St. Paddy's Day 2010

The fourth annual Day-O-Debauchery was a great success! Cornelia Lane is proving to be a great venue for parties - yay! As always, the beer and shots were flowing. I will spare you the details, but some people (Chris) had more fun than others (LK). I stayed sober, save for one flaming dr. pepper. Chris on the other hand had more than enough fun for both of us. :) Through it all, Murph was SUCH a trooper! She loved being with everyone and she was quite well-behaved which was a great treat. Here our some fun pictures from our day.

Murph is ready to get her St. Paddy's Day groove on!

Owwww! Amanda is definitely in the spirit.

Some of my favorite girls: Katie, Megan, & Magdalene.

Not sure which round this is, but it's definitely Irish Carbombs. Shea, David, Chris, Mike, & Curley.

Marissa and Chris - both of whom are SEVERAL shots in....

The boys are being "funny" while the girls (including the 4.5 month old) are being mature and posing for the picture. Danny, Jordan, Beth, Emma, & Mike.

Kaila & Michael being good and keeping their Lenten resolutions and avoiding all debauchery.

Bethany, in white, getting ready to partake in her very first flaming dr. pepper shot. :) Bethany, Shea, Emmy, Marissa, Ryan, and & Curley (yes, again :)).

Matthew drinking Bethany's very first flaming dr. pepper. HA!

Katie and Shea enjoying some jello shots.

These three may have been among the most sober in attendance (including me, but that's just because some idiot decided to schedule a half marathon on St. Paddy's Day weekend).

So hot! Mike, Mito, and & Stephen.

Murph, chillin' with the peeps. I'm not sure who was more worked by the end of the day, me or her.

Curley with "the last drink ever". Not really sure how it started, but every time I came around with drinks or recruited people for shots, it was "C'mon Curley, last drink ever!".

Ryan, 21, was a trooper! This may have been her first carbomb. She was among the drunkards, but was quite expertly able to rally and sober up by the end of it all. Sober enough to help clean up! (Thanks Ryan!!!)

I think we were supposed to be posing upright for this one, but Chris was really enjoying the day at this point...

This picture couldn't summarize the day any better. Chris is struggling at around 515p here.

Good times were clearly had by all! Thanks to everyone for coming out - it was a blast! See you next year (and they moved the half to 03/27/11, so I'll be good to go next year!!!)

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...Valentine's Day...

Our first Cornelia Snowman, built for the purpose of demolition by the Murph-ster

For those of you not in Dallas, you should know that it is rare that we get snow rather than ice. And while it is not unusual for the weather man to predict 1"-3" of snow and be wrong, he's never quite been wrong like this. We ended up with 12.5" I believe - a new record. Incredible!!

Snow fell literally ALL day on Thursday. We had plans with Kaila and Michael to go to Hibiscus for dinner and then go see Give It Up at the ATT Performing Arts Center. Thankfully, the Jeep has 4-wheel drive, so the snow was no match for us. Hibiscus was delicious and Give It Up was really great. Coming home to no power - not as great. Thankfully, we have wonderful friends who let us shack up at their place for awhile - thanks Alcantars!

As wonderful as our Valentine outing was, the highlight of our day was definitely playing with Murphy in the snow. We had a somewhat White Christmas this year, but Murph was not terribly interested. She was WAY more into it this time around.

Murphy on Christmas Day 2009

Here are some pics from our day in the snow and a couple of videos of Murphy attacking the snow and snowman Chris built. Enjoy!

Murphy and Chris at White Rock Lake

Murphy attacking the snow

LK and Murphy at White Rock Lake

Murphy kills the first attempt at a Snow Man

Murphy - 1, Snow Man - 0

43.5 pounds later...

So, here we are, almost five months later. We were just spending some time searching the internet for pictures that look like Murphy. We found some "Boxador" pictures - boxer/lab mixes - that look EXACTLY like Murph. We looked back at the blog to see her "baby pictures". Goodness...was she really that tiny!?

Murphy's about six months old now. We weighed her today - just at 47 pounds. She has spent the last two nights with us in our bedroom on her pillow, and she's doing a fantastic job. She's finished five weeks of puppy kindergarten. She can sit, lay down, stay, and come (sometimes).

Her uterine removal is scheduled for next Tuesday, so we know she's growing up. We got a new rug in the den, and she is REALLY loving it. As we make this house into our home, we'll take some non-dog pictures, promise.

Here are some pictures from the last few months.

Murphy with her scousin, Bella. This bed has been outgrown and chewed to pieces...

In the kitchen. She was the length of one tile when we got her in June.

After her bath. She no longer gets bathed in the kitchen sink and dried off on the counter. She gets the hose these days.

Proper little princess. Her legs are still ridiculously long.

Such a pretty girl!

As we get some paint on the walls, our new furniture gets delivered, and we continue our journey through home-ownership, we'll post some more pictures. Hope you enjoyed our trip down memory lane.

Chris and LK

Introducing...

...Weighing in at about 3.5 pounds...MURPHY PIEROTTI!!! Our first puppy is a cute little chocolate lab mix - with what, we're not sure - with big blue eyes. The vet thinks she's only about 4-6 weeks old. She is just tiny. Hopefully you'll see that throughout the pictures. She'll grow to about 40 pounds-ish, according to the vet. All-in-all, she's pretty healthy and we are totally in love!

Some friends of ours found Murphy, her sister (Bella - who is now her sister AND cousin as she was adopted by Chris' brother, Al), and her two brothers next to their driveway in a milk crate. At some point Sunday night/Monday morning, they were all abandoned there together. Luckily, they were left to some really great people - MJ, Neely, and Riley Rose. They worked really hard to get all four puppies in to great homes! THANK YOU ROSES!!!!

So far, Murphy is an eating champ - she's plowing through food! She slept in her kennel all night. It wasn't perfect, but we thought she did pretty well. We were out with her at 130a, 330, (and she ate at 4a), and then again at 630a. She had an accident in her crate sometime before 130a, but other than that, it was smooth sailing.

She loves to walk and run up and down Cornelia Lane with Chris and me. Yesterday, she met Riley (the next door neighbor's dog) and a Vizsla we see running in the neighborhood frequently. She played with them REALLY well and was BEAT after. Today, she met Sparky and Maverick across the street, as well as some of their owners. She spent about an hour running around with the pups and Luke and Max. THEN - she met Coco, who we are sure she will spend lots of time with. Coco was WONDERFUL with her. A chocolate lab herself, Coco really took to Murphy and those two are going to have a great time together! She was OUT after her afternoon of fun and slept for quite some time.

We'll try to be better about posting information and pics. I know some of you are still waiting patiently for Spain pics and house goings-on. I'll put it on my to-do-list. I will tell you - this whole puppy thing is tough! It's taking a lot of time and energy (and sleep!!).

Love - Chris & LK, Owners of a Puppy

Too Much of a Good Thing...?

I'm almost sure we have too many exciting things going on for one couple to handle! We leave for Spain on Wednesday, and we are tremendously excited about our trip. We'll be gone for quite a chunk of time. Chris has never been overseas before, and I haven't been since my senior year of high school (1996). While I did enjoy my trip to Italy, I don't remember a lot of it. I'm getting old - that was a LONG time ago at this point. So we're excited to travel as adults. There will be lots of walking, lots of exploring, lots of eating, and lots of picture-taking.

We are also in the process (are we done yet!??) of buying our first house! We are set to close on Tuesday, March 3rd. I guess we should start thinking about packing and actually moving, but we can't get there until after Spain.




We have some painting to be done (see master bedroom below!) and our St. Paddy's Day party to host before we actually say good-bye to the duplex. As anxious as I am to have some space, I have to admit I'm somewhat sad to leave the duplex. I've lived here for almost 6 1/2 years. It's cozy - we can talk to each other from any point in the house. I'll miss that. However, I don't think either of us will miss sharing the ONE bathroom with ONE sink, that's for sure.

We are really excited, but, of course, there's a SLIGHT chance that things won't work out in the end. But, really, I think we should be all set. As you can see from the metallic paints here in the master bedroom, that will be the FIRST thing we do before moving in - UGH! It's nice that they left their bedding to justify the color choices, but really!?? We haven't picked a color yet, but I'm assuming it will be some shade of blue.

It's a busy time for us. Chris is working a ton, of course, since we'll be gone the rest of the month. I subbed at St. Pius six days over the past two weeks. I really enjoyed it, but it was just something else that had to get done before all the excitement begins. I have started working with my co-chair on the 2009 Walk, Wag, and Run (SAVE THE DATE ~ OCTOBER 24th). That's a pretty big undertaking in itself, but I'm looking forward to the challenge. Meanwhile, Chris and I have both been fighting off "the crud"! With him seeing lots of fevers and flus at Presby and my teaching over the past two weeks, we think we're doing pretty well. I can't run - frustrating! - since I'm wheezing while sitting and Chris has a pretty gnarly cough. All-in-all though, we're making it through.

Happy Valentine's Day!

LK

In the Beginning...

So blogging is probably the one digital revolution that we haven't been really interested in. And, quite honestly, we really don't have anything to say. However, we thought we'd go ahead and set one up in case we wanted to track some of the fun things that may be coming up in our lives over the next few years.

To summarize - new blog, nothing to say, enjoy! :)

Chris and LK