Hey Dog!

I have not posted on the Lovely Little Laney in some time and thought that you guys might like an update. What a sweet, sweet girl she is most of the time. She still LOVES her daddy most, but I like to think that I come in a close second. We have been taking her running almost twice a week and then usually for a swim on the weekends. I know what you are thinking. Yes, it has been terribly cold in K-town, but this pup does not mind. She still loves to swim in the dead of winter and Andy even took her one day when there was ice near the shore. She did not even think twice before plunging her head and the rest of her body into the cold water.

One thing that she has been doing lately is pretty funny and only because Andy and I have a good sense of humor about it. The other morning I got up and Andy was still in bed. I went and took my shower and when I got out I noticed that Laney was not beside the bed on Andy's side. Not thinking too much about it I peeked my head in the office to see if she was on her bed there, but she wasn't. So I walked towards the living room noting that the door to the backyard was closed and locked so she was not out there and she was not on her bed in the living room. I started to think that I missed her so I went back to the bedroom, then the office, back to the living room and then I saw her. Laney is not allowed on the couch. She knows this, but we have noticed lately that she will try to get up on Andy's couch, but usually hops down when she can hear us walking towards the living room. So lately Andy has been putting all of the pillows he can on his couch so that she will not get up there and as you can tell, the pillows are doing there job! I would like to note that when this picture was taken there was not a single pillow or obstacle on my couch.

Busted! The best part is I got two pictures in before she moved. I took the camera into Andy and showed him where she was. His response, "She is a smart dog." What am I going to do with these two. So to show Laney who is boss, this is her punishment!

A couple of days later I took this picture...

Who is punishing who? I laughed so hard at this one. She is an awesome dog and we love her so much!

love always,

Leaving on a jet plane!

No, not me silly. This guy...

He left today to got to Haiti! We are so proud of his selflessness to travel so far away on such short notice to help people that need him and all of his medical knowledge. Most of you know that Bill *ahem* Dr. Broome is a Family Doctor. What you may not know is that one time not too long ago he was listed in a local magazine as one of the top doctors in Knoxville!!!! Yea, he is that good! We are sending our best to Haiti!

Bill is not only a wonderful doctor but he is an amazing husband, father, friend and man. He is always there when any of his family needs him and is willing to watch TV standing up most of the time so that it does not take too much time away from his honey-do list. The rest of the time he watches TV lying down almost under the coffee table. Our theory on this is so that his Honey can't see him easily and send his attention back to his honey-do list! Ha ha, just kidding Amy!

Seriously, he is so giving of his time and I don't think that we tell him often enough for his kindness to his family and to others. He is going to be in Haiti for a week and I am sure that he will return with beautiful stories to tell. Please pray for him while he is gone. Pray that he will be safe, that he will be able to help others physically but also be able to show anyone that he comes in contact with God's love for them. We will miss him this week, but it is awesome to know that he is going to help those that are in need. We love you Billy-boy and can't wait for your stories and your safe return.

love always,

I am a Connecticut Fan.

Well the Connecticut Sun (WNBA) that is. That is right. My dear friend and college roommate signed a 3 year contract with the Connecticut Sun after 7 years with the now folded Sacramento Monarchs. The exciting part is that she will be on the East Coast and I will now have more opportunities to watch her play. I wish that she could have been closer, but now I will have a good reason to head up North is summer and see her play. I could not be more proud of her! So without further ado the newest member of the Connecticut Sun.... KARA LAWSON!!!!!!

love always,

Oh Monday

So on Monday I was in a big hurry. I was trying to leave work at 5pm, rush to the grocery store (right next door, thankfully), get all my groceries for the week (somewhat of a miracle if I pulled it off), rush home, put all groceries away, cook dinner, eat dinner, and go and meet Kara for coffee by 7:45. Wow, that just wore me out typing that.

Well everything was on schedule, I left work and headed to the store. It was not quite as busy as I thought it would be and I had a list so I wasn't wandering around the store. The last thing on the list was milk so I quickly grabbed it and was on my way to the check out line. Now, usually I am a buy-what-I-need-for-the-night-kind-of-girl. This works for me most of the time and I get to do my own checking out, which I love. On Monday, I had way to much stuff so I was stuck in a line with a cashier. Not too big of a deal until the kid who was bagging my groceries held up my jug of milk and asked me if I would like my milk in a bag. Just as the words left his mouth the gallon of milk slipped from his hands and came crashing down on the bag thingy. Milk went everywhere and we all just stood there looking at him. He said he was sorry and he quickly ran off to get me another jug. I finished checking out and waited for him to bring the milk to me. Once he returned he handed me the milk and said that he made sure to get me a good date and he apologized again. I told him not to worry and I rushed to get my groceries in the car. As I am packing the groceries into my car, I made sure that I put the milk next to heavy items so that it would not fall over and spill. I did not want milk all over my car.

I got home without and issues and walked around to the back of my car. I opened the tailgate and what fell out first, yep, the milk. It came crashing down on the driveway and milk went everywhere. I just stood there thinking, this did not just happen. 2 gallons of milk have not been wasted on my behalf today. If you know me, then you know that I drink about a gallon of milk on my own each week. It was so sad to see it all go to waste.

I called Andy to tell him not to worry about the big mess that was on our driveway, that it was just milk and the next rain would wash it away. This is what it looked like. So sad...

Another angle...

The good news is that I got dinner cooked and cleaned up and made it in time to see Kara. The day wasn't all THAT bad. I guess the moral of the story is, "don't cry over spilled milk" even if it is 2 gallons. Hee hee hee.

love always,

UTAH 2009

Andy and I just got back from and awesome trip to Park City, Utah. The trip was so much fun and we got to go with some great friends and family Hayes (Andy's cousin) and Todd! If you can remember I took a trip out to Heber City, UT with Andy's family back in 2008 during the summer. This is what it looked like...

The top picture was from the house that we stayed in looking towards Park City. Now for a slightly different look...

The above picture is me standing almost at the top of the Park City Mountain Ski Resort looking down on Heber City, UT. It was so neat to see it from way up there and it look completely different. That little snowy valley is Heber City!
While we were in Park City we decided that we wanted to stay close to town or the Main Street area. We were not sure how this was going to work skiing wise but it ended up being perfect. The picture above is one that I took while Andy and I were riding the Town Ski Lift from the middle of town up to the top of the mountain. It was about a block and a half from our condo (the brick building that looks like it is at the base of the hill) and an easy walk to make to start out day. You also could ski down a slope called Quittin' Time and get back to town. You can kind of see the slop in the bottom right corner.

This is Hayes and me at the top of the mountain. I cannot explain to you the beautiful views that we had from up here. It was amazing and the pictures do not do it justice.

The above picture is one of my favorites and too bad it took it with my phone and it turned out so horrible. This is Andy looking out over a Double Black. I am sure he was thinking about going down it, but I just liked how small we all looked compared to what was all around us. It was amazing and we were all in awe of what we were seeing.

Here we are just taking a few shots before we skied down the mountain.

Hayes and Todd. We love these two and had so much fun. We are so ready for our next vacation with these two!!!

Two nights we got all cleaned up from skiing and went out on the town. Well, we went to dinner to some very nice and yummy restaurants. We did not stay out late because we were all so tired from skiing all day that after dinner we were all ready to head home to relax and get some sleep.

This last picture has a story with it. Todd and Hayes came in a bit earlier this day than Andy and I did. Andy and I wanted to make a few more runs before heading in. We did about 3 runs and then decided to head back to the condo. I let Andy be in charge of the route that we were going to take back. You have to connect a couple of runs and lifts to make sure that you get to the right place. You also have to do all of this before 4pm when all of the lifts shut down. Well we skied over to the beginning of the town runs to make it back. Andy decided to take a "short cut" and do one more black run. Before we started this "last" run, I said I don't think this is right. He assured me that it was so we headed down. It was all moguls so it took me a little longer than it took him. At the bottom I said, I don't think this is right. Then I noticed something. Not only were we on the wrong run, but all of the lifts were stopped. My mouth dropped because I thought that we were going to get stuck at the base of the mountain and it would take forever to get back. Luckily Park City has Night Skiing and had one lift open and it was the one lift we need to get back. We got on the lift and skied down to town and met Hayes and Todd at the bottom. I was so tired and glad to be back when this picture was taken.

We had so much fun on this trip. With Utah about 3 feet short of the normal snow that they have, we were still able to have great skiing and a wonderful time. Hayes and Todd, we can't wait to see you soon and for our warm weather adventure that we are planning for the near future!!!

love always,

Mr. and Mrs. Collier

So, Andy and I have some really good friends named Jeff and Emily. We talk about them a lot to other people and often I find myself saying, "oh you know Emily/Jeff of Jeff and Emily!" We spend a lot of time with them and love them both to pieces. I won't even mention that Jeff was never officially invited to our wedding (a mistake that was completely and totally my fault and I take full responsibility) and Andy and I were both in their wedding. I in no way feel guilty about this. (Okay that was a total lie and I will probably feel guilty about not having Jeff at our wedding until the day I die! You always have that one big wedding mistake don't you!)

At any rate, we love the Colliers and truly treasure their friendship. They always talk about how they are never on the blog and I feel bad about that so I wanted to introduce our friends. So without further ado here are our friends, meet Jeff and Emily!

Andy and Jeff were in the finals of their Fantasy Football league and to make the finals more interesting they decided that the loser had to grow a mustache. Guess who lost!! This is my favorite picture of Jeff ever!

love always,

oh so cold

So, we made it home from HHI at around 6pm. I don't think I have ever been so happy to see my home, but it did come with a warning. All day Andy had been warning me that the house was going to be cold. Before we left he shut our water off (thank goodness because I think that all of our pipes would have burst) and turned out heat way down, and possibly off, I am not sure. So, here I am so happy to be home. I rush into the house with some of the stuff from the car and when I get no further than the threshold of our door I am hit with an Arctic Blast. Um, yes, I dare say that it was colder inside our house than it was outside our house where it was a balmy 25 degrees. It was so cold in our house that the temperature setting on our thermostat stopped reading it and was stuck at 40 degrees.

Now, most of you that know me, know that at work when it is 90 degrees outside I will usually have my space heater running. You will hardly ever find me sitting on the couch without a blanket, even in the summer. In the winter at home I ALWAYS have 1-2 blankets and my space heater pointed directly at me at the highest setting it will go wherever I am in the house (usually my couch is where I can be found.) So when this Arctic Blast hit my I almost froze right there. I thought it was not really that big of a deal and Andy HAD warned me, but that was when I thought that it would warm up pretty quickly. We got the fan running at about 6:45 and I thought we were home free, but when 7:30 came around and the house was not getting any warmer and I could not possibly put on one more piece of clothing and still be mobile it was time to do something, anything. I calmly walked into the kitchen where Andy and I started discussing going to either his parents house (they were not home) or his grandmother's house (where his parents were and aunts and uncles and dogs). We knew that we could not leave Laney in the house because she would surely turn to and dog-sicle and since I had not shower that day, rode in a car for 8 hours and had more clothes on me to survive Antarctica (yes it was colder than our house than Antarctica!) it was pretty safe to say that I did not really want to run into anyone I knew, not even family. I was that bad. As the discussion went on, I lost it. I could not contain myself any longer. I turned to Andy and said. "I can't take it. I have been cold all weekend. I sucked it up while we were at HHI, but I just can't take it. I am tired of being COLD!" Then I started crying. Not the pretty cry, but the UGLY one. Do you know what Andy did, yep, he started laughing. You heard me right, laughing.

Now, before you get mad at him I have to admit had I not been so cold that it brought me to tears, I probably would have laughed at me too. I was a mess. He walked over to me and gave me a hug, still laughing, and said let's go to my parents house and warm up. I agreed and we left.

We stayed at Amy and Bill's for about an hour and both just longed to be home. We stopped by Starbucks to cheer me up and headed home. The cheering up lasted about 1 second after we walked in the door. The house, it was just as cold, if not colder than when we left. The hour of warming the house up had not worked and it was still so cold that it would not register on the thermostat. What did I do? I did not loose it again. I did, however, think about it. I just found every blanket in the house, left my new Uggs on, wore 2 pairs of gloves, Andy gave me his hat, got my space heater, and plopped down on the couch and was determined to stay there until the house was warm. Andy told me to go to my mom's house if he could not get the house to start heating up. Well, once he determined that we needed to turn the fan off (it was just blowing more cold air around the house, the house started heating up. By the time that we went to be it made it all the way to 48 degrees and might as well have been a heat wave. We went to bed, I turned on my heated mattress pad (a big shout out to Bill and Amy for giving that to us!) and went to bed. The house was finally warm when we woke up in the morning. I have never in my life been so thankful for heat and a husband that can fix everything, even when he laughs at me through the process.

So I don't leave you without a picture. Andy snapped this one on his phone of me sitting on the couch hoping that our house would one day be warm again.

love always,