Winter is still here...

Well, Winter is definitely not done with us here. We've had a pretty good amount of snow recently, and yesterday we got about 4 inches of snow which was then followed by some icy rain... So today we spent about an hour shoveling our sidewalk and driveway, and it was some very heavy wet snow! So, right now we're both feeling very sore and regretting our decision to go to the gym yesterday morning. I took some fun video footage of Guinness catching frisbees in the snow yesterday, and you can see how heavy the snowfall was while we were playing (http://youtu.be/5CK59qEuCZI and http://youtu.be/ihBF6Vkdq_g. He's loooooves catching frisbees and he's so darn good at it!

He always happily prances back to us after catching a frisbee... 

Crazy jumping to catch the frisbee!! 

He's so excited!! 

Oh and we also put a handkerchief on Guinness a few days ago as kind of a joke, but it turns out that he really likes wearing it! He kinda freaks out when we take it off of him, and he'll sit in front of us expectantly until we put it back on him. He's such a goof... He acts the same way with his collar, so we think maybe he just thinks of the handkerchief as a really big collar. I don't think we'll have him wear it for too much longer, but right now it's kinda funny and he really looks handsome in it!

And oh my gosh his ears look HUGE in this picture! He looks like a bat...

We spent our evening last night re-watching some Game of Thrones episodes and we watched some movies (we definitely had to hibernate... it was soooo gross outside). And we also had a nice warm fire going!! It was quite a great night. 

Here's our nice fire (and Jon Snow is on the tv)

And our boy had quite a great evening too... He's not shy at all, if you can't tell. He does this when he wants a belly rub. 

Oh Guinness and his belly rubs... 

Tonight we're just watching the Oscars!!  We're quite excited (well, probably mostly me... but McGee is a very good sport about it :)  ). Today we also went and checked on the house we're in the process of buying (we close next Monday!! AHHHHH!!!!), and it's looking good! We had to check on some of the work that was done on it after the home inspection, and all the work looked great. So... it's getting real!!  It's so close now. Fingers crossed that everything goes well over the next 8 days!!  

Valentine's Day

Our Valentine's Day was a lot of fun! We got a pretty early start and went into the city to look at some wedding rings for McGee, but we struck out there. All of the places we saw online were supposed to open at 9am or 10am, but they lied... I think they just decided not to open that day... Maybe because it was too cold? It was FREEZING, so I can't say I blame them. We were so darn cold when we were walking around. But, all was not lost because we'd planned a bowling trip to this cool bowling alley in the city. So, we went there and bowled a few games, and it was our first time bowling together!! We had so much fun. And McGee won the first game (by a lot...) and I won the 2nd game (by not as much...), so we're going to have to play again soon for a tiebreaker! :)

Here's McGee bowling!!  The bowling alley had a very cool vibe. And they brought food and drinks to you a your lane! We each had a beer and we split some pretzel bites. 

They had a Valentine's Day theme to all of their screens! 

We had a very specific time that we had to make sure we had left the bowling alley by, because we had prospective buyers coming by to see our rental house. So, we had to make sure we were home to let them in and that we had Guinness crated. We thought it was kinda rude for them to come by on Valentine's Day, so we decided to make them feel as awkward as possible by lighting a bunch of candles and we found an awkward romantic movie (Titanic) on TV that we had playing while they showed up. I'm not sure if our strategy worked or if they just hated the house, but they were only here for about 1 minute.

After they left, we decided to take Guinness out to the yard to play with him. It was SOOOO dangerous in our yard! We were sliding around like crazy. We had a bit of snow, but that was on top of solid ice. Our backyard has just been a HUGE block of ice for a week or two (so we haven't been playing out there at all), but then we finally got some snow so we thought that might make it a bit better... but nope. All it did was hide the danger a bit. So, we played out there for a little while, and luckily none of us got hurt! I took a video of our playing back there, which just includes a lot of laughing and sliding around, but unfortunately it's too large to upload to this site... I guess I should've kept it shorter!  I did upload it to YouTube though (it's my first time doing that!), so you should be able to find it here: http://youtu.be/Oe3xRdNuY44

McGee and Guinness! It was still snowing at this point... 

I tried to get a good picture of the solid block of ice below the snow... 

McGee looking exhausted... And Guinness is sliding around in the background. 

Our poor pup was really sliding around like crazy. He had trouble keeping all 4 of his legs under control.

Last night we got a lot of snow though (at least 5 inches I'd say), so today we could really play in the yard without sliding all over.

He's burying his tennis ball... 

You can kinda tell how deep the snow is! 

We always joke that he's our Scarface puppy whenever he has snow all over his face. 

I hope you're all much warmer than we've been here!!

Just a few more weeks...

I can't believe it's mid-February already!!  That means that in just over two weeks we'll be closing on our new house... I haven't wanted to jinx it by getting too excited, but now I'm officially starting to get ridiculously excited.  I can't wait!!!  I'm so excited. Fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong... We're going to start the fun process of packing up our belongings this weekend. My goodness I hate moving... But it is VERY exciting to know that this will be the last time for quite awhile!!! Here's a few pictures of the house:

Here's the front of the house. We learned that that's a plum tree in the front yard.

And here's a side view of the house. Those are some BIG trees, huh? That's why we had the arborist out to look at them. They're all healthy and in good shape though.

We've been watching some of the movies that are nominated for Oscars! I love to watch the Oscars (I like looking at all of the outfits...), and it's way more fun if we've seen some of the movies that have lots of nominations. So far we've seen:
The Imitation Game (amazing... and Benedict Cumberbatch was awesome in it)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (loved it so much)
The Theory of Everything (now I get why that actor is winning all of the Best Actor awards...)
American Sniper (rough movie...)
Boyhood (it was ok)
Gone Girl (whoa...)
Whiplash (just saw it tonight... whoa... way more intense than I thought it'd be)
Big Hero 6 (an animated nomination... sooo cute!!)
How to Train Your Dragon 2 (another animated nomination... loved it so much)

So, we've seen a LOT already, but don't worry - it was spread out over many months. I still want to see Selma, Birdman, Foxcatcher, and Boxtrolls (another animated nomination), but I'm not sure if we'll have time to see all of them before the Oscars (I think that's next weekend? Can that be right?).

I hope you all have a great weekend!!

Guinness is 2 years old!!

Guinness had his 2nd birthday two days ago (February 2)!!  I can't believe he's already two. We have his vet check-up tonight, so hopefully all goes well there. I'll keep you posted! In the meantime, here are some pictures of my little guy.

Here he is as a little puppy:

And here he is a little older... 

And here he is now:

He loves to play with fetch with tennis balls and he loves to jump for frisbees! 

This is when Guinness tries to sit like a human... He looks so proper. 

He loves the snow!!

He loooooves to cuddle and nap near us. My goodness we love this little (55 pound) guy! He's such a good dog. 

Blizzard?

Well, after all of the hype and craziness about the massive blizzard that was supposed to hit us, we didn't really see much of the storm at all. We got about 4 or 5 inches total for the past two days, which was totally manageable and no big deal. Especially since the highest prediction I'd heard was 36 inches, and the lowest I'd heard was 14 inches... so... 4 or 5 was NOTHING compared to what they were saying! I think New Jersey and parts of New York got pretty walloped by the storm, but I'm glad we didn't experience the blizzard they were predicting for our area.

So, aside from a little bit of shoveling, the snow wasn't really an inconvenience at all for our area. Guinness has been LOVING our snow-filled yard, and I'm happy to report that he's been napping quite soundly for a few hours already today. He's exhausted! Yay! I took some pictures of our area, and a bunch of Guinness playing in the yard:

Running... 

Running... 

And running! 

Chewing on his frozen tennis ball... 

That is a very snow-covered tennis ball he's holding in his mouth. He loves to chew the snow off. 

So this is a big stream that seems to have developed behind our yard... It's just a bunch of snow melt. I took this picture earlier today, and I just went and checked on it again and now it's pretty much just a bunch of mud. 

Here's Guinness checking out the stream. It's usually pretty dry back there! In fact, one of Guinness's tennis balls got over our fence a few days ago and was in that area... We hadn't had the chance to go get it, so I think it's officially gone now! 

 I hope everyone is staying warm and dry!

Winter winter winter...

This past weekend was super fun, but the weather was kinda un-fun!!  It snowed a decent amount on Friday night (and it wasn't even supposed to snow that night!), and then on Saturday it was freezing rainy grossness, and then the temperature got ABOVE freezing by late morning, which meant everything turned to slush!!  There was just deep icy slush everywhere. McGee and I walked up to this awesome diner near us for breakfast, and for the first time ever there was no wait! I guess no one else wanted to go out in the slushy mess. I took a few pictures:

McGee!

Here's some of the slush we were walking through... 

McGee standing in some of it! 

This part was sooo bad. Some of the slush had totally melted and was just like 2 inches of cold water we had to walk through! 

This was our driveway! We sorta kinda "shoveled" it so that it wouldn't just freeze into an icy block when the temperature dropped at night. The "shoveling" was actually just pushing the slush to the sides of the driveway. 

Guinness looking super sleepy after an afternoon of running around the slushy yard!! He loved playing fetch in the slushy yard, but I think it was quite exhausting for him.

Today and tomorrow we're supposed to get a pretty big snowstorm I think. I've heard predictions for just a few inches per day, to a prediction for the biggest storm our area has ever seen (with like 3 feet of snow or something). So... who knows. It could end up being just some flurries, or it could actually be something massive. I'll keep you posted and take lots of pictures if it turns into something crazy. McGee brought a few changes of clothes to work today, just in case he ends up having to stay because of road conditions. And Guinness and I are all set with lots of food, bottled water, and flashlights just in case there's a worst-case-scenario. I'm not too worried, so don't worry!!  I hope everyone is staying warm and dry!! 

Guinness the Cuddler

Our dear Guinness has become quite the cuddler! He's always enjoying snuggling up on the couch, usually by our legs or something, but lately he's been getting way more in-your-face about cuddling!!  He literally gets right up in your face. Here are some pictures of some of his recent cuddly times! Please ignore my enormous and bulky winter sweater/blanket thing... It keeps me warm during this freezing weather!

He's watching some TV with me... And no, there is NOT much room next to me on the couch. He's squeezed into like a 4 inch space (and mostly laying on top of me).

Then he passed out... 

And now he decided to cuddle my face, which was cracking me up. 

And then he fell asleep like this... We were like this for awhile

He's too darn funny. He had his front leg draped over me.