Allison's Puppies

A few weeks ago we went to visit Allison's puppies before they were sent off to new homes. There were 13 puppies: 11 yellow and 2 black labrador puppies. They were all over the place! It was awesome to see them flock to their food dishes and spin in a circle around the dish as they all fought to eat in the crowd. They were so cute all squished up inside their doghouse too.

Ryan's Haircut

BEFORE---------------------&----------------------AFTER

Look how much happier and how much more fit and coordinated he looks AFTER having his hair cut. It was quite long for him, just over 4 inches. I liked it, but he wanted it cut for some reason so I finally gave in and cut it. Too bad. He might have been on his way to an afro, like the one in the pictures below!

Happy Halloween!

I dressed up like a witch for Halloween at work, but I was totally outdone by Julie's wig!

Since it was soooooo cool, we all tried it on . . . including our fish!

  

P.S. The coolest part of my costume was the tights & another cool thing about our Halloween night was our meal: jack-o-lantern pizza.

Our Future Dog

Ryan & I helped out at an auction where this cutest-puppy-ever was an item to be auctioned off. He was such a snuggly, fluffy, happy Golden Retriever puppy. I wanted to keep him! Maybe someday...

My Favorite Cousin Came to Visit!

I am so lucky that my favorite cousin, Rachel, married someone from Washington! She just came up to visit her in-laws last weekend, so Ryan & I met up with her and her cute family for a huge-portioned dinner at Claim Jumper.

And, yes, we did eat all of this cake aptly named "The Motherlode."

Making Apple Cider

This weekend, we got together with Ryan's family for the age-old Barrett tradition of making homemade apple cider. We enjoyed every stage of the process, which started with picking apples in their orchard.

Some of us were hoisted up to the higher branches in the tractor bucket, which was quite fun! Ryan really enjoyed being the driver and bucket controller. The Ross kids sure are fast apple pickers!


Then, we helped wash the apples before sending them through the crushing and pressing machine.

I hadn't seen a real pear tree before last Saturday, so I took a picture of these beautiful pears hanging like ornaments. I kept looking around for a partridge . . . maybe it will show up in a few months.

Overall, the cider making was a happy and tasty experience for everyone!

Under the Sea

We bought a $10.00 underwater camera while in Maui and took some pictures of our scuba diving and snorkeling adventures. Unfortunately, most of the pictures didn't turn out that well, but what can you expect from a $10.00 camera even on land!


Here's Scuba Diver Ryan sporting a stylish underwater do.


And here's our good friend Crush. We really enjoyed hanging out with him and many other members of his cool family. It was a totally awesome experience!


Here's Ryan having a conversation with Crush.
R: So how long have you lived here?
C: Dude, like forever.
R: Oh wow. And what do you like to do around here?
C: I mostly like to goo-goo-ga-choo in the big old blue.
R: Really? And what exactly does that entail . . . swimming?
C: Cha dude . . . and surfing of course.

MAUI . . . is what bwings us togethah today!

Ryan & I enjoyed a 10-day vacation on Maui with our friends John & Emily. We had a great time relaxing on the beach, swimming/snorkeling/surfing, seeing dolphins, hiking to waterfalls & blowholes, biking down the Haleakala volcano, and just enjoying the beauties of Maui!



        

Our New Favorite Guy

Woohoo for Michael Phelps . . . what an amazing swimmer!

Here's the earliest picture of Michael Phelps. He was born to greatness!

Dr. Ryan

Ryan's research mentor sent me this picture of Ryan in action. I'd never seen him in scrubs before. I think he looks pretty official . . . and cute!

A Day On The Water

Ryan & I got to go crabbing, fishing, & whale watching with Ryan's dad, brother, & sister.

It was so cool pulling up each of the crab pots and seeing how many crabs were in them. We caught a total of 56 crabs but kept 14 of the biggest, and threw all the smaller crabs and females back.

We fished while waiting for all those crabs to crawl into the pots.

Shawn caught a rockfish,
which was a cool-looking
"good" fish.













The rest of us caught nasty, bottom-feeding dogfish. They look like little sharks though and they writhe and squirm a lot on the line. I know because I caught one . . . my first fish ever!

















We also saw several seals hanging out on "Seal Rock." And we ended up idling quite near 2 pods of Orca whales. It was so much more amazing than this picture illustrates. We could hear them coming up on all sides of us as they blew water out of their blowholes. One even jumped out of the water nose first and did a Shamu style breach.