Meet Molly

We got a dog last Sunday! Her name is Molly, and she's a year-old hound mix (my guess is basset and lab). We got her from Second Chance in Norman, and she is the most wonderful dog I could imagine (minus the shedding). We're still struggling a little with the potty training from time to time, but she's doing quite well, considering her big transition.

She's very calm and I can hardly get her excited about anything. This is just the temperament I wanted, but she still has enough energy to go running with Levi (and set a great pace, from what I hear).

She is terrified of the coffee grinder and vacuum cleaner and will go hide in our closet until they stop. She's also scared of most other dogs (unless they are calm, like her).

It's been great having her around on the nights Levi works. Once we get in a routine and she gets the potty training down, I'll have no complaints!

Snow Day

Check out my snow day fun with my sister Lindsay and nephew Grayson.

Adventures in B'ville

This weekend, Levi and I ventured to Bartlesville for a short getaway while I was off work for MLK Jr. Day. It turns out that January, Sundays and Mondays are the worst times to go to Bartlesville because almost all the tourist attractions are closed. Nevertheless, we managed to have a great time!

We stayed at Price Tower, which is Frank Lloyd Wright's only realized skyscraper that was built in the 1950s. It used to be an office building, but it now houses an art gallery and 19 hotel rooms. It was a really fun experience to stay there.

When we arrived Sunday, we started our adventure by taking a guided tour of Price Tower. A few of the floors have been restored to look like they did when the Tower was built (office spaces and residential apartments). It was amazing how Frank Lloyd Wright designed everything about the place, including the office furniture, light fixtures and even the waste baskets. The room we stayed in was part of the Inn at Price Tower, and it was a converted office space. It was neat to imagine the business deals, smoke, etc. that used to fill that room.

After our tour, we checked into our room and headed to Murphy's to eat a late lunch. It had come highly recommended by my dad and Levi's partner Chad for the Hot Hamburger, which is an open-face burger covered in french fries and brown gravy. Levi had it and said it was great.

After lunch, we drove around town exploring and found ourselves at Starbucks (surprise!) and spent an hour or so playing Battleship and Checkers while drinking hot drinks. It was nice to just pass the time with no responsibilities.

This morning, we slept in and then hung around the hotel room watching the Today show. What a wonderfully lazy morning! Once we got up and around, we had lunch at a local mexican restaurant (that was not very tasty, unfortunately) and then visited an antique mall. We finished our mini vacation with a trip to the Phillips Petroleum Museum.

Phillips Petroleum's over 15,000 patents!

We look forward to going back sometime to visit the things that were closed while we were there like Woolaroc, Frank Phillips' home, the Candle Museum and some neat restaurants.

What's New

I haven't had much to blog about lately, but here's what's new at our house:

• An automatic garage door opener is currently being assembled in my living room. I gave this to Levi for Christmas and he's slowly putting it together an hour or so each day. He informed me today that it's ready to be mounted, but that's another can of worms that includes reinforcing the garage ceiling and door so it may be awhile until it's finished, considering Levi's small amount of free time. Nevertheless, I'm excited about being able to pull right into our garage sometime soon!
• We're headed to Bartlesville this weekend. Levi and I have two whole days off together (Sunday and Monday) so we decided to take the opportunity for a mini vacation. My personal Oklahoma tourism expert/sister suggested we stay at Price Tower in Bartlesville, which is a skyscraper designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. While we're there, we plan to tour the building, visit the art gallery there and visit the Phillips 66 Museum. Lin also said there's a mall and a neat downtown area, so I'm sure we'll check that out, too.
• Levi found out that the Norman Fire Department plans to accept applications in June (or sooner if everything goes exactly as planned, which is unlikely). Hopefully the second time is the charm. This time around, he has a year's worth of experience as an EMT at EMSA (which Levi said is like five years' worth of experience at any other service, considering their call volume), he's kept up a conversational relationship with the fire chief at our gym and we bought a house in Norman (Levi said that shows we're committed to the community and staying here). Considering all that and Lord willing, he'll get the job this time.

Weekend Project #3: Kitchen Sink

As many of you probably know, I'm a stickler for organization. I get quite a bit of pleasure from organizing/filing/cleaning and simply making life a little less chaotic. Since we moved into our new house, the catch-all place for any rarely used items in our (extremely small!) kitchen has been under the sink. Although it's driven me crazy since day one, I didn't bother to do anything about it until last weekend. After all, it was just too easy to close the cabinet doors and forget about the whole mess.

Here's the before:

I know what you're thinking but, no, I did not dramatize this photo. All of that actually fell out when I opened the doors. You see my problem.

After:

Clearly, this project was so worth it! I had to move a few bigger kitchen appliances (espresso machine and george foreman grill) to the garage, but I don't think that will be a problem since we don't use them on a daily basis. I'm especially happy with our new, bigger recycle bin in the middle. Now we won't have recyclables overflowing out of the bin if we wait a day or two to take them outside. 

Now for those unruly cabinets in the hall....

2010 in review

I'm giving in to the peer pressure of writing a wrap-up post about 2010, even though I don't consider the year to be that blogworthy. Overall, I think 2010 was a great year. It was pretty stress-free for me, but quite the opposite for Levi, as he's still trying to get on with a fire department (hopefully Norman FD will work out in 2011!).

Here are a few big events of the year:

• Levi started working for EMSA as an EMT-B
• Levi started taking classes at Oklahoma City Community College to get his paramedic certification
• We bought our first house
• We celebrated our first year of marriage
• We vacationed in the Outer Banks (NC)
• I got a "promotion" (really just more responsibilities at my job)
• We grew to love University Fellowship Church even more and worked to invest in relationships there

I think that, ultimately, this was a year of growth and maturity for us. I feel like Levi and I are finally settling in to this grown-up life, and it's really not so bad. I still miss the long breaks we got in college, though!

We're really excited to see what 2011 brings. We don't have any plans (except for Levi's job change, Lord-willing), so everthing that happens will be a surprise! I think it's best that way. Bring on the surprises!