Goin' to the chapel...

Congrats to Rick and Sabrina on their engagement! My vote's definitely for an October wedding, especially if you ever want to celebrate your anniversary in Charleston. Charleston's beautiful in October. See, your future anniversaries probably aren't something you're considering right now while you're trying to set a date so I'm helping you out.

I don't have a picture of them so I'll just have to go with a picture of The McHusband and me at our October wedding. Sorry we're so pink. Must be the flush of love. Or margaritas.

Say "Queso!"

We had dinner with Rick, Sabrina, Byron, and Melaney on Saturday. Lisa was away for what was, I'm sure, a much-deserved girls' weekend on the lake so Byron and Melaney were on their own.

Melaney was shy, as usual, during the first half of dinner, but she opened up after a bit. I think it had something to do with the queso dip that Rick ordered and shared. There's just something about warm melty cheese that makes everything right in the world, you know? And if you combine that with a couple margaritas, well, the world's just about perfect. (Note: I meant that my world, not Melaney's, was just about perfect because I had some warm melty cheese dip and two margaritas. As far as I know, Melaney's sippy cup did not contain a margarita.)

While the boys were paying, Melaney and I headed outside for some girl talk and to count light fixtures, then it was time for Byron and Melaney to head home cuz she had a case of the toots, and Byron didn't want to have to stop at a gas station on the way home. We understand, Mexican food has that effect on lots of us.

Here's Melaney saying, "Seeeeeeeeze!" I didn't even prompt her to "Say cheese," I just pulled out the camera and she reacted like a pro. Watch out, Byron, you could have a runway walker on your hands.

Rub-a-dub-dub

I gave both dogs baths yesterday. They were like a couple of stinky kids who've been at the playground on a hot day - they didn't think they smelled bad, but I couldn't stand it any longer. Tucker doesn't like getting bathed too much and he fights a little. Morgan doesn't love it, but she's resigned to it.

I don't have any pictures of yesterday's baths, but I have a couple of Tucker from shortly after we got him. The McHusband and I put him in the sink in the garage and cleaned him up.

Dog Tired

We took the dogs to the Dog Day in the Park yesterday and they had fun making lots of new friends of both the human and canine varieties. It was so humid yesterday that they didn't last too long. Remember, we were able to walk up to the park so Morgan and Tucker were almost totally spent by the time we got to the event.

Side note: We had seen one set of neighbors, Gina and Bob, walking past our house with their bassett hound, Bella, about 30 minutes before we left. On our way to the park, we ran into Bob heading home by himself and asked where Gina and Bella were. He said he left them both "panting at the park" to go get the car. See, Gina's about 9 months pregnant (remember, a pregnancy is more like 40 weeks) and what Bella makes up in ear length she lacks in stamina on hot, humid days. So Bob had to walk home to get the car then drive up there - about half a mile - to pick them up. Too bad our timing wasn't better, we could've caught a ride, too.

Anyway, the most exciting thing we saw up there were a couple of 8-week-old Bullmastiff puppies that were "available for adoption to a good home." I clarified with the kid hawking them that that actually meant they were for sale to whoever could afford them.

Here are some pictures of all of us when we got home.














Then it was time to lay down. There's an AC vent under the sink so Tucker had the right idea.














Look, his tongue had to be on the linoleum floor for maximum cooling.














And then we all moved into the den. The McHusband and I were pretty hot, too, but we refrained from laying down on the kitchen floor.

Boy, supervisin' is hard work! Tori had to cool off on the kitchen floor, too.

TGIF!!!

Is there a better weekday than Friday? I mean, other days have their merits, but they can't hold a candle to Fridays.

• Tuesdays don't suck the most because they're not Mondays


• Wednesdays are okay because of the food section in the newspaper


• Thursdays are good because they come right before Fridays and there's some really good TV on in the evenings

Weekend plans? The Dog Day in the Park is tomorrow up at the Parrish Womble Park outside our neighborhood so we'll be taking Morgan and Tucker up there. It'll be Tucker's first DDITP and he's really looking forward to it. All those butts to sniff and treats to beg for - it's his version of heaven on earth.

The McHusband will go to the office to study (he'll be taking the PE again on 10.24), and I'll hopefully be leaving the house with the dogs for a showing or two. In a perfect world, someone would want to see the house WHILE we were up at the park and already gone with the dogs. And in that perfect world, those people would want to buy our house. Some people say perfection's overrated, but in this case I think it'd be, well, perfect. Keep all appendages crossed for us...

We have someone coming to look at the Death Tank tonight. He wants to use it for a saltwater tank, though, so he wouldn't want the fish we have in it, which means we'd have to find good homes (i.e. NOT toilets) for all of them. The McHusband's already talked to a fish store that'd pay us for them so that's good news. The bad news is that before they can pay us, we have to get the fish to them, which entails catching not-wanting-to-be-caught fish, putting them into five-gallon buckets from Home Depot, and lugging those into the fish store. Of course, I use the term "we" loosely since Ryan'll be doing much of the dirty work.

The Death Tank

The Not-Death Tank

No Solicitors!

Ugh, I hate it when solicitors come knocking on our door here at work. Actually, they don't knock, they just come right in. They're rarely selling anything we're interested in, but they always ask for one of our business cards "for their records," which means we'll probably have to field a follow-up call within a week.

Foy and I have talked about putting up a "No Soliciting" sign outside our door, but what we really mean is "No soliciting unless you have good food to give us," and we don't think Jim would approve that sign. So, we'll suffer the treatless solicitors and keep our fingers crossed that the next one through the door has cookies, or at least a coupon for free cookies.

A picture's worth a thousand words...

Okay, as promised, I have pictures from our trip to Vegas. I won't bore you with my babbling, I'll just get straight to the pictures. Enjoy!

Look at those excited faces...

And here we are on our first field trip at Red Rock Canyon. Can you find Vanessa?

Unfortunately, that's not a rare bird.

Look, our very own mountain men. The boys climbed waaaaaaay up the rocks.

Adios, Red Rock!

We went to the Shelby factory for a tour and got to sign a wall inside.

After the car stuff, we went to the Hoover Dam. Here's the McHusband and me on our way to the dam when we stopped for a photo op and then at the dam during our tour. Hmmm, guess the McHubby wanted to see what the dam was like with the lights out.

We had a nice dinner at Postrio in the Venetian before our Cirque du Soleil shows. Our waiter was kind enough to take a group photo when we left. Then we took pictures on the bridge that the gondolas floated under.

After dinner, we ran into a couple of familiar faces. Jeremy, watch that right hand...

And Nic, watch your left hand! Sheesh, celebrities!

We ventured into the Secret Garden at the Mirage (and by "venture," I mean we paid $15 per ticket to be allowed in) and saw dolphins, white tigers and lions, and four tiger cubs (three white ones and one gold one) at feeding time. It was worth the $15 just to see the cubs so active.

I count three bellies in this picture...

The End. Sorry, I couldn't resist. The McHusband took this picture of Vanessa and me in the Bellagio.

If you want to see more pictures from our trip, check out my Shutterfly album.