Christmas At Our House!

As you know, we weren't able to make the trip home for Christmas this year. It really hit me Christmas Eve, and I was actually pretty sad :( But we made do and we celebrated our first Christmas in Alabama with our first puppy! Here's a photo essay of our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!!

Burning our Bayberry candle on Christmas Eve for good luck!

Our tree with our presents wrapped underneath!

All our presents. Thanks Santa!

Tom and Bailey playing on Christmas Eve. I've titled this video "When Bailey Attacks!"

Poor Bobo lost some of his stuffing. I think I know what Santa might bring Bailey for Christmas!

She loved opening her gift!

Here she is opening her Bobo!

Her 2 Bobos!

There was a televsion show called "The Yule Log" and they showed this and played Christmas music! We had it on in the background while eating brunch and opening presents!

For brunch we had Wake-Up Casserole, fresh fruit, and mimosas, of course ;)

Here are our presents from each other! Tom's stuff is on the left and mine is on the right. We both loved our gifts!

For dinner we had Mustard-Wine Pork Tenderloin, salad, and stuffed baked potatoes! The potatoes came in an Omaha Steaks package that Kim & Steve sent us for Christmas! And for dessert we had Creamy Lemonade Pie! Yum!

Merry Christmas!

Bailey's 1st Bath!!

The other night we gave Miss Bailey her first bath!! She did amazingly well! She basically just tried to bury her head in Tom's arms the whole time. She's so cute :)

And just for fun, here's a video of her chasing her tail :) She does this from time to time.

Bailey!

It's has been an exciting, busy, and stressful past few days! Miss Bailey certainly keeps us on our toes! Friday after work we took her for her first trip the vet. She did so well (for the most part!) and we learned a few more things about her. The vet thinks she is part Basenji and part Shepherd. We had never even heard of Basenjis before this. She definitely meets some of the criteria! Also, the vet is pretty sure she's actually about 1 year old. Miss Bailey came to the shelter on October 20th, so who knows where she was for the first ~10 months of her life! She's 22 pounds and the vet doesn't think she'll get much taller than she is now, she just might fill out a little. There were 2 kittens in the waiting room at the vet. Bailey met them and did okay.

Saturday we took her to the park for the first time!! Here she is enjoying the car ride to the park!

She ran and ran and ran! We tried to work on the command "Come" and she did okay. She also met a lot of other dogs, all but 1 who were bigger than her! (Some of them A LOT bigger!) She did really well with all of them, except for this one white dog but he was mean to everyone, and he barked at her first, she didn't start it. I wish I had taken some pictures when she and about 5 other dogs were all sniffing each other and checking each other out!! Here's a video of her playing "fetch." I think she may have picked up a different stick than what was thrown but whatever, she's learning ;)

This dog climbed up on this big ledge! He was declaring himself King of the Dog Park I think :)

Miss Bailey slept for the rest of the evening after the dog park! She was pretty wiped out.

This morning we played a little in the kitchen and she learned about the wall protector!

We're getting ready to head to the park again so she can meet her friends for the first time! Wish us luck. I know they'll all be instant friends :)

I thought this day would never come..........

.......the day that I get to tell everyone that WE GOT A PUPPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tuesday evening we went to the Humane Society to pick out a dog. We saw a couple dogs on the website that we liked (one adult and one puppy) but wanted to meet them first. After looking at all of the dogs we spotted one in particular! They were coming through taking the dogs on walks so they were all going crazy and barking...except for one! She seemed very calm and docile so we asked to meet her. Her paper said she was only 4 months old but when they looked at her teeth they thought she was more like 6-7 months old. The paper also said that she is Hound-Shepard mix but they said they aren't really sure about that either. We got to meet her and play with her while they completed our paperwork and she was ours! They also said they don't think she'll get much bigger than she is now. Here are some pics! Many, many more to come!! Meet Bailey!

Leaving the shelter!!

Picking out her toys at Superpetz!

She picked a Bobo!

'Tis the Season........

....for Holiday gatherings and festivities! Hence the lack of blogging!! This past week was a busy but fun one. Tuesday evening after work we went to The Wine Loft to celebrate our friend Stacy's birthday and support our friend Kajal's volunteer group, Hands on Birmingham. I would post pictures but my hair was out of control because it was pouring down rain. It's bad enough I've been tagged on facebook!

Friday night we had 2 holiday parties to attend, but alas could only make it to one (the one we missed was my work party, I thought we might be able to swing by later, but apparently my colleagues like to finish things up by 9-9:30). Tom usually has a Pathology Christmas party sponsored by UAB but due to the economy (I think??) they didn't have it this year. *sad* So instead a couple of Tom's friends in the program decided to put together their own little holiday party. It was at a ballroom in the condo complex of one of the girls and had an amazing view overlooking Birmingham!

Saturday was spent relaxing, wrapping Christmas presents, putting together Christmas packages (since we won't be able to go home this year), and listening to some of my favorite Christmas albums (ummm, NSYNC and Mariah Carey, omg I'm so embarrased I just wrote that). *Freed - notice the picture of Oscar!! He just happened to be right above the gifts*

Saturday night we went over to another friend's house to celebrate since our friend Doug is graduating and officially has his PhD! (Someday it will be Tom!!) We enjoyed some kick-ass chicken noodle soup and got to hang out with Jack, my new favorite puppy :)

Sunday was spent with Tom in lab most of the day and me running errands. We managed to break away for a couple hours to go to this art show I had heard about, The Blue Light Art Show. Boy was that a waste of time! It wasn't too bad, but it was in the middle of nowhere and the area around it smelled like sewer. At least our $2 admission fee went to a good cause! AND we just happened to get off the exit where the new Bass Pro Shop opened up. I secretly have been wanting to go in and see what all the fuss was about, even though I don't hunt, fish, or even camp for that matter. So we went in. Holy cow. The place was HUGE! It had stuffed animals of every variety (bears, elk, deer, wild hogs, wolves). AND it had a giant fish tank with a waterfull in the middle. The clientele was interesting as well. My curiousity was satisfied, and I have no desire to go back ;)

Sunday night we went over to our friends Matt & Kendal's house for a potluck Holiday dinner. Yum! The food was amazing, as always with our group :) We also had a Dirty Santa gift exchange, and there were some, um, interesting gifts exchanged (okay, only one really interesting gift...compliments of Kendal).

All in all it was a good weekend! I'm going to try to get some sleep and reserve some energy for the upcoming week!!

Fun Holiday Weekend!

So this weekend can't officially be deemed "Holiday Weekend" because my friends and I did not get together as we have every year for the past 5 years (so sad). But Tom and I still managed to have a pretty fun weekend and do some holiday-type things :)

Well, you voted loyal blog readers, and SHORT won with the majority of votes! I was leaning toward short anyways, so I'm glad you all agree :) So Saturday morning I went to get my hair cut!




After my haircut, we picked up a package from Tom's sister Jackie full of Christmas goodies! Thanks Jackie!



Then we went over to our friends house, The Drankas, to watch the SEC championship game and to celebrate Brian's birthday. There were both Bama and Florida fans there (as well as Penn State, LSU, Iowa, and Georgia fans).


Sunday we went to Durbin Farms, a local market in Chilton County which is known for their peaches. It's not peach season, but they were having a "Holiday Open House" and had a lot of good food and some southern specialties for sale.

On the way home we stopped and finally got our Christmas tree! We decorated it tonight while watching Anchorman. I forgot how much I loved that movie!

"It's Not the Mall, Y'all!"

Last night for girlie night we went to a fun little area of Birmingham called Forest Park. It's full of little funky art galleries and some good restaurants. We went to The Naked Art Gallery for their holiday gathering entitled "It's Not the Mall, Y'all!" They even had two guys out front playing homemade cigar box guitars. After some perusing of art we had dinner at The Silvertron Cafe. It was a fun night and I bought a new ornament! (It's the Vulcan for those who aren't familiar with Bham).