Wrigley....

Our puppy is growing up fast and it has been so much fun to learn a new side of Tim as we raise this dog together. I know what you are thinking, "they are the crazy dog owners!" And we kind of are but we do remember that he is just a dog but you can't say no to that face!
Wrigley was doing so well at coming when  he was called and listening to commands and just being a good dog but now he is looking at me and just walking away. He has to stay on the leash when we go out to the bathroom. He has to earn that privelige back.

Tim loves to harass or torture Wrigley. You can look at it however you want. One of his great ideas was to put treats under a laundry basket that was propped up by a pop bottle, with a string tied around the pop bottle so he could trap wrigley. Below are the chain of events.

Gotta Catch'em All! That is Wrigley's nose sticking out the side of the laundry basket!

Seriously? Could you get any more pathetic!

Lately, one of Wrigley's favorite things is to sneak away into the bathroom and destroy the garbage! We have started to close the door behind us. Thanks Quinn for teaching us that babies don't know how to stay out of the bathroom garbage!

I knew Wrigley was doing something he shouldn't but when I went to check I couldn't see anything wrong so I temporarily forgot, until I was cleaning up and moved Tim's shoes and realized he peed on them!! I laughed and then laughed some more!! HAHAHA! Yes, that did happen.

And then there is Q-tip. I love her and she is just the cutest thing ever. Tim and I went to the temple so Erin, Tannis and Quinn babysat Wrigley and took him to the dog park. He sat with Quinny until she got annoyed but Wrigley was stuck so can you imagine that she got even madder! Just like her mother:)

Well Danielle, I hope you are still willingly to babysit Wrigley after this post because we are so excited to come visit. We are definitely holding Cohen to his promise and we expect him to teach Wrigley to share! He really a fabulous dog and has such and nice personality! We really do love him.

Across the stage and into the future!

Tim walked the stage and received his degree in political science and history! I couldn't be more proud of him. He worked really hard to improve his GPA and I do believe he actually learned something. He always has interesting fact and tid bits about this and that. He is one smart cookie! I am grateful he is my husband!

Congratulations to Amber Palmer!! We sure are going to miss you when you move to Boston but are really excited to hear about your stories and excited to come visit!

Congratulations and Good luck in architect school to Jesse Potrie!! And thanks to Melissa for sitting by me.

Tim's dad was able to sit up on the stage and congratulate him immediately after getting his degree!

We then celebrated with lunch and the next day went for dinner! It was very fun and I am very proud of his accomplishment! We also scored a deep freeze from my mother. Nothing says "way to go" like a deep freeze! Thanks mom. We are really enjoying it! Good luck on the masters Timmer!





May Long Weekend

I know this post is waaay overdue but I had a fabulous time so I really want to tell you all about it and put up the pictures!
Because my family talked me into getting a full time job, I was unable to participate fully. Yes, I was sad but I will be making up for it soon because we go on vacation soon!!! Woohoo!!
On Monday my family came up to Calgary, dog's included, and went to the zoo!!

The penguins were well worth the wait. It was sooo cool because they were sooo close. It was so tempting to touch one but we all obeyed the rules. It was especially interesting as Tim and I just finished watcing a discovery channel special called Frozen Planet!Very well done and I learned so much; such as penguins live in the antarctic, not the arctic. Tim and I really had to work on that one. Cohen, aka skeletor, was a real gem for most of the trip until the end of the penguins when we wanted to take a group picture.

Happy belated mother's day! I really love you and all you do for me. I love how close my family is and that is due to how hard my mom worked at organizing vacations and making sure we had it all!

Cohen was wiped after the the big day at the zoo.

After the day at this zoo, we headed back to Welling. Cohen and Wrigley are now bestfriends which is good because we need a dog sitter when we got to utah:)

We all loved the quad

We also did a bit of banking.... I owed muffy a bit of money so we rolled down the back window out of her van and used the ATM. I am not sure what the guy behind us was thinking!

Other highlights included hitting up the cheescake, eating some yummy food and playing with the dogs. I had a fabulous weekend and was glad to be home for a quick stop!

Even though we were only there for a day exhausted on the way home!

Tim here, for the past six weeks I have been living the dream of being a house husband, working only 20 hours a week (if even that some weeks), reading books, and of course, cooking, cleaning, washing, and taking care of little Wrigley. I usually don't post stuff here, but I feel I should complete my experience by doing what essentially every other good Mormon woman does in her twenties, blog.

First off, I'd like to state that I do love little Wrigley. He has brought a lot of joy in our lives and makes our humble abode not so lonesome when the other spouse is gone. However, I find that this little mutt is honing in on me for my wife's attention. Sometimes it's frustrating when Elise says things like "he's my favorite" or "isn't he the most precious thing." Once upon a time those were phrases she use to tell me, and only me. Those were the days. Now, every time we kiss and snuggle the dog immediately gets between us and wants to participate as well (seriously, I'm not making this up). Now our closeness has drifted apart and we've become like every other couple who has a "little one" to worry about. In fact, Erin and Tyler use to complain about our Public Displays of Affection (PDA) and make/write gagging sounds (surprisingly, now the Dudleys have become big PDAers). I also find it interesting that "we" (please notice the quotation marks) bought Wrigley because it would keep Elise busy when I was occupied with bigger things, like Axis and Allies and school. Let me tell you, this has not been the case. For example, for every one time Elise takes Wrigley out to potty I have probably matched her threefold. More examples could be shared but I'll save all four of our readers from boredom by simply saying: I feel like I was tricked into allowing this K-9 into my home because he occupies more of my time than Elise's.

Recently I have become a master in the arts of dishwashing, laundry, house cleaning, and cooking. It only took two years of marriage, but I finally discovered that if you do your dishes immediately after eating your meal, or do a load of laundry every couple of days, your home avoids chaos and utter disaster. I should also give serious credit to Tower Cleaners for my laundry folding skills. Elise tells me that her clothing and towels have never looked so nice (sorry Verla and Joni). As for cooking, I'm proud to say that I've achieved the near unachievable, I've convinced a Southern Albertan that fish, is in fact, quite a tasty dish when prepared appropriately.

In sum, the past six weeks have been an eye opening experience. I'm grateful for my Mother and Grammy for taking care of me during the first 24 years of my life. However, greater thanks should be given to my extraordinary wife, Elise. She really is extraordinary. In the future she will most likely do a larger portion of the cooking, cleaning, laundry, and dishes, especially when the little ones start coming along. As Miley Cyrus once said about her Liam Hemsworth I will also say about my Loo-who: "I love you more today than I did yesterday, but I will love you more tomorrow than I do today" (I'm sure Miley ripped that quote off from someone else).           

PS I make a killer grapefruit scone!

Start of Summer!!

Summer is kind of almost here. Well as here as it can be in the climate of calgary, alberta, canada! Here are just a few pictures I wanted to post of what Tim and I have been doing lately.

Tim bought a M1 grand. If you didn't know... it is the gun that won the war. He is extremely proud of it. I am glad he got it and he had better enjoy it because he won't be getting another one for a very long time.

We enjoyed the day at the shooting range... I most just soaked up the sun and literally burnt! Curses to my pale white skin.

I definitely hit my target!!!

Here is our sweet little puppy! He is just so wonderful and yes, he did destroy that plastic bag in seconds. He has all of his shots and we are going to the dog park regularly!

We are excited and looking forward to summer fun!

Year 2

This year for our second anniversary we went low key and got all dressed up and went out to a restaraunt named The Lounge (for year 1 we went bungee jumping!). We were a bit overwhelmed by the fanciness of the place but figured it out and for the first course we had cheese fondue. It was divine. To dip in the cheese we had meat, asparagus, tortellini and a mountain of bread. We then had chocolate fondue for dessert!!! That was incredible and I was stuffed after. The chocolate fondue came with a loads of fresh fruit which after dipping in the chocolate could be dipped in the praline nutty stuff. Seriously so good! It was really fun to enjoy a fancy night out.

Tim is chowing down on the fruit and chocolate.

To commemorate each anniversary and watch how we grow I found inspiration on pinterest to take a picture of the last picture each anniversary to show what you were doing. Here is what this looks like:

This is the link to pinterest to show how it will continue to grow. http://pinterest.com/pin/239324167668445395/

We then went to Crescent Heights which overlooks to downtown and is where Tim proposed to me.

What I have learned during year 2:
-Tim is an absolute trooper. He loves me through ALL of my craziness. He will seriously do anything for me.
-We bought a dog and learned that we parent very very differently. Don't fret we will have children one day.
-Resident managing... where to begin... we learned what we really want of life and how to set goals and even though we have some set backs that we just have to re-plan and figure it out together. We have already achieved our goals of getting a dog and Tim got a M1 grand!
-Friends are soooo awesome! They helped us move twice! I am so grateful for the amazing friends in our life. Watching the bachelor is always fun for a girls night and Tim never misses a night to play axis and allies!
-Having during year 2 was fantastic. It was a steep learning curve but it felt sooo good to be out on my own. Tim was such a support when I was frustrated and having rough days at work.
-Tim's grandpa passed away and it was the first real sadness in our marriage. It showed me an entire new side of Tim that I had never really known before. I am so grateful to both of our families for always being there and just supporting us and helping us in everything we do. We appreciate all phone calls, texts and e-mails.

All in all it was a successful year! I love being married to Tim. He is wonderful and I am excited to see what year three has to offer!

conGRADulations!

Tim has finally written his last final and is officially completed his undergrad!!! He will walk the stage on June 5th but I am so proud of him that I couldn't wait that long to blog about it. He double majored in political science and history. I know, I am married to such a smarty pants! He started off his school with quite a bang but then he met me... and his grades slightly suffered. Obviously he doesn't regret the year we dated and were married but it meant that he had to work extra hard for the next two years to improve his grades. He studied his pants off and literally worked for at least a week or more on each of the papers he had to write. In this last year of school he even managed to resident manage and still do well and as previously posted our resident managing was quite a crazy experience! 

When Tim got done his final I had this little surprise waiting for him!

I honestly blew up 50 balloons! My lungs hurt after. I think I enjoyed that more than Tim.

To continue the celebrations we got together with Trevor and Breanna because Trevor also finished his last exam for engineering on the same day as Tim. (Congrats Trevor and good luck with your new job)

Our date was supposed to be a surprise but I forgot and told Tim so then I back tracked and told him that Breanna and I changed our minds. I think he bought it!

The boys were blindfolded and were driven in all sorts of directions because they were trying to keep track so they would know where we were going. They were such good sports! We went to the sushi boat for dinner. It was super fun and we hope to hang out again soon!

So now what?? Tim has been accepted into the UofC for a Masters in Military and Strategic studies. Your thought is most likely similiar to mine.... What?? It slightly shocked me so Tim dilligantly looked into it and sat down with multiple professors to get information on what to do next. He made sure that there are many different jobs and doors available to him through this program. My smarty pants was also accepted into a Masters of History but after much consideration turned it down.

This is directly from the UofC website:
The Centre for Military and Strategic Studies is a research centre at the University of Calgary. Established in 1999, CMSS is a part of the Security and Defence Forum, a valuable network specializing in defence and security studies across Canada.
The Centre has distinctive ties to the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence, and the teaching and research undertaken at CMSS have an impact that exceeds its size with regard to defence and security issues in Canada and internationally.
CMSS is one of the leading centres of Excellence in Military and Strategic Studies in North America.

So there you have it folks... this is what we will be doing for the next two years. Wish us luck!