My dog, the baby robin killer

Sadie got her first bird of the season this weekend. I tried to prevent it, but it all happened so fast. She had had her eye on it for a while, always going back to the lilac bushes to sniff it out. And then on Saturday I took her out with me to take out the trash and there they were, two of them on the ground. Sadie froze to a point and I looked over and it all happened in a flash. I don't think I've ever seen her move that fast and she chomped down on the one. I hollered, but it was too late. She did one more chomp and then dropped it and ran to me in excitement. I dropped my bags of garbage and went to see if there was any sign of life, and there was none. The baby was gone and Sadie was so proud. And so was Shawn. So here I am feeling guilty for trying to attract birds with a feeder and bird house, and little do they know a killer is in their midst.

Movies, Grilling and Mackenzie the chicken

We watched a couple of movies this weekend. Friday night we watched The Number 23 with Brad and April. It was alright, pretty dark. It keeps you guessing and it has a cute bulldog in it. :) Jim Carey did a decent job, but towards the end he was doing a dramatic scene and I kept expecting him to break into Ace Ventura. So that kinda ruined it for me. :P
Saturday night we watched Zodiac. I'm a sucker for movies based on a true story. This one is based on the Zodiac killer, the serial killer in California in the late 60's who they never caught. The murder scenes are pretty graphic. Robert Downey Jr. did a fantastic job in it. So we've had our share of dark movies lately, I'm ready for a chic flick or something! 300 comes out tomorrow, so I guess there isn't hope for this week.
Shawn put our grill together on Saturday, so we grilled up some chicken breasts last night for dinner. . .Yummy!
Sunday we took the nieces and our neighbor's grandson to the park to play wiffle ball. We were taking a water break and Mackenzie declared, "Hey look- I laid an egg!" We all looked over and she popped up to show the wiffle ball under her. I thought it was hilarious!

Getting Carded

I forgot to share this story!
A couple of weeks ago I went to Wal-Mart and bought some cold medicine. I was at the self-checkout and I scanned the cold medicine and the red light went on. The supervisor came over and said, "Oh. I'll have to see some I.D. for the cold medicine." My response was, "Really? How old do you have to be?" She said 18. I said, "You're kidding me. Well I guess I should take that as a compliment, to look 10 years younger." So I gave her my I.D. and laughed. It's true, the day comes when you do appreciate it!

Dumb Grackles

Well the grackles are nice and fat now. I see them pigging out while all the little birds watch. I would take my BB gun out, but one guy last week did that to shoot down a hornets nest and someone called the cops on him and they brought in the Cody SWAT team. I think they brought in the SWAT only because there was a shooting at our Wal-Mart a couple weeks prior. That's a crazy story--this guy that had a 20-year vendetta against another guy shot at him riding on a motorcycle in front of the entrance to WM. He's been charged with attempted murder and some other stuff. He is like 60 years old, and a bad shot I guess cuz he didn't come close. But other people were walking out of WM so they were put in danger. Pretty crazy stuff for little ol' Cody. Then that same week we had a bomb scare at the airport...some guy had a some party toys in his bag that looked like a bomb, so they shut down the airport and the highway and flew in the national guard and bomb squads and stuff. Better safe than sorry I guess.

Our weekend

We had a nice weekend...
Friday night we played ping pong on the Xbox. It was fun! We split matches.
Saturday we drove up to see Christy, Ryan and Rylin in Billings. We went to the mall and Costco and a couple other stores. Ryan's family was gracious enough to have us for a family bbq. The steak was sooooo yummy! Rylin was such a doll. She likes her Aunt Cheri, until she has to wipe her dirty face! :) It's so cute to see her signing, and talking a little too. She tripped and bonked her forehead on the piano stool...poor thing. She recovered quickly though. I was impressed. :) No blood, no foul. Other than the heat, we had a great day!
Sunday, I was in the nursery for church and Shawn worked on the yard. I don't think the birds have found my bell feeder yet. :( I'll see robins under it every once in a while, but never on it.
We haven't seen any movies lately. Christy, what did you think of the Adam Sandler movie?

My niece, Rylin

I just had to share this picture with everyone...is she not the cutest little thing you've ever seen?

Apocalypto goro

We had another warm weekend in Cody. Friday night we had Brad and April over. April and I meet for prayer every other Friday. We have been challenged and encouraged, and have seen God move on our behalf! We are so thankful for their friendship and will miss them very much when they move back to Michigan this fall.
Saturday I cleaned the house and Shawn took care of the yard. I love my new Tri Star vacuum! I just got my new floor attachment in the mail today; I'm very excited to give it a try. I finally got my bell bird feeder hung in the apple tree and put the bird house in it as well. Now we're just waiting for the birds to find them! As soon as they do I'll post some pictures. :) We rented Apocalypto and watched it that evening... wow. It was extremely difficult to watch. It would be one thing if it was just Hollywood, but because it is a historical portrayal, the pagan ritual scene is mortifying. It was very demonic, and Mr. Gibson makes that very clear. I must say the birthing scene was the best. Shoot me a comment if you don't want to see the movie, but want to know what I mean. :) I would have enjoyed a more edited version of this movie. And the jaguar was a little too fake for me.
We had a good service Sunday morning...9 visitors. The congregation sounded like a large choir praising the Lord! That is such a blessing to me. I was able to find the chords to lead the old hymn "He Set Me Free." It is one of my favorites so that was fun! "He set me free, yes, He set me free. He broke the bonds of prison for me. I'm glory bound, my Jesus to see. Glory to God, He set me free!"

Creation defeats evolution

We are watching Kent Hovind's creation science videos during our Wednesday night Bible Study. Shawn went to one of Dr. Hovind's seminars in Rapid City back when we lived in Spearfish. Since Shawn had taken alot of biology courses, he had been fed alot of evolution crap. He learned so much at the seminar that he keeps up with his stuff at www.drdino.com. So when we were looking for a new topic for Wednesday nights, I mentioned the videos and everyone got excited and said they wanted to see them. The first couple of weeks we downloaded them from the website and watched them, but then Shawn was able to find the dvd's on ebay. So tonight we watched from the dvd. I have to laugh...every time I stop the video because our time is up the people complain. They want to keep watching! They are that good! :) We started off with the age of the earth seminar. Dr. Hovind proves how the earth is NOT millions or billions of years old. It is approximately 6000 years old and 4400 years ago there was a flood that covered the whole earth. I encourage everyone to check his website and download at least one video and watch it. You'll get hooked! He is very comical, as well as informative. So instead of renting a movie this weekend, check out a video online and let me know what you think! Here is the direct link http://www.drdino.com/downloads.php

My puking dog

So I'm sitting outside talking to my parents on the phone last evening and letting Sadie roam the yard...so many smells, so little time outside. At one point I saw her eating grass so I yelled at her and my dad asked me why, so I told him she was eating grass again. He said dogs do that to settle their stomachs. Well my dog does it and she pukes it right up, so doesn't seem too settled of a stomach to me. So lo-and-behold, this morning at 6 am she waltzes into my room and starts puking! She must have gotten to more grass than I saw because it was quite a bit! Yuk! I was so mad, just what I want to do is wake up at 6 am to clean up dog vomit! I know what many of you are thinking...good preparation for parenthood. Right? Well that's why we have a dog. But I don't think I'm EVER going to enjoy cleaning up vomit. It really makes me want hardwood floors all over the house! :) So when I got to work I was telling my coworker about it and she said dogs eat grass to induce vomiting because they need to. Hearing these 2 different stories made me search online for an explanation and here is what I found out ... they have no clue why dogs eat grass and vomit. I had to laugh because one article said what I was thinking ... you would think they would have figured this one out by now. But they made a good point, we haven't found a dog that can tell us. :) I think Sadie just likes the taste of it, and knows she doesn't have to clean up the mess!

Yellowstone ... finally!

So after almost 3 years in Cody, the east gate to Yellowstone National Park, I finally got to go in! Memorial Day weekend our best friends from Rapid City, John and Kristin, came to stay with us and on Saturday we took a day trip into the Park. It was John's first time too, so made it double special! Our first critter-sighting was 2 playful rock chucks at a rest area. There were a ton of bison, a coyote crossed the road right in front of our car, we saw a few elk and 2 grizzlies. Unfortunately we didn't see moose. We stopped at Old Faithful and did the walk around after it finally blew. I think we waited over 45 minutes. (It's suppose to blow every 20.) And I didn't get a picture of it blowing because my batteries went dead in my camera right before it blew. But Kristin got pictures so we have hard copies! Towards the end of the loop this really big guy wearing a Jacksonville Jaquars sweatshirt came walking towards us with his wife. I was staring because he really stuck out and I noticed he had Jaguar shorts on too. So then when he went past us I saw the number 92 on the back of his sweatshirt. I told Shawn I bet he was a player and a minute later he was walking towards us and then asked Shawn if he would take their picture! It was so funny! If my batteries weren't dead I would have taken a picture of Shawn taking their picture! So when we got home we looked it up and it was Rob Meier, D-Tackle for the Jaguars! Britt, you'll have to ask Eric if he remembers him...he is his age and played for Washington State. In fact, this guy's birthday is 8/29/77. Isn't that super close to Eric's? Anyway, Shawn had predicted a celebrity sighting when we pulled up to Old Faithful (it was PACKED), and we got one...well, sort of. :)

My Sadie-girl and my weekend

Here is a picture of my baby, Shay. She is camera-shy, so I don't have very many good pictures. This was taken the end of March. She had fun frolicking through all the snow. She is usually pretty prissy , like she always goes around water puddles and stuff. We think she is part Springer, part German Shorthair. We got her at the Humane Society, so you never know.

Yesterday we watched the nieces most of the day. We played wiffle ball for a while, but had to come in because it was so hot. It cooled off today, a nice relief. Church was actually bearable today with the cooler breeze coming in the windows. We had a picnic and pie auction to raise money for re-finishing our basement fellowship hall. I ended up with 2 pies...I was just trying to get the bidding going on a chocolate pie and got stuck with it! At least it was only $10 and a yummy pie!

Movies

Shawn and I watch quite a bit of movies, so this could be the topic for a few of my posts. A really good one we saw recently was "Breach." It is based on the true story (almost identical if you check out his story on wikipedia) of FBI agent, Robert Hanssen, who was selling secrets to Russia for years. Chris Cooper (from Seabiscuit) does an excellent job playing Hanssen. He is currently serving life in prison for espionage in Colorado and has been in the hole for the past 6 years for 23 hours a day. He is a devout Catholic with a dark side, and not only having to do with being a traitor. I think it would be fascinating to interview him now. And I pray he finds the real Jesus, our Deliverer, in that hole. I would recommend this movie.
We watched "Shooter" with Mark Walberg earlier this week... what a disappointment. It was the perfect Hollywood movie, and that's all I'm going to say about it. Oh, I will say that the scene that they say is in the Wind River Canyon in Wyoming, not even close. I would discourage you from seeing it, unless you like the perfect Hollywood type.
Last night we watched "Hannibal Rising." This is a very, very dark and gorie movie, as are the rest of them. But I think it is probably the darkest because it shows why he became what he became. I won't give too many details, but it has to do with what happened to him and his family in WWII. Basically, revenge drives him mad. At one point in the movie it is said to him, "You must forgive them." And of course, he doesn't. Only if you really like the other Hannibal movies, would I recommend seeing this one. But I'd rather watch a story of forgiveness.
So that is this week's movie review. :)

I Love Panda Bears

Is this not the sweetest thing you've ever seen? This mama had twins on Thursday, I believe, in China. They were only 4.3 inches...talk about an easy birth! :) (Pandas have the largest growth rate among mammals.) The panda in the tree is Tai Shan. He is the cub at the National Zoo in DC. But he's not looking much like a cub anymore! The National Zoo has a webcam that you can watch on the Animal Planet's webpage. Tai Shan can be quite entertaining when he's not sleeping, which is most of the day. It's a dream of mine to go see him, but any panda would do. I think there are only 4 zoos in the States that have pandas, and I think San Diego is the closest one to us. Since Shawn's dream to see The Police in concert came true, his goal is to have my dream come true and visit the San Diego zoo! Maybe next year?

I know one day I'll get to frolic with them during the millenial reign of Christ! "The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them." (Isaiah 11:6)

Rainbow: A Covenant Reminder

"I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life." (Genesis 9:13-15) I took this picture the end of May from the softball diamonds. It was such a beautiful rainbow. It was almost as if it ended right in that field. The Lord likes covenant reminders. Like wedding rings! They are a reminder of our covenant of marriage. Partaking in Communion is a covenant reminder! I've been learning alot about covenant lately; I even preached on it a couple of weeks ago. It's really an amazing study. Our God is a God of covenant, not a far-off, live-as-you-will God that some make Him out to be. He desires a "til death do us part" relationship just like our spouse desires. Except with Him it's "til death bring us together"! :)

Getting Started

I've had so much fun reading Brittany's blogs, that I decided to start my own. If I do as well at this as keeping a diarie/journal, it'll be a complete failure! :) But I'm going to try real hard, so we'll see how it goes.

We went to the Stampede Parade this morning and got a little sunburned. We met a classmate of Shawn's from high school and his wife there. It was my first time meeting them and they seem to be really cool. Troy and Shawn have been going fishing and they're looking forward to bird hunting this fall. We'll be going over to Shawn's parents to watch the fireworks tonight.

Well that's all for now. I have ideas brewing for future blogs, so this should be fun! :)