New Trick!

We can sometimes get our unruly dogs to do tricks. They were much more obedient when we would walk them and play with them or for the most part pay any attention to them. So the only way we can get them to do anything we want is if there's a treat involved (and sometimes not even then). Secret Agent Man, patient as he is, taught them a new trick.



Now, it doesn't look like much but we taught them to "freeze" with the treat on their nose. They've been getting lazy and letting the treat slide off. So he taught them to freeze with the treat in their mouths. They don't run off, they don't chew, they don't move an inch until he gives the OK....now, if we can just teach them "clean up." Heck, I'll settle for "fetch" or "be quiet" but I'll take "FREEZE!"

Sugar*mama

Happy New Year!

It's been so long since I've last posted anything here. I have many excuses but none that'll sound good enough (except that I couldn't post food pictures since they wanted to make me barf for a good 6 months last year).

So 2010 was full of:
-shingles
-traumatic car injury (Secret Agent Man getting hit by a truck)
-lots of therapy
-lots of doctor appointments
-and to top it off, a tick bite.

but it was also full of:
-wonderful, supportive friends and family
-meeting new friends who generously came out of nowhere to help us during trying times
-an easy and trouble-free pregnancy
-a lovely baby shower as well as love and gifts from afar
-a beautiful baby boy
-lots of friends and family giving birth to tons of babies around us
-lots of healing and smiles

So good-bye to 2010 and hello 2011. We're looking forward to a year of more smiles, healing, and love.

*sugarmama

Burrito Bowls

So, I know we're limited in our ethnic food choices here in our small town. I came here with my eyes wide open to that possibility but I didn't expect to miss Mexican food sooooo much. I'm talking simple stuff like rice & beans, tacos, salsa.

Secret Agent Man and I decided to try a Mexican restaurant in town--it's a chain that will remain nameless. The food itself was pretty good as haole Mexican can get but the experience here has everything to do with the college kids working there.

We have to show our IDs at the door (as you can imagine, lots of drinking gets done here) and get seated at a booth. We take a look at the menu and Secret Agent Man asks the waiter, "is there something here like Chile Verde?" The waiter is a bit stunned for a second and asks "what exactly is Chile Verde?" Of course, I start laughing and Secret Agent Man has to stutter out "green sauce" with a straight face. We're in a Mexican restaurant that hasn't ever heard of Chile Verde. Hmm...not a good sign. But we chose a carnitas enchilada and told them to make it with their tomatillo sauce so we got something pretty close to Chile Verde.

To make matters worse, another group comes in and is seated next to us. We were having an early dinner so it really was only us and that other group. The other group consisted of adult Korean nationals and when the waiters asks them if they had any questions or if they wanted to order, one of them asks for a "Burrito Bowl." Of course, that waiter was all confused. Now, in California, they wouldn't blink an eye at this request since many people like to eliminate the tortilla to reduce carbs or for whatever reason. Secret Agent Man was thinking--"this isn't Beef Bowl!"

I know what the waiters were thinking---"What's up with these Asians!" At least we were asking for something Mexican....

Winter X-games

Secret Agent Man has been waiting--literally--for the past 14 years (I think since 1996) for an el nino winter in California. The last el nino brought crazy snow fall in the local mountains all the way through April and he remembered going snowboarding and enjoying the sweetest rides that season.

So, of course, the ONE YEAR I move him AWAY from California is the ONE YEAR that el nino shows up. I'll never hear the end of this. Especially because despite all the snow here, there isn't a great snowboarding mountain around. So clearly, he's salty about missing out on all those sweet rides back in California, he's suffering from shingles (which for the most part have healed nicely), and he's quite literally freezing all the time. Yet, he tries to be a good sport about it.

He even pulled out his snowboard.
Um...hunny? Hun? Where are you going?


He's heading up the mountain...um...I mean, hill. This is our street before the snow plows could come through.


We've got some cool neighbors. That guy up on the right offered to push some snow and build a couple ramps for Secret Agent Man.


And here he comes!








Trust me he was all smiles...too bad he was going slower than an old lady with a peg leg. The pictures made him look good though, eh?

So, that was our big X-game moment. Here I leave you with a thought... Who says there's no waves in PA?






Happy surfing!
Sugar*mama

Snowmageddon-Doggie Edition

Snow might be novel for us and we probably enjoy it a little more than the average northerner might during this point in the winter but our enjoyment is NOTHING compared to what the dogs must be thinking. They are elated!

Here's Radar dying to play outside.


Here's Taylor trying to find her "spot." Note how high the snow is.


Taaayloooorr!!!


As you can imagine, manuvering through snow that deep is a tad bit more difficult for Radar. What this picture doesn't show is how high he has to jump to beable to propel forward; nor does it convey all the grunting sounds he's making.


But he's happy.


Meercats in PA?


Our dogs are terrible retrievers. So we were caught by surprise when Radar was barking and running around mad and Secret Agent Mad decided to throw a snowball at him (to get him to shut up) that he turned around and caught it! He was probably being a brat and showing up Secret Agent Man but none-the-less a new game was born!


Truth is that Taylor just thinks we're throwing food at her. She'll usually watch where the snowball falls and take a chomp out of it.


Radar can jump pretty high though!


Sometimes, they conk heads trying to catch the same snowball. It's very entertaining in a very sadistic way.


Here's a magic trick...how to make a dog disappear by the time I count to three...
One...

Two...

Three!


I wasn't fast enough with the camera but Taylor looked so concerned.

In the end, they even learned how to actually retrieve!


And here they are all pooped out, waiting at the door to go back inside. A tired dog is a good dog.


I'll leave you with this picture of our pretty boy snow fox.


Sweet times...
Sugar*mama

Snowmageddon-PA edition

We thought the big snow storm was back during Christmas. Since then it had been gray and brown with some rain and really frigid temperatures. Some of you may have heard about the huge storm to hit Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, MD areas that shut down the cities. That same storm hit here and dumped at least 18" of pristine, fluffy, dry, sandy, fine snow.
And now you know why Innuits have 40 words for snow.




The snow piled so high that the stairs on our front porch were buried and there's a good 6" of snow ON the porch.


The trees looked like it was dripping with frosting.


This should give you some perspective of how deep "we" had to dig. My truck's bumper is in the background.


The snow was almost too high for the snowblower.




Secret Agent Man has a lot of fun with the snowblower.


He's also a good neighbor. We have 24 hours to shovel our sidewalks after a snowfall. Secret Agent Man has so much fun with the snowblower he keeps going until he clears the block.


He still needed to shovel the stairs though.


Our village/town/borough does a great job with clearing the streets. This time the snow fell so quickly, they had a hard time keeping up.


Our neighbor thinks we're weird.


Here I am, trying to make a snow angel. The doggies wanted to help. You know, kids make this look so easy but my question is how the heck do you get up without ruining the angel??


While I'm writing this, we're bunkered down, waiting for the next snow storm to pass. Another 12" is expected to fall between tonight and tomorrow night.
Stay warm!
Sugar*mama

11.1

...degrees. It's 11.1 degrees outside and dropping. That's not the coldest it's been this winter but it's still pretty darn cold. It hasn't gotten over 28 degrees for the past few days.

Secret Agent Man has shingles and although everyone says he's not contagious, I'm sure pre-chicken pox kids, pregnant women, and senior citizens would be happy he's not walking the streets. Seeing as the temperatures have been pretty icy, we're not all that motivated to leave our freezing house for even colder adventures in town. Although the heater in the car is our only sense of relief since this house is barely able to stay above 50 degrees with the heater burning full blast. Good times, people.

So we're tucked into bed and then we get a hankering for nachos. It was only midnight and we do live just outside a college town and thought it would be fun to sneak out for a midnight date. It's our favorite kind--but just so you know we aren't complete fatties, we didn't eat dinner so I felt it was justified. However there was only one big problem with our brilliant plan:

Who the heck in our town serves Nachos?? Lemme tell you-no one.

Then we thought it would be a good time to go to the grocery store and I could make our own nachos...

..but by the time we worked up to courage to get out of our warm and cozy bed, we looked at the dropping temperature and decided that it's just waaaaay too stupid for us to venture out. So I settled for a fried egg and avocado sandwich that I made on fresh olive bread from our local baker, very reminiscent of this sandwich but instead of cheese I sprinkled bacon bits in it. Secret Agent Man made himself some miso soup and rice. There's no wonder why I call him Jack Sprat.

Stay warm but sneak out for something fun every once in a while!
Sugar*mama

Shave Ice!

Or as Big Islanders say: "Ice Shave!"



Sweets for my sweets.
Sugar*mama

Terrible Twos...

So the most enjoyable treats of fall are all the baking of pumpkins and apples and turkeys and breads. With the coming of the holiday season, now is the perfect time to warm up your mittens and whip out your whisks. What better way to get excited about baking than to bake an apple pie?

If you've ever baked an apple pie from scratch, you know what an ordeal it is. Not only do you have to deal with pie crusts to carefully mix, rest, roll out, and chill. Then you must make the apple pie filling: peeling, coring and slicing all the apples, adding spice and cooking it down and letting it cool. Then you finally get to bake the pie for over an hour and waiting at least 6 hours to cool. By the time all is said and done, it'll be 24 hours before you actually are able to slice into and enjoy a piece of apple pie.

You know where this is going, don't you? So, I baked the perfect apple pie with a great mix of local apples and we were patiently waiting to taste this piece of heaven and it sat over night to cool and the next morning, Secret Agent Man and I decide to run a quick errand. This isn't a big deal, we run errands all the time but for some reason that morning, the dogs decide to throw a tantrum. A MAJOR tantrum.

We returned home to find my lovely, beautiful, delicious pie on the ground, licked clean. And to finish it all off, they got hold of some altoids to hide their guilty breaths (no joke!).

We were so looking forward to eating a piece...I nearly cried. They know not to jump up for food off the counter/table/laps but when they throw tantrums, they know how to be royal pains. I almost took a picture but thought it was too depressing to share. So, coming up...directions for Apple Pie #2.

Guard your sweets.
Sugar*Mama

For a snort and a smile...

Let me introduce...Sweet-T.

Despite her batty ears and her miniature pony size, she's the biggest, sweetest, scared-ey cat there is. Let me name a few...

She's so scared of thunder that she trembles and cries. Secret Agent Man had to even sleep downstairs with her when a thunderstorm rolled in. He couldn't even sleep on the couch because a little rumble and she jumped onto the couch (a no-no in our house) and tried to dig her way UNDER Secret Agent Man. Sooo....he pulled out his camping gear, set up his bed on the floor and slept with her there (he's going to kill me...).

She looks like a vicious guard dog and even has a mean bark...but heaven forbid someone attacks you. Most guard dogs will stand between the threat and their master and growl and bark a warning. This girl will growl and bark alright, AFTER she's jumped behind you and pushed you forward toward the threat.

She's so scared of earthquakes, she can jump and clear a two foot baby gate (trust me, she's clumsy so this is ridiculously difficult for her) to hide with her brother, Sugar-Ray, who's a good 50 pounds lighter than she is.

But this one tops it all....she could be sleeping so peacefully in a little ball with not a care in the world....then pppffffft! and she jumps straight up in the air and streaks to us with a panicked look in her eyes.

She's scared of her own farts.

Happy Friday!
Sugar*mama