Lately in our mediocre lives.

Recently I was going through my old instagram photos from last year and it made me sad. I've always said that our life was mediocre, but really until we got to Idaho, it wasn't. I mean we lived in England for 3 months, then we lived in Savannah for a year and there was always something fun to do. The beach, good eatin', historical landmarks, events at the park, going crabbing, St. Patricks day festival, New Years Eve, 4th of July, road tripping to Charleston, kayaking, fishing etc.

It's not to say that I'm miserable here, it's just you never realize how good you have it until afterwards, and perhaps, I hope I will feel that way about Idaho when we leave. (Cross your fingers that one day we leave!)

And now, the purpose of this blog was to update with the actual mediocre things that we've been up to. Which most of you, I will warn you, it is boring, but it's for my personal records. Since Taylor is always printing our blog at the end of the year, our book from 2012 was much smaller than our book from 2011 (and it had four months less!) So I am going to make a better effort, maybe.

I'll start from where I can remember in February
I started a new job! Nothing fancy, but I definitely don't hate it, and that's important. I am a full-time receptionist at a car dealership here in Idaho Falls. I've been here for about a month now and it's going well. But it's given me a reason to hate Mondays again, so that's fun.

My BFF!! came to visit me all the way from Vegas. Well technically she only came from Lehi, but still. It was a blasty. We love eachother and her baby is the COOLEST! and best dressed, even Joan Rivers herself couldn't deny it:

After that weekend Valentine's day was approaching, and to be honest, I don't really care about Valentine's. I think it's much more fun when you're a little kid or you have little kids. I don't HATE Valentine's it's just silly that it's a commercial holiday that gives women a sense of entitlement to expensive gifts. But still Tayl got me roses, which looked like regular roses so I didn't take a picture of them because nobody really cares, except me. And ON Valentine's I threw this little ditty together in like 30 minutes:





 Then the following weekend we headed up to SLC, because said BFF's parents were having their mission farewell. That was sad for me because they are literally like Chicken Nuggets to me. and Chicken Nuggets, is like my family. The trip up there was ridiculous because we learned that Roscoe gets car sick and so he barfed like 12 times. Twice on me.

The last little bit of February, the dogs were a real hassle. Roscoe kept losing his teef. And then one day I came home for Lunch and the dogs had gotten into some of Tayl's specialty dark chocolate I gave him for Valentine's SO, I was freaking out and had to rush them to the vet. Which was 0% fun and 100% expensive. But they are alive.

And other that near death experiences and visits from loved ones, nothing else new exciting.

Oh and I made this wreath on Saturday and BARELY took down the Christmas-y one. At first I thought it was too plain. Because I literally went to Michael's and randomly grabbed stuff. But it turned out pretty good. I like it much more now that I've gone in and out of my door a few times:

That's all the mediocrity for now, folks.

Roscoe Dash.

OH MY GOOOOOOSSSHHHHH YOU GUUUUYYYYYSSSSSSS....

We are alive!

Barely.

Basically what happened is that my battery on my laptop wouldn't hold a charge and so it had to stay plugged in all the time. But then my charger stopped working so I couldn't use my laptop and if I can't watch TV while I blog, then it ain't happening.

Anyway, I'll try harder now. But I figured it would be a good time to go ahead and introduce the latest addition to the Giddens' clan.

He's established a fairly strong presence on facebook and instagram, but not on our blog. So without further ado, I present to you:

Roscoe Dash

He's the cutest puppy in the world, after Lux of course.

Let me tell ya'll the story of how this sweet poopin machine came to be a part of our family.

I knew I wanted to add another canine to our clan, it was pretty depressing to watch Luxie throw her own toys in the air and then chase after them. Also, let's me be totally honest, I'm THAT girl. The dog girl. I am obsessed with dogs and I have been basically since I came to the earth. If I could have 75, I would, but I'll save that for 50 years from now when I'm ready to be featured on an episode of Animal Hoarding. So ANYWAY, you may remember a post in which I tricked people into thinking I was pregnant but it was actually that we were going to adopt my aunt's havanese. Well, in the end my aunt decided she couldn't part with her dear doggy. And I don't blame her, but in the end I was glad. Because Roscoe is my sweet baby angel.

The plan was that we were going to get a new puppy after the holidays so as not to add additional stress to our holiday traveling. SO Naturally I began browsing online, I checked the shelters to see if there were any hypoallergenic dogs for adoption (there weren't, those get snatched up pretty quick) and then I looked on ksl.com and I stumbled upon some "Shorkies" that were available locally and they were so cute, I was dying. I contacted the people to ask if we could just go "LOOK" at the puppies, and they said yes. I called Taylor and told him I would pick him up on his lunch break to go "look" at the last puppy they had available. We got there and immediately fell in love. I told the lady that we would not be able to take him until after the holidays and she said that was fine. But then Taylor suggested that I take him home for "just a little bit" just to see if Lux liked him. So I did.

Lux mostly liked him. Sometimes she just wants him to shut up and leave her alone, but she lets him know. As you may have guessed, I never took him back. I just kept him.

Having him has been fun, and frustrating. He has so much energy and is growing SO quickly. He's already bigger than Lux. He's almost getting that we don't go potty in the house, and I'm proud. His favorite food is anything. His favorite band is Journey. His full name is Roscoe Dash, after the rapper.

The naming of this dog did not come without much suffering. We changed his name about 3000 times, and I called him Puppy and GirlGuy, like a lot. Nothing felt right. We tried to name is Russ for awhile. But that sounded so wrong whenever I said. I really liked Roscoe all along, but I felt like people would judge me. But then, I didn't care because he's my dog.

Anyway, I'll shut up. We love him. He's snuggly and he's my sweet fat boy. Here are more pictures:

hiatus. tayl returns!

it's sad that my life is so that when I don't blog for 6 days it feels like I haven't blogged in 12 years. But, I mean, blogging is really one of my main duties as a wife and I should at least be blogging on Wednesdays and I totally skipped. Sorry to all my dedicated readers of Wifed Up Wednesday (aka just Jen.)

Monday felt like Monday, Then Tuesday felt like Saturday and a little bit of Sunday. So Wednesday felt like Monday and everything was out of control. In a good way.

The real Monday (not Wednesday) is when Taylor came home, finally.

His flight wasn't due to arrive until 3:55 PM so I went about my day as normal as the strong independent woman I had developed into over the past 3 weeks. In the afternoon, I was doing my make-up I got a call from Taylor at about 3:50 PM saying that he had landed, collected his luggage, and was waiting for me. I felt bad that I wasn't there waiting for him, but I forgot that Savannah airport is not like Atlanta.
So I hauled my butt out the door to get my man.

When we got home Taylor and Lux had their reunion and it was like I stopped existing to them.

Lux missed her daddy, and his leg:

The day went on and we relaxed and did normal married people stuffs. I did Taylor's laundry. (The first non-asian to do his laundry in weeks.) Then we went to the Hunger Games (again for me).

Random note, homecoming day also happened to be wildlife day in casa de Taykyns. 

That morning April came over to play tennis with me and she brought the mail in with her and informed me that this was in our mailbox:

 It was dead, obviously, but so pretty. I hope that in spite of the fact that it was dead, it was still a good omen.

Then while helping Tay unpack I went to hang up his coat in the coat closet and I saw this next to the frame of the front door:

And I was like, what the hef is that?

Oh no big deal, it's just a tree frog, in my house.

Don't worry, I set it free. I'm just glad it didn't suffer the same fate as it's forefather. (see:  the massacre of 11/11/11)

Anyway, the next day (Tuesday, which felt like Saturday) I woke up and I couldn't believe that my husband was home. It was weird to roll over and see not just a pile of laundry and a fluffy bed hogging doggy, but a MAN IN MY BED.

Someday I'll show you pictures that he took in China.