I look good, eh?

I borrowed all the cool stuff that Patti had gotten Alana for my tourist picture. Okay, i will confess, I kept the mittens. I scored a pair of pink ribbon ones while we were there.

Shopping With Patti

I will admit that I do not really care for shopping. I will bite the bullet when I have to and take Alana, but it doesn't always go smoothly. Now look at that smile. Apparently Patti has what it takes to make shopping a fun time. Then again, she does seem to do Black Friday like noone else.

TKD...Canadian style

While visiting with Patti I realized that it has been forever since I blogged. So here I go. Time to just jump in with a post.
When we made our plans for our trip to visit Patti and family in Canada, Max had asked if Alana could go to his Tae Kwon Do class with him. Permission was granted by both master instructors and off we went. Little did we realize just how differently our classes were run. I think Alana felt like some sort of exotic, foreign import that the students were watching. She held her head up and gave it a shot.
I had to make it up to her later.

2008 Honda Rebel

My midlife crisis has arrived. I have been talking with a few close friends about learning how to handle a motorcycle for the last few years. Keeping on the lowdown, I did not want to have a lot of people know about it. It started with me taking my first ride as a passenger and went from there. Got my permit a couple of months ago and took the rider's course last weekend. Only female in the class, but the guys were great to me. Armed with my new license and some good advice from some seasoned female riders, I went bike shopping. Knew that I wanted something smaller and light. Used bike, so that it wouldn't be so bad when I dropped it for the first time. Bought my first bike today and took it out for a little bit in the high school parking lot. My 2008 Honda Rebel with 1500 miles. Absolutely perfect shape, so I will feel bad if I drop it. now the goal is to get my comfort level up so that I can head out on the road and enjoy the ride.

Maisie

Maisie has come to join the family. Another dog who looks like she is made out of spare parts. Her tail is always wagging. Such a happy girl. Big head, short legs, big front paws, and long tail. She has won over the staff at the vet's office and settled in at home.

City Boy

My dad is a big fire bug. Nothing like a heaping pile of combustible materials to make him happy. This fall we ran into problems with him being cold while he was out with his brush pile. You see, the city slicker that he is was wearing a sissy coat. Alana and I hauled him off to our favorite outdoors store and got him his first Carhartt jacket and some heated glove liners. Next project will be to get him to wear some rather decent boots instead of his old man shoes.

Celtic Dance

The big night for the yearly dance presentation of Alana's Irish step dance group. She loves her dance. Loves her teacher. Loves being on the stage. Ofcourse, you can't see that in any of the iffy pictures I got. In fact, just about everyone in our group commented on the fact that this year she was not smiling. Whatever it was, she had the best of times with her clan. Maybe she saved all of her smiles for the end.