Totally Lost and Unfocused

I'm back! This has been a crazy couple of weeks.

Christmas was great! We spent Christmas morning at my mom's house and then went and picked up the kids and spent Christmas evening at my dad's house. Everyone was spoiled rotten, including the adults!

The day after Christmas was spent getting ready for our trip with Tavi to New York. We had such a great time and Tavi absolutely loved the city. We saw Hairspray (with the original cast! Thanks Dad and JB!), we went to the Top of the Rock, ate at some amazing restaurants (Thanks Jeannie!), shopped and shopped and shopped some more, went and saw the NYU campus, went to Time Square, Central Park and everywhere in between. We crammed as much into the three days as humanly possible!

The weather was pretty warm but we decided that was probably best since Martin does not like the cold!

The city was so beautiful decorated for Christmas.

By the end of the trip we were all exhausted.

That picture was taken in the back of a cab during a ten minute drive. Those two can fall asleep anywhere!

We got back from New York and spent one night at home before repacking and heading to the lake for New Years. We had a great time taking the dogs on a hike through the woods down to the water and letting them do some rock climbing! Jake and the girls loved it!

New Year's Eve we cooked steaks and twice baked potatoes and Martin set off fireworks. We were all very excited about 2008 being over and looking forward to a fabulous 2009!

Everyone stayed awake to bring in the new year (well I don't know if you can really count Jeannie).

If you watched the ball drop in New York those glasses should look familiar. We bought them for Marisa and Anna while we were there.

New Year's Day we wanted to start the year off right so we made a big breakfast of pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns (well, tater tots, close enough) and then packed up to head back home.

It was a great way to spend New Years. 2009 was going to be our year!

Well at least we thought. On January 3rd while Martin was out running errands a woman ran a red light and ran right into the Focus. The Focus that we had for only 3 weeks and hadn't even made a payment on yet!





Yes, my friends that is what you call a total loss. Thankfully no one was hurt. Anyone looking for a safe car? Try a Focus. We are amazed that with that amount of damage, Martin was able to walk away unhurt. The damage on the other car was not nearly as severe.

She'll need a new door and some body work but I think her car will probably be ok.

As you can imagine Martin and I were very upset. We had waited a long time before getting a second car and after getting it we really realized what we were missing! Now we are back to one. Not to mention we were so worried about how much money the insurance company would give us versus what we owed on it.

The night of the accident Dad and JB cooked us a cheer up dinner. We tried to find humor in the situation and just be thankful that no one was hurt. We had a nice evening and then headed home to try to get some sleep.

That didn't really work out for us. We got home to find that Layla was missing. This is not her first time to get out so I tried not to freak too much. She has a collar with a tag and she is also chipped. But then a few minutes later Katie called to tell me Jake was also missing. Jake has never, ever gotten out of her fence and unlike Layla, is not familiar with being off leash and alone on the streets. Panic set in.

We loaded up the girls and headed to Katie's house yelling for the dogs and asking neighbors if anyone had seen them. We got to Katie's house to find her even more in a panic than we were. She was, to put it mildly, hysterical. Layla would go home with pretty much anyone, but Jake is not the kind of dog that walks up to strangers and Katie really believed that he was gone and would never be able to find his way home.

As we were screaming up and down the streets, Katie heard a bark that she was sure was Jake's. (We didn't really believe she could pick out his bark in the dead of night, remember she was pretty hysterical!) But then out of the dark we heard the jingle of a collar and Jake came running home - two steps behind him was Layla.

We were both furious and unbelievably happy. We have no idea how they found each other. Katie and I live pretty close to each other but it is still a long way for short beagle legs to walk. We aren't sure how Jake got out and how they found each other but we were just glad to have them home safe and sound.


I guess these two really are inseparable!

This week has been spent worrying about the car situation and trying to adjust to "real life". A five day work week, paying bills and dealing with the insurance company has been exhausting but luckily the week is almost over.

I heard from the insurance adjuster yesterday and it appears that 2009 is looking up. They are going to give us enough money for the car to pay off what we owe. Now we are back to square one - we have to find another car (within our very low budget!).

We are hoping this is not the way 2009 is going to be - if so, it's going to be a very long year!

But we aren't giving up! We are so thankful to have such wonderful family and friends who are there for us when we need them. Even if 2009 doesn't go our way, we know we have a lot of people who love us and who needs more than that? Well, ok, we do technically have to have money so we don't lose our house. I don't think our loved ones necessarily love us enough for us to live with them ;)

Please 2009, take it easy on us!