NEW FURRY KID

Well we did it, We finally broke down and got our dog Lilly a new sister to play with. After months of talking about it, searching shelters and rescue groups and everything else, we finally found our new, sweet, little puppy.

OK, so she is an almost 70 lb 10 month old Rottweiler puppy, but she is still a puppy none the less:)

Her name is Dixie. She and Lilly are very sweet with each other; are completely

inseparable and LOVE to play, running around the house, and into walls and sliding around on our hardwoods. Every once in a while we will hear a "kathunk" and one of them has managed to crash through our bedroom door that has never closed properly. Doggie bowling any one?

Dixie still has a lot of growing up to do and Lilly lets her know when she has had enough of the boundless energy a puppy, or in this case miniature pony of a dog, has!

Dixie is learning what is and is not hers to chew on.

Most recently I caught her lumbering down the hall with one of my Steve Madden shoes in her mouth. Hoping to rescue it from the attention only a puppy can give to a shoe, I called her and she brought it straight to me when she saw me, she was so proud, tail wagging. I however, was not. The back of the heel was completely chewed off. So long to my animal print flats.

She also likes to take items out of our dirty clothes basket and hide them in various places all over the house. I woke up a couple days ago and discovered she had carried a pair of Ryan's Boxers out and proudly displayed them in the middle of the living room, along with one of his shirts and a pair of socks. Seems all she was missing was the pants- oh wait she carried those into the office.

Even though she is a mess, we love her and she is here to stay. Welcome Dixie, our bear of a dog, to the McDow family!

Updates FINALLY

There have been a billion things we have done since our last update. Here is a snapshot.

Ryan celebrated his 32 birthday- I took him out to dinner at the really great restaurant that our friends Vim and Sarah recommended- 5 guys burgers and fries. Delicious, but HUGE!!! Note to anyone that wants to try them- order the Jr burger. The regular one is almost a pound of meat!!
You can see by the pictures how HUGE they are. The fries are to die for. Get a small and share. We did and still had left overs!!
















We went to Ryan's cousin's wedding ih Houston. It was a lot of fun, we had a blast with his family- Rachel and Mark took a "prom photo." Very cute:)














We had dinner with my brother Aaron and his wife and daughter. It was our niece Audry's first birthday a couple months ago and we were not able to make it to the party, so we brought Audry's birthday present for her to open. It was SO cute! I think she is a girl after my own heart, she was more interested in bag then the doll that was in it. She loved the doll too, but it was so cute to watch her walk around with the little pink bag it came in. Watch out little brother, you might just have a purse and shoe girl on your hands:)


After dinner I went upstairs and helped give her a bath. SO cute! She will kill her Aunt Heidi when she is older for this picture, but it is SOOOOO adorable. I had to put it in.





What else,
Oh yes we competed in a Triathlon last weekend in Keller TX - very fun. I think I am hooked. We don't have any pictures because I left the camera in the truck, but oh well..I looked pretty scary by the time it was over so it is probably a good thing:)
We were so exhausted and wanted to die by the time it was over, but I really enjoyed it! Ryan and I both won medals!!!
Ok, so they were completion medals, but who cares!!! We just competed in a Triathlon!!! After that we had our celebration lunch at BABES.It is the one time when I didn't feel gulity for eating fried chicken:) Our good friends Ginny and Neal Willams and my parents met us there for the celebration.

That is it for now good people, check in again soon!

Happy Birthday Taylor Made

Last Friday we celebrated our friend Taylor Made's birthday at Blue Fish. This has been a strong 4 year tradition of meeting up for sushi and T-Made birthday. Heidi and I do not eat as much sushi as we would like so this is always a special treat to get out and indulge at Blue Fish. This year our friend Amanda brought the birthday cake that she made herself. I think she has a talent here.

The cake

Ready for some sushi

Happy Birthday Taylor Made!

Club Thumping

I know I am posting last weekend this weekend but now seemed like the best time to make a quick post before I sneak out of here before my neighbor comes back and asks to borrow my lawn mower again.

Last weekend we boldly went where we have never gone before (as a couple)...to a dance club. Heidi had a promotion to do for Transformers and it was at this new hip, trendy club called Plush. We were only planed on being there for about 30 minutes but ended up staying there most of the night. Heidi got the hook up and we were seated in VIP and had a bottle brought over to our table (me thinks that is why we stayed longer). 3 of her co-workers came along with some friends and we ended up having a really good time dancing and looking down our noses through a glass of Goose from the 2nd floor vip at all the folks shaking their grove thang. (I use the term "shaking" very loosely; there might have been a time that I was shaking my grove thang.)

Sunday we went over to Heidi's folks house for some birthday fun and got to swim in our pool (well our pool by Dad's standards: to him owning a pool was having friends or family own a pool and you get to swim in it). We had so much fun that we are going to do it again this weekend.











***Editors note: Due to pending legal action from Team Heidi no pictures of anyone shaking any grove thang will be permitted on this blog. We must at all time protect the innocent and not so innocent.

New Paint

Well we finally finished our bathroom. We decided about 4 months ago that we would rip down the old wall paper and replace it with a fresh coat of paint. Well the wall paper took longer and was harder to get down than we had planned and since Heidi and I are great procrastinators it took us only 4 months to complete the job. Here are before and after pictures.

AA - this blog is for you

Last weekend was crazy busy with Interfaith, going to see my college friend Lindsay Holman get married in Austin and then a drive back to Frisco for a lunch honoring our Niece Audry's baby dedication, then to Heidi's folks house for pie! It was a great time espically the wedding minus the fact that I was put on BLAST my another college friend Alice Ann for not updating my blog enough. Something about that she was tired of reading about the TSO; so now I update more often. (Alice Ann, this blogs for you . Now you need to get on Facebook like the rest of the free world.)

A view from the wedding reception

Alice Ann fronting me out for not blogging.

We are super cool

1st Anniversary

This past weekend Heidi and I celebrated our 1st Aniversary. I was told in a round about way that Heidi was expecting me to surprise her for our anniversary so I had to put my game face on and figure out what we were going to do. So we started the day out with breakfast at Café Brazil and then went so see Wolverine (this is what we did the day after we got married) then we went out to lunch at Mia’s and then headed out to Ft Worth to stay at a bed & breakfast called Lockheart & Gables. On Sunday we went and had dinner with Heidi folks where her wonderful mother made us a topper us. We sure do like some cake. Attached are some pictures of our weekend. We look forward to many, many, more anniversaries!!

1st breakfast as newly weds!

Romantic Bed & Breakfast

It was a really good breakfast

After one year we are still in love

Flying Dogs

This weekend Heidi and I went to the Dallas Disc and Dog to check out the frisbee dogs. Most of the dogs were either Border Collies or Aussies. We hoped that Lilly might pick up a couple of of ideas but she just ended up sleeping behind us. It was really windy and we forgot our chairs so we did not stay log but still had a good time.

Yellow Rose of Texas

There's a yellow rose of Texas

That I am going to see

No other soldier knows her

No soldier, only me.

She cried so when I left her

It like to broke my heart

And if I ever find her

We never more will part.

Yep - we got ourselve a Yellow Rose in the front yard. Hopefully more will come along but for now...Enjoy

Easter Weekend

Last weekend we went down to the farm to celebrate Easter with my dad's dad side of the family. We roatate every year celebrating Easter in Louisiana and Texas; this year was Texas. We also got a change to see our friends in Houston and catch up on all the baby info and Heidi got her baby fix with Paul & Abby's baby Reese and Vim and Sarah baby Vim. It was a great time and we even got a little rain!!! We are suffering a drought at the farm so we will take all the rain we can get. One of the best parts of going down to the farm in the spring is that all the bluebonnets are out. Here are a couple of pics from some bluebonnet patches a couple miles away from the farm. Hope you enjoy.

Not a lake

BLUES!

More Bluebonnets

You know your from Texas - one for me, one for my wife

Sometimes it just takes to much effort to stand.

TSO

That is short for the Trans Siberian Orchestra for those of you who are not in the know. So now you know and knowing is half the battle; I think the other half is winning but don’t know what we are fighting for so I am politely moving on.

Two weeks ago Heidi and I went to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra with her folks at the AAC and had a great time. I have never seen them in concert but heard, just like everyone else, their songs being played especially around Christmas. If you get the chance to go see them live I would highly recommend it as well as I would recommend that you read what my mother-in-law wrote about the concert (she uses them words more better than me). Enjoy and then go book tickets to see TSO and hopefully you will hear their "Christmas Eve" story.