December Fun

December has been full of lots of fun for us! Although the best is yet to come, we are definitely going out with a bang in 2011.

On Saturday night in true Christmas spirit, we drove around aimlessly in search of over the top displays of Christmas cheer. Nate drove to the richest neighborhoods he could think of, and we both learned a valuable lesson.

It turns out wealthy people don't cover their well landscaped yards with tacky and ridiculous blow up Santas and animatronic reindeers.

So we then turned for home and found some holiday displays right in our neighborhood, inspired by the Griswolds. And, I also got to share the most horrible Christmas song ever: The Christmas Shoes.

Here are a few pictures from our adventures:

 If only I didn't delete the picture of Nate crying to the Christmas Shoes...

Hello?

Considering EVERYONE has a cell phone these days. It clearly has not helped anyone have any phone skills. Considering half of my job is talking to people on the phone it amazes me everyday the types of conversations I have, here is a sample of my favorites.

"Someone from there just called me....(silence)" That's great I'm going to need more information, like your name.

After saying a greeting, which include my name and business,"Who is this?, (business name repeated), that's weird I've never been there." Perhaps you have the wrong number. Or similar, "Are you my vet?" Do you call your doctors office and ask, "Do I go there when I'm sick?"

I answered the phone, and hear "Hi, I have a dog...(silence)" Thanks for sharing, do you need help with that dog or are you just letting us know.

This on is perhaps my favorite, I answered the phone, " Are you driving a white van? And where are you parked?" I asked her to repeat that, and got "What color van are you driving?" I told her she called an animal hospital, and she said, "I guess I have the wrong number." I guess so.


Oh the telephone...some days I wish our clients would just text us.

BORING...

So I haven't posted anything for awhile because I keep waiting for something exciting to post about...

Life has been boring around here. We haven;t done much, because we are gearing up for the Holidays. Nate's family is coming for Thanksgiving, and we are going to CA for Christmas, so we have a lot to look forward to!

Since the last post, winter has arrived! Life adjustments since the season change:

Macy is ANNOYING! She is soo desperate for heat we can;t get away from her. During the summer you couldn't get her to sit with you if you were wearing pants made of bacon, but now as uncomfortable as we try to make her she won't leave!!

We are also fairly confident that she knows how to turn on the electric blanket. We have never seen her do it, but every time she is laying on it, its somehow on.

I am officially addicted to my remote start on my car. It automatically turns on my heated seat, so I use every time I go anywhere.

Our neighbors don't believe in raking their leaves, they prefer to "let them blow away." Away seems to be in our yard.

Last year we had a backyard of dirt, which meant that when it snowed we had a backyard of mud, but this year we have grass, so snow is no longer dreaded.


Perhaps soon something exciting and fun will happen, so I have something to write about.

Let there be light!

Oh it is so nice to be back in the real world. After the first taste of winter in Denver, we have been in the dark, literally! This snow storm brought us particularly wet snow, or as I call it "Sierra Cement." My home town of Mammoth gets this type of snow all year round, but apparently the trees in CO were not up to the challenge.

Thanks to the snow we were off the grid for 3 days. Starting early Wednesday morning, to early evening Friday, we had no heat, light, and any sort of technology. Luckily, Thursday we both barely made it to work. We were told to expect power over night, and awoke to nothing, no alarm clocks, no lights and dead cellphones.

Although we were very irritated by this inconvenience, the true victims were of course the dogs. When the house temp dipped into the forties they both clung to powerless electric blanket in hopes that it would save them. I knew we were in for it, when Tucker, the furriest of all, was shivering. We did manage to huddle together, all four of us, under the blankets.

Now that the power has returned, I can once again enjoy how pretty snow is. By enjoy, I mean from behind a window, while under my heated blanket, in my well heated house, drinking hot chocolate just heated up in my electric microwave!

Its good to be back!

Fort Tucker

In our house, we have a Tucker fort. Under a large ottoman in our living room is Tucker's alone space. He runs under there whenever he gets a good treat or has something he desperately wants to keep from Macy.

Nate has become very uncomfortable with this. For some reason, he thinks that Tucker is too young to have his own room.  I probably should explain another of Nate's thoughts at this time. For quite a while Nate has decided that Tucker is secretly trying to kill us, or more specifically him. Tucker wasn't always a fan of Nate and is very much a mama's boy. Nate is constantly pointing out to Tucker that we are needed to keep him alive. I constantly remind Nate that Macy has to be higher on the hit list than him, and that when he knocks off her than he can worry.

So last night Nate had enough and led a raid of Fort Tucker, and here is a list of what we found:

Macy's two favorite toys (her Frisbee and gator-we know the reason for this)

One copy of Colorado Canine (a book of the best hiking trails in CO, perhaps he was planning a vacation for he and I after he got Nate out of the picture, or perhaps a place to hide a body)

A nicely folded dust rag (at least we know he was keeping it clean)

His two favorite toys(baby sheep, and what was left of valentine dog)

A small pillow (for napping of course)

One of our home phones(for long distance phone calls to his girlfriend Tipsy in CA)

And, all of the "good" dog bones

After Nate stopped touching his stuff, Tucker pulled all of these items, minus the dust rag and the book, back into his fort. Macy may have gotten the Frisbee back momentarily, but tonight I notice it has already been recaptured. Nate explained to Tucker that this was a privilege and he better not abuse it. For me this was absolutely hilarious to watch unfold, particularly how serious Nate was about it. But I do think he slept better knowing that Tucker was not assembling explosives under there.

Just an average night in the Phillips house! Oh man is Nate going to be an interesting parent...

Wordless Wednesday...

Please note the horrible living conditions these poor dogs are stuck with!

One Year Down

As of yesterday, Nate and I have been married for a whole year. I am stuck between feeling like we have been married far longer, and sometimes feeling shocked that I am married at all. Everyone tells you that the first year is the hardest, and I would have to disagree. Maybe it seemed easier because I expected it to be hard, but this year just seemed to breeze by. Nate and I discussed this at dinner last night, and both of us agreed that we in no way escaped this fate and it will probably hit us someday.

In true Megan fashion, we had to celebrate. Due to our lack of creativity, we decided to forgo any presents and just do dinner instead.

We decided to go to The Chart House, which is where went to celebrate being engaged, and the home of The Lava Cake!

So after, a tempura shrimp roll, lobster spring rolls, and jumbo crab cakes, the best part of celebrating anything: dessert!

  

I still can't believe that it was a year ago that we were here:

It is always nice to remember how lucky I am! I can't wait for all the years to come! 

Asian man in a trash bag... on a plane

Well I hope that the title of this post caught your attention. If it didn't then you need to re-evaluate your life, because something has gone terribly wrong. 


This last weekend I traveled to Southern California, for one of my favorite events all year long. My mother and I are fortunate enough to spend the first weekend of every October at the Foxfield Medal final and Jumping Derby( which is a horse show, for those not familiar). My mom has gone for as long as I remember to help keep score. I have been going for about 5 years now, and have taken over the scoring.

On Wednesday night I flew from DIA to LAX, and had the most interesting/horrifying flight experience to date. I sat towards the back of the plane because I tried to get as far away from a family that had 3 screaming children.  I was happily reading my Chelsea Handler book, when the I looked up to see that the Sweet Home Alabama Pageant Queen* next to was beyond panicked. She quickly pointed to the man sitting in a row all by himself on the other side from the aisle from us.  He was a middle aged Asian man, that had pulled from an unknown location, and empty white kitchen trash bag. He had pulled it over his head and picked his feet up into it, and was completely covered. And rocking back and forth and shaking.

From the looking around, I was clearly late to the "What the hell is going on?!?" party. Everyone around this man was staring and speaking in fearful whispers. Miss Alabama, was about to start holding my hand and praying for world peace. Finally someone pressed their "help" button, and a flight attendant showed up. The look on her face made it clear that at that moment she wished she had listened to her mother and married rich. She politely asked if he needed assistance, and was answered with more rocking back and forth. She then abandoned us in our time of need, and retreated to the front of the plane. She may have ditched us but, she did send reinforcements. Another stewardess showed up and was brave enough to tape him on the shoulder. He did come out of his bag long enough, to ask her if she was looking for a date, and her current marital status. Once she said no, he went back in the trash bag. The stewardess then seem satisfied that there was no real risk and then ran away and left us there.

Miss Alabama, was clearly having the worst day of her life, I took pity on her and attempted to make conversation to distract her from our friend. I lasted until the conversation turned to her aspiring acting career. I could only take so much.


Luckily for us, the man in the trash bag was not trying to kill us, he was just a man in a bag. Miss Alabama was very convincing in her imitation of a dryer sheet once we landed, and I'm surprised I have been friend requested on facebook by her yet. And most surprising of all when I followed trash bag man off the plane, the bag was full of about 20 packets of sauce from a fast food restaurant, and it is driving me crazy that I can't figure out where the sauce packets were, while he was in the trash bag.

My mom of course was extremely disappointed that I did not think of taking a picture of him. I am now sad I didn't get one either, but at the time was more concerned about being breaking news on CNN.


I have much more stuff to share from my weekend away, but nothing quite like this. I will fill you in on the rest once I get a chance.

*It has not been confirmed or denied that she was ever in a pageant, but based on our conversations I believe there is an very good chance.

Safe travels,

Megan

One of those crazy people

Today I became one of those crazy dog owners that makes even the people at a specialty pet store judge you.

Today is Macy's 3rd birthday. And yes we celebrate it every year. I know that there are people out there that do much more than we do for their pets birthday, but still today I felt crazy.

On my lunch break I went to a fancy pet food store to buy her a special yummy treat for tonight. When I approached the sales lady asking for advice on something special for a birthday present, she asked, "Is your friend a cat or a dog lover, because we have cute gifts for both?"

I replied, "My friend is a dog, and she likes stuff to eat." That was met with awkward silence.

Once the sales woman recovered, she was glad to point in the direction of frozen ice cream treats. I also picked up a few cans of Grammy's Chicken Pot Pie, to make dinner extra yummy.  And, yes baby Tucker got ice cream and yummy dinner too!

In keeping with the crazy lady theme, here are pictures of Macy with some of her treats:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MACY!!!

If only I could sing...

                                   

For anyone who hasn't heard off or watched The Sing Off, you have to check it out! It is an American Idol type show, but with incredibly talented groups of people. They cover songs with only theirs voices, and every time I watch, I wish I was not musically challenged!

It is in it's third season, and is really getting good. The first two seasons were only about 6 weeks long, and was usually over the holidays. This year they made a full season out of it, and so far it is AWESOME!

Happy Hour

Today was one of my days off from work, I work 4 10s so I get a random day of during the week, which is usually Thursday. I love having a break from the week, but it is quickly become my least productive day. Without Nate around I tend to sleep in a little later, then I am willing to admit, and very rarely get anything of note done.

So today after getting a pedicure and going to the library to get some new books, I found myself on the couch watching tv (or as I like to call it cleaning the tivo), with my favorite drink in hand, the famous(at least to us) OC Ice Tea.

The OC Ice tea comes from one of our favorite restaurants, Old Chicagos. We originally were hunting for the recipe so we could have their version of the Long Island Ice Tea at our wedding. By the time the wedding came around, we still hadn't mastered it, and let the bartenders come up with one for us. It was delicious, and strong enough to take down 3 of 4 bridesmaids, but it was no OC Ice Tea. After almost a year of trying, it turns out that you HAVE to have the exact sour mix they use to make it work. Lucky for us our local alcohol superstore was happy to order us a case. We of course bought it and have been enjoying ever since. In case anyone is tempted with this yummy cocktail-

OC Ice Tea
1 ounce Vanilla Vodka
1 ounce Orange Vodka
1 ounce Raspberry Vodka
3 ounces Oceanspray sour bar mixer
splash of Coke

Be careful they are tasty but strong!

Cheers!
Megan

Meet the Phillips

Hello all!

For those of you that are not fully acquainted with the Phillips family let me give you a brief overview. 

My husband Nathan and I have been married for almost a year, and we are loving married life so far. He is a busy guy working as an HVAC tech all over Denver. He is the ultimate handy man, and keeps everything from computers to cars working around the house. He is from South Dakota and Michigan, so he is a country boy at heart.

Macy is our first dog and craziest! When I say our first dog, I really should say HIS first dog. Nate got Macy as a pup while we were dating.  Seeing that pointers are not as popular in CO as they are in SD, I knew very little about them(If I did I would have tried to stop him). For those of you that aren't familiar with the breed, they have a well deserved reputation. Lets just say when we show up at the dog park, we get the same looks as parents with a screaming child at the grocery store.  Now with that said, pointers are my favorite! They are crazy, smart, crazy, energetic, entertaining, and crazy a few more times!

Tucker is MY dog. Out of necessity he will acknowledge Nate when: Nate is eating some delicious, when he is cold, or when he is hungry. Tuck is the best dog! He is quiet, mellow, and most importantly cute! My mom gets all of the credit for finding him. We were looking for a small dog to keep crazypants company, and she found him in a animal shelter in Big Pine, CA. We still can't figure out how he ended up there, but lucky us. He is a little scruffy terrier mix, and we have no idea what kind.

Our other temporary family member is, Lindy. She is a GSP we are fostering. She is a sweet little thing. She is a dryer sheet in the form of a dog. If she could have it her way she would be within 3 inches of a human being every moment of her life. She was found as a stray somewhere in Utah, and lived at a kennel for 5 months before our rescue picked her up. I don't have a picture yet and hopefully she will be in her new home by the weekend. Just in time for us to get another one!

Thanks for stopping by!
Talk to you soon!
Megan