Sid Sitting

Caleb being the generous person that he is agreed to watch the dog of some people in our ward for 12 days. He (Sensei aka Sid/Sidley) is a very cute black and white Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. The challenging part of this was that Sid is still a puppy--they had only had him for 2 weeks. And you know what that means--not house trained. During the day and at night he would be in his crate and did well. But when he was out you had to keep a close eye on him. His favorite way to torture Caleb was to go right under the middle of the bed, making it very difficult to clean up. We quickly made it so he could no longer get under there. But by the end of his stay with us, Sid was getting pretty good at the routine and had less "accidents."


Sid is full of energy and just wanted to play with Sadie and Sylvester but for the most part they would have none of it. Sadie would avoid him and walk away most of the time when he came near. Once in a while Sylvester would play with him for a couple minutes and then be done. I think it was very difficult for them to have this strange puppy in their space. They seemed on edge the entire time and are much more relaxed now that he is gone.


Sid is also a shedder. I am sure glad one of my criteria when we got a dog was that it wouldn't shed (the poodle part of the cockapoo). It was amazing how much hair a little dog like that can lose. Just hold him for 30 sec and your shirt is covered in hair. So after he left we "dehairified" the house."

It was an interesting experience but not one I wish to repeat.

A little love

For Valentines we didn't do much. With it being on a Monday, after a long day's work it wasn't worth trying to fight the crowds to go to dinner. So we just got Chinese food (Caleb's choice). I made him a little two layer chocolate chocolate cake. And he surprised me with an Edible Arrangement. I have always thought those looked fun. Now we have fruit to last the whole week. Yum.

Finally they can see

In the winter we tend to let Sadie and Sylvester go quite a while in between haircuts. They just look so cute all fluffy. But it was getting to the point where their hair was so long you could barely see their eyes and the hair on the feet made it so slippery they would slide out if they went around corners too quickly. So finally I took them in to get hair cuts and they came back looking so skinny. They left Sylvester's head looking pretty poofy--a big head on a tiny body. Sadie is much more proportional. Now with so much less hair they are cold in this winter weather and they lay snuggled up in little balls with their noses tucked under their paws.

A Little Culture

Saturday night we decided it would be fun to do something different. I had heard about the RPO concert from someone at work and we decided to give it a try. It was Bugs Bunny at the Symphony. Part of the concert was just the music, part was music with the cartoons, and there were a couple segments of just the cartoons. It was fun. Because of the cartoons a lot of kids were there. And one of the funniest things was when it was quiet as the orchestra played during a cartoon and then a kind would think the cartoon was funny and burst out in laughter into the silence. We had a fun time and will have to go back for more performances in the future.

The End and the Beginning

This year we continued the Marcell traditions for New Year. For the first time we had a New Years tree. It was only about 4 feet tall but it was prelit and festively decorated. Of course we had the "seafood feast"--4 lbs crab legs, 2 lbs shrimp, lobster tails, porterhouse steaks, baked potatoes, salad. Fortunately another couple came over to help Caleb eat all that seafood, because I am no use for that stuff. Needless to say, everyone was stuffed by the end. The rest of the night until midnight was spent playing our new game Nerts and then watching the ball drop. Times square didn't seem nearly as exciting as it used to as a kid, lots of product placement bits. It was a fun night.

Saturday we started off the year by taking down all the Christmas stuff. Fortunately it was kind of warm (50's) and the snow was melted, for Caleb to take the lights off the house. Unfortunately it was rainy, which made the ladder a little dangerous. Once the tree is out on the curb you know the holidays are officially over. But it feels nice to have all the extra stuff put away again.

Christmas Decor

This year we got Christmas lights up on the outside of the house for the first time. Typically our street is kind of a dud for lights but we must have set a good example because there were several houses that had at least a string of lights up. We got LED lights so our "white" lights have a little of a bluish tint.

We got our Christmas tree early in December and decided to try one with long needles. It sure smells good but those needles just keep falling off. We went with a combo of white and colored lights. I only ended up using about half the ornaments and that was plenty.