SPOOKY, SCARY

The neighborhood children were not prepared for the Cooper house. They got their candy but witnessed...

Yep, they won't be back.

Camping Trip!

We went camping this weekend, Yellow River state park. We also saw some of Josie's relatives and such.


The views were beautiful - this is NE Iowa near Harper's Ferry. In the morning there were mists rising out of the valley.

Here is a closer view - it it looked a lot like smoke but more wispy and random.



We backpacked to a site, and were able to hike from there to a Fire Tower - we think the barbed wire meant no climbing. Oh well.
And we saw a beautiful sunset! All in all a good trip!. I'll document the meal next!

Superior Shores!

Josie had a great mini-vacation in Two Harbors, MN. Lots of family, fun, and good wine! Here are some pictures of second cousins (first, and once removed), dogs, wildlife, and beautiful scenery!

Theft Alert!

It has recently come to my attention that a notorious "backpack thief" has been seen in the area. His M/O is to steal cuddly animal packs from small children, then flaunt his theft at family functions. If seen, placate the suspect with cheese (any type) and contact the police. Do not attempt to apprehend the suspect by yourself.

Sushi

So a few weeks ago our friends had us over for homemade sushi. Even some raw tuna rolls! [scary but turned our great]. Here is makin' a roll:

This is Andy's contribution - opening Miso soup packages and distributing into cups. I gave myself one thumb up for perfection.

And here is the spread-- a lot of time but was fun and delicious [except for those who hate the smell of fish, which was Josie and our friend]

Many Things!

Guess who got to take a nap with a kitty AND a puppy? Yep, Josie [see below]. Andy helped by tricking the animals so they did not realize they were in bed with "the enemy." Jackson is extremely cute, even for a puppy.
The cats still like their tree. In this unstaged photo you can see all 3 enjoying it. Pongo decided it was fighting time but Ping was not so sure. Toodles was happy with nip.
So this blog is not updated that much, but maybe 2 weeks ago Mom & Dad visited. Here we are enjoying a Verona brewpub. Slow service but they had sweet potato fries and good root beer so all was well.


And Mom went hope but Day stayed and enjoyed a classic winter oven baked BBQ chicken dish with asparagus, red potato, and mushrooms.


So as you can tell things are going well! More posts to come, perhaps they will be more interesting. Hmm in other news we are off to visit Josie's fam this weekend. Should be good times.

New Buddy

Josie and I have a new friend, here is Jackson:


Josie gets to puppy-site for a co-worker when she is working and Josie has the day off. Needless to say, Josie enjoys those days a lot:
I like him alright too.

Sunshine?

My dear friend Heather is vacationing in Arizona right now, and is filling her days with hikes and backpacking trips in the warm desert sunshine. Our friend Amanda is swimming in the glorious ocean waters of Saipan. My sister is relaxing on the beaches of Mexico (a much-deserved vacation from residency). In an attempt to make myself feel better about our snowy, cold, cloudy time in Madison, I am posting the famous 5:50 am photo from hiking in sunny, warm colorado this summer. The sun will return! I have faith, I'm just getting impatient...

2009 -- more food

Made some good oven food, rasperry walnut chutney on chicken breasts, asparagus, and sweet potato:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh6X4gwuqww (skip to 1:00 if you are pressed for time)

And a spinach, pomegranate, and walnut salad. Pretty solid.

On the non-food front... today:
-Running
-Go to store
-Samosas for dinner!

tomorrow:
-cross country skiing
-Christmas party for JoJo's work

Christmas at the Farm

The highlight of the visit was the infamous escaping cow- the vicious, wild cow (possibly mad) that Josie single-handedly corraled back into its pen. Yes, she is a cowgirl. Even Claire was properly impressed with the escape and subsequent retrieval. I am certain that others would be impressed, too, had they been awake during the wee hours of the morning during which this happened.




After Josie took care of the Great Cow Escape of 2008, there wasn't much to do around the farm. We ate a lot of delicious food (thanks, Tim!), played pitch and euker, and watched the kids play. After the little ones went to bed, we were reduced to licking our elbows for entertainment- according to Andy's cousin, Blake, "The most delicious thing you've ever eaten."

Andy and Josie had a wonderful Thanksgiving in MN, eating lots of pie and lefse and playing with our puppy niece and nephew, Yuka and Oscar. It turns out that Andy likes dogs. A lot.

Grrr!

Watch out for the mighty Claire Dinosaur! Actually, I am pretty sure that she thought she was being a cat. Anyway, she was very scary ("meow! meow!") and is coming to do a tail-wagging dance near you! -Josie

Marmot!

So about a month ago I was in Colorado and had a staring contest with a marmot. He won, but through cheats such as charging right at me. We also saw a white marmot - the picture is not as good. But that is pretty old news... New excitement:
-Trip to Seattle
-Finishing Painting the Windows
-Mowing the lawn
-Running more and logging runs again
-Cooking good homemade pizza and grilling
-??? Who knows what else... We have a pretty nice Sunday planned, first we are off to the Home Depot, pick up some landscaping bricks and some paint. Maybe Bed, Bath, and Beyond, I don't know, I don't know if we'll have enough time.

Things are pretty good, we may do some furniture shopping as we have not bought furniture since we moved to our house... I bought a mattress in Dubuque, a bookshelf in Madison, and we were given a lot of stuff by various kind people. I suppose we did buy a kitchen table, but that was retired when we were given a table. Our couch has... issues. Pretty old/stained to begin with, and a decent sized section of fabric is an old pillow cut up and held on with straight pins. It is where the person that gave it (we do appreciate it) to us had a candle fall on it and burn a large hole. So perhaps this weekend we will find something to replace it.

Sunday!!!

Well, after many Tuesdays of silence I'm back online Sunday afternoon. My computer has been crashing lately, I likely need a new motherboard, which saddens me. The cats have been mostly good, though somehow they wiggled open the screen one evening when Josie and I were watching a movie. After the movie we eventually found the cats outside on the deck hiding on/under patio furniture. Pongo would not be taken easily, and ran underneath the deck. He was apprehended shortly after.

Other news: I've been on call last week and kept pretty busy. Looking forward to a normal sleep schedule. My sister is now a Doctor, which is good. My sister in law was not well congratulated when she became a Doctor... her Grandma (trying hard in her own way) wrote, "We are very proud of you for becoming a Doctor, of course, we would have been just as proud if you had become a janitor." So Kate-- congats and you should be waaaaaay more proud than if you had become a janitor.

Weather News:
Lots of storms! Our street flooded decently, we are near a drain and had a small lake above the drain where water went past the sidewalk. Luckily no water in the basement [other than through a skylight which is apparently structurally good-- this was minor and is being cleaned up by insurance etc. -- but lots of fun]. Another major effect of the storms is that my task of staining the deck is delayed, yet another weekend passes with the task undone. Also, as always Josie and I obeyed the television and donned our bike helmets as tornado protection.



And yes, we survived. Thank you television. We also learned that "it is a bad idea to go outside to get pictures of the storm, but if you get any good ones, send 'em on in!" We tried to obey this command but were confuzzled.

Tuesday?

Yep another Tuesday. I actually ran last night _and_ this morning. Wow 2 days in a row! But Ultimate Frisbee starts a week from Thursday and I need to be in top condition. Not really but I am enjoying the lack of ice [read being able to run without injuring myself yet another time on ice].

Josie made an amazing cheesecake yesterday, using that recipe from Aunt Jane. Man does it make a lot, but man is it good.

But really things are busy but good. Was nice to see lots of family on Easter. Greg and Ellen had ok excuses. Claire was cute but needs to work on her cat animal noise, Cmon'! The biggest Easter news is that Kate somehow did not break the new dishwasher.

Dog Sitting

So we had a visitor a few weeks back, Gizmo. He is a Shi-tsu and full of energy. When he first arrived he just ran around and smelled everything.


Eventually Toodles decided to check things out from a safe distance.


Gizmo decided Toodles was pretty scary, so he hid under a chair.


Our other cats were petrified, and hid (unsuccessfully) under tissue paper for hours.


But we all had fun. Here is Josie and Gizmo in their matching jackets heading out for a walk.

one more

Ok this one is so good I had to share it --

Wisconsin nEwS!

Ok so I finally got a new computer. Yep the old PIII800 is getting retired from service. We had a good run but after 8 years the fans were getting frighteningly loud and once something broke it was not worth fixing. The new system is pretty good, another frankenbox from parts but delivers on performance [and cost]. So I'm glad to announce the geek council is considering re-instating me now that my system is not obsolete. All in all, things are lookin' up.

I could not have done it without help from the cats. Brought in a cousin of Pongo to help with wiring. As payment the cats get all the boxes stuff came in, which they love - of course.

Cat ATTACK

News for me- I'm sick of this much snow and having to drive in it. And the cold is not appreciated, as I've been trying to run every day. So far I'm at 14/22 days running for the month- a heck of a lot better than last month but I'll try and improve on it. Had an eye check today and man is it not fun to be outside in the snow and sunlight when your pupils can't contract.

News for J- She likes cheese. No other news. She needs to update her own blog, which is unchanged from when I made it 2 years ago. Also, she likes blueberries.

Well our Cats love the new "tiered" seating with baskets, though they each prefer a different level. Note the heavier they are the closer they prefer to be to the ground.

Toodles has been working out on the exercise ball. He has also constructed a rudimentary fort with this newfound strength. We shudder to think of his potential had he a brain.

Guests and Such

Well Josie and I got to watch Claire while Kate and Will enjoyed a much deserved evening to themselves. She really enjoyed the cats. Miss Ping decided she would run around in front of Claire and distract her from eating, there were a lot of "oohs!" She hasn't quite gotten petting down but we have high hopes for her.

Todd visited us for a few evenings, for his new job he uses Epic software, and was in town for training. Here we are the evening I cooked:

Josie found a recipe for poached balsamic chicken, it was pretty good actually. I think I prefer baked or grilled to poached but the flavor was excellent.


I had a couple trips recently, Detroit and Houston. Some crazy travel fun flying near the holidays and with bad weather, but I made it. Hopefully driving this weekend goes as well.