Da Fence

Dear Henry,
For your 5 month birthday we are giving you a fence so that you may run free in our back yard. Mind you, this gift could've easily been:

• A back packing trip to New Zealand. (For your parents)

OR...

• A lifetime of dog food. (Your lifetime Henry)

But we decided to give you a fence because of your sad puppy eyes and adorable ways. Here is the transition for you to look back on...

BEFORE:
The the buried concrete wall that must've been fashionable at one time (otherwise why do it?)

AFTER:


And look at how much fun you have playing fetch with the hanger that you stole off our bed! It must be really nice not having to run with a rope attached around your neck.

HAPPY FIVE MONTHS HENRY!
Love, Casey and Megan

PS You're a lucky dog.

Casey is 32

We celebrated Casey's Birthday this weekend....and last weekend. We did quite a few activities in honor of Casey turning the big 3-2. The festivities began on April 17th with the family. Casey's parents, Katie, Adam, Annie, Marceah as well as my brother, Angie and Leah came to celebrate! Casey made some amazing chipotle burritos and we had some yummy banana cake for dessert.

Here Annie and I are sorta helping Casey blow out the candles.
(Credit goes to Annie for doing a fabulous job putting the candles on the cake--we put the whole box on! Also, notice the plume of smoke in the lower right hand corner. We had to open up the windows after the candles were blown out!)

Leah really liked the cake, she was taking fistfuls!


Day two of the birthday celebration we enjoyed one of Casey's favorite activities-baseball. I was mostly excited to have one of the famed Kramarczuk brats. YUM! It was worth every penny. Casey had a steak sandwich and then round 2 of food was empanadas and chicken fingers with french fries. The Twins unfortunately lost (boo! :( ) but we did enjoy seeing our first game in the new stadium! I surprisingly got pretty into the game too!

Yesterday was the final birthday celebration. We celebrated Casey and Britta's birthday with all of our friends. It was a great afternoon with friends, babies and puppies. I unfortunately didn't get any pictures at this event but there are some good one's on Britta and Kim's blog. It was really great to see everyone and am looking forward to the next time we can all hang out.

And of course it wouldn't be a blog post without an update on Henry's antics. Henry helped me clean the fridge on Saturday. I think he enjoyed the experience thoroughly.

Daycare for Dogs? That's Silly!

But it's true and it's amazing! We have never seen Henry so pooped out by the end of the day. He barely responded to us the whole night and often looked like the picture below. (In that picture he was trying desperately to keep his eyes open to watch us but failed). Today we are planning on spending the day getting the house cleaned up and preparing food to celebrate Casey's birthday. So I brought him in for the day so he could get some good playtime in before all of the kiddos come over. He was so excited when we walked into the daycare, his whole body was wagging when the handlers greeted him and brought him in the play area. It made me laugh. He's such a good dog.


Oh and the second picture was while Casey was using the blender. Henry was trying to hide behind me so I picked him up and had him just hang out on my lap to watch. Such a scardy cat! The vacuum is even worse, when I roll it out of the closet he disappears. His "safe spot" is the first step going down to the basement. He peeks out around the corner to supervise the "chaos" from there. Lol!

Bon Voyage

Today we had a going away party for Aunt Pam & Dave as well as Katie. Katie will be deployed in May for about 3 months. Pam and Dave are picking up and moving out West to Montana. We wish them all safe travels and lots of love.

Here is Pam, Katie and Annie playing with the balloons.

Here is a cute video of Annie counting with me by the garden.

Synchronized Dog Training

Sadie came to stay with us Thursday night this week. It was a lot of fun having her around.

Spaghetti Squash-- What's that?

So, the past month and a half have been spent without beef/chicken/pork/turkey in our diet at home. Many of our staple meals (such as Gorditas!) require the use of those key ingredients so at times we were at a loss (we had a week where we ate Mac N Cheese two nights in a row :) ) However, Casey and I really stepped up to the challenge. I, in particular had a lot of fun developing my expertise in the kitchen using ingredients never used before!

I thought it would be fun to share a few of the yummy recipes we tried out that are definite repeaters!!! (I do have some pictures that I may try to add later, otherwise click on the link to see the recipe)

• Vegetarian Korma: We have made this recipe almost every week. SOOOOO good - even with those darn peas! (I hate peas) If you haven't had curry before this may be a tasty place to start.



• Asparagus & Mushroom Quiche: This recipe called for bacon which sadly we could not add. I'm excited to try it again!
  
  


• Portobello Mushroom sandwiches: Thanks to Casey's Dad for this idea! We marinated the mushroom caps in teriyaki sauce. Then we grilled up some onion, red pepper and the caps. We topped the caps with the fixings, some feta cheese and served on a ciabatta roll. YUM!
  
  


• Grilled Veggie Deluxe Pizza: Papa Murphy's Gourmet Veggie Pizza (without the artichokes/zucchini yuck) on the grill. The grill made the crust nice and crisp. (Though I do think I burnt it --- Casey was a trooper).
  
  


• Vegetarian Tortilla Soup: The avocados on top of this made it delicious.
  
  


• Potato Leek Soup: For this recipe I substituted the heavy cream with skim milk/butter. We also opted for vegetable broth over the chicken broth. This was my first time having leeks. They're really good...almost like a green onion.
  

Well that about does it for now! We still have a spaghetti squash to figure out before Sunday...maybe Friday's dinner???? Should be an adventure.

March Madness Sherplante Style

I'm not going to pretend I watch basketball but I thought that the title fit for this post. We had two concerts this month for the Northern Symphony Orchestra (actually the second is this Sunday). We continue to go to puppy playtime at the Humane Society every Saturday morning. Otherwise our free evenings are spent exploring fun parks to go for walks in.

For Henry he had a few milestones. His first Valentine (okay that was in February), his first bath, and his first stick of celery (mmmmmmmmmm!!!!).

Okay - so maybe he didn't actually eat the celery. Shredding it would be a better description. We will be starting up level 1 obedience in a couple of weeks. Overall he listens very well and will do what we tell him to do. However, if he has lots of energy or is not getting the attention he thinks he should get, he becomes a herding machine. We are eager to have this stage end! Although it is teaching us patience (it gets on our nerves as well as getting in our skin!).

Casey has decided to bike to work once the weather becomes nice on a more regular basis. To get him to work and back faster, we went and purchased new shoes and pedals (that he can clip in to). Here he is taking it for a test ride. He said he is very speedy now.