R is for Ronnebeck!

Today was filled with quality Animal time... Aquaman woke me up with his pacifier. No I do not give my animals pacifiers as if they were children. This was the toy he came with when we got him - it was "his favorite" that he stole from the breeders grandchild when it was dropped on the floor. He proceeded to chew it completely apart after this photo was taken so I will consider it as an official fair well to the pacifier, most parents fight to get their children to give it up, mine chewed it up himself. I went over to Tim & Kat's today and took their Golden Retrievers for a walk around the block for a little exercise. After I got back home around 1 pm Tacy came to pick me up to go Socialize cats at the Arlington Purrfect Pals shelter. It was a long drive from Des Moines but it was so nice to get out to the countryside of Eastern Washington. As we pulled up to the shelter, this sign greeted us. We knew we were in the right place. There were a ton of cars there when we ...

Suzanne gets her own post because I took this picture of her and Aquaman the other day. If there's anyone in this world that loves our dog as much as we do, it's Suzanne. She is an assistant at our Chiropractic office and we bring him in to visit every Wednesday (since he was a puppy). He gets out of the car and runs as fast as his little legs can take him to the front door to whine until Eric and I catch up to let him in the office. Then we open the door and hear "AQUAMAN!!! I'm so excited...!!!" Aquaman goes nuts and can't get enough of Suzanne and her giant bag of treats! She's taught him how to Dance and Wait. She's his best friend! So this is to you Suzanne! Aquaman Loves you :)

My co-worker Alex and I have this ongoing “war” of changing each other’s wall paper’s on our computers when the other’s not looking (kids’ stuff I know…). So far, in this war, I have dominated. Alex finally retaliated today, and boy did he do a good job. We usually go for Political statements to post on each other’s computers. He has a pretty nifty Bush cartoon on his currently and this is what mine is. I think it’s only fair that I leave it up for his glory – he better watch it, now I’m looking for revenge!

Is so wonderful! I was having one of thoes "nobody likes me everybody hates me, guess I'll go eat worms" type of weeks. Last night when I got home from work I was greeted by a warm smile and a warm supper; We sat on the couch and talked together all night, no TV, the pets were sleeping in their respecitve forts and it was exactly what the Doctor ordered for my grumpy mood. This picture is from our Honeymoon (September 2007) It's one of my favorite. I am posting it, because what fun is a post with out a picture? So thank you Husband... you're the best!!!

Every Tuesday night Eric and I spend at church helping out with cRAVE which is a youth social and Worship night. We start out with a group activity / game. Tonight was balance beam boxing (almost anything goes with youth ministry). Here's the two opponets with Eric in the middle as the Referee. Tim & Miranda go at it, trying to knock eachother off the beam. I love the look on Eric's face in this picture,its so intense! Looks like Miranda's getting the upperhand in this one. After a "rousing" round of whatever game we choose we start worship. This is Tim, Dave and Tessa starting "Holiness" a rockin version Dave created. Eric's on the otherside of the stage so I didn't get a good picture of him, but he plays the jimbae (spelling??) It's such a great night! I hope that the kids get as much out of it as us adults do. Even if the kids get a little out of it, I guess our work is worth it. I really enjoy seeing the kids and when I get home I get...

I just wanted to share with you all today my desktop background on my computer – which makes me smile bigger than life. I don’t know if you know this girl but she’s pretty amazing, and I’m so blessed to have her as a best friend. She’s never let me down and she is always there when I need her. I have so many great memories with her and every time I think of her I miss her more and more (since she’s 1800 miles away). That's my random thought for the day... Happy Tuesday … I miss you Heidi!!!!

Wow... Happy Sunday night everyone! It's been quite a busy weekend and I don't feel like I should be facing my alarm clock at 5 tomorrow morning already . Friday night after work Eric came and picked me up and we went to Federal Way and ran some Errands. It was pretty quiet. Saturday for me was a story that some epic novels tell - well okay maybe I'm over exaggerating but it was kind of an a typical day for me. My boss Julie had agreed to help me pick out some work clothes at Talbot's outlet store up in Lynnwood so at 9am on Saturday morning I hopped a bus from downtown Seattle to Aurora Village. I was minding my own business when this man came and sat down in front of me and started telling me about how he used to be on broad way but now he was a "Beer Drinkin , train hoppin Hobo" and he was here to make me smile. He proceeded to recite Romeo and Juliet to me, as well as King Arthur and Grease. Then he decided that he was going to break out into song becau...

Nothing much to share but wanted to tell you about the progress on my New Year's Goals... Gracie Vs: Abby- You all probably thought I was crazy when I announced that for one of my New Year’s resolutions that I was going to “tame” my Rottweiler cat into being nice to me. I just wanted to report that I think this morning we had a breakthrough in that process. I woke up and stumbled to the bathroom and was getting into the shower when I hear a “Meow” and I look back and Gracie is sitting in the doorway and I said “Hey Kitty” and she jumped up on to the toilet and meowed again. She continued to “talk” or Meow at me the entire time I was in the shower, and occasionally I’d say something back but she was more or less visiting with me. I know you’re probably thinking I’m some sort of an insane cat lady but I assure you that’s not what’s going on here, I simply want my cat that I have to be nicer to me. After I got dressed and walked out into the living room to get things ready to go, she ...

Everyone often asks me what my favorite part of living in Seattle is - I have a list that goes on and on and on, but this weekend if you would have asked me it would have been our amazing view from our back porch. I probably took 100 photos of the various sunsets we had but this one was really breath taking and I wanted to share it with you. I hope that you enjoy these pictures but I assure you it does NO justice to what it REALLY looked like on Saturday. Additionally, Eric got his new glasses and you can see them at http://www.abbys365.blogspot.com/ but I also wanted to post this picture of my little guy trying on Eric's "nerd" type glasses. It makes me laugh and it kind of reminds me of one of thoes nerdy cat and dog posters that people hang up for "inspration & laughs". Ugh... I'm one of THOES dog owners... Either way I hope you're having a great week! Love you!

After eating breakfast at Jacks with Christina and Katie We decided to take Aquaman out for a walk. t was a nice day here in Des Moines, 41 degrees, a bit cloudy but all in all beautiful! We decided to take Aquaman outside for a game of fetch in the park (instead of just a walk) to which i decided was a good chance for me to try out my 75-300 mm lens. So here it is ... our day in the park with Aquaman at Des Moines Elementary. Eric putting the harness on Aquaman. He is so furry right now this is the only thing that helps get all that hair out of his face, but it's only for a breif moment - at this point he usually gets way too excited that he's getting to go for a walk! Eric & I found these baby toys at Target last night for pretty cheap so I decided to take it out to play fetch with him. He's pretty stellar at that whole fetch thing as long as the thing he's fetching has a rattle or a squeeker of some sort in it. I now have a couple pictures of him running and I...

Like most people, I have taken to this whole ‘New Year’s Resolution’ fad. I made a resolution to be kinder to a person who is frequently irritating to me. This morning I kind of “lost it” for lack of better words and decided I will just create a few new Resolutions to try to be better at instead of trying to salvage the thin threads of which my old resolution hangs on. * I will spend more time and try to interact better with my Cat. (I have been google-ing ways to make her nicer … no avail yet… but I’m still working on it). * I will spend more time crate training my Puppy better so he’s not so stinkin petrified of going in the kennel. *I will not take myself (or life) so seriously. These are good goals … right? I have means to a few of these but I haven’t really affixed to any ONE way to meet my goal. You all know how friendly my cat is. She’s basically the Rottweiler of cats – can show a friendly side but would rip your face off in a heartbeat. I see a gleam of light in her that she c...

I know, I have been kind of bad lately, I don’t know what’s gotten into me, I have felt uninspired to write. Maybe it’s because visual arts are so much easier to me than anything that requires a lot of thought, like writing for all 3 people who visit my blog in a day. Eric and I are still doing well, the dog still needs a haircut and the cat is still mean. Katherine and I went shopping this weekend and I bought myself a whole week’s worth of shirts! I have found myself to be very excited to get dressed every day for work! I have found it even more exciting to continue to wear my shirt after work with Jeans! I am such a girl, and It’s scary! My boss Julie and I are going shopping next weekend and I couldn’t be more excited. http://www.abbys365.blogspot.com/ shows a photo of one of my more favorite shirts I picked up (and my new handbag). I have a thing for embellished shirts, and I’m actually wearing that shirt today. I can totally tell I’ll be one of those old ladies wearing the disgu...

Happy Friday! I haven’t blogged for a while, I find myself only blogging when I have photos to share… well that’s because that makes my blog posts more interesting (or so I feel). Today I’m blogging … just to blog (and using the word BLOG in various forms way too much). I also find myself a little hard pressed to explain things or communicate them to you without a photo illustration. I guess that’s the photographer in me. I read a few other ladies’ blogs and they have such eloquent and fluent blog style that it makes mine look like a kindergartner wrote it. But I guess practice makes perfect and I’ll never get good if I don’t try. I hope that this post finds you well (note I didn’t use the word BLOG). I can happily announce that 2009 is treating us well! It’s only 9 days in but sometimes 9 days into a month can tell you quite a bit! I find myself perhaps biting off more than I can chew but, that’s better than being bored I’m sure. This weekend I was supposed to go “cat cuddling” at Pur...

BEFORE my hair appointment... (trust me you can't really see all the roots in this pic) Victoria my hair dresser works miracles. I always walk out of there loving what she's done with the pile of hair I present her with which usually includes split ends and roots. I have gone blonde pretty much since I started dying my hair, so to mix it up I went with less blonde and more natural color, it's been ages since I've seen my natural color. As a blonde I do have more fun but as a brunette I feel a little more sophisticated . As my three favorite college girls (Heidi, Liz and Andrea) can tell you, they fought to get me in something other than a tee shirt, jeans and tennis shoes when we went out for the evening. I can say now that I'm becoming one of "them". In this photo alone (see below) I'm sporting three things you would have never seen me wear in College, A necklace (other than my christian fish), a solid colored shirt that's dressier than a t...

All this talk about the couch and it took me a day to post a photo of it in our house, I guess I have just been too comfy to work too hard. (or something like that). Here's our delivery truck and drivers coming to drop off the couch. They were a crack up, and they totally loved our cat. So here's the comparison picture I promised. Doesn't our place look like real grown ups live in it? Eric and I are super pleased with it. As for the color? I think we can safely say it's Brown.

Greetings from our new plush and comfy couch! We had to say goodbye to our old couch today and it was easier than either of us had anticipated, and now that the new is here, we feel like real grown ups with a real couch brand new from a store. I will post side by side pictures tomorrow to compare the two and you can tell me which one looks better in our living room! Going.... Going.... GONE!!!!! Thank you Tim for the wonderful assistance getting that couch out of here and for helping us haul it to the dump! So tonight, here we sit ... for all of tonight !!! YAY!

Eric and I went for a drive yesterday to get some Starbucks. On our way home we felt that since we were robbed of looking at Christmas lights this year (weather related) that we would look at Christmas lights on our way home. Driving around the Normandy park neighborhood we found this doozie of a house more decked out than 12 houses put together. I can't even express how wonderful this all looked. The photo below hardly does it any justice at all- I didn't have a decent camera with me otherwise i would have maybe gotten a better shot. Either way, I wanted to applaud these people for their ginormous Christmas spirit! ♥ abby

Eric and I went over to Ryan and Mary Peterson's to ring in the New Year! We started the night by playing 4 on a couch boys vs: girls and after an hour and making no headway we decided to call it a draw. Lots of good food and fellowship was involved and it was great to ring in the new year with new friends. Thank you Ryan and Mary for having us over! We hope that all you're new year plans were wonderful! I hope they were also safe! Here's to 2009.... May it be a blessed year! Love -abby & eric