So, I have been contemplating making the switch from Blogger to WordPress for some time now, and last night I finally made the jump -- I was surprised (and relieved!) by how EASY the import process was to import this blog's content over to the new blog address.
Anyhow, from now on I will be posting at:
http://lifeisbeautiful2008.wordpress.com/
Please update your browser links and whatnot, as I will probably be deleting THIS blog sometime in the next few weeks.
I hope to see you over at the new blog -- and hopefully I'll be able to get my act back together and actually start posting again. >.<
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Monday, January 6, 2014
Happy New Year!
In the highly unlikely event that anyone is still actually checking on my blog: HAPPY NEW YEAR! Seriously, I don't really blame anyone for not reading my blog anymore...I mean, really--what is more boring than a blog that only gets about 2 or 3 posts a year (sorry about that!)? Ha ha!!
Anyhow, we are no longer in Alabama (where we were living the last time I posted). We arrived in Colorado back in October after a 3 day (1,500 mile) drive. It was my first time hauling a trailer...wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be. ;)
I wish I could say it was a horse trailer, but due to unfortunate circumstances (a.k.a. no longer having a horse trailer of our own, being financially strapped, and not being able to find a place to rent with a pasture that was within our budget....), we had to re-home my husband's horse before we left Alabama. That was a difficult decision to come to as Ice would have been the perfect horse for our Munchkin as he was bomb-proof and very good natured.
Anyhow...my husband and I each had to drive a vehicle and haul a trailer on our drive out here. Munchkin rode with Daddy because he thinks our truck is WAY cooler to ride in than our Jeep. No, really, ever since the first time he rode in that truck he thinks the Jeep is second rate. Such a boy! Our cat, Penny, also rode in the truck as there was more room for her in there than there was in the Jeep. That left me with Peeta. HALLELUJAH!
In case you don't realize the significance of a 3-day drive with just Peeta for company, let me just say: it was 3 days of PEACE AND QUIET!! It was almost like a mini-vacation. Sure, I was kind of sad that we weren't ALL able to ride together, but considering that was technically the first time I have EVER been away from our Munchkin for more than a few hours a few times since he was born, it was kind of nice to be able to have a bit of a break and a chance to hear myself think. :-p Plus, I was able to play a playlist of about 7 songs on repeat and listen to about 4 of the Focus on the Family Radio Theatre: The Chronicles of Narnia books without driving my hubby crazy or putting him to sleep. ;-p
Anyhow...we are getting settled in here in Colorado. It snowed the night we arrived and has snowed 3 more times since mid-November--which we LOVE. I have to admit though that I am homesick for my beautiful, GREEN Appalachian mountains. I am trying to be content here though as I know God has a plan for our being here currently...I just sincerely hope He has plans for us back in my beloved mountains over there on the East Coast next. ;-p
Thought I'd go ahead and share some pictures from the past couple of months....
Oh, so I totally forgot to continue my yearly tradition of posting pictures of Munchkin from each month and writing him a letter on his birthday.... Bummer!!! We were still in the process of unpacking and getting settled in and it totally slipped my mind. :-(
Anyhow, we are no longer in Alabama (where we were living the last time I posted). We arrived in Colorado back in October after a 3 day (1,500 mile) drive. It was my first time hauling a trailer...wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be. ;)
I wish I could say it was a horse trailer, but due to unfortunate circumstances (a.k.a. no longer having a horse trailer of our own, being financially strapped, and not being able to find a place to rent with a pasture that was within our budget....), we had to re-home my husband's horse before we left Alabama. That was a difficult decision to come to as Ice would have been the perfect horse for our Munchkin as he was bomb-proof and very good natured.
Anyhow...my husband and I each had to drive a vehicle and haul a trailer on our drive out here. Munchkin rode with Daddy because he thinks our truck is WAY cooler to ride in than our Jeep. No, really, ever since the first time he rode in that truck he thinks the Jeep is second rate. Such a boy! Our cat, Penny, also rode in the truck as there was more room for her in there than there was in the Jeep. That left me with Peeta. HALLELUJAH!
In case you don't realize the significance of a 3-day drive with just Peeta for company, let me just say: it was 3 days of PEACE AND QUIET!! It was almost like a mini-vacation. Sure, I was kind of sad that we weren't ALL able to ride together, but considering that was technically the first time I have EVER been away from our Munchkin for more than a few hours a few times since he was born, it was kind of nice to be able to have a bit of a break and a chance to hear myself think. :-p Plus, I was able to play a playlist of about 7 songs on repeat and listen to about 4 of the Focus on the Family Radio Theatre: The Chronicles of Narnia books without driving my hubby crazy or putting him to sleep. ;-p
Anyhow...we are getting settled in here in Colorado. It snowed the night we arrived and has snowed 3 more times since mid-November--which we LOVE. I have to admit though that I am homesick for my beautiful, GREEN Appalachian mountains. I am trying to be content here though as I know God has a plan for our being here currently...I just sincerely hope He has plans for us back in my beloved mountains over there on the East Coast next. ;-p
Thought I'd go ahead and share some pictures from the past couple of months....
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| My guys on our favorite hiking trail. |
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| This is the BETTER side of the mountain...it's greener than the side we live on, lol. |
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| Part of the view from the summit of our favorite hike. |
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| A friendly Gray Jay on the trail. |
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| A small Mule Deer buck. |
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| View on the way back down our favorite trail on a snowy day. :) |
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| Munchkin loves, loves, LOVES the snow! |
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| Peeta on Christmas day. :) |
Oh, so I totally forgot to continue my yearly tradition of posting pictures of Munchkin from each month and writing him a letter on his birthday.... Bummer!!! We were still in the process of unpacking and getting settled in and it totally slipped my mind. :-(
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Why "Peeta"?
Okay, so why did we choose to name our new puppy "Peeta"? Well, there is the obvious reason that my husband and I are likely fans of the Hunger Games books--which we are...if you haven't read the books yet I highly recommend them...the writing is fantastic and the books explain a whole lot more than the movie(s). I love, love, love, LOVE the books. Anyhow, I digress....
There is another reason though...while my husband and I were trying to come up with potential names I was completely stumped--which usually doesn't happen to me, I'm usually overflowing with literary, mythological, movie, or just plain random names as possibilities for whatever creature we are trying to name. This time around though my brain just wasn't cooperating. Then I was looking at pictures of Peeta (the puppy--not the character, ha ha) and I mentioned to my husband how much he reminded me of Petie the Border Collie mix I'd grown up with....
Petie was pretty much the best dog to ever walk the face of the earth. Okay, so *maybe* he might have some competition out there from a few other dogs, but he was always the perfect dog for my sister and myself and he set a precedent for all other dogs I've known/had that has been hard for any of them to live up to. I miss him dearly and am so grateful to have been blessed with such an incredible dog to grow up with (we found him on the side of the road when I was 4 years old...the vet said he was about 6 months old then and he lived to the ripe old age of 18).
Anyhow, that was another rabbit trail...sorry about that, ha ha.
Sooooo, I joked that we could name our new puppy Petie too (totally not serious), and that is when we thought of Peeta. :) We did decide that our 'back-up name' would be Finnick (ha ha ha ha!), but we were pretty sure it would stay Peeta, and now after having had a little over a week with Peeta to get a feel for the name, it's going to stick. It fits him and in a way it's a tribute to my beloved Petie.
So, that is how we ended up with that name...it's not because we are obsessed Hunger Games fans--there is more meaning behind it than meets the eye. ;)
There is another reason though...while my husband and I were trying to come up with potential names I was completely stumped--which usually doesn't happen to me, I'm usually overflowing with literary, mythological, movie, or just plain random names as possibilities for whatever creature we are trying to name. This time around though my brain just wasn't cooperating. Then I was looking at pictures of Peeta (the puppy--not the character, ha ha) and I mentioned to my husband how much he reminded me of Petie the Border Collie mix I'd grown up with....
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| This is Petie from 2006 I believe...he was about 14 years old in this picture. I think the similarities are in the eyes or the expression.... |
Anyhow, that was another rabbit trail...sorry about that, ha ha.
Sooooo, I joked that we could name our new puppy Petie too (totally not serious), and that is when we thought of Peeta. :) We did decide that our 'back-up name' would be Finnick (ha ha ha ha!), but we were pretty sure it would stay Peeta, and now after having had a little over a week with Peeta to get a feel for the name, it's going to stick. It fits him and in a way it's a tribute to my beloved Petie.
So, that is how we ended up with that name...it's not because we are obsessed Hunger Games fans--there is more meaning behind it than meets the eye. ;)
Monday, August 12, 2013
Our New Furbaby....
I would have posted earlier but this past week has been a bit chaotic
as we have all been adjusting to having a puppy again (aka: lack of
decent sleep due to the puppy crying for varying lengths of time in his
crate at night).
Anyhow.... The day we actually got him did not go as planned. He was supposed to be on a flight that left Denver, CO in the morning and would then arrive in Atlanta, GA mid-afternoon, but apparently his original flight had a gate change and he ended up being taken to the wrong gate and therefor missed the flight he was booked on. By the time we found that out though we were already close to 3 hours into our 4 hour drive to Atlanta, so after talking with his breeder we decided that the best option was to put him on the only other direct flight that was coming to Atlanta that day--which would put his arrival time at 9:00...leaving us with 7 hours to kill in the meantime.
After brainstorming for a while, my husband suggested that we could go to the aquarium in Atlanta since we hadn't ever gotten the opportunity before while we were here in Alabama for flight school. The aquarium currently has a program (for the summer I think) that sounded pretty cool with discounted tickets from 6-9pm each (?) day. That put us at the right time since we were told it would take the airline 30 minutes to an hour after his flight landed for them to unload him and have him ready for pickup.
Since we still had a few hours to pass before we could go to the aquarium we went to a health food grocery store (our first opportunity to go to this particular store since we left Hawaii as there seems to be a lack of market for anything healthy/organic down where we are...bummer). After that we walked a bit farther down the row of stores in the shopping center and stopped in at a big-name pet store...Munchkin loves to see all of the animals and fish in those stores--it's like a trip to the zoo AND the aquarium to him, ha ha.
By the time 4:30 rolled around we realized we'd been looking at the clock in our Jeep and that it was actually 5:30 since the Jeep clock has to be manually set...we started to make our way to the aquarium and the closer we got to that area the worse and worse the traffic became.
To make a long story short, apparently there was a concert taking place that night very close to where the aquarium is and there were TONS of people there for it and parking was few and far between as well as ridiculously expensive. When we were finally able to make our way to the aquarium's parking garage we saw a sign saying that the aquarium would be closing at 6pm that night. Boy was THAT disappointing, lol.
We kept waiting to see that the flight had departed Denver, but they kept getting delayed due to terrible weather that was preventing them from being able to take off. The flight finally left around 8:30pm (Mountain Time) and it arrived in Atlanta around 12:30am (EST). Thankfully, the airline people had him off the plane and ready to be picked-up in 20 minutes or less, so that made our day/night a little shorter.
Finally getting to see our new puppy for the first time in person was a pretty exciting moment! After a quick water, food, and potty break for him it was finally time to head home. We arrived home around 4:00am CST and after getting everyone settled in their beds we all hit the sack--for about 2 1/2 hours, ha ha. The hubby and I were sooooooo glad to finally lay down and close our eyes--and we were just as glad when it was time to hit the hay again the next night. :)
So, all that to say that it was quite a long, drawn-out day in getting our new furbaby, but it was worth it. :)
Now to introduce you to....
I'll have to explain more about WHY we chose that name in a bit...ha ha.
Soooooo, that's our new baby. :) I'll tell you more about why we chose his name later....
Anyhow.... The day we actually got him did not go as planned. He was supposed to be on a flight that left Denver, CO in the morning and would then arrive in Atlanta, GA mid-afternoon, but apparently his original flight had a gate change and he ended up being taken to the wrong gate and therefor missed the flight he was booked on. By the time we found that out though we were already close to 3 hours into our 4 hour drive to Atlanta, so after talking with his breeder we decided that the best option was to put him on the only other direct flight that was coming to Atlanta that day--which would put his arrival time at 9:00...leaving us with 7 hours to kill in the meantime.
After brainstorming for a while, my husband suggested that we could go to the aquarium in Atlanta since we hadn't ever gotten the opportunity before while we were here in Alabama for flight school. The aquarium currently has a program (for the summer I think) that sounded pretty cool with discounted tickets from 6-9pm each (?) day. That put us at the right time since we were told it would take the airline 30 minutes to an hour after his flight landed for them to unload him and have him ready for pickup.
Since we still had a few hours to pass before we could go to the aquarium we went to a health food grocery store (our first opportunity to go to this particular store since we left Hawaii as there seems to be a lack of market for anything healthy/organic down where we are...bummer). After that we walked a bit farther down the row of stores in the shopping center and stopped in at a big-name pet store...Munchkin loves to see all of the animals and fish in those stores--it's like a trip to the zoo AND the aquarium to him, ha ha.
By the time 4:30 rolled around we realized we'd been looking at the clock in our Jeep and that it was actually 5:30 since the Jeep clock has to be manually set...we started to make our way to the aquarium and the closer we got to that area the worse and worse the traffic became.
To make a long story short, apparently there was a concert taking place that night very close to where the aquarium is and there were TONS of people there for it and parking was few and far between as well as ridiculously expensive. When we were finally able to make our way to the aquarium's parking garage we saw a sign saying that the aquarium would be closing at 6pm that night. Boy was THAT disappointing, lol.
We kept waiting to see that the flight had departed Denver, but they kept getting delayed due to terrible weather that was preventing them from being able to take off. The flight finally left around 8:30pm (Mountain Time) and it arrived in Atlanta around 12:30am (EST). Thankfully, the airline people had him off the plane and ready to be picked-up in 20 minutes or less, so that made our day/night a little shorter.
Finally getting to see our new puppy for the first time in person was a pretty exciting moment! After a quick water, food, and potty break for him it was finally time to head home. We arrived home around 4:00am CST and after getting everyone settled in their beds we all hit the sack--for about 2 1/2 hours, ha ha. The hubby and I were sooooooo glad to finally lay down and close our eyes--and we were just as glad when it was time to hit the hay again the next night. :)
So, all that to say that it was quite a long, drawn-out day in getting our new furbaby, but it was worth it. :)
Now to introduce you to....
PEETA
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| This was taken a few minutes after we picked him up at the airport. :) |
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| Peeta is a Cardigan Welsh Corgi...if you've ever seen a Corgi before it was likely a Pembroke Welsh Corgi--the tail-less Corgi (Pems are what the Queen's Corgis are)--as Cardis are much less common here in the U.S. Corgis are a herding breed (I've come to the realization that I love herding breeds more than any other--probably due to the fact that I grew up with a Border Collie mix and an Australian Shepherd mix....) |
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| He's ridiculously cute. (Sorry for the low quality photo...a lot of the photos I'll be posting today are from my cell phone--it's hard to wrangle my real camera with lens and lens hood along with the Munchkin and Peeta, lol) |
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| This was taken the morning after we got him (or maybe I should say a few hours after we got home from picking him up in Atlanta, ha ha). Not to sound like I'm gushing or anything, but I absolutely adore how thick his short little legs are--and how big his paws are--soooooo cute. |
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| He thinks he's dying of heat stroke if he's outside for even just a couple of minutes and it's very common for him to flop down like this on any cool surface he can find. |
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| This picture makes me smile. Munchkin LOVES Peeta. |
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| The treat ball Munchkin is holding is AWESOME. More about that later.... |
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| Snuggling. |
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| Originally Munchkin had Peeta 'tucked in' under the blanket--he said Peeta would get cold because the fan was on. Then Munckin wanted me to read Peeta a Winnie-the-Pooh story.... :) |
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| We were hanging out in the garage while the Munchkin and my hubby washed the cars. Peeta is wet in this picture because the Munchkin has just sprayed us lightly with the hose, ha ha. |
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| He totally thought he was going to die from the heat. The fan was his best friend. |
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| You can see his brindle coloration pretty well in this picture.... |
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| Buddies (please excuse the mess...we are still in the process of remodeling and sometimes we run out of space to 'shift' things to). |
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| I guess he thinks his 'toy box' is a super snug bed. ;) |
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| He loves to sleep like this. |
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| And this...I call this the road kill crash position, ha ha. |
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| And this too apparently. LOL! |
Soooooo, that's our new baby. :) I'll tell you more about why we chose his name later....
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Picture Update....
I thought I'd go ahead and share some pictures from the last 7 months (wow--has my hubby really already been home that long?!)....
So there you have it! I know that doesn't really cover everything, but it will just have to do for now.
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| View to the left side of Nu'Uanu Pali Lookout. |
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| Mischievous little Munchkin! |
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| Hunger Games fans--pay attention! This is Kawela Bay and it is where the water parts of the Arena scenes for Catching Fire were filmed.... :) You can kind of see parts of it in the teaser trailer that was just released at Comic Con. |
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| Another view of Kawela Bay. |
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| And one last picture of Kawela Bay. |
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| This was my first ever photo in these kind of conditions...I know it could be better in a lot of ways, but I like it anyway...it's Turtle Bay Resort just after sundown. |
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| This is Raymond, he's the friend I asked prayer for early last year as his dog was run over and died...Raymond is doing great--God is always faithful to provide for his needs. It was hard to say goodbye the day we took this picture. |
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| Munchkin has already begun his training as a Blackhawk pilot. :) |
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| This is Dillingham up on the North Shore of Oahu...one of our favorite spots--especially for whale watching. The Albatrosses nest up there also. :) |
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| This was taken soon after my hubby's return...we were at the Honolulu Zoo. |
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| Another one from the Honolulu Zoo...with my hubby's favorite tropical tree in the background (it's a Rainbow Eucalyptus). |
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| We absolutely LOVE the Gold Dust Green Day Geckos back in Hawaii...if we ever have a pet gecko we'll be getting one of these, ha ha! |
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| Diamondhead Crater from up on Diamondhead. |
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| My hubby and I had a chance to run in the Warrior Dash in February. It was awesome!! |
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| Family photo taken in our backyard in Hawaii. |
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| We had a chance to make a detour to Kentucky on our way from Virginia to Alabama the week after we arrived back on the Mainland...it was a blessing to be able to visit Titan in his new home and be able to say our goodbyes. Still bittersweet, but I know he is in good hands. |
So there you have it! I know that doesn't really cover everything, but it will just have to do for now.
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