Restfully Busy

The days are passing by too fast.  It feels like I hardly have enough time to post our small adventures before I forget them.  

Life has been good to Spencer, as of post-graduation.  He has cut back his work hours drastically to accommodate his study time, lucky duck!  I learned this last week that Spencer has indeed finally graduated. His last grades were posted and he did really well.  I am so happy for him, that was a great note for him to go out on.  Now to acing his last and biggest test of his life!  To study for the Bar exam Spencer goes to the Tulsa County Bar Association, and sits in a room with all the other soon to be lawyers, and they watch a video lecture.  As I hear it, the chairs are uncomfortable as is the temperature in the room.  True to the Coons nature Spencer has found a more comfortable arrangement.  You can watch the lectures online, so he has reserved a study room in the law library.  From there he can watch the video with friends in comfort and at their own pace.... (that is just sooo Spencer).  Then he spends the rest of the day taking quizzes and learning new information they never taught in class....ahh the life of a Spencer!

My life is pretty free and easy.  With Spencer studying at home I see him far more than I did when he was in school...which makes me nervous, shouldn't he be gone more while he is studying for the Bar???  I am taking a quick online class to get it out of the way of my fall classes, 3 weeks left.  The hardest thing I have to deal with is working full time.  It has been a hard adjustment to waking up that early again.  I just don't know how I did it, here is to counting down until the 4th of July!  I have finally made it a whole week without taking a "nap" (my naps are around 2-3hours) in the afternoon, of course I go to bed around 8, but that is still  progress!!

My "napping" spot.  Spencer was a sweet man and made me some popcorn.  However, I am super clumsy and dumped the whole thing over Wienz and then managed to hit Max in the head with the bowl by accident while trying to put it on the ground...heaven help my children!! (This sort of thing happens on a regular basis, you can ask Spencer)

 I hardly remember what we did Memorial Day weekend except debating about what the details of Memorial Day celebrations entailed and going to the Dog Show.  Let it be known that I was correct about what the differences between Memorial Day and Veterans Day were.  Monday Spencer dragged me out of the house (I was having one of "those" days) and we drove past the Expo Center.  The sign said there was a dog show with free admission, you didn't have to ask us twice!  Later I learned that it had been going on for the whole weekend, so we only caught the "tail" end of it.  Right in front of us as we walked in were miniature wirehair dachshunds!!  So of course we watched them most of the time, they looked like puppies!!

One of the mini's being judged with a happy Spencer watching near by!

 The best part of watching the Dachshunds was when a large Asian family came to stand near us.  They had an 18 month old who was hanging on the not-so-sturdy fence when a owner of a dog that looked like a rug (no joke) came up to Spencer and I.  She started to explain how hard the owners work with the dogs and how children pull the dogs focus away and asked us if we could move the child.  We promptly told her that the child didn't belong to us.  Spencer and I looked at each other and started laughing.  Apparently we look pretty Asian and we wondered how she thought this kid looked like he belonged to us.  But I do want it known that the child's head and Spencers head were about the same size, I guess anybody could make that mistake ;).

The next best part of the dog show was the obstacle course.  They had two, one for small dogs and one for the large.  Our favorite part was watching the owners do a dry run without the dogs.  There were 40 people running every which way with one hand held out, it was pretty hilarious.  We sat and watched the large dogs for a while.  Some of the dogs were really impressive and fast while others thought it would be cool to go sniff one of the obstacles before the next jump.  Some of the little dogs where fun to watch because they would bark before every obstacle, which was really funny when they got to the pole weaving section.  After watching the little dogs we were determined to start Max's training right away.  That dog as some hops and is fast....we would totally win.  At this point Spencer turned to me and said you know if we never have kids we could fill our time with dog shows, he got great woman stare from me for that one, oh my silly Spencer!  But as soon as we got home I started running around the house making Max jump on different furniture...I tell you we have a gold metal in our future!!

 Now I realize that Oklahoma has been on the news a lot recently.  We have lived through 3 tornado seasons and not once have we been even close to a tornado.  That being said we still get the massive storms they bring with them.  But even the Oklahoman's were saying that this year was crazy!  It seemed that day after day we were having bad storms.  At one point they said yes we are having tornadoes but the bigger problem is the flooding, be careful!!

This picture does not do it justice...the rain was more like a waterfall.  Arizonans, picture a monsoon, make it even worse and lasting for hours....yup that was like these storms.  If driving, you had to pull over because your windshield wipers couldn't keep up, if you even had a un-flooded portion of road to drive on!

(This picture was not taken by me)  This is downtown Tulsa we live just to the left of this picture.  Don't worry I was still in my napping phase when this picture was taken.  Oooo, see the miniature world trade center building on the right (it was built by the same man but smaller)  that glass building right in front of it is where the Bar lectures are given.  Now don't you just feel like a part of Tulsa!

(Again, did not take photo)  This is the closest we have ever come to a tornado.  I believe that it was an EF2 or 3.  It touched down south of Tulsa, about a 20 minute drive from our house.  Spencer thought it was so much more closer than that, we like totally almost died, like duh!!  It did some damage to homes but luckily no one was hurt. 

 I believe that we are through the worst of the storms (knock on wood) and can now enjoys some early summer days before the humidity settles in. 

Max loves his squeaky balls.  We accidentally threw one over the fence and I was WAY to tired to go get if for him.  He sat there for over 20 minutes, Spencer finally went out to get him so we could go to bed.  There is nothing like a love between a dog and his ball!

 Despite how much Max loves his squeaky balls he loves even more so to put them out of his reach.  Once this is done, he then whines like the world is about the end until we get it for him.  Most of the time we do because he will destroy whatever it is that is keeping it from him.  At this time I was taking a picture of a plant pictured below and he nosed his ball through the fence.  To give him some credit, he did stick his head in as far as he could to try and get it back.

 Behind our patio we have a little extra space.  Ignoring my very brown thumb we planted ONE tomato plant (which hit me today that Spencer HATES tomatoes but was adamant that we get a tomato plant...) (Spencer editorial note: Spencer does not hate tomatoes, Spencer hates tomatoes on hamburgers because hamburgers are about the beauty of the beef) and some cilantro (the cilantro is mine, I LOVE cilantro).  And that completes the garden of Spencer and Katie, may it live longer than predicted and produce more than one tomato!

 I came out today and noticed we do have more than one tomato, I am excited to show Spencer what's for dinner!! 

Last year I let some stumps along our fence line grow back into...what ever they were.  One of them started to produce some berries this summer.  I was so excited that I was growing something without even trying!!  I also have some wild strawberries growing in my frontyard under the rain gutter spout!  I dared Spencer to eat the unknown berries, but since we don't know what they are and Hunger Games has taught us to not eat wild berries, he declined.  However, yesterday I made Spencer go on a death march around the neighborhood (also known as a walk).  We walked right under a tree that had the same fruit on it.  So at work today I asked my garden pro Nurses what berry grows on a tree....the answer Mulberry.

Here is one of my little mulberries, I am so proud of myself.  Apparently birds really like mulberry trees, which might explain why Spencer is disposing of so many dead birds in the yard.  Either the berries are poisonous or our dogs are more deadly than we first realized.  At some point we are going to have to give the berries a try....dum dum dUMMM!!!