Success and a sneaky dog...

Tom finished the fence! Yay! I helped him last weekend to finish up the gates and a few odds and ends. It is wonderful. I am so proud of my husband. Take a looksee:





About 3 days after the fence was finished, Tom came home from work to find that Clive was missing. Oh but he did not escape through the fence my friends...he busted through the screen on the screened porch. That dog is dying for an adventure. So we had to put some wire up on the bottom half of the screened porch to keep him from getting out. As my neice Kyleigh would say, he's "neaky neaky!". Here's the wired up porch as well as our neighbors nice well-behaved, non adventure seeking dog, Casey. She's a sweetheart.

Progress

A while back, Clive figured out how to get out of the fence in the backyard. It was the fence that was up when we moved in; just a 3 ft. high, flexible, wire fence. When we moved in, we knew it was only a matter of time until he figured out that he could just jump over it. Well he's been getting cabin fever from being in the house so much now that he's started to chew things up again...like my WORK CELL PHONE. It was in about 10 pieces. Fortunately, they did not make me pay to replace it, but rather laughed and told me to feed my dog more. So that kind of sped up our new fence plans. Last weekend, Tom's parents came to visit and Tom and his stepdad dug all the post holes and then cemented in all of the posts for the fence. Here are some pics:





We bought all of the rest of the wood that we would need this week, and then yesterday, Tom and our friend Ryan (thanks again Ryan!) started putting up the runner boards and really got the fence going! Tom worked on it some more today. It's gonna be so awesome when it's done! Here's how it looks so far:




While Tom and I weren't looking, Clive snuck inside and brought his duck back outside. You know how little kids often have a favorite stuffed animal or little blanket that they always want with them and usually sleep with? That's what this duck is like for Clive. I just had to snap a few pics.

Reason number 4,085 why my job is CRAZY

Today, while working, I got peed on by a dog. INSIDE A HOUSE. Here's the scene: I was at this house investigating a new CPS report. I had just sat down at the kitchen table with the two adults in the household. I set my (very nice) briefcase/purse down next to my chair. Shortly after, 1 of the 3 small dogs in the house ever so casually lifted his leg and proceeded to pee on my bag. I grabbed the bag up quickly and the woman apologized and wiped it off with a towel. She advised me to not put my bag on the floor because "he does that". So I put the bag on the back of my chair and continued my discussion. About 2 minutes later, that blasted dog lifted his leg again and peed ON MY LEG. Thankfully I was wearing long pants, but it got all over the bottom of my pants and my shoe. DID THAT REALLY JUST HAPPEN? WHAT!? SERIOUSLY?!.....I'm speechless...

Snow on the Pamlico

What a beautiful day all around. A new President that brings hope for the future. A tasty venison stew cooking on the stove. Excited for a fun night of college basketball, American Idol, and The Biggest Loser. And the snow is still coming down here in "Little Washington". Here are a few pics.
Our cute little house all covered in snow.
Cliveman checking out the scene.
Downtown on the boardwalk.
The frigid river.
Lots of snow!

Back inside, trying to stay warm in his chair.

A Favorite

In light of college basketball season really getting going now, I've
decided to post one of my all time favorite YouTube videos. I'm not
lying when I tell you that this video makes me laugh EVERY SINGLE
TIME...of course I'm not biased or anything...

That's a Good Boy

I realize that I blog a lot about my dog, but we don't have kids yet, so cut me some slack. So we went to Goldsboro for New Year's Eve this year to hang out w/ our friends, Bryan and Lindsay. Well of course we had to bring Clive and they are always
gracious enough to let him play in their backyard w/ the other dogs. They have 2 labs and a giant St. Bernard. While we were there, I casually walked over to the window to check on Clive and totally caught him having an intimate moment: Clive was laying down and the St. Bernard was licking him as if he was bathing one of his pups. Clive was LOVING IT. I didn't want to make them stop so I snapped some pictures through the window (hence the blurriness). It was so stinking cute...and kinda gross at the same time. Note how my 70 lb. dog pails in comparison to this beast. Here are the pics plus a little video of Clive playing fetch for his mama.

The Visions In My Head

We bought this house about 5 months ago. I had big plans. I still do. I'm just realizing now that this is going to be a looong process. Literally every day I think about the things I want to do to this house; paint colors, furniture, window treatments, additions, etc. We haven't got to any of those yet, BUT...we have begun to tackle the yard. Fortunately, we have some family members with very green thumbs who were gracious enough to help us rookies out. When we moved in, there was a huge tree right in front of the house. The first picture is right after we had the tree taken out (it was dying and a hazard) when there was still lumber all over the yard. The other pictures were taken after we had done some work. Everything we planted is really young and small right now and probably won't look that great for another year or so. You can also see where we planted a new maple tree in place of the tree we took out.