Happy 31 Andrew Eugster!

SpokaVegas

After spending a very merry Christmas with the Brookses in Redmond, Steve, Lucy, and I packed up and headed to Spokane to stay for a bit. We were greeted with loads of snow, which it turns out, is great fun for Lucy. Lucy has been trained to ring bells in order to go outside to go "potty", but she rang her bells every chance she could just to go and play in the snow. Just about every day, we took her to the tennis courts at Comstock Park, which is the half-way mark between our parents' houses. For those of you who are unaware, the Brookses and Walther parents live less than a mile from each other. Steve and I used to ride the school bus together in high school. Yes, it's quite a cute story.

We started off playing fetch with balls, but those were lost in the snow quite quickly. Lucy would take off running with one in her mouth, dropping it along the way, not to be recovered until the big thaw. We switched to a rubber frisbee and Lucy became quite a fan. She even learned to catch it on the fly. We're hoping to take her snowshoeing this winter in the Cascades. We are constantly scheming of ways to wear her out. It allows us to get some exercise along the way as well.

While in Spokane, we had the great opportunity of celebrating New Year's Eve. We signed up for First Night, which is a big organized even where dozens of performers put on shows around downtown Spokane and you can walk between them and catch as many as possible- all for $15. We saw some great Irish musicians and dancers at Lewis and Clark High School (our alma mater) and also saw some great comedians, Brothers from Different Mothers (http://www.differentmothers.com/)in in the Central Methodist Church sanctuary. Strange place for a comedy show, but check them out...they were pretty intertaining. We wrapped up the evening with hot butter rums while watching "Home of the Brave", which was just filmed in Spokane- 2 houses away from my parents. Not the greatest movie, but it was fun to see some familiar places- including Steve's elementary school. 50 Cent was in the movie... I'm still wondering what happened to his metal teeth.

We also got to relax a lot with our parents and Steve and has dad had some quality time down in the shop making cabinet doors for our bathroom. All in all, our visit was great. It was hard to leave!

Thanks for a great visit in Spokane M & D Brooks and Walther! We'll be back soon.

Oh Christmas Tree!

Steve and I (mostly me) were kind of scrooges this year. Since we're just starting out and both of us (namely me) are a bit frugal with purchases, we have yet to procure many Christmas or "holiday" decorations. As a last-minute attempt to be festive, Steve and I bought a Merry Christmas sign for our TV cabinet as well as our first Christmas tree as a married couple. I hope a few of you will get a chuckle out of it. I'm also assuming it will leave a few of you perplexed. We'll try harder next year.

Urban Hiking

We discovered a great spot right near us that makes us feel like we are hiking in the Cascades (a little).

Shoreview Park along Boeing Creek has some great trails and spots to explore. The heavy rains last month washed out spots in the trail, but it's still easy to get around.

Lucy loved walking in the creek, and with her new vest it was a little easier to keep an eye on here. She ventured a bit farther out of sight than we liked once, so we need to do a refresher course on listening. I think that might be an ongoing class for years to come.

It's nice to have a little sanctuary of nature in town. Makes it feel like there still is a little dirt left unpaved.

Lucy doesn't mind the fun smells and muddy trails either. In fact I think she kinda likes it.

I know there's food in here...

Grammar Lesson

As an English teacher, I find myself studying the English language making sure I understand the ins and outs before I teach it. I often find myself doubting or wondering why something is the way it is. For instance, I never stopped to think about the rules for the simple present tense in English. I understand the rules for the same thing in Spanish, but I had to learn them by trial and error so I could teach them to my non-English speaking students. If you're wondering, the verb stays the same except for the 3rd person singular (he/she/it), which gets an "s" at the end. I jump, you jump, he/she/it jumps, we jump, you all jump, they jump. Interesting...not really, but it's how I spend my days.

When I got married, I had to stop and study how to write my new name, Brooks. Jenny Brooks is only one person, but it ends with an "s", so what do you do when it suddenly becomes plural and there are more than one Brooks? Well, here is what I found out...

Jenny Brooks (Singular)
The Brookses (more than one Brooks)
Mrs. Brooks's classroom (singular possessive)...looks funny, but it's correct
The Brookses' house (plural possessive) ...looks even funnier

Who would have thunk...

If you're interested in other common errors in English, this website by a WSU professor Paul Brians is amazing. http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html. I'm hoping to get his book or desk calendar for Christmas. I'm a dork.

Snugglebug

Since it's now quite cold outside, Lucy has become quite fond of the indoors. She spends most of her time napping, pacing until her next meal, and being cute. She enjoys snuggling, but it's become a bit more difficult now that she's 50 pounds. One of the first things we learned in puppy class was to flip her onto her back and hold her there until she submits. It takes a bit of effort for me to flip her now, but she doesn't fight nearly as hard as she used to. She actually doesn't fight at all...she passes out...and then starts snoring.

What is this white fluffy stuff??

So after our smelly and messy experience with the dogpark, I went out and promply bought some rubber boots that could withstand the smelliest poo. Lucy was a big fan of the new rubber tire smell that came with my boots.

The boots came just in time because we got a nice dumping of snow last weekend. It was little Lucy's first snowfall and she looked out the window wondering what the hell was going on out there!

We let her outside and she started jumping and trying to catch all those little flakes. She couldn't quite grasp that the little flakes melted in her mouth (kinda like M&Ms but different). She ran around like a banchee around the yard revelling in the newness of the whole thing.

We took her over to the park across the street and let her run and frolic in a little more space.