Hello!!
I apologize! I am WAY overdue for an update!! Time just seemed to slip away from me in December!! There's a few things to update on too!! :)
First of all, this blog is being written from good ole Des Moines, Iowa! That's right! Not nice..warm..sunny...Texas, but freezing, cloudy, cold, Iowa! (Can you tell I miss the Texas climate?) Danny and I came home for the Christmas/New Years holidays, my work was kind enough to give me 3 weeks off from work so that we could come home and see our families for the first time since July! It was really great to come home and see our families after being gone for that long, there was even a fresh blanket of snow that fell after we got home! I can't express how nice it will be to come home to snow and ice for Christmas and then just leave it all behind when we go back to Texas...now that's MY kind of winter!!
A few days after Christmas, we expanded our fur baby family and adopted two new sugar gliders! We found out about them from a friend of a friend and she was just willing to give us everything with them for free provided they were going to a new home! Their names are Sydney and Melbourne and are the cutest things ever!! We were a little worried introducing them to Kiah because I had read that the bonding process of one sugar glider to another took some time (several months to a year even and sometimes not at all!) and here we were attempting to bond two already bonded gliders to Kiah. Little did we know we had nothing to worry about! For the first few minutes after putting them together they kind of ignored each other and did their own thing, then started to sniff each other and walk around where the other was. We figured this was a good sign and tried to put them in a cage we had for them with lots of toys to play with and watch them. Once they all got in there they all started jumping and climbing around on their toys. Eventually the two new boys got tired and climbed back into their pouch to go to sleep...Kiah crawled over to their pouch and kind of peered in like "can I please come in?" and crawled inside. They all curled up and went to sleep and have been fast friends ever since!!! Talk about getting lucky with them all liking each other!! It's funny to watch them all play together because they have such different personalities and you can tell that Kiah and Melbourne are best buddies, but while Kiah and Sydney seem to get along they still squabble like siblings do. :)
Danny and I rang in the new year together celebrating with all of our friends we haven't seen since the wedding which was really fun! We all pitched in and rented a hotel room together that did balloon drops and served champagne at midnight and spent the whole night playing games and catching up and probably taking waaay to many pictures haha. It was so much fun though, and I missed everyone SO much! It was so great to be with our friends again!! New Year's Day 3 of our friends came over to my parents house with Danny and I for a southern style New Year's dinner :)
Danny's first semester of grad school grades were posted as well, and while he may not be 100% happy with them, I am so proud of him and how well he did! One B and all the rest were A's!!! How awesome is that!! I think he wished he did better in his Cell and Molecular Bio class but seriously!!! Even the name makes me want to cringe!! Theres no way that I would have been able to do that well! haha Also, I have some potentially good new to share about my work as well, but I want to want until it is set in stone to share so you will just have to wait to find out.. ;)
Danny and I leave to drive back down to Texas early Saturday morning. The drive down here wasn't too bad, although it felt like it was going to be dark outside forever!!! We stayed up all night Thursday into Friday and went to bed at noon Friday afternoon, got up at midnight, packed the car and were heading out of town at 1:45 am. Since we went to bed at noon we had all the blinds closed to make it seem dark so that we could sleep, but when we got up we still had about 6 hours of darkness left..it felt like the sun was never going to come up! The good thing about leaving that early was that we were able to get home around 2:30 pm so we still got there fairly early in the day. That is his plan with leaving this Saturday, and we will be getting up super early and driving through the night again. We are picking up one of our friends in Omaha, who is coming to stay an extra week with us in Texas. We didn't plan very well for the fact that we would be having a third person in the car with us on the way home and packed his car pretty full coming down to visit, so we will have all of that plus Christmas presents...it will be an interesting game of tetris..Katie maaayyy have to be tied to the roof of the car...just kidding Katie..maybe.. ;)
Phew! Ok, I believe I am all caught up now! Sorry for falling behind on this blog...and my cooking blog if any of you are followers of that as well :) More to come soon, I promise!!!
<3
Mrs. Goodding
Monday, January 3, 2011
Saturday, November 6, 2010
food blog!
So I have made a food blog that I should I would share on here! you should become a follower! :D
http://loveatfirstbitefood.blogspot.com/
http://loveatfirstbitefood.blogspot.com/
Monday, November 1, 2010
So I'm pretty sure I was a house wife in another life..
This is what I've decided after 3 months of being married. I loved cooking before, but now that I actually have someone to cook for, and friends that we have dinners/get togethers with that actually gives me an excuse to cook and make things..I love it! Here are some of my newest recipes that I have added to my recipe book-which I am rapidly running out of room in!
* Cheesy Veggie Lasagna
* Cinnamon Rolls (FROM SCRATCH!)
* Pumpkin Bread (from scratch, using all the parts of the pumpkin. Woo!!)
* Marbled Raspberry Cheesecake Squares
* Breadsticks from scratch..or pretzels depending on seasoning I suppose
* And Danny's favorite, cheese biscuits! Not as good as Red Lobster, but they are pretty darn good if I say so myself!
I am tempted to start a cooking blog just to keep track of the recipes until I can get another book haha.
So I can't believe its November already!! Time is going by too fast!! I guess thats a good thing though because we only have about 6 or 7 weeks until we will be headed back to good 'ole Iowa for the Christmas/New Years holidays :) I am so excited to see our families again! Its going to be so hard splitting our time there between my parents and Danny's parents because I'm going to want to spend a lot of time with both! Hopefully we will get it figured out before we head down there...if not, we'll have 18 hours of driving time to figure it out haha.
Work is still going well, I've been getting more hours lately since one of the other girls has been sick lately. Yay for more money! :) There seems to be a ton more surgeries lately too which has been awesome for me because I get to stand in all of them. I've moved up to monitoring the anesthesia and vitals during the surgery which is really neat for me to actually be involved doing something instead of just standing there. I'm really crossing my fingers for more hours when I come back from the Christmas holidays (Dear Santa...please bring me more work hours..) and am working my butt off to get to the veterinary assistant position there instead of the position I have now.
Danny is doing well with grad school. I think hes gone out mussling for the last time this season, and will start going out again this spring once the weather warms up again. Its been in the lower 70's here lately, which may not feel cold to us, but apparently it is to the mussles haha. Its so weird getting used to the fact that its November and its still warm enough to be wearing shorts and not need a coat outside lol. I can't say that I miss the freezing cold too much though. All of the grad students that he works with are really nice. They always have a "Bro's night" and a "Girl's night" every other weekend, so its nice to get out of the house and spend time with other people that are just Danny and our animals. (Not that I don't love them both very much! )
Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!! :)
~Laura
* Cheesy Veggie Lasagna
* Cinnamon Rolls (FROM SCRATCH!)
* Pumpkin Bread (from scratch, using all the parts of the pumpkin. Woo!!)
* Marbled Raspberry Cheesecake Squares
* Breadsticks from scratch..or pretzels depending on seasoning I suppose
* And Danny's favorite, cheese biscuits! Not as good as Red Lobster, but they are pretty darn good if I say so myself!
I am tempted to start a cooking blog just to keep track of the recipes until I can get another book haha.
So I can't believe its November already!! Time is going by too fast!! I guess thats a good thing though because we only have about 6 or 7 weeks until we will be headed back to good 'ole Iowa for the Christmas/New Years holidays :) I am so excited to see our families again! Its going to be so hard splitting our time there between my parents and Danny's parents because I'm going to want to spend a lot of time with both! Hopefully we will get it figured out before we head down there...if not, we'll have 18 hours of driving time to figure it out haha.
Work is still going well, I've been getting more hours lately since one of the other girls has been sick lately. Yay for more money! :) There seems to be a ton more surgeries lately too which has been awesome for me because I get to stand in all of them. I've moved up to monitoring the anesthesia and vitals during the surgery which is really neat for me to actually be involved doing something instead of just standing there. I'm really crossing my fingers for more hours when I come back from the Christmas holidays (Dear Santa...please bring me more work hours..) and am working my butt off to get to the veterinary assistant position there instead of the position I have now.
Danny is doing well with grad school. I think hes gone out mussling for the last time this season, and will start going out again this spring once the weather warms up again. Its been in the lower 70's here lately, which may not feel cold to us, but apparently it is to the mussles haha. Its so weird getting used to the fact that its November and its still warm enough to be wearing shorts and not need a coat outside lol. I can't say that I miss the freezing cold too much though. All of the grad students that he works with are really nice. They always have a "Bro's night" and a "Girl's night" every other weekend, so its nice to get out of the house and spend time with other people that are just Danny and our animals. (Not that I don't love them both very much! )
Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!! :)
~Laura
Thursday, October 14, 2010
happy days
Hello world!
Three blogs this month so far, amazing I know! ;) Few things have gone on since I last blogged. We are still adjusting to losing Leo :( I keep feeling like we've lost a child, I guess in a way we sort of have since we love all our animals like they were our kids. I finally made myself clean out Leo's cage this week, Kiah just sat on her pot and watched the whole time :( Poor little girl, she knows something is wrong and that he isn't there, but we've been trying to cuddle her and give her lots of love so she doesn't get too lonely. She kind of clammed up for a little bit and quit coming out and night and quit making noises at night, shes starting to come out of that a little more lately though which makes me feel a little bit better. Danny's been holding her a lot more lately and seems to be warming up to her, I think it makes him feel a little bit better that she cuddles up to him. Its cute watching them bond :)
On a happier note, work has been going amazingly lately. The only thing that could make it better would be getting more hours and being full time haha. I've started training to become a veterinary assistant and I'm almost finished learning everything on that list, I just have to be more comfortable with everything on it, and be able to answer the phones regularly and check in the patients. Both things I've seen done plenty of times, I just need to work on it on my own so that I can do it myself! Hopefully if I work really hard I can get to the point of a vet assistant before we leave for christmas break and come back in January as a vet assistant :) I really love getting to learn all this new stuff though, it makes me enjoy work so much more than I did just cleaning everyday. I love getting to actually work with the animals and do more technically things like drawing up vaccinations and doing the blood work. Makes me feel much more official :)
I'm also excited because I finally get to take Danny on our surprise date this weekend :) I've been waiting since like last month! We are going to a little pumpkin patch here in town to get our first pumpkins together :) and I'm going to pack a picnic for us to have there after we get our pumpkins hehe complete with home made caramel apples :) assuming they turn out anyway! lol I'm going to make sure to bring our camera too so we can take lots of pictures :) Hopefully it doesn't rain on our parade!! :D
<3
Mrs. Goodding
Three blogs this month so far, amazing I know! ;) Few things have gone on since I last blogged. We are still adjusting to losing Leo :( I keep feeling like we've lost a child, I guess in a way we sort of have since we love all our animals like they were our kids. I finally made myself clean out Leo's cage this week, Kiah just sat on her pot and watched the whole time :( Poor little girl, she knows something is wrong and that he isn't there, but we've been trying to cuddle her and give her lots of love so she doesn't get too lonely. She kind of clammed up for a little bit and quit coming out and night and quit making noises at night, shes starting to come out of that a little more lately though which makes me feel a little bit better. Danny's been holding her a lot more lately and seems to be warming up to her, I think it makes him feel a little bit better that she cuddles up to him. Its cute watching them bond :)
On a happier note, work has been going amazingly lately. The only thing that could make it better would be getting more hours and being full time haha. I've started training to become a veterinary assistant and I'm almost finished learning everything on that list, I just have to be more comfortable with everything on it, and be able to answer the phones regularly and check in the patients. Both things I've seen done plenty of times, I just need to work on it on my own so that I can do it myself! Hopefully if I work really hard I can get to the point of a vet assistant before we leave for christmas break and come back in January as a vet assistant :) I really love getting to learn all this new stuff though, it makes me enjoy work so much more than I did just cleaning everyday. I love getting to actually work with the animals and do more technically things like drawing up vaccinations and doing the blood work. Makes me feel much more official :)
I'm also excited because I finally get to take Danny on our surprise date this weekend :) I've been waiting since like last month! We are going to a little pumpkin patch here in town to get our first pumpkins together :) and I'm going to pack a picnic for us to have there after we get our pumpkins hehe complete with home made caramel apples :) assuming they turn out anyway! lol I'm going to make sure to bring our camera too so we can take lots of pictures :) Hopefully it doesn't rain on our parade!! :D
<3
Mrs. Goodding
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
Good things for October
Hola Everyone!
I'm procrastinating going on my run today, and what better way to procrastinate than updating my blog!!! Woo!! I've got some exciting things to talk about!! Hooray!!! First of all, no news yet on Kiah having babies. Supposedly sugar gliders will act differently towards people when they are pregnant, act more crabby and not want to be held as much, and stay curled up in their nest more. I haven't noticed any changes at all in Kiah's behavior...Danny says he has and that she has been more temperamental towards him, (between you and me I think its just that shes tired of him instigating her and trying to irritate her), but we will sees out of l. Sugar gliders have an internal gestation of 16 days and then after that the baby is born and crawls into the mom's pouch and develops there for 3-4 months. 16 days would put the baby being born October 4th which means we probably wouldn't even notice the baby in the pouch until the end of October or November since they will be about a few centimeters long when they are born. They are super tiny!!! You rarely ever see the baby being born, the only way we'll know if shes pregnant is if we see a little jellybean lump thing in her pouch as the baby grows. We'll see though!!
Danny and I have both been doing really well, still adjusting to life here in Texas and definitely still getting used to managing funds together. Its difficult when you've never had to share a bank account before, but we are getting used to it, especially because our budget right now doesn't let us do a whole lot extra we are really getting used to watching what we spend together and keeping each other informed of what is spent. Although we both got paid today, so we decided we both need a haircut badly haha. I haven't had mine cut since before the wedding!! I'm so excited!!! Oh the little things in life haha.
We both have had some really good news come our way lately too!! Danny has been offered a research assistantship for the following spring semester and fall semester of next year working through a local company here in town that wants research done on a riverway near by their facility. Research on how their facility is effecting the enviornment= good PR for them = money and a summer job for my husband = win win for everyone!! :) Luckily the research the company proposed to have done is pretty similar to the research topic Danny had chosen to do his thesis on so he will be able to kill two birds with one stone. The really great thing about all of this is that 1. this company will be paying for Danny's school tuition 2. They will be paying him a few hundred dollars more a month than what the school was paying him to be a teaching assistant and 3. He can publish the research he does for this company in a scientific magazine which will be a really great thing for him to have going into his doctorate program. He is also pretty much guaranteed a job with this company in the summer that pays pretty well too which is good because his stipend from the school wouldn't have covered the 3 months he was off of school in the summer. He is really happy about it and I am so proud of him that he was able to do this! :)
My bit of good news is that I found out yesterday that I will get to start training to be a veterinary techinician at my work!! I have been wanting to go to vet tech school soo badly ever since I started working there so that I would be able to do the things that the techs are doing there and be more involved in working with the animals. Don't get me wrong, I am so thankful for the position I have there and I have gotten to observe and help with so many things and I have learned so much being there in one month than I ever did at any of my other jobs, but I have a really hard time staying high spirited about it when my main duty is to help keep the clinic clean, mop and sweep the floors and clean the windows. I went to college and got a degree so I wouldn't have to mop and sweep floors all day. Regardless I just told myself to work hard at making a good impression and it looks like I did! I am so excited that I finally get to do this without having to go to school for it!! :D I can't wait!!
Things are finally starting to cool down here in Texas..and by cool down I mean lower 80's upper 70's still haha. Although it does get pretty chilly (50's and 60's) at night and in the early morning. Its funny because I feel like 60's should feel good to us and not chilly but we have gotten so used to it being 90 and above that it does feel cooler than 60 haha. Oh no we have completely acclimated to Texas weather!!!! ;) I'm so excited its October though because that means I get to take Danny on a surprise date that I have been planning since last month :) Theres this little pumpkin patch near by that I thought I'd take him to where you take a hay ride out the the field and pick your own pumpkin and all that fun stuff. I'm going to attempt to make caramel apples for our picnic there too haha. We'll see how they turn out!! I've been so excited about it and wanting to do it for so long I"m having a hard time being patient haha. I want to go like this weekend and get the pumpkins but theres no way they would last until the end of October haha so hopefully I can hold out a few more weeks!!
I can't believe that its already October, it feels like time is going by so fast! Even still, I can't wait for it to be December so we can go home and see our family. It will be about 5 months that we've been gone and have seen our family by the time we get back so it will be really nice to see everyone and spend time with everyone again! :D Hopefully we don't freeze to death from not being used to the winter tundra that is Iowa from Dec to March haha.
Ok...I think I've put off running long enough!! Time to get my lazy butt out of the house!!! Bye!!
Mrs. Goodding <3
(hopeful grandmother of sugie babies!)
I'm procrastinating going on my run today, and what better way to procrastinate than updating my blog!!! Woo!! I've got some exciting things to talk about!! Hooray!!! First of all, no news yet on Kiah having babies. Supposedly sugar gliders will act differently towards people when they are pregnant, act more crabby and not want to be held as much, and stay curled up in their nest more. I haven't noticed any changes at all in Kiah's behavior...Danny says he has and that she has been more temperamental towards him, (between you and me I think its just that shes tired of him instigating her and trying to irritate her), but we will sees out of l. Sugar gliders have an internal gestation of 16 days and then after that the baby is born and crawls into the mom's pouch and develops there for 3-4 months. 16 days would put the baby being born October 4th which means we probably wouldn't even notice the baby in the pouch until the end of October or November since they will be about a few centimeters long when they are born. They are super tiny!!! You rarely ever see the baby being born, the only way we'll know if shes pregnant is if we see a little jellybean lump thing in her pouch as the baby grows. We'll see though!!
Danny and I have both been doing really well, still adjusting to life here in Texas and definitely still getting used to managing funds together. Its difficult when you've never had to share a bank account before, but we are getting used to it, especially because our budget right now doesn't let us do a whole lot extra we are really getting used to watching what we spend together and keeping each other informed of what is spent. Although we both got paid today, so we decided we both need a haircut badly haha. I haven't had mine cut since before the wedding!! I'm so excited!!! Oh the little things in life haha.
We both have had some really good news come our way lately too!! Danny has been offered a research assistantship for the following spring semester and fall semester of next year working through a local company here in town that wants research done on a riverway near by their facility. Research on how their facility is effecting the enviornment= good PR for them = money and a summer job for my husband = win win for everyone!! :) Luckily the research the company proposed to have done is pretty similar to the research topic Danny had chosen to do his thesis on so he will be able to kill two birds with one stone. The really great thing about all of this is that 1. this company will be paying for Danny's school tuition 2. They will be paying him a few hundred dollars more a month than what the school was paying him to be a teaching assistant and 3. He can publish the research he does for this company in a scientific magazine which will be a really great thing for him to have going into his doctorate program. He is also pretty much guaranteed a job with this company in the summer that pays pretty well too which is good because his stipend from the school wouldn't have covered the 3 months he was off of school in the summer. He is really happy about it and I am so proud of him that he was able to do this! :)
My bit of good news is that I found out yesterday that I will get to start training to be a veterinary techinician at my work!! I have been wanting to go to vet tech school soo badly ever since I started working there so that I would be able to do the things that the techs are doing there and be more involved in working with the animals. Don't get me wrong, I am so thankful for the position I have there and I have gotten to observe and help with so many things and I have learned so much being there in one month than I ever did at any of my other jobs, but I have a really hard time staying high spirited about it when my main duty is to help keep the clinic clean, mop and sweep the floors and clean the windows. I went to college and got a degree so I wouldn't have to mop and sweep floors all day. Regardless I just told myself to work hard at making a good impression and it looks like I did! I am so excited that I finally get to do this without having to go to school for it!! :D I can't wait!!
Things are finally starting to cool down here in Texas..and by cool down I mean lower 80's upper 70's still haha. Although it does get pretty chilly (50's and 60's) at night and in the early morning. Its funny because I feel like 60's should feel good to us and not chilly but we have gotten so used to it being 90 and above that it does feel cooler than 60 haha. Oh no we have completely acclimated to Texas weather!!!! ;) I'm so excited its October though because that means I get to take Danny on a surprise date that I have been planning since last month :) Theres this little pumpkin patch near by that I thought I'd take him to where you take a hay ride out the the field and pick your own pumpkin and all that fun stuff. I'm going to attempt to make caramel apples for our picnic there too haha. We'll see how they turn out!! I've been so excited about it and wanting to do it for so long I"m having a hard time being patient haha. I want to go like this weekend and get the pumpkins but theres no way they would last until the end of October haha so hopefully I can hold out a few more weeks!!
I can't believe that its already October, it feels like time is going by so fast! Even still, I can't wait for it to be December so we can go home and see our family. It will be about 5 months that we've been gone and have seen our family by the time we get back so it will be really nice to see everyone and spend time with everyone again! :D Hopefully we don't freeze to death from not being used to the winter tundra that is Iowa from Dec to March haha.
Ok...I think I've put off running long enough!! Time to get my lazy butt out of the house!!! Bye!!
Mrs. Goodding <3
(hopeful grandmother of sugie babies!)
Sunday, September 12, 2010
September
We had our first guest come to visit a few weeks ago!! Katie Gorden came all the way from Iowa to visit us for a week over Labor Day weekend!! It was so much fun having her come
visit :) One of her last days here we took a trip to Caddo Lake Park that was about an hour's drive from our
cozy townhome in Tyler. Definitely worth the drive, the scenery was BEAUTIFUL there!! There was spanish moss hanging from all of the trees growing in the water with floating lily pads for miles. It was beautiful! We will definitely be returning there soon!We also had our first dinner party last night which was really fun. I made dinner and our guests brought a side dish and a dessert. I've decided I quite like entertaining for gu
ests very much, just maybe not the cleaning up afterwards haha.
We also had all of the grad students over just to hang out and watch movies the night before as well. We are slowly starting to become closer with the other grad students here, which is nice to be getting to that point. :) Yay for new friends!!
So I have a riddle for all of my lovely readers...what is small, grey, black,
and furry all over??
...............
................................
...............
............
any guesses??
.....I'll give you a clue..they are super adorable...
....they make cute noises
Sugar glider babies!!!!!
Don't get too excited yet...we aren't 100% sure Kiah and Leo will be the proud parents of such cuties just yet, but we have been seriously considering it. :) I think they are SO adorable, and it would be sooo cute if they had babies!! Like I said, we aren't 100% sure yet, there is a lot of work involved in caring for joeys, especially when the mother rejects them and we would have to raise them by hand. I would definitely be up to the challenge though :) I promise to keep everyone posted as to what we decide. FIY Danny scooched their cages closer together tonight...don't know if they can conceive through the cage, and Danny says he isn't sure if he wants them to have babies yet..but I think he does. DUH!! why would he have moved the cages closer together ;)
<3
Mrs Goodding (future grandmother of sugie babies!!)
<3
Mrs Goodding (future grandmother of sugie babies!!)
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