A Holley Pack Saturday

Today was a slow Saturday for The Holley Pack. I slept in a little after a LONG day at work on Friday. Mike got home a little after 8:30 this morning. After enjoying coffee and cleaning up a little bit I gave Stephanie a call and made sure it was still OK for Beck and I to come over for a visit. Beck and I loaded up and made the trek to East Boise to visit Stephanie, Nikkia, and Dante. Stephanie adopted Dante late last year. He is a beautiful Akita with more personality that he knows what to do with. We wanted to get Dante and Beck together to see how they would interact. It was pretty uneventful. Beck was completely unimpressed with him and gave him plenty of teeth to show how she felt. Nikkia was worried the whole time and was trying to play peace maker. It was really great to see Stephanie not only because she is an awesome friend, but she gave me the best Christmas present, a Rick Bayless cookbook! I was so excited. I am a huge Rick Bayless fan and can't wait to make some food from the book. Hopefully we will get around to the pig roast recipe this summer.
After I got home from Stephanie's, Mike and I made a quick trip to Coscto to pick up a few things. Then we got home and the boredom set in big time. I walked to the back of the house and found Mike, snuggling with Beck on our bed (the dogs are only allowed on the furniture if the purple blanket is acting as a barrier). Is this pathetic or what?

I joined in, and then Cassius realized what he was missing out on. He came to the side of the bed to honk and whine at us, complaining about not being included. After a dozen or so attempts to jump up, he finally made it up onto "purple" and settled in for what I am sure he hoped would be a long nap.

I had some fun with Beck who was cuddling my bear, Sunshine renamed Bubba by Mike. I have had "Bubba" since I was three and surprisingly enough the dogs have left him alone even when he ends up on the floor by accident.

Is this not the cutest photo? I don't usually get great photos of Beck, but I think this is in the top ten. For some reason she was posing for me today.

We didn't last long in the napping mode. I finally motivated and we went for a run with the dogs. It was a beautiful sunny day in Boise and the dogs really enjoyed getting out for some exercise.

Isn't She Lovely?

So I finally bit the bullet and spent some money. Mike got a new mountain bike last summer and spent many days in the foot hills of Boise. I was jealous all last summer and decided to take advantage of the season and get a bike at a cheaper price. I love winter, but now I am secretly hoping for spring and summer so I can take her out for a ride. She needs a name, any ideas?

A One Gallon Milestone

Today I earned my one gallon pin from the American Red Cross. I started donating blood a couple of years ago when I worked at the corporate offices of a supermarket chain. At first, I started donating because it got me away from my desk for about an hour. Once I left the company, and the Red Cross followed up with me I started donating again because after working in the health care field I realized the importance of what I was able to do. Luckily my blood type is a good one and my blood has the opportunity to help a variety of people.
I remember the first time I donated blood, what a disaster! The lady who took my blood looked like a haggard vampire, so not like the vampires described by Stephanie Meyers in her twilight series. I have pretty good veins and this lady managed to nick the side of my vein and the next time I looked down at my arm it looked like there was a half of a baseball under my skin, except it was a purple/red/blue color. I had a GIANT hematoma and for about a week I really could lift much and it hurt my arm to do just about anything. Even better I looked like some sort of weird addict because as the blood dissipated my entire arm turned into a big bruise. One of my favorite memories of donating was when The Red Cross was having a "Pint for Pint" drive. If you donated a pint of blood you received a pint of Ben & Jerry's Ice cream. Come on, is there anything better?
I didn't get scared away by that experience and have been donating when I can. It's a bit of a bummer being tired for a day and having my workouts suffer, but knowing I am doing something good gives me that "warm fuzzy" we all need every once in a while.
Today I scored a 1 gallon pin which I placed on my work ID lanyard, and a cool mug that says, "One Gallon of Life".
If you aren't scared to death of needles I recommend you call up your local Red Cross and donate. If nothing else you will get some free juice and cookies.

I Love Living in Boise Because......

Well, there are too many reasons to cover in a short post. But today I love living in Boise because I was able to get up on a Thursday morning and about an hour after leaving my house I was on my tele-skis with my husband at my side enjoying a sunny day on the slopes of Bogus Basin.
When my legs could take no more tele turns we headed back down the hill and I still have plenty of time to work on my homework and get ready for work on Friday. I am a lucky kid to live in such a cool place.

A Fine Saturday (A Long Post)

I made it through the first week of my second semester of nursing school, whew! Now just 14 weeks to go. On Tuesday I found out where I will have my clinical course. I am excited and nervous, and I should be going over my health assessment stuff right now rather than playing on the computer.
Mike was at work today, and I have to say that being the wife of a fire fighter is pretty sweet. My husband is gone just enough so I miss him, and then he is home for a couple of days and by the end of his four days off I am ready for him to go back to work. Anyway, the alarm went off early this morning and I wanted to sleep in after having a pretty long week, but I have this thing......I can't let myself sleep in and if I do I feel really guilty for some reason. Mike constantly teases me about not letting myself oversleep. Anyway........I got up this morning and started on my usual weekend morning tasks. #1 Coffee and #2 Watching a few minutes of the Today show while giving the dogs their morning snuggles. At this point I am starting to feel a little lazy so I get to work on cooking and cleaning. To many, these two things would be awful tasks, but I am a dork and I really enjoy them. Today I mixed up a marinade for a brisket that will be served tomorrow for dinner with some of our friends. Once that was done it was onto cleaning. Thank goodness my house is the size of a small shoebox because I can vacuum, sweep, and clean the bathroom in no time. After cleaning....laundry. I am still trying to figure out how two people can create so much laundry?? Because laundry is never ending in the Holley Pack House.

After cleaning I surfed the Internet for a while and then decided it was time to get out of my shoebox of a house (I do love my little house though). I went to Target to see if they have any good deals on free weights. I have been upping my fitness routine a little bit and need some heavier weights. Of course, because I am such a tight wad I didn't end up buying the weights but I did walk out of the store with an I-Tunes card. I figured if I didn't want to spend over $75 on weights an I-Tunes card would up my workouts a bit and the price tag would be a lot less. When I got home I caught one of my favorite TV shows, America's Test Kitchen. We have four PBS stations on our TV and on the weekends they are packed with great cooking show. There have been a couple of Sundays where I have stayed in my PJs until 11am watching the stupid shows. I am lucky I don't have cable because I know I would always be watching The Food Network. The funny thing is, when I go to the gym I watch The Food Network while I am working out. People must think I am crazy.

Eventually I got around to studying this afternoon. I had to read a couple of articles about how to chart to "CYA" in case of a lawsuit and another article about illness in the elderly population. I had gone to a local coffee shop to study because if I stay home for too long I can find anything to distract me from what I should be doing. It's sort of funny how scrubbing a toilet can be a tempting activity when you are staring at textbooks.

When I finished up my journal articles I commenced shopping on I-Tunes. I purchased some new music and headed home.

Upon my arrival, I released the hounds from their crates and immediately Beck started with the stare down. She and Cassius were bored and it was obvious. I let her work her Jedi Mind Tricks on me and I got motivated to take them for a run. I am glad one of my dogs can motivate me to move my a**. We had a great run and Cassius behaved himself, and he has been on most of our walks and runs in the last little bit. Let's hope he keeps it up.

I finished up the evening by making spaghetti (I only make it when Mike is at work since he says he doesn't really like it, even though he will eat it at the station with gusto) and watching a couple of travel shows and looking up recipes to serve with dinner tomorrow. I need ideas for a side dish and a dessert. The bummer is that the brisket will be in the oven most of the day so if my dessert requires baking I will have to get up earlier and get to the grocery store, make the dessert, and then start on the brisket. While I was looking up recipes Cassius was being pathetic, but when is he ever not pathetic, check out this photo.

What you can't see, well hear, in this photo is that he was whining the whole time because he wated the other bed and Beck was laying on it. Finally Beck got fed up with his whining and put put herself to bed as she does everynight.

Cassius promtly took over Beck's spot and began to snore. I wish I would have used the video setting, because he was SNORING so loud. What a pathetic dog.

The Rough Life of the Dogs of the Holley Pack

A couple of photos from today. The dogs have it so rough here at the Holley Pack House. If you asked Beck and Cassius if their life was rough, how do you think they would answer? I know Beck would begin my saying that her life has been horrible ever since December of 2004 because that was when we brought home another puppy. She would then start complaining about how she doesn't have enough access to the Internet to complete her online PhD studies. And continue on her rant that no one pets her enough and she doesn't get enough time with the chuck it. Dang, she is a demanding dog. Cassius would say that he doesn't have enough squeaky toys, but the four Cuz toys in the toy box would state otherwise. Cassius would also say how unfair it is that when we leave him and Beck running loose in the house we close our bedroom door so he can't jump up and take a nap on his down comforter.

I don't know, but I think they have it pretty good.

"Holy crap am I bored. I need more toys"

"Why don't you quit taking photos and go buy me a better bed. A Heavenly Bed from Nordstrom would be appreciated."

"While you are taking these ridiculous photos I could be finding a cure for cancer, imbecile!"

"I guess I'll just nap and the cure can wait."

Mike Turns 35!

Mike turned 35 this year. To celebrate, we decided to get a bunch of people together and invade the bowling alley near our house. When I started researching the idea I was relieved to find our local bowling alley was non-smoking! I thought we would only need a couple of lanes, but it turned out we had enough of a turn out to take up four lanes. Thank goodness it was a slow night. We enjoyed drinks, greasy bowling alley food, and delicious coconut and red velvet cupcakes.

A bunch of the guys from the department showed up to help Mike celebrate. Leave it to them to take the party up another notch.

L-R: Cody, Mike, John, & Ben

L-R: Cody, Theron, Ben, & Josh

Josh brought Mike a fun squirt gunTheron getting his bowling game on

John & Rob

Theron & Mike discuss bowling strategies

D holding Rocco, Cody & Kelli's son (3m)

Alex & Suz with Mike
Jodane and Tyla joined us in the bowling fun

Tyla had the guys wrapped around her finger. She not only gave a couple of kisses she worked Ben into letting her bowl.

Michelle gave Mike some birthday love

Susie & Wayne

Mark contemplating his game

What is so funny?

Jonathan & Mark
Mike & D

We had a great turn out, thanks everyone for coming. It was great to see so many of you we haven't seen in a while. To end this post, a little song from Miss Tyla. I love that she is multi-tasking:)