Life with the Rogers
My life in the tundra with 3 dogs and a manArchive for Joshua
favorite things
Now just picture this pic with a little boy in his lap with a baseball. How cute.
Turtle not Hamburger
The girls in my small group refer to the odd ultrasound images of baby genitalia as looking either like a turtle or a hamburger for, respectively, boy or girl parts. Hence the title for this blog post. If you think about it, it’s a much nicer way of refering to the very different parts we all have, ahem, ‘down there’.
We visited the ultrasound technician yesterday (YAH!) for the long awaited ‘unveiling’ of the little peanut to see what kind he would be. And, yes, it is a ‘he’. Now I won’t ever feel guilty for referring to it as a he and not a she. As Josh put it, I don’t think any technician has ever seen a grown man cry before when seeing that it was, indeed, a boy. On the other hand, i don’t know who can see your little baby swim around and not get teary-eyed. I know i was mopping up my cheeks while staring at this little face on the monitor.
How amazing. I’m so excited!
And Then There Were Three
Josh did it…he talked me into getting yet another dog, this time a puppy named Jack. Jack is a English Springer Spaniel good at being a cute puppy and coincidently good at being a great hunting dog for quail hunting. (Who knew?) Josh is training this little one up to be a great hunter with him as he goes on his various hunting trips here in the great plains.
Jack is also very good at getting his belly rubbed:
To see more pictures of our first day with the little guy click on this link to go to my Flickr slideshow:
The last photo is a bit fuzzy but just excuse that as Josh took that one as he was traveling down the highway at 70mph. It was just too cute to not take a picture. He literally stayed asleep most of the ride home in that exact spot.
Little Joshy
I was unpacking a couple of boxes that i had stashed in the closet of the office the other day when i found a couple of photo albums. I just wanted to share my most favorite picture of all time, little Josh playing T-ball.
I love the huge hat that squished his ears down. *sigh*
Someday we’ll have little joshy’s that look just like this, because, let’s face it, I’m not adding any italian blood to the gene pool. They’ll all be freckled reddish blonde little kids with a constant scent of sunscreen following them wherever they go.
Surprise, surprise
Well I pulled it off. With a lot of help from friends and family, that’s for sure. Thank you to all of you who so admirably held your tongue in the name of self-control. The birthday boy had absolutely NO idea, even when he was flat out told that he was having a surprise birthday party. I think that is just a testament to the fact that I reign SUPREME over all who can keep secrets and not let on even a hint of anything out of the norm. Thank you, thank you, loyal subjects.
For a play by play, please keep reading. The set up was that we were having my aunt and uncle and their family over for dinner on Saturday night. I used this reason for a few reasons, namely, it was all we could come up with that explained me frantically cleaning our house and cooking enough for an army without arousing suspicion. As I was continually bragging, my husband will remember things that happened weeks ago and will bring it up and ask why did I do this, or say this, if something else triggers a similarity between then and now. I went on and on about how he was so good at guessing surprises that I made it my life long ambition to get him on this one.
And then the phone rang. It was Mitch.
Thankfully, Josh didn’t get to answer it right away so the call went to voicemail. I saw that it was Mitch and, I admit, alarm bells went off. Anyone who calls the birthday boy the day, no a few hours before, the big SURPRISE party should arouse alarm bells inside the instigators head. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to steal Josh’s phone and delete the message. I also didn’t have a chance to call Mitch and ask him about the call. My aunt and uncle were arriving and I went out to meet them.
Once we got my Uncle Scott and Josh out of the house to Christmas shop (I know, I know, but it was all we could come up with!), we set to work decorating the house in purple and yellow for the Viking fan. Soon everyone started arriving and we waited. And waited. Actually, they weren’t that late, maybe around 7:10 I ran down to the apartment and announced that I could hear Uncle Scott’s voice overhead. We all waited breathlessly for the door to open. And waited. Here we really were like, uh, ok, where are you? How long does it really take to walk down a flight of steps? Finally…
SURPRISE!
And just let me tell you, I had one surprised boy staring at all the people. I honestly have never seen him look so shocked in his whole life. He just stood there, staring at us. I had to beckon him forward so that everyone could see him. He really enjoyed it.
The phone call, however, was another story. What that phone call said, was, “Hey Josh, sorry I didn’t make it to your surprise party last night, but if it’s tonight, sorry man, act surprised for me, ok?”
Hmm. Josh listened to his voicemail while he was out with Uncle Scott. BEFORE he got home. Apparently, though, my husband is not as good as I have been bragging about picking up on surprises, he is not as good at figuring things out, and he is slightly dim-witted (I love you, babe ;)) when it comes to being told flat-out that he was having a surprise party! Either that, or my uncle is exceptionally good at playing it off that Mitch called the wrong person or is just losing his mind. Either way, I’m glad. Happy Birthday, Babe!
Night in the City
So Josh and I went down to the city last night to see one of our friends play at the Roxy in Buckhead. The show was great, the band is Tim Brantley and they are really good. Hopefully soon they’ll make it big. Pretty cool, huh? No big deal, just a great start to the weekend.
Well. That’s where the story begins. The story doesn’t have anything to do with the show, either. Huh.
We decided to take Marta down since it’s usually hard to find parking in Buckhead (that’s the hoppin’ part of Atlanta for those of you that don’t know the area). The Coca-Cola Roxy theater is a converted movie theater that’s now a music venue. Kind of like the Electric Company in Philly, but not a warehouse. Actually the only similarity is the lack of seats, other than that this is a lot different from that place.
I’m off subject. Parking is a problem so we rode the train. The car we chose happened to include a vagrant traveling down from Tennessee. Apparently he was on a mission, or so he said, to find warm weather. He was on his way to Florida. I suggested that we move to the back of the car, but Josh said that he wanted to stay where we were so he could overhear this guy. Now, it’s not that I’m a snob on the train. I don’t mind sitting next to anyone (unless they smell), but this guy looked unpredictable and, frankly, unsettling. So we stayed where we were I guess to kill the 10 minute trip with some interesting observations, I don’t know. When we walked into the car apparently he was right in the middle of telling some guy that he hated ‘pigs’ and that he meant in no uncertain terms, ‘cops’. He had been in Georgia for only a day, but already they were picking on him wherever he went. I think this just goes to show that if you are up to no good, people take notice.
Anyway, after he went ON and ON about his dislike for our fine lawmen (that’s what they call them in Gainesville. If you are attacked, you don’t call the Cops or the Police, you call the Law) he went on to tell us how cold it was where he was from (up north) and how warm it was down here (mind you I was a bit chilly as I was wearing only a sweater). Oh, to get the full effect, please feel free to insert an expletive in any place for the above comment as he took the liberty of doing.
After the next stop, a young girl in front of us starts chiming in about her course work at school. (that’s the weird thing about Georgia trains…people talk to each other. It’s not like it is in NYC) I think she started talking about Inspector Gadget or something, I don’t know, I was trying to talk to Josh without laughing. The strange man then told us that he had been incarcerated when he was 20 and didn’t get out for 12 years for FIRST DEGREE murder! (that’s premeditated for those of you who do not watch Law and Order). He then turned right around to the guy behind him (who was black) and said:
That’s like Snoop Doggy Dog, ‘a yippe ti yi yi ya bow wow wow wow’, you know what I’m talking about, don’t you bro?
To which the guy just stared at him like he was out of his mind. And then our stop came, which is a good thing because I think Josh would not have been able to suppress the giggles much longer.
Once we got to the show, all was good. We had a great time and when we left, we just missed our bus back to the train station. We had to stand on the street corner for awhile, feeling very silly, when a taxi full of drunk college kids pulls up and the guy in the front yells:
I don’t know who’s hotter, you or your boyfriend.
To which Josh yells out (I suppose he thought it was a great comeback at the time):
We’re married!
Huh. I just thought that was the perfect ending to a great Friday night.
P.S. You should check out our friend, Brent, and his band Tim Brantley at Tim’s website Tim Brantley
I Found My Camera!!
Yah! So now I will bombard you with pictures of our Sweet Boy. Some of these pictures were taken a while ago, and some only a couple months. (I still don’t have that new battery for the camera…Christmas Present Idea! [Lithium battery for a Nikon Coolpix 2100, please])
I just had a realization about something…all these pictures of Harper I’m taking…what will it be like when I have babies to capture in the digital media? Scary thought Although, the world might be more interested in a photograph of my child than my beagle. Ah, well. I give what I have to give…don’t get any ideas, ladies.
I don’t know if any of you out there have a dog, but let me just tell you how much we love this little guy. Alot of people told us that Beagles are the WORST dog for apartment life because they howl all day long. Well let me put that myth to rest. This little critter did not make nary a SOUND for the first four months that he lived with us. I’m not kidding! We thought we got a disabled pet. Some breeder…sells us a mute dog. When he finally did test his vocal chords, he did it initially to warn us that a strange looking person was coming down the outside steps to our apartment. Then it was the occasional ‘huramph’, the test, if you will, to make sure that sound could still escape that mouth. Now, he barks and howls (short little funny howls where he looks exactly like Snoopy with his snout up in the air) only when Josh or I really get him going. Racing around the house, tackling him and rubbing his stomach, those sorts of things. He might let out an occasional whimper here and there, especially if we are not being attentive enough to realize that his bathroom break has arrived, but other than that- not a peep. And you wonder why we call him Sweet Boy. The dog that defies his breed characteristics.
This picture is of him when we barely knew eachother. I think it was his second or third night. I put a cozy blanket in his cage and apparently he didn’t want it there. He hadn’t even seen it before, but it was love at first sight for this little guy. He whimpered and sniffed and whined and won. He got his blanket. I had to trick him out of the room just to be able to put it into his cage before I left each morning. I still do. The blanket has survived, with a few new holes.
