so :)


Anne's Wedding Top 10
10. Pre-wedding Key West getaway
9. Spa day
8. Our "something borrowed" car from C & J
7. The Weather!
6. "Alone moment" with champagne
5. Rehearsal Party
4. Willow
3. Velveeta!
2. Getting serenaded :D
1. Marrying Thomas O:)


Anne's Honeymoon Top 10
10. Corona on draft
9. Our jacuzzi
8. Mimosas Grandes
7. Bud! (Our lizard roommate)
6. Bordeux
5. Turquoise water!
4. Pool bar/drink service
3. Snorkeling in a sinkhole, cave, and lagoon
2. Seeing a giant sea turtle and stingray snorkeling in the ocean!
1. Being with Thomas O:)


Anne's "Moving to Alabama" Top 10
10. On time movers
9. Sweet tea!
8. Quito!
7. Spending our gift cards at Target :)
6. Our new bed :D
5. Working on the onco floor at Children's of Alabama
4. Our pool
3. Our apt with our balcony and 2 walk-in closets
2. Our Saturn VUE
1. Living with Tommy :)

DMV story

Hola loyal blog readers :) It's a frigid 85 degrees today in Birmingham. It's actually quite nice, considering that since we've moved down here it's been anywhere from 94-103! That's sad that I think 85 is "refreshing."

Anyways boy do I have a story for you! Ok, DMV's are notorious for being ridiculous and a pain in the butt but the ones in Alabama top them all! I've seriously attempted to get my Alabama license and get my name changed at the DMV like 5 times! (At two different DMV sites). Although 4 of those times I either didn't have everything I needed or we didn't make it in time to get on "the list" or we just didn't feel like wasting our whole afternoon at the DMV.

Ok, so let me explain how it works down here. They only accept 60 people a day for new licenses/out of state transfers. And it's worse during the summer because all the little 16-year-olds trying to get their license take up valuable spots. Anyways, you have to ARRIVE at the DMV at 5:30 in the morning if you want to be guaranteed a spot. Seriously. When people told us this we were like "okay, whatever" and just thought they were exaggerating. So anyways, people start arriving and lining up outside with their lawn chairs at 5:30 in the morning. The DMV doesn't even open until 8! We got there at 7 yesterday...and considered ourselves lucky that we actually got a number.

So that brings me to the second hurdle. After waking up ridiculously early and standing in line (in the heat) for 2 hours, you have to be lucky enough to be close to the front of the line so you can get one of the 30 numbers they hand out. That pretty much guarantees you a slot...as long as you're patient enough to sit there and wait your turn. (And for everyone who knows me, you all know how difficult this must have been for me!)
Okay, so I was lucky enough to get a number yesterday (Number 92....but they only started at number 70). So if you come after the numbers are handed out (i.e. right at 8:00 when they open) you can put your name on a list. I think they must take 30 names, and then by like 8:45 the list is closed for the day and if you missed the cut you have to come back the next day and start the whole vicious process all over again!

So anyways, back to me. So I got my number, then realized I didn't have my birth certificate or passport with me! I had my PA license, my new SS card, and my marriage license....but waking up at 5:30 in the morning apparently made me forget some pretty important stuff. So wonderful Tommy drove back home to get my passport while I waited at the DMV. Then I proceeded to wait until 11:45 when they called my number (the most triumphant moment ever!) Then the lady was incompetent and didn't understand how to read a marriage license, but I talked her through it. I thought I was home free and then she asked me to take the vision test. Crap, that's when I realized I had taken my glasses out of my purse like 2 days earlier. So she said I had to come back later with my glasses to take the vision test but I would still be able to get my license that day as long as I was back by 3:30.

So I called Tom and he was actually on his way to pick me up so I had him swing by the apt to get my glasses. So in the end....after almost 6 hours at the DMV, I am proud to say that I walked out with an Alabama license with my name officially changed! Although I absolutely HATE the picture on my license and they put your weight on your license! And again, I was not thinking and rounded up instead of rounding down when she asked for my weight. What the hell is wrong with me?!?! Haha. Anyways, I think this constitutes as the LONGEST BLOG EVER! So congratulations if you made it to the end of it :)

P.S. We will be in Philly this weekend for Tom's friends wedding! We won't have much time to hang out but please call if you're in the area and we can try to meet up!

Quito! The newest member of our family!

Soooooooo, happy early 4th everyone....and happy belated birthday to me :) Thanks to everyone for all of the birthday wishes too! Oh and I have to comment that Kathleen must have had off today since she didn't comment on my blog :) Ok, so for the exciting news!!

We got another chinchilla! See blog circa June 30 for my feelings on getting a buddy for Tiago. But when we went to the pet store again today, they had 2 chinchilla babies and they were so cute playing with each other! And Tom's had his heart set on getting Tiago a buddy for like years now. So we left with a little boy chinchilla. And then we named him Quito to stick with the "capitals of South America" name theme.

Let me just fill you in on the whole chinchilla story and how we came to get Tiago in the first place.....

Rewind to Tracie's first chinchilla (Tray was the original owner of Tiago). Her first chinchilla was named Lima after the capital of Peru since chinchillas are from South America. Lima had a tragic accident in the winter of '00 and then Tray got Tiago (short for Santiago). Tom and Tiago met when Tray and I lived together at Penn State. Fastforward to a couple of years later when Tracie graduated from PSU...and didn't take Tiago with her on her new adventures. Long story short, Tiago needed a home and Tom's birthday was coming up.....so on a joint effort between Tracie's parents, my (wonderful) Aunt Judy, and my parents....Tiago made the trek from Erie to Philadelphia to live with Tom.

Currently Tiago and Quito are investigating each other in their cage, and Tom cut them a new home from Quito's take-home box. They were squeaking at each other a lot at first....and I thought they were biting each other but Tom says they were grooming each other. Hopefully they'll get along. They're both males and are supposed to be the less dominant and more compliant gender of the species (I could comment here re: blog circa July 1 but I won't). Anyways, here is a couple pics of the new little guy.

And here is Quito (center) and Tiago (left) getting to know each other.

Currently they are eating dinner and sharing a food bowl! It's so cute! Hopefully they will become fast friends and won't fight!!!