Puppies at the beach.

I LOVE this picture of the dogs…not the greatest quality because the dogs were running, it was overcast and Galveston is dirty, but look at their faces…PURE JOY! Just brings me so many smiles!

I’m “taking” a photography class via Amy online called Picture Summer. Basically, we get an assignment of something to shoot each day for the month of July.  Day 1’s assignment? Take a picture of something that symbolizes summer to you. Unfortunately, it is freaking POURING rain in Houston and I have not seen the sun in like 5 days. I think I’m gonna cry. So I’m using a picture that I took earlier this summer which is summer to me

(Insert cliche mystery movie climax music when something surprising is revealed) GASP!

I know, I know. It’s really a sad thing. And I know you are all just DYING to know what the Waters have been up to!

The biggest news for the past two months is that Michael got his dream car…truck…thing. It’s an Avalanche and he couldn’t be happier. He’s wanted one of these things since I met him 8 years ago. It is really pretty and has all the bells and whistles. And most importantly, it can tow a boat. Or at least I’m told that is an important feature

The bad news about the truck is that Michael took it to a car wash this weekend and they chipped his paint. He was NOT a happy camper about this situation. The manager at the car wash didn’t offer any suggestions on what they could do other than say they couldn’t fix it. Which brings me to a segment I like to call Really?! With Erika

Really, Mr. Carwash Manager? You REALLY thought that my computer engineer husband was asking you to fix the paint on his BRAND new dearly beloved car?

Really? And like we would trust a place called Mr. Bubbles to fix paint any ways?

Really? You didn’t expect that the wonders of social media could bite you in the rear when we posted the chipped paint and called you out on Twitter?

Really?

And you REALLY didn’t expect that when hundreds of people see something like that…including the people who market your Twitter account…you wouldn’t have some explaining to do when you were contacted by the VP of Operations? Really?

Huh!

Ok, so now that we have that squared away, Michael has a meeting today with the VP of Operations of Bubbles Car wash to discuss how to make this a positive outcome.

Should be VERY interesting. In fact, I would give almost anything to be able to sit in on this meeting. As a marketer/communicator…it would just be totally fascinating. Maybe they can recover!

In other news, Kona has decided to boycott her pillow. I’m not at all kidding when I say her pillow is the size of a twin bed. It’s really big. And she’s had it for about 2 years now and has always loved it. But recently, something interesting has been happening.

You see, Dixie will always go to bed when the first person goes upstairs…usually me. She REALLY loves her pillow (also the size of a twin bed). Kona is always torn on what to do when one of us is upstairs and the other downstairs. So she usually lays on the landing of the stairs so she can see down and up…very clever that Kona Bear!

I’d noticed a couple times that cute little Dixie was laying on Kona’s pillow when the brown dog wasn’t around. This didn’t seem to be a problem. Kona would come in the bedroom and look at Dixie then look helplessly at me with eyes begging me to do something about this clearly TERRIBLE situation. So I would tell Dixie to get on her own pillow then Kona, in her most dramatic performance (it gets better each time) would huff and puff and circle the pillow 4 times before finally plopping down, facing Dixie of course, so she could stare her down. Oh the theatrics!

Well, about two weeks ago, Kona decided to boycott her bed altogether and has taken to sleeping on the floor right by Michael’s side of the bed. And let me just tell you how smart and perceptive the furry friend is! She knows it drives me crazy when she chooses Michael over me AND if she pouts and acts put out. So it one simple act, she is doing both.

So I have been racking my brain every day, trying to figure out what the deal is. And last night, I think I may have solved the mystery…Kona wants a BIGGER bed…like king sized.

You see, back before we discovered that I was allergic to our little angels, the dogs were in a habit of getting to lay on the bed while I read, before I went to sleep. Every now and again, for a special treat, they would be allowed to stay the night. But as Kona is such a diva, she would get upset at the slightest move of our toe and in dramatic style would move to her pillow. In the past year, they have not been allowed to join us on the bed at all and I think she is missing it.

On Friday night, Michael was a Sunday School Teacher ROCK STAR and stayed ALL NIGHT at a youth lock-in. I’m talking 8pm-8am…not a wink of sleep. I wimped out at 11:30 And went home, but wasn’t tired. So I decided to watch a Criminal Minds marathon on A&E…POOR DECISION when you are home by yourself might I add. Kona was doing the Diva again, so I decided to let her up on the bed to sleep with me…after all, I was home alone.

Not only did Diva Kona get on the bed before I could finish inviting her, she decided to sleep RIGHT in the middle of the bed. If I moved, she would roll her eyes and at me and huff under her breath. I allowed her up on the bed last night as well, figuring that when Michael finished his movie and came upstairs, she would hop down on her pillow…her clean pillow might I add because I vacuumed it and washed it last night. However, Kona would not hop down, but instead plopped herself right in the middle of the bed…well actually more on Michael’s said. Usually, she gets in my space, but I hardly noticed her. Michael kept kicking her to get down and she would just stand up, move positions and lay back down.

So after last night, my conclusion is that she wants a bigger bed. My conclusion is ALSO that she will not get a bigger bed but will be happy with what she has because it’s already ridiculously more than most dogs in the world have!

Alright folks..that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

Last weekend, I headded to Arlington for Amanda’s baby shower. It was a lot of driving in one weekend, but still great to see my friend. And the bluebonnets were amazing on the drive there and back! Paige, Christy and I even figured out how to put together Amanda’s stroller/carrier and swing. We are very talented!

This weekend, I am heading to Amarillo for the Distrcit 10 AAF conference (American Advertising Federation). It should be a good conference…the most exciting part will be Friday night when they announce the winners of the district ADDY competition. CP has three entries from on of our accounts that won golds at the local level and have moved to district. I am sure I will be tweeting results (I’m believing they’ll be good!)

We are then home for the next few weekends but busy of course. Then we head to Kansas City to see my mom. I am really looking forward to going! She usually comes down to Houston since we are all here, but we thought it would be great to see KC since she’s been there for almost two years now. Then the following weekend I head to Orlando for a few days for a conference. Then a couple weeks after that is girls weekend. Then the following month is Mexico.

Hew! Lot’s going on….but in the meantime, we’re enjoying our new deck a great deal. So come over any time to check it out…well not any time because of the weekend travel, but you should definitly come during the week! The weather has been perfect for the deck and we’ve been eating outside, sitting outside…basically anything we can outside and we’d love for you to join us!

Ok, now that I have that off my chest, we’ve been crazy busy lately….but all fun things so I won’t complain! Last weekend, we went turkey hunting which was quite an experience. As such, I didn’t shower for 36 hours. That is a feat for me…I hate being filthy. But I did it in the name of shooting a turkey….which didn’t happen by the way. But we had a great time. Lots of nature and scenery and sitting outside enjoying breezy afternoons in a rocking chair under an oak tree….ahhh!

This weekend has been hard work, but very productive. I was off on Friday and Michael was not. I just had to put that in writing because it seems like Michael is off of work all the time for crazy holidays that no one observes besides the post office. Anyways, I got my hair done, went to Andrew’s birthday party (he turned 8!!!!), and then spent the rest of the afternoon doing some preparation for Amanda’s upcoming baby shower. Craftiness will commence when I finish this post. Firday evening Michael and I ran some errands and did some shrub trimming, had a tasty dinner and watched Pretty Woman. Michael had never seen it and it’s one of my faves! Nice and QUIET night.

This was not the case on Saturday. First off, Michael woke up at 7:30 on a Saturday. Ok, pick your jaw up off the floor…I was stunned back to sleep! He went and got a haircut then came back to yank me out of bed to get moving. We started off at the Garden Center looking for plants for our neighborhood (HOA duty) then ended up deciding we needed to get new mulch for our garden. To do so, we needed Jason’s truck. So we went to trade our car for Jason’s truck. We first made a stop at Home Depot (again) to get flowers to replace our dead ones. While there, Michael decided that this was the weekend to build a deck. He’d measured before and knew what he wanted to do, but we didn’t think we were going to do it so soon. But tonight we ate dinner on our fabulous new deck! He and Jason did an awesome job and I’m so glad to have a nice place to sit outside now. We’ll be working on making it super pretty with plants and such over the next little while.

The camera died, so no pictures yet, but I will post some as soon as I have some worth posting. Come on over and enjoy our deck with us!

I just have to say thank you for always reading our blog and thinking our tweets are the most interesting things you read each day. Ok, so maybe not the most interesting since you read lots of smart professor-type things. But you always respond enthusiastically to the tweets and tweet pics we send. You are our biggest fan!

Lots of love to you and looking forward to seeing you at Easter and our first trip to KC!

So Momma, I know you’re reading this and think that I’m great. And even if you’re the only one, I’ll write these posts for you

Life has been moving at 100 mph for us lately. Add jam-packed schedules to my new work-out schedule and that has left very little at home. ENOUGH was my cry this weekend after traveling for a week on top of the craziness. So tonight, rather than going to the gym on my way home, I decided I would come home and make dinner. Something I haven’t REALLY done in a while…and those of you that know me also know how much that kills me. Cooking is one of my absolute FAVORITE things to do. So tonight I made a super delicious homemade chili. Although Michael says it’s not really chili because it had beans in it. Seriously? Who hasn’t ever had chili with beans in it? And I know his mother likes to cook so, so bean-less chili in the Waters household is unfathomable to me. Anyways, it turned out great. And while Michael was on a conference call to China this evening we tried to eat our chili as quietly as possible…good times. The wine that goes with the chili wasn’t half bad either!

NOW the goal is getting up at 5 am to hit the gym before work since I didn’t go tonight. The wine that went with the chili probably won’t help that effort:)

Cheers!

I’m so excited! So check out my photos from my trip to visit pregnant Amanda this weekend….

I had a great time and it was so fun to see my friend so  pregnant. Amanda is due at the end of April and I’m predicting that she is going to have a big boy. Well we know he’s a boy and his name is Logan Jacob, but I think he’s going to be a long baby….which is funny since Amanda is not long! Anyways, check out the pics, and now that I know how to add a photo gallery, look forward to more!

Friday night, my 9th grade girls Sunday school class came over for pizza, cupcakes DDR and Rock Band…we had a blast and Mr. Michael even hung out with us. The girls (the furry ones) were totally worn out after all the petting and loving and attention they got….oh and at least an hour of laser pointer chasing. It was great!

Saturday night, the Communications Plus gang and our fams (including Jason and Ryan) went to the AAF Houston Addys Gala. We had three nominations for our work on the Slack & Co. campaign last year (Direct Mail, Ads and Mixed Media). Well, after anxiously awaiting the results through dinner (and sizing up our HUGE competition…think HP and Texas Children’s Hospital for starters) we were thrilled to win GOLD ADDYs in each of our three categories! It was a great night. I went to bed telling Michael that I couldn’t believe it. And after only 6 short hours of sleep, my eyes popped open and I was still smiling! My mom followed the whole evening on Twitter which was extra fun…Michael was awesome about updating all night with pictures and all for her.

Today, we had a really nice and quiet day. A great morning at church, a lunch, a perfect nap, a little bit of cleaning, then a nice,, quiet and early dinner at RA sushi complete with a quick trip to Wal-Mart. I’m jealous because Michael has off of work tomorrow because every computer engineer should have the freedom to celebrate President’s Day…It’s ok, I’m not bitter

Happy heart day everyone. No matter what  you did today, I hope you felt loved <3