Frogs and Food!

This weekend, the local museum got a new exhibit called: Frogs! It's pretty cool. They have all kinds of information about frogs, how they breathe, what they eat, where they live, the challenges they are facing, etc. They also have all kinds of live frogs! It was really fun to go look at all the different kinds and get a few pictures.

This is an African Bullfrog. It's quite large and would startle me very much if I ever ran across one in the wild.

I can't remember what these are called but I thought they were cool.

I really liked the poisonous frogs – they were such cool colors and hopped around a lot. There were also some really cool frogs whose heads were shaped like leaves and their camouflage was amazing!

After the frog exhibit, we went to a planetarium show where we may have dozed off for a couple minutes. Not because it was boring, but we were reclined in a dark room looking at the stars. I like to tease Henry about it because he snored for a minute, but I can't give him too much grief because his snoring woke me up. (It was pretty quiet snoring – I don't think anyone else could have heard it over the noise of the show.)
After that, we went to an International Food Fair at MSU that was put on by the international students. It was very cool. It was set up in the style of a street bazaar. It did get pretty crowded and difficult to maneuver but the food was really good and we had fun. My favorite was Turkey who had baklava and Spain who had Tortilla de Patata and something else whose name I can't remember. It was like a Spanish bruschetta and it was delicious.

Walking into the Food Fair:

It was a great President's Day weekend!

New Car!

In January, Henry and I found a car to buy! We had been a one car family (not counting Henry's company truck that he drives to and from work) since we sold our truck last January. The alternator had gone out and so the truck sat in our driveway for four months without moving. We had contemplated selling it before but could never get up the guts to do it. We thought we would need it too much. Anyway, after four months of not using it we fixed the alternator and sold it so we wouldn't have the large payment any more. We have been pretty happy with the decision. We have only needed a truck one time in the course of that year and we were able to rent one from Uhaul for $20. Much less expensive than insuring and registering and paying for the truck all year! We had always had the idea that within a couple years we would buy a car that was more conducive to carrying Sirius and multiple people (more family friendly, if you will). Our other car is the Toyota Corolla which we love, but doesn't do well with carrying a wet, dirty, hairy Labrador.

Anyway, we had spent a lot of time looking at cars and deciding what we needed in a new vehicle. We decided on this:

It's a 2006 Lexus Rx330 and we are very happy with it. It is roomy and comfortable, has a large cargo area for Sirius and will be a great family car for the future. It also has AWD which makes my snowy commutes much easier (as do the heated seats).

We're very thankful for the circumstances that allowed us to buy this car and we're sure it will be a great car for our family for many years.

Funny Video

For Christmas, my Dad and Karen got us a REALLY cool video camera that we have had a lot of fun playing with. Henry took this video of Matt's puppy Rowdy who got a little too close to the kitty one day. The best part is the music. He had Pandora on and it just happened to be playing this song during the showdown.

Catch up - Christmas

So, I'll be doing some catch up blogging and try to not let myself get so far behind!

First up - Christmas!

We spent our first Christmas in our new house this year and it was a great one. We had Henry's parents and sister Kat, my mom and her husband, cousin Matt and his parents Don and Caroline. It was a full house but we all had a lot of fun. There was some inclement weather and Kat's boyfriend had trouble getting here from Germany and Don and Caroline didn't make it home from Seattle until Christmas day.

On Christmas Eve, Matt and I made a big dinner. Matt had gone to Alaska last fall and came home with a lot of fish so we had delicious Alaskan fish, mushroom risotto and roasted asparagus. Yum! On Christmas Day, we got up and opened presents. With seven people giving and receiving presents, it wasn't long before the living room turned into a sea of wrapping paper!

Here is a picture pre-opening frenzy:


I don't think this picture fully captures just how many presents there were - but there were a lot. We also had Sirius, my mom's dog Cosmo, and Matt's new puppy Rowdy so our little house got a little crazy! But the good kind of crazy. :) Plus we all know I love an abundance of dogs.

For Christmas dinner, we had a Prime Rib (yum!), mashed potatoes, roasted Brussel's Sprouts and homemade canoli for dessert. Everyone was so helpful with cooking and cleanup and it really was a wonderful time.

For New Year's, Kat's and her boyfriend (Peter (who finally made it from Germany after two days of travelling!) were able to come back to Bozeman from Missoula and spend it with us and that was a lot of fun as well. Henry and I caught ourselves looking at our watches ant 9:30 and wondered if we were going to make it, but we did. :) We had a great sushi dinner (Peter's first time with sushi) and then were able to snag a couch at a bar so we didn't move for the rest of the night. It was great to ring in 2011 with family and friends! So far the year has been good to us and we're looking forward to seeing what else it has in store!