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!!!