Merry Christmas!

We like to have relaxing Christmases down here.

Just our small Harkness family!

Lonestar Rally 2008, Galveston, TX

We went to Galveston on Saturday for the Lonestar Rally. It is our third year to go. This year, we decided to go with some friends to Stubbs HD beforehand and ride in the police escorted ride down there. It was so amazing! They stopped traffic on the freeway. We were the only people out there. Galveston still needs much prayer and help. It was really sad driving through it. We went down one residential street and every person was out on their porch waving to us. This rally is the biggest event in Galveston since Ike, it was intended to boost the economy. They sure do need it. It was so sad. Here are a few pics. There were a lot of boats in parking lots along one of the streets. A marina had been on the other side of the property and when the water went down, the boats landed in random places. People dont have the money to move them out, so they are just dealing with it I guess. The Flagship Hotel is the only building remaining out over the Gulf. Every other building was destroyed, leaving only pilings. There is significant damage to it though. And the ramp driving up to it is gone, so any cars that were there are still there.

Surrounded by babies

I know so many pregnant or new mothers it is insane. I was just thinking today, this must be a sign. So I have to make a list. Rest assured, I am still on the pill. For 2 months at least.
Maria - March 25 - see baby blog link!
Jen (coworker) - couple weeks
Jen (church) - June 27thish
Emily (IL) - June 17th
Tamara - July 3rd, 6th or 8th

Several others trying very hard to become PG! You know who you are!

New babies: (really new, several friends have less-than-1-year-olds)
Asher - Dec 15th
Tristan - Dec 5th
Lauren - Nov 27
Roman (coworker) - 4 weeks ago
Kristin (coworker) - 3 weeks ago

Snow in The Wood

It snowed today.
Normally, in the winter this is not a big thing. I grew up in Illinois. I had a snowsuit. The whole thing.
We live in Houston, Texas.
Christmas Eve 2004 was the last snow here.
Children here never get to build snow forts in their backyards.
Never have to shovel driveways.
They think a handful of snow once every 4 years is the greatest thing ever.
I am pretty perplexed by it myself.
It is almost 10pm as I type this and I can hear children playing in the street.
Crap, I didnt bring in my prized plumera tree. I hope it survives the cold.
Some pics for you:

Raider sees snow for the first time and wonders why he can't smell out the potty anymore.

Our idea of accumulation: the neighbor's roof at 6pm

And again at 9:30pm. Remarkable!

Merry Christmas from the Raider Dog!!!

The house is all decorated and almost all of the gifts are wrapped!


See his ornament?

Table Rock Thanksgiving

I had this great idea that my family and my in-laws should drive to Table Rock Lake, Kimberling City (near Branson) for Thanksgiving. We all met up Wednesday night after LONG days of driving. 7 hours for my family, 12 hours for us Texans. I rented a house for my parents, my brother and his girlfriend and us. My in-laws and their friends got a condo down the road. It was really fun. Thursday we cooked the full Thaknhsgiving dinner. We had wayyy too much food. But it was yummy!


Friday we shopped at the Branson outlet mall. Never having been in Branson, we went to the wrong one first. It was deserted and we were freaking out. The acutal Tangers outlet though was really great. I think Houston's is still better though. This is our discussion of stores to hit.

Here is the whole crew. Howells, Harkness', Jenna/Adam, Me/Scott, Spencers

And, um no there was no drinking at all. None whatsoever.

This was our reaction to mom making us eat leftover turkey sandwiches. We didnt want one, but she was insisting, so I said fine, we'll split it! And we did. And yes we are watching the Grinch in the background. Every time they said 'Grinch' we had to drink. It was way too much fun. The whole rest of the trip, we would randomly yell out 'Grinch!' and everyone had to drink.

(the pictures look blurry to me on here. if you click on them, they will open bigger and more clearly. cause i know you want to see me up close. LOL)

Christmas survey

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Oh dear. I am horrible at wrapping. Gift bags all the way. AND the person can re-use it next year. see, im really thinking of others. My mom wraps presents at Von Maur if you need a professional. Shes really good.

2. Real tree or artificial? Artificial all the way. real ones are way too much work. and I sure do love that my entire guest room closet is the Christmas storage. One bedroom lost. Thanks stupid homebuilder.

3. When do you put up the tree? Day after Thanksgiving of course. but this year I was out of town, so we did it the Saturday before. of course it helped that Oklahoma kicked our asses, so Scott went upstairs and got the tree himself and set it up. remarkable!

4. When do you take the tree down? If I had my way, February. Scott will probably get sick of it by the 2nd week of January and make me take it down. I don’t have normal decorations, so the house is super scary and bare the rest of the year. Someone come help me decorate!!!!

5. Do you like egg nog? oh hell no! my father-in-law microwaves it before he drinks it. puke.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? I dunno. My memory sucks. My bikes were probably the most widely used gifts I got. I loved board games too.

7. Hardest person to buy for? Everyone. I am the world's worst gift giver.

8. Easiest person to buy for? Scott b/c I gave up. He gets his own Harley parts.

9. Do you have a nativity scene? I do. The nice brand in the blue box. I forget what its called. Something with an F?

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? I would love to email. I haven’t gotten Raider a santa hat yet though. I have some mail ones left from last year. We’ll see what I feel like. Obviously I am not on the ball this year.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Probably something scented. Im really picky about scents. I can usually exchange them though.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? THE GRINCH

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? December 20th

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? No, I have tremendous amounts of guilt.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Cookies are way up there....

16. Lights on the tree? White I guess. I think all red would be cool but that is way too much work. The tree came with white. Im not into colored lights. Tthe neighbors have some that look purple. Weirdos.

17. Favorite Christmas song? Mary Did You Know is a good one.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Stay home. if you want to see me, happy travelling. we have a guest room.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? of course.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? angel. lowe's special.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? morning. how can you open presents before Santa comes???? dumb question!

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Shopping, driving to shop and ppl in IL asking if Im coming up there. NO it is retardedly cold there. I'm staying here where it was 74 degrees today. You people are all nutz!

23. Favorite ornament theme or color? I love my texas tech ornaments, anything red and of couse our matching ornaments from my mom every year. adorable. Oh, raider has a cute ornament too.

24. Favorite dessert for Christmas dinner? pecan pie. mmmm

25. What do you want for Christmas this year? a red ipod. money. gift cards. and a partridge in a pear tree.

Living progress

The living room. Where we spend a lot of time. It is not complete, but slowly and painfully coming together. Here is the progression:
November 2007 - new TV and stand

November 2008 - new tables and lamps

Watch for new paint - coming soon!

Raideriffic!

Since Texas Tech is finally getting national attention, I thought Raider should have some nice pictures made.

I did my best. He loves looking out the window in the office while we are working. He lays with his head on the ledge and just watches. He is genuinely concerned for every man, woman, child, car, dog, cat, bird, bug and leaf that goes by the house. If there are kids playing in the street (stupid kids!), he will sit up, watch and whine under his breath.

Raider stats: We have had him for one year! September 22nd was his 1-year anniversary with us. He is about 200% calmer than when we got him, much more confident, loves our daily routine (I am so anal), listens to us and loves to play with his 2 toys (we have only found 2 he cannot destroy). His allergies are still an issue, but nowhere close to the extent they were a year ago. His little paws are so pink (a sign of doggie allergies), we are doing our best! He is onto our nail-clipping routine so we have to be creative now. It takes both of us to get it done and we are exhausted afterwards. He hates it. He still loves his food, he scarfs every piece down within 5 minutes. He hasnt reached 50 pounds yet though, he his steady at 48. Seriously, I need to have a kid already. This is becoming ridiculous.

Amanda vs. the dryer

Storytime!
July 2nd, 2005 we moved into our house. Yaay! Had to buy a washer/dryer. Were young and poor. Went to Lowes, walked to the back (where the cheaper ones are) and bought the cheapest set they had. Oh boy! I really hate doing laundry. I always forget about it in the machine and folding it is like having to cut off my arm. So I only do about 2-3 loads a week. Those of you with kids, keep your statistics to yourselves, I cant handle any more loads than that. At least while I have a job.... Anyways. So the dryer decides it doesnt want to dry. It gets really HOT but the clothes are still wet. So I put it on tumble with no heat. Still not dry. This goes on for hours, sometimes days. Last night I finally had it. I hung up towels and jeans to dry around the house. It was entertaining. Then I went online and searched for a new washer and dryer. I looked at a lot of different consumer reports websites, blogs, etc. Wrote down the top models. Went to Sears, Home Depot, Lowes and Best Buy's websites and compared models. Overwhelming at first, but I trudged through and narrowed it down. Decided Sears was the best bet. All day today at work I was chatting about it, emailing Tamara and Erika for advice, etc. Stopped by Sears on the way home to see how it would all go down an walked out with a new credit card, filled with my washer, dryer, pedestals and delivery charges. They are being delivered Sunday. I hope. I feel bad people have to work on Sunday, but hey I work all week and I cant sit around waiting for them to come. So, if you know of anyone who needs a washer, mine is fine and used and for sale for $200. Call me. In the meantime, here is a pic of my newest toys:

Unpredictable Ike

Well, as with everything the media says, you can't ever believe where a hurricane is really going to go. It is a fun game to listen to all of the predictions and people freaking out two weeks ahead of time. As Ike nears Texas, however, a somber mood has come over Houstonians. We are weary of hurricane watches, sick of the freeway billboards flashing "Storm forming - fill your tanks" and so over evacuation procedures. No, if one is going to hit us, we are going to sit right here and take it square in the face. Now, the rain we could use. But how much of it Ike is going to present will be interesting. And I am pretty sure any wind over 60mph will seriously dismantle my Mexican-assembled roof vents and such. It would be nice to have a day off to mop floors and Clorox countertops in my pj's however. Oh, and take a nap with my Raider Dog.

Amanda is coming to B/N!!

Well, Raider will be staying at his Pet Resort for almost a week, starting Tuesday the 26th. I am flying to IL early Wednesday morning. Scott is coming up Friday afternoon, and we are flying back together on Monday (Labor Day).
I am having a party/happy hour/bbq at my parents house (dubbed The Spencer Ranch) on Friday the 29th. My mom is going to do bbq, hopefully we can have a bonfire and EVERYONE is invited! I hope a lot of you can make it, I would LOVE to see you and your kiddos and catch up with you all at once.

Bad Mommy!

Well, I know everyone has been coming to this blog daily waiting for an update. WOW summers are insane when you work at a church that is top 5 in the country for attendance and run the largest VBS in the country. 1,500 kiddos have been keeping me pretty busy!
I havent taken many pics of RayRay lately, but here is one from one afternoon a couple weeks ago. Scott came home and was changing and well, we were in a silly mood so Raider got to try on Scotts t-shirt. Of course the first thing he did was try to bite it.

Melissa's Wedding

Well, it was very hard to leave Raider and Scott for 5 days, but I did! I left Wednesday morning and got back Sunday at midnight. The wedding was at Carillon Beach Resort in Florida, near Panama City Beach. Here are a few pics from the weekend.

It was about time

Finally got a new haircut and highlights!!!! (and failed to turn off the date or crop the picture) ;)

Bubbles!!!

Well, I think you know its time for kids when you buy bubbles for your dog. I was buying a present for a 1-year old's birthday party on Saturday and Scott was with me in the toy aisle. After turning on every noisy toy he could find, he wandered down the outdoor aisle... where there were tons of bubbles and bubble blowing accessories. Raider loves bubbles more than any of his toys I think.....


Raider thinks everything is something for him to bite or chew, and it drives him nuts that he cant actually bite down on the bubbles.

He goes crazy trying to get just one in his mouth. (look how tall he is!)


He actually attacks Scott now when he pulls out the bubble bottle. I can't tell who is having more fun.

and one day I will remember to turn the date off!

Seriously, he should be named Houdini

Yes, thats right folks, Raider has done it again. He has escaped yet another cage/crate/enclosure. He worked hard on this one, chewing a little bit each day until one day I opened the door to find this.........

His adorable little self greeted me at the door. I actually screamed it caught me so off guard.
Then I yelled for a few minutes and called Scott.

We had the crate tied down to a board using truck tie-down straps, because of the chair incident (see old blog) and Raider hated those straps. He just knew they were somehow against him. So once he got out of his crate, he chewed through one. Had to throw it away, orange fuzz all over the floor. So, I loaded him in the car and off to Petsmart we went. They were OUT of crates! (Apparently its the time of year to destroy yours) So we got back in the car and went to Petco. Luckily, they had one (this time with metal bars on the sides) so we have Raider enclosure #4 in the living room now.
Today Scott build a base for it so we dont need the straps anymore. Raider has already chewed a piece of the wood off the base....

Sirens wailing, flashing lights.....

Raider got a new ball last night. It flashes and makes noises when you throw it. Mostly he liked chewing on it, but it was hilarious to see it flashing in his mouth and see him try to figure out where the noise was coming from.

WE FIXED THE FLOOR!!!

Scroll down to see how much Raider hates our carpet.
Well, we have fixed it! The room is now wood!!!

I dont know why this picture looks so red. Our camera is whack. This is the same view as the one with the carpet ripped up. Quite a difference!!