Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! 

I hope you all had an enjoyable holiday! 

Here at our household, a good time was had by all.  For Christmas Eve, a friend from school came down and we made an endeavor of creating the most intense cake ever!  According to my Bon Apetite magazine, it was supposed to be a simple 3 layer spiced chocolate torte with chocolate ribbons.  Perhaps I should have thought twice when I read the title.   Nonetheless, I wanted to have it for Christmas dinner and thankfully decided I should start it on Christmas Eve.  Well, I dragged my friend into it, and we worked on it for about 5 hours on Friday and then another 3 or 4 hours on Saturday.  Sheesh!  On Christmas Eve we went out to dinner with some family friends at a nice Italian restaurant and then came home, made some cookies real fast, and ate them along with some jelly beans "belly flops" that my friend had brought, while we watched Home Alone 2.  I think my Mom made it through about half the movie before falling asleep on the floor haha. 

Here are some photos of an evening walk in the park with Marge and Landy:

Here are some photos of THE CAKE:

Mare and her loot:

The tree:

Christmas morning was nice, we opening stockings, made a frittata, waffles and fruit for breakfast, and then opened presents from the tree.  Marge got so many presents she got tired of opening them!  I found this really cheap pack of 6 dog toys at Walgreens and wrapped them all individually, so Marge got to open a lot of things.  I also got this stuffing-free fox toy for her that is really too long for her and when she drags it from its head, she trips on its body, oops!  But she loves to thrash it around while growing at it, so I think it was a successful purchase (I mean Santa present).

Christmas dinner was with the same family friends, quite fun, and then my best friend who lives in Ecuador came over and we all had cake and then played Trivial Pursuit, except that the game is from the 70s so no one knows any of the answers! 

On Sunday I tried out my Christmas present, a road bike!  Very exciting!  But I need a lot of practice, I am not used to the toe clips, and I fell over when trying to stop.  A new skill to learn.  How to successfully stop on the bike without falling over.  Step 1.  We'll go from there. 

Yesterday I went up to my friend's Cabin in Forestville, CA and we went to a nice restaurant called the Applewood.  It was quite tasty and we came home, drank hot chocolate and played lots of the card game Hearts.  Today we drove to Sebastapol and wandered around town into lots of adorable shops, book stores, cooking stores, and had a lovely lunch.  We came back to the city, went for a walk in the beautiful afternoon crisp weather, and then made some good chocolate chip cookies.  All in all, a good weekend :)

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Bad Dogs and Stupid People

Tonight was the annual neighborhood cookie party.  A great time was had by all.  Toddlers ran around, clothes covered with frosting, a small child and I decorated about 25 cookies, mostly me watching and him asking if he could eat them all.  Adults mingled, drank wine and beer, and discussed which high schools or colleges their respective children were thinking of going to.  And as is common at one of these functions, someone thought I was still in high school.  Must remember to wear make-up more often. 

And this was the first year that the hosting neighbors had a dog.  An adorable 9 month old puppy named Ruby.  Exhibit A (not really her, but a close-looking internet dog):

This puppy is a complete sweetheart, tail wagging low all the time, slightly timid with strangers, great with the babies pulling at her fur, a great family dog.  Except for the fact that she loved cookies!  Well any food that was around.  So at one point, everyone had left the dining room and Ruby thought this was a great time to put her paws on the dinner table and see what all the fuss had been about.  I spotted this mischief, and being the great vet student I am, ran to the rescue.  I swiftly approached the pup, grabbed the plate she had knocked on the floor, and courageously reached into her mouth to try to extract the poor gingerbread man that was being inhaled.  During this time other humans had come to help, and also around this time, as my hand was in her mouth, I realized, crunch.  She didn't stop chewing!  Instead she chewed my finger along with the cookie!

I slunk off to the sink to investigate my throbbing finger, only to realize, yes, there blood and all, was my stupidity flowing into the water.  Of course my mother told everyone about this and the owners were embarrased and apologetic, but I don't think they were embarrased as me.  Aren't us vet students supposed to be smarter?  Shouldn't I know better than to stick my hand into a strange dogs mouth?  But she was so sweet and cute before!  Well I guess usually the dogs I have to stick my hand into are either too sweet (my roommates puppy who has been trained well and has an oh so gentle mouth) or don't have enough teeth (Marge, who will just gum you to death) to do any harm.  Well, I like to think of this as a learning experience, one I will not repeat again.  Plus, since my cat attack, I am now well equipped to clean out animal bites.  Silver lining?

Now, there was another bad dog, stupid human scenario this evening.  We leave the cookie party, me embarassed and needing some betadine and neosporin, parents in tow, and head up the street.  We come home to exhibit B (viscious guard dog and apparently pissed off dog of the house):

Marge.  Well, stupid humans that we are, we left a bag of chocolate in my parents bedroom, and as my Dad put it, the scent from the bag must have been too overwhelming, because we found little bits of foil wrapper leading to the bag.  Crafty Marge had taken one chocolate bar out and unwrapped it and ate it!  Well, now she has done this kind of thing in the past, so I guess that makes us the stupid humans, but come on now, Marge, you should know better than to eat POISON!  They never learn, do they? 

But of course Marge then was apparently so mad we left her to have a cookie party with another dog, she not only got herself some dessert, but left us a little suprise to clean up too, geez.  As such, knowing she was bad, she is now hiding in a plush blanket on the bed.  Hard life. 

But all in all, it was a nice night.  Lessons learned.  No hands in dog mouths, and chocolate must be kept at higher levels.  Duly noted.

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Winter Wonderland

Finals are.... doneskies!!!  YES. 

Success?  Check!  Immune system?  Fail...  Sleep?  That's what winter break is for, right? 

My friends and I went to Tahoe Thursday and Friday after finals were done and my roommate and I went early on Thursday intending to ski/snowboard.  But the weather wasn't great so we found this great little rental shop (http://www.laketahoeskirental.com/) where the staff was so friendly and suggested we go snow shoeing at a place called Echo Lake Sno Park.  We were the only ones there and it was magical, as corny as it sounds.  So peaceful, white, wonderment.  And snow shoeing is so fun! 

Levi came along and he had a blast!  He bounded around, poucing through the snow, leaping, going shoulder deep and jumping out like a bunny, soooo funny! 

Here are some photos of our adventures:

After the snow we had a night out in Nevada, quite fun! 

Saturday was the Mercer Clinic, I saw 8 patients and 1 client, that's 5 kittens and 3 dogs in 1 truck.  Quite a busy day, but a great experience!

Sunday was the annual Santa Paws fundraiser put on my Mercer and I am a fundraising officer, so a few other students and I put on the event, and it was a great success.  I even got interviewed for the news!

I had ChaCha home for a few nights, she was excellent!  I didn't crate her and she loves her bed so much she doens't move the whole night!  Last night we went to the pet store and got her a new collar (her old one got a little ripped up by a dog that bit her ear :( and some Christmas squeeky toys!  We went on a walk on the Greenbelt today and she did fine, we encountered 1 squirrel and a few aggressive dogs, but she did her best and maintained her composure most of the time...

Today I also went to the Health Center for a cough I have had for about 3 weeks, and got some meds, which unfortunately made me a bit ill for the afternoon, hopefully they won't do that tomorrow!  So I got behind schedule and then had to drive to Sac to pick up some photos our family took a couple weeks ago.  Bad call.  4:30pm is the wrong time to drive to Sac.  I hit a bunch of traffick, then got off on the wrong freeway exit, got back on the freeway the other way, then the exit I needed didn't exist on that side so I had to drive further, turn around again, and then get off on the right exit, whew!  Well thankfully by the time I left the traffic had calmed down, or I might have used C-roll to push others out of the way!  Okay, maybe C-roll could only affect SmartCars...

And now back to home sweet home!  Marge barked at me when I got home today, she must be getting senile or blind in her old age!

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