Last Thursday Jake found an abandoned puppy at the apartment complex where he works. The puppy had worms and when Jake found the puppy’s owner they refused to take it to the vet, even after Jake told them it could die. She told him pretty much that they didn’t want her. So Jake being soppy and then me being soppy, we have taken her in until we can find a home for her.

She is 2.5 months old and a Husky/German Shepherd mix and we named her Lola.

She has been getting on well with Luckey, although she does always want to be playing with whatever Luckey is playing with, and whichever bowl Luckey is eating from. Her and Luckey enjoy play fighting and she gives as good as she gets. She is going through a biting phase and I am housebreaking her right now.

She likes to sleep on the floor resting her head on your feet, and the other day she was sleeping in Luckey’s bed and ended up sleeping like this:

We took her to the vet the day Jake brought her home so she is now worm-free and all checked out.

Jake and I went for an early valentines dinner on Thursday at Arni’s. Luckey wanted to be in on the family picture:

Today Jake had to get up early and go to class. While he was out I baked valentine cookies (although I will admit I cheated, they were Tollhouse cookie dough cookies):

And then I had the fun bit…decorating them, and eating bits of the extra icing:

I got Jake some tools he wanted

And he got me roses, candy, a framed photo I wanted and Uno Attack (we like playing Uno and we used to play together over the internet)

Jake even got a card from Luckey

This is where you can find Miss Luckey every day around 5pm, waiting and watching for Jake to get home from work. She can sense when its time for him to be home, she gets so excited.

These are related since Jake (and I) were woken at 5.30am on the morning of Jake’s birthday with a call from his new work, asking him to come in early and shovel snow. So Jake shovelled snow from 6am until he got off work at 3 (minus his lunch break). When he got home, he fixed my car which had broken while he was driving it, and then he helped me clear the rest of our drive way. I was sore the next day.

This is why he was driving my car:

As well as the Monster Truck tickets, I also got Jake a new tool bag for his birthday, to go with his new job. I think he was pretty pleased with it!

Jake’s birthday present was a trip to Monster Jam, at the Lucas Oil Stadium, the weekend before his birthday. We had a great time, we love Monster Trucks. It was much better in the new Lucas Oil Stadium than it was in the RCA Dome, mostly because it’s so much bigger and therefore the noise, smoke and smell was spread out and therefore less noticeable.

We had a little trouble not laughing through the national anthem, the singer was pretty bad  :s

Us and the track:

Once it started there were qualifying, monster truck races, demolition cross, motor cross tricks demonstration, and then the monster truck free-style event.

There was also an appearance from ‘Blue’ the Colts mascot:

Jake, Luckey and I went for a drive a few days before Christmas to look at the neighbourhood christmas lights:

I am just a little late on this so there will be a few posts in a row.

Christmas Eve Jake and I watched “A Christmas Story”, I had never seen it before and it is set in Indiana. It was pretty good. Throughout the day, we (or rather I should say “I”) tracked Father Christmas and where he was in the world.

Christmas morning Jake and Luckey opened their stocking, Jake basically got sweets, and Luckey got two new toys and a bag of treats. Donna and I had set the table the night before, so we finished up some stuff for lunch and waited for everyone to arrive. When everyone (Granpa, Carrie, Tony and the boys) arrived we opened presents, and then the boys played with their presents.

Jake and I had found some Christmas crackers at Meijer, so we brought a little bit of England to the day, and made everyone pull crackers, read jokes and wear their Christmas hats through lunch. Lunch was different for me, as Jake’s family have beef stew, beef and noodles, rolls and baked apples, along with Jake’s speciality of cream cheese stuff dill pickles. (I had averted a disaster the night before by realising that Jake and I had accidently bought ‘hot & spicy’ pickles instead of normal pickles…everyone would have got their mouths burning and tingly, haha).

After lunch we chatted, played with the boys and just hung out for the rest of the day. Since Kellan and Beau had both been sick, they left in the evening. How much do Beau ad Jake look alike?!

Somebody is not meant to sleep on the bed anymore, especially not underneath the covers, but she just can’t help herself. It’s hard to be mad at this:

 

On Thursday we went to get a tree. I picked out the best one and I think I did a pretty good job    Then came the fun of putting it in the stand….Jake’s mum has an old stand that they always use, but it doesn’t seem to be entirely straight, and Jake’s mum wants the tree to be perfectly straight. So there was me holding the tree up, Jake under the tree tightening the stand so the tree was in the right place and Jake’s mum saying yes or no. It was a drama but we eventually got it right.

Today me and Jake’s mum decorated the tree. She has a lot of old ornaments that were her grandmothers and mothers and then some that she made when Jake and Carrie were kids. There are a lot of ornaments.

Here is the finished product:

 

Some of the ornaments made by Jake and Carrie were ones with their picture on, these are Jake’s…wasn’t he cute!

 

 

She also has a collection of decorations called something like “Father Christmas around the world”. Here is the ‘English’ Father Christmas. As far as I can tell what makes him english is the christmas pudding:

We also have stockings over the fireplace and about 30(!!) versions of father christmas in the living room/dining room. It’s feeling pretty christmassy around here.

Jake and I took Luckey on a day trip to Nashville, Indiana and the Brown County State Park. We had great weather and we all had a fun time, Luckey loved her walks. She was exhausted by the end of the day and slept the whole way home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Something has been nibbling on the trees in Brown County: