Christmas 2012 Recap: Part 2

The day after Christmas I headed to Memphis to visit my parents and brother with the inside puppy dogs since Eric was headed on a duck hunting trip for the weekend.  It was sooo nice to be able to just get in the car and be there in a few hours, as opposed to having to fly there.  They are still getting moved in to the new house, but I have a feeling that it's going to go much smoother since my brother and I cleaned out all of our boxes (mine took up 2 whole rooms!).

We found all kinds of gems from our childhood in our boxes.  I was a journaler as a child and had several different journals (all half filled of course) that cracked me up.  The pictures I saved were pretty great, too.

My BFF and I doing our best bug eye impression?  Yeah I see now why I didn't have a boy friend in high school.  Bowls on your eyes = boy repellent. 

While opening up picture boxes with Mom, we came across my life sized replica poster.  Yes I have one of myself.  Doesn't everyone?  For Senior Day at my high school they made these for us.  I did not think it made the trip to MI, much less a trip back to Memphis.  We cracked up when we found it.  Naturally I posted this picture of myself with my replica on facebook, and apparently my friends like life-sized replicas.  I got even more comments about the picture  from people I saw over the holidays.

All 5'10" of me in my high school basketball glory. That cutout is officially 10 years old this year. 

We spent the majority of the trip inside working on the house, but I was not complaining because it was cold and wet, and even snowy while I was there.

SNOW on the bushes!  I asked my brother if there was still snow when I was driving up there and he said NO, but in my book this counts as snow!

We went out to get things for the house and to eat...and did we eat.  I got to eat at almost every one of my favorite Memphis eateries, which made me a happy girl!  Queso Dip from El Porton, a turkey sandwich and bowl of soup from Bogie's Delicatessen  and a ginormous burger and fries from Huey's all as fabulous as I remembered them. I did not eat any BBQ (surprisingly), but I will make sure to have some next time.

The puppy dogs seemed to enjoy the new house as well.  It has a big backyard for them to run in.  Since we have a 1 story house they were a little unsure of the steps at first.  Hawk ran right up them when we got there, but then he would not come down.  I tried everything I could think of from attempting to pull him down, coaxing him with a big piece of leftover prime rib, to walking away for about 5 mins.  Nothing worked.  He stood at the top of the stairs and whined.

Big baby

I finally called Eric to see if he had any suggestions, and he reminded me that Hawk had slipped down the steep wooden stairs at the river last summer which is why he was so scared.  I finally had my brother pick him up by his chest from behind while I pulled his collar and paws from the front.  It was quite a struggle for all three of us, but we finally got him down.  It was like a light bulb went off in his head.  He started jumping up and down and ran right back up the stairs so he could come back down by himself   It was precious!

It was a wonderful trip and I can't wait to go back! Did I mention how excited I am to have them closer?!

On a sad note, we lost our sweet Cricket Girl yesterday.  She got hit by a car right in front of the house by a kid that plays football for Eric.  It was an accident.  At least he was kind enough to call Eric and let him know.  Eric said he was pretty upset about it.  We were afraid something like that was going to happen since the puppies developed a habit of chasing cars a couple of months ago.  Her brother seems to be doing alright.  We've kept him inside for the most part since it happened and he has done well.  I think we are going to transition him into an inside dog with Hawk and Peanut mainly because I refuse to leave him outside alone.  I know we've only had them for a few months but it still hurts. Now she's running around chasing squirrels in a big back yard in the sky.

We miss you sweet girl