A Vent Blog

Hi there my peeps!  

I hope everyone had a wonderful week.  Our week was busy (as usual) and our jobs our going great!  This has been my 3rd week (I think) working full time and it's been nice.  It's not my dream job by any means, but it's been great to know that I'm helping out and making a big difference there.

Anyway, so we've had a few complications with ordering our iphones.  When we first ordered, we were told they were on back order and that they would take a little while to ship.  A week later...MY phone came in the mail (and it's beautiful....so sleek and sexy and perfect and iphony).  Rich's was going to take another week.  

There she be.  My pretty iphone SE (which if you don't know what that is...it came out after the iphone 5, but before the iphone 6s...I think).  I've left it in the box and put the box out of site because I don't want to mess with it or play with it until Rich gets his phone (blech...which won't be here until the 1st or 2nd week in June).  So I've hidden it away from myself so that I'm not temped to turn it on or mess with it really.  I DID decided on a phone case and that, as well as the tempered glass I ordered to go over the screen (I don't want my baby to bust) and those will come this week.  I got a pressed flower case from Etsy which I'm SO excited to get in the mail (pictures to come surely).

I know I said Rich is getting a silver iphone, but he's actually going to get a space grey one, which takes even LONGER to ship....so....now. we. wait.  

We actually went to a Sprint store here in Wilton to ask some questions about the phone we were waiting on.  We were totally BLOWN AWAY by the lack of customer service offered at the Wilton location (the reason why I point out that location is because we'd talked to a few others...Westport/Ridgefield over the phone who were much nicer).  

So the Wilton Sprint store is inside of a Radioshack.  When we walked in the Radioshack employee was very nice (a young, nerdy kinda guy...nerdy...but friendly) and directed us to the Sprint sales associate.  Let me tell you...oh she must have been having a BAD DAY....!  

She was on the phone when we first walked in and we had to wait for her to get off to help us.

When we asked our questions she said "We don't do that here".  So...we informed her that we'd been told to come into a store to do what we were asking about - she just got crankier.

When we asked about the iphone SE she said "We don't have that here."

She said "we don't do that here" about 3-4 more times before calling her associate who had already left work for the day.  When she got on the phone with him, she kept saying things like "I wish you had walked in when John (or whatever his name was) was here".  She kept referring to me as "the lady" (and mind you, she said it with a WHOLE TON of sass) and didn't bother to get my name, or Rich's.  She just really seemed to have no clue what she was doing and was asking her co-worker how to do everything and was about to make a second account for us.  She was very unhelpful and seemed beyond annoyed that we would bother her with a customer need.  We left after about 15 minutes (before she messed something up on our Sprint account), I just told her we'd come back at a later time, to which she was more than happy to oblige (aka...she was more than happy to not have to deal with us).  

When we got in the car we were like....WHOA.  What just happened?  We both agreed on how unhelpful, clueless and annoyed she was and seriously considered writing a painfully honest google review but then decided against it because who knows....maybe she was having a bad day...?  But STILL.  The ONLY reason I would even consider writing a review or complaining about her is because, while I haven't been in her EXACT shoes...I have been in shoes her size.  I've DEFINITELY had my fair share of working several jobs where customer service is KEY.  I had plenty of bad days at work...but you've just GOT to put a smile on your face and take care of business...even if you feel like garbage!

We actually had another poor customer service experience at our local Stop N Shop.  A totally different situation...but the same principle.  Ok...done venting!!  Actually...I'm not.  If you can't take the negativity skip the next 3 paragraphs.

For those who are wondering what our apartment building looks like.....please see below.

The three windows right underneath the STAR sticker are the windows of our living room.  The two windows under the heart are the windows of our bedroom.  And the TINY little window that is under the stiletto shoe is our bathroom window, which we leave open almost always to create ventilation from when we shower.  There is an apartment above ours that has a different layout...but no one lives there currently.  And we obviously have an evil downstairs neighbor.

He complained to the management about us :(  After the first incident when he CALLED THE DANG COPS ON US, we talked to him and just asked us to knock on the ceiling with a broom or something if we're ever being too loud.  So earlier this week....maybe Tuesday or Wednesday we heard a BANG BANG BANG!  It was pretty loud and it actually scared Bilbo a little bit (and me) and then we checked to makes sure we weren't making any noise.  We realized that Bilbo had dropped is puppy kong (which is small and rubber) few times and was quietly playing with it to himself.  HOW COULD IT HAVE BEEN THAT LOUD????  

So the next morning, Rich got a voicemail from someone from management saying that "he'd like to talk to us about something".  Immediately we knew it was the man downstairs (Satan...obviously...I mean Robert).  When we got back in touch with them later that day, Rich explained that we have tried VERY hard to be VERY considerate...we've gotten rid of most of Bilbo's toys so as to not make much noise, we have several rugs, we play with the dog outside...etc.  He had complained that we were "playing fetch with him in the middle of the night" which was a total lie!  Bilbo goes to bed at about 10 even if Rich and I are still awake.  We just really didn't expect him to go tattle on us, when we thought we'd agreed that if we were being loud and bothering him that he'd tap with the broom.  And that was the FIRST time we'd heard him knock since the cop incident.  We didn't get in trouble or anything, probably (hopefully) because management understands that he's being a little ridiculous.  Even Lynn...our next door neighbor warned us about him.  So he must hear everything.  Even though he's old.  SHEESH!!  Ok...NOW I'm done venting.

Speaking of Bilbo....he's quite the little crazy.  We were playing fetch at Cranbury park on Thursday (a very usual, weekly activity) when suddenly, as he was fetching the ball and about to retrieve it he started limping and wouldn't put weight on his back right foot!  He hobbled back to Rich and I and collapsed.  We rolled him onto his back to try to examine his foot and he BIT both of us!!  Not in a vicious way really...but in a "I'm in a lot of pain and I don't know if I want you to touch me" kind of way.

We took him home and noticed that there was a small cut/puncture wound on the top of his paw.  He's had injuries on his foot pads before...which just heal on their own pretty quickly.  But this was different and it was bleeding a little bit.  Rich did a little examining of it with tweezers and q-tips.  We tried figuring out what it was...but didn't really have any clue or any clue of how it got there!  He was just playing...like he always does...

Anyway, I called up Paige to get her thoughts.  For those of you who don't know, Paige, my sister, has worked in a veterinary clinic for about 10 years.  She's seen just about everything when it comes to treating animals medically.  She told us to let him rest overnight and then see how he's doing in the morning. 

On Thursday night, he was in a lot of pain, was anxious and just wouldn't calm down.  We thought he would after a few hours but it just seemed to get worse.  He would go to the bathroom either - which was probably a sign that he was pretty stressed out.  So we gave him a half tablet of one of the pills we had him take on the trip out here (we've been saving the 2 leftovers we have for such occasions) and that seemed to do the trick.  It took the edge off and he was able to relax and fall asleep.

In the morning he was still limping heavily (though in happier spirits...he wagged his tail a few times and seemed almost like he wanted to play) and we knew we'd need to take him to the vet.  So we took him to the vet.  I was only able to be with him for a few minutes after getting there.  I went to Rye, NY with Warren for work to do interviews.  Rich was updating me on the drive.

The doctor examined his paw and said that the puncture was very deep and just kept going.  They took an x-ray to see if he had any broken bones.  We heard back yesterday from the vet that none of the bones were broken, but there is a suspicious area of his paw that looks as though it may have a foreign body in it - which is what she had originally suspected.

You can see where they shaved his foot a little bit.  The prescribed pain medications as well as antibiotics to help with healing and swelling.  The doctor was concerned that he MAY even need surgery to get the foreign body out.  Hopefully his body will just "push out" the foreign body naturally.  We are assisting him by soaking his foot in Epsom salt water every morning and night.

The vet says - no rough housing or walks for 3 WHOLE WEEKS!!  It's been 3 days and he's already starting to go a little stir crazy.  The painkillers work wonders and when he's not in pain he wants to go outside and play!  It's pretty sad because he gets to romp in the fields every day normally...and he's probably going to the thinking....WHY?? over the next few weeks while going slightly crazy.  We bought him some special treats and surprises that will help confirm the fact that we still love him.  

We are hoping hoping hoping that he won't need surgery!!  The visit to the vet was a wake up call for how expensive pet expenses can be, especially in this area, so we promptly invested in pet insurance.  If he DOES need surgery...we'll be insured so the blow will be slightly cushioned.  

Before I forget, here's a picture of my Boston Tea.

It's tiny and cute and I love herbal tea!  I haven't tried it yet, but it's been sitting on our coffee table since last weekend taunting me!  Someday soon I'll sip it.

This week I also re-discovered a tasty little memory from the days of being a teenager in Spanish Fork.  

CUP-NOODLES!!!  This was one of my FAVORITE lunches when I was younger.  I bought a couple last time we went grocery shopping and thoroughly enjoyed eating them for lunch.  I think the last time I had a cup of noodles it was in high school.  I think I got sick of them during college, but my love for them has been rekindled!!

Today, Sunday, was actually quite magical (you'll see why).  We were able to stay for all three hours of church (which sometimes doesn't happen due to the fact of being overly sleepy from Saturday NYC adventures) and so that was a tender mercy.  In relief society we went over Elder Holland's talk from this past April GC called - Tomorrow the Lord Will do Wonders Among You.  The sister who taught it was SO passionate about it and saw that talk as such a blessing!  She said that sometimes it is SO HARD to go back into the week after having such a relaxing and wonderful Sabbath day...but Elder Holland reminds us that when we come to church (or listen to Conference) we take a piece of what we hear/learn with us - and it makes our burdens lighter!  One of my favorite quotes from that talk is "Heaven is cheering you on today, tomorrow and forever"  That's one I'll keep in mind throughout the week as I'm working to improve at CNT! 

-ONLY 3 MORE WEEKS 'TIL OUR ANNIVERSARY TRIP- (ADD moment over)

After church we had some very lovely Sunday naps...they're the best naps.  Their so rejuvenating.  Mm MM!  We'd been invited to dinner at a cute young couples house for dinner, so at 5:30 we went and did that.

Turns out this couple is quite special.

They told us that they.......

.........are buying..........

.....a house.......

...................in New Canaan..................

....with.......

..................the.............................................

......PROPERTY BROTHERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ncase you don't know what that is/who they are...please....link it up below)

The Property Brothers Commercial

THEY ARE GOING TO BE ON TV!

How stinking cool is that!?!?!?  Dinner was going very normally for a while when they mentioned something about a house and I asked, "Oh are you guys buying a house?"

Then the dropped the Property Brothers bomb.  They explained that they've been filming this past week and that their daughters will be featured this next week.  And they have the CUTEST little girls!  They have a 4 year old and then 2 year old identical twins that are just so sweet and soooo adorable!!  They have such sneaky little grins!  I've had the wonderful pleasure of babysitting for them a few times and have gotten to know their sweet baby girls.  They're expecting a boy in July - right around the time when they move into their new house!  

So that was a unique, not-you-average-dinner-conversation kind of night!

Also, Liz started a VERY successful blog back in 2012.  She told us she felt prompted to write it and now it's a huge success - some of you have maybe even heard of it or even read it!  Check it out!

The Simple Seed Blog

After dinner we took Bilbo outside for a small walk...( I know the doc said no walks...but....a dog can only take so much....- we figure as long as he's not sprinting around like a maniac....it's probably ok to take him for a leisurely stroll).  We went to the town green and were pleasantly surprised by this.

Look closely.  It's a little hard to tell, but its a guy playing wonderfully on the accordion!  He was jammin' out with some beautiful and calming tunes.  It reminded me of being in Europe...in Paris at night when everyone would come out and dance with each other along the Sienne river.  It was truly romantic.

And with this video, I end my blog.  Happy almost last week of May friends!  And happy last week of school to my teacher friends in UTAH!!!!  My first graders are 2nd graders after this week!!  Anyway...enjoy the serenade of our accordion playing friend.

Boston Times

Hi friends and family!  This is going to be a long post.  It has been a long week and a wonderful weekend!!

Rich and I were able to enjoy lunch together this past Monday.  I think I've mentioned before that on occasion Rich can work from home (I'm hoping that I will eventually be able to as well).  He spent the morning at home working, but because he was home Bilbo wasn't cooped up in his crate.  (I make sound bad like he's cooped up all day...but he's not.  He gets exercise in the morning before we leave and then again at lunch....and he loves sleeping so it's not all bad).

Sometimes he cuddles and it's the most adorable thing in the world.  In this picture he was actually trying to get away a little bit....he slowly inches closer to the edge of the couch and then slinks off like molasses dripping from a jar.  His eyes are slightly alien because of the flash...but he's just a sweet cuddle pup.

For about the past month I've been helping out the Carringtons in the ward with getting their kids out the door in the morngings.  Patricia and Ryan leave for work around 7:45 and then I've been in charge of getting their younger two out the door and off to school.  But I had to stop because doing that because of my promotion.  So this past week was my last week - it has been tricky/exhausting waking up extra early to go help out (fortunately they also live in Wilton, only about 5 minutes away), but it was still hard to quit!  On my last day, the weather was beautiful so before heading down to the bus stop we playing on the swingset.

Charlotte is in first grade and Brooks goes to day school, he turns 4 this week!  I have LOVED working with them and their parents - they are some of the sweetest people in the ward!  And their kid are so great!  They have another, Sophia who goes to a private school and leaves earlier than these two sweeties! (Btw...it's a lot harder to take a photo of swinging children than I thought - kudos parents!)

We also decided to SWITCH to SPRINT this week!  They were offering half the price of AT&T...which isn't as great as it sounds.  We're only going to end up saving about 25-30$ as opposed to AT&T (what I grew up using).  It took a few weeks of research...but we have finally made the switch.  We're also switching to iPhone SE phones - so those with iPhones - please reassure us that we're making the right choice!  My brother assured me that he'd disown me as his sister if I ever switched to an iPhone....so hopefully he isn't reading this! :/  

Rich is getting silver and I am getting gold. (click please...I literally used to sing that song every time I saw things that were silver and gold when I was a kid....right parents?)

With a new phone comes a new phone case - there's a woman on Etsy who makes phone cases with REAL pressed flowers in them!  Which one should I get?  I think that having real flowers is just so unique!  She's getting so talented!  Check out her shop and help me decide (the iphone I'm ordering is gold, and I think the pink flowers would compliment it)

ShopOhMyGoodies

So that was our "mid-week" excitement.  I know that I mentioned in my blog last week that the weather was disgustingly rainy and it was for sure, but it has made me more appreciate the weather this week.  It's been beautiful!  Bilbo has spent much more time outdoors and so have we!  I think I even wore shorts earlier this week!  While we were at Cranbury park with Bilbo after work on Monday or Tuesday we came across some "dog watcher" ads.  There was one for DogVacay.com and we are SO GLAD we discovered that!  It's this great website where you can find dog watchers for VERY REASONABLE PRICES!  It's SOOOO much cheaper than boarding and we only had to drive into Norwalk to find someone willing to watch Bilbo.  It's actually way cool - if you're reading this and you have a dog and can't find anyone to watch your dog...go to that website!  You will not be disappointed!  It took off a lot of stress knowing that he was with someone who loves him and was willing to be with him all day, while we went to go have fun.

Let's just fast forward to the weekend and get to the good stuff, shall we?  

BOSTON.

MASSACHUSETTS!

Groupon is pretty amazing.  If you don't use it...you should.  We also used an app called "best parking" which really helped us out.  We were able to drive right into Boston and we found a parking garage that only charged 9$ for the whole day.

We took a hop-on hop-off trolley tour of the city, and that was lots of fun!  Our tour guide was this quirky, hilarious old guy with a very thick Boston accent (get in the cah, and latha it up with butta' kind of accent...).  As he was driving through town we learned a lot about Boston and how a lot of the streets that we were driving on were once....shoreline or ocean.  We drove along a street called "Atlantic" and he explained it's called that because it used to be the Atlantic ocean.

Here are some pictures that are in no particular order...but most of which were taken on the trolley tour.

The Garden...home of the Boston Celtics (barf <----Rich hates them...I have no particular opinion except to support his dislike for them).  And Also the Boston Bruins.  The triangular thing next to it is a bridge that is actually very cool looking.

And this picture was taken by none other than yours truly, Richard Wilkins.  The building has some kind of photoshop-esque glow behind it...but it was just taken on Rich's phone.  Do I know what building this is?  I'm ashamed to say no.  Our tour guide told us about it...but I don't remember.  You can see some white tents set up...there was an arts festival going on.  It was kind of like Freedom or Fiesta days where people set up booths and sell stuff...nothing was that good, we perused but didn't find any treasures.

This is the Holocaust Memorial of Boston.  The tour guide told us that there are 5 towers, all built to resemble smoke stacks.  Engraved on the glass are the numbers of each person who were forced into the death camps.  At the bottom of each stack is a grate with tiny lights below it...steam comes up at your feet to simulate gas chambers.  It was a pretty impressive memorial.

The three above pictures are all of the Boston Harbor, which apparently back in the day had a lot of pirate activity!  A lot of sailors were kidnapped from port Boston and turned into pirates!

This sculpture...I believe is a memorial to civil war soldiers - it honors the largely African American civil war regimen at the Boston Common (the Boston equivalent of Central Park).  If you look closely at the soldiers, you can tell they are African American.

Of course there is a lot of American history in Boston.  We were able to visit the Boston Tea Party gift shop and see the ship from the dock.  This ship was just a replica.  We learned however that the party who dumped all the spoiled tea into the sea dressed as Indians not as a disguise, but as a statement - they saw the Indians as a "free people", who were completely separate from England/Britain as they had never been a part of that country.

There she be.  If you look close, you can see there are people on it.  They were doing some kind of reenactment with tourists - there was a man dressed in colonial clothing screaming something and then the people would say "AY!" afterward!  Then they dumped pretend tea into the water.  haha.  We didn't do it because one of us was sleepy (it wasn't me) and because it cost money to do it.

Partyin' like the Bostonians did back in the 1700s!

At the souvenir shop I actually bought a small box of herbal tea.  I grew up drinking it and knew I wanted to buy a little bit - most of it was black/green tea, some of them were even 1700s blends - which would have been fun to try.  I had to do a little digging to make sure that I didn't buy any tea that was against the W.O.W.  So I found a tiny box of Chamomile/Almond which I look forward to trying.

While I was looking for the perfect souvenir we found these colonial hats, Rich refused to have a picture so here's another one of me.

This statue of Samuel Adams was right outside the Boston Tea Party gift shop.  Naturally...I need a picture!

As an additional souvenir, I bought a deck of cards to add to my collection.  They just say "BOSTON - I squeezed it all in" on them.  Which...we certainly didn't squeeze it all in...but I think we'll be back, we loved it a lot.  I think we liked it best out of all the places we went!  :)  It has an EXTREMELY European feel to it, and in some places we explored I felt like I WAS back in Europe.  Our tour guide told us that certain parts of the town were settled by Italians and the Irish.  There's a few streets in town that are actually called "Little Italy" - it had like 1,000 Italian restaurants (not really...but there were a lot).  I totally felt like I was back in Italy and told Rich he no longer needs to see Europe because Boston basically is.

This was taken from the tour bus obviously - but you can see the street - the tour guide kept saying how beautiful Little Italy is.  He said "this street is so gorgeous that they should CHAWWWGE people for walkin' down it!"

 This, again....super European/Italian.  This actually Hanover Street (I think) the same street that Paul Revere's home is on.

Little Italy.

We stopped at some dessert restaurants (which took only cash...lame....c'mon Italian Americans....this is the 21st century...get some card machines in your joint....just cuz this is Boston doesn't mean like  you have to live like it's still 1775....) to get some snacks.  I had some gelato - pistachio mixed with hazelnut - SOOOOOO AMAZING!!!!!!  Authentic Gelato is pretty much the best treat that there is!

Rich got an eclair at this cute pastry shop called "Modern Pastry Shop" (again...only took cash for some reason).  I thought the packaging was so cute that I had to take a pic! I was going to keep that front cover part and frame...but then the chocolate stained it....so I guess we just have to go again!

Before we got treats we went and visited the Old North Church - the famous one.  Paul Revere put lanterns in the top to warn of the coming of the British soldiers...."one if by land...two if by sea".  It still stands today - and I think they still have church there on Sunday!

These are pictures of Paul Revere's home.  He lived here while working as both a blacksmith and a dentist.  He used to make false teeth out of hippopotamus teeth.

This was after it had "closed" for the day, or else we could have gone inside.  The first floor windows were open as well when it was open for tourists...we found it right as they were shutting them.

My shirt happened to be basically the exact color of the paint on Paul's house.

This was a little (and by little I mean taller than me) plaque thingy set up across from Paul Revere's home.  It was by the square across from his house.

So there was this splash pad near the harbor that had a circle of sculpture heads that represented the different animals of the Chinese new year.  Our tour guided pointed out how intricate and elaborate the dragon head one was, we saw some guy taking a picture of his girlfriend by the dragon head so of course we had to follow suit.  (this was taken before we even went to the Boston Tea Party ship fyi)  You can see that the children were having a hayday in the water behind us - it was a beautiful day to be in Boston and we actually got a little toasty ourselves.

We decided to meet up with Rich's old roommate Benjamin Harrison, who happens to live in Boston.  While we were waiting to meet up with him we went strolling about the downtown and came across this magical place near the Quincy Market (America's first shopping mall).  We went inside and looked around....they even had Christmas music playing!  

After having a little taste of the holidays mid May, we met up with Benjamin, who treated us to "Saus" - a beer and burger place with some seriously impressive sauces (hence the name).  It was super fun to meet him and see he and Rich reminisce over the good times they'd had as roommates and just catch up over dinner.

After we ate and talked for a while, we walked across the street to the holocaust memorial.  The sun had gone down and so it was all lit up.  Benjamin was actually the one who told us about the steam...it provided an interesting effect - it was warm on my feet, but surely the feeling was chilling for those who lost their lives in the death camps.

You can't really see the steam, but you can see the stars below.  It was beautiful.  

I noticed Primo Levi right away - I could perhaps be related to him!  You can see the numbers engraved on the glass behind Primo's name.

Anyway....that was our Boston trip.  It was TONS of fun.  We got back to Wilton with Bilbo at about midnight.  We had a blast!!  If you haven't gone - I recommend it!!

Today at church, Rich and I had the "opportunity" to sit in sharing time with the Junior Primary.  I don't think I've sat in Junior Primary since being IN Junior Primary - same with Rich.  I was sitting next to a little Kindergarten aged boy who kept leaning his head on me like he was tired.  His name was Duke and he was adorably spacey!  Rich was sitting next to some boys who were a little older, but had this one little rowdy boy near him to who was bothering everyone around him.  During the closing prayer he knocked down some chairs!  haha!  Rich was telling me how surprised he was at how often children fall out of their chairs and are totally fine afterwards!  I didn't notice a lot of the things he did because I'm used to the way kids act - but to him he was blown away and slightly exhausted at how crazy little kids are!!  There was one little kid who kept blowing spit bubbles throughout all of the the meeting - we were asked to help out because their teachers all had a meeting during that hour.

I also got a calling - VT supervisor.  I've had this calling before in a singles ward, so hopefully it won't be too different.  I was hoping to get a calling in Primary - but for now it's probably best that we don't work in Primary so that we can get the chance to get to know other ward members.

After church we took some seriously long naps (Boston is fun and exhausting...and 9 o'clock church is hard....so waking up for church is sometimes extremely hard for us).  I made "Crack Cauliflower" with dinner, so here's the recipe for anyone who is interested in making it!  It was super yummy and tasted kinda like chicken!  It will be one that I make again for SURE!

After dinner we took Bilbo out to Merwin Meadows for a quick play.  He got wet (there's an irresistable pond there) and so these are the post play pictures of our puppy (notice my alliteration).

He LOVES getting towel dried. It makes him SO happy for some reason.  I think he likes the roughness of it.  

I ALMOST FORGOT!  When we were outside Quincy Market, there was this 13-year-old kid who is probably the most talented individual I've EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE!!!!  He's going to be on The Voice in a few years - guaranteed!  But he was SO CRAZY AMAZING at the piano - I couldn't resist making a few videos!!  Enjoy, and happy happy week!!  

A Very Rainy Week

Hello All!  How was everyone's week!?  Ours was pretty boring. And very, very, very, VERY rainy!  I don't know about other places in the world but here in CT, it RAINS A TON!  Well, at least it did for the past 7 days.  Maybe even 8 days.  Today was the first time I saw the sun in what felt like ages.  It was rainy this morning but then after church it was gorgeous!  But yeah the past few days I seriously considered buying light box for Rich and I so that neither of us would develop seasonal depression.  There's also this kind of rain that I've never experienced before...it's like SUPER light....but is definitely a steady rain.  I'd call it "misting"...it feels like those really light misty sprinklers.

Although it was raining throughout the week, it is OK because....it gave me an excuse to make some DELICIOUS soups!  

Exibit A.

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup.  My mom's recipe.  Which...as it turns out....isn't really a recipe.  My mom is an amazing cook and sometimes doesn't follow recipes and will just throw things together.  This is one of those!  The only thing that I actually followed the recipe for were the noodles - which actually are the BEST part!  They're homemade too...and they are SO CHEWY and yummy!!!!!!!  The rest of the soup was just chicken broth, some spices (lots of oregano), carrots, onions and green onions.  It was pretty delicious.  Rich even said it tasted just like my mom's!  

I also made some Bacon Cheeseburger Soup, which sounds funky...but it's actually delicious!  

This past week was my first week working full time.  It's basically a lot of what I've already been doing (set up interviews/calling nannies and families...etc....just admin stuff).  Believe it or not it has kept me very busy!  There's more to it than just that...but it's hard to put into words.  I actually hired a few people this week (as well as setting up interviews, I've been conducting them) who were really sweet!  I love meeting new people in a setting like that and some of these nannies (so I've been told) have been through some very crazy things and it's cool to see how they turn their lives around.  So if anyone is wondering how I feel about this job - I like my co-workers and I like the work I do, but it isn't teaching.  I have been so spoiled the past 4.5 years being a teacher...it really is the BEST job in the world, though it's hard work.  But...the pay at this job will be really nice and a huge blessing.  They have also been very sweet about Bilbo - I get to take an hour break every day to go home and take care of him and let him get a little exercise.

Speaking of Bilbo - we had a lot of fun with him this week!  One day after work, Rich and I took him to Cranbury Park (our favorite local dog park), there were several other dogs there playing (the rain had stopped after all day so lots of people took their dogs there to get out some wiggles before the sun went down).  Bilbo made a friend.

Or maybe an enemy.  Frenemies!  

The other dog was running around, showing off that beautiful stick to all the other dogs.  So naturally Biblo was envious.  They fought over and played with that stick for probably a good 10 minutes.  Bilbo LOVES sticks!!  They are like treasure to him.  Few things...nay, nothing is more fun to that dog than playing with other dogs and when a stick is involved...I'm sure he was in heaven.

We also did a little "fishing" with him on Saturday.  I say "fishing" with quotations because...we have yet to see any fish here in CT.  We saw a HUGE coy fish in the pond at Merwin Meadows, but that's not a real fish.  At least one that you can actually fish.  But we'd seen some other fishermen and so we thought...maybe there IS fish.

There's my 2 favorite boys!

Rich didn't have much luck catching fish....because I really don't think there are any.  But..Bilbo did!  I was pretending to toss his ball into the water and he jumped in, swam around frantically and then came back WITH a ball!  So we went fishing with 1 ball and came home with 2.  Smart dog.  He's a fisher of balls. (also...isn't he just such a HANDSOME BOY!?!?!)

A month a go or so I was given a "nanny bag" from College Nannies and Tutors after I completed orientation for being a nanny.  Typically the nannies will go into homes with the nanny bags, which have little toys and crafts in them.  There's these fun punch balls in them that are very hard to blow up, but make fun toys once they are blown up.  I remember playing with them when I was a kid and I thought they were so fun!  Turns out they aren't just for kids.

Shortly after this video...he deflated the punch ball.  #ruffandtumblepup

I took this picture of behind our apartment building.  You can see our cute little UT plated Honda Fit.

This is from behind.  The front of the building is white, but the back has that cute red brick.  This is right before we went "fishing" so you can see our camp chairs up against the car.  The apartment room that we are parked next to...pretty much that bottom floor before the entry door is being -remodeled-  It's been SUPER NOISY there the past few weeks.  The people who lived there before were really weird and were smoking constantly.  Apparently they'd lived there for a LONG time and now that they are moved out they are TOTALLY GUTTING it.  They've even removed and installed new flooring.  It's been very loud and annoying at times.

This week we booked our hotel for the Poconos for our anniversary.  We're going to stay at a place called Cove Haven or something....turns out they have awful reviews (stuck in the 80s...weird smell and everything!).  So now we're going to stay at a place called Mountain Top Lodge....and we're pretty much living for the fact that we're going there next month.  The weeks go by fast out here...but sometimes the days go SLOW.  Anyways...

Pfffff.....(long sigh).....that was our week.  It wasn't too exciting.  Bilbo is our lives pretty much and he is the center of our world.  Here's to a great week for everyone!! ;)