Sharing Our Happy News!

Dear Family and Friends,

We are expecting a baby!! The doctor says everything is looking great. I am about 14 weeks, due October 7th and feeling fat and very blessed! More details to come....

The Bearded Lady

With spring fast approaching I am thinking about things such as spring cleaning. The gutters, carpets, windows, organizing the garage and the worst job ever.....(dum dum dum duuuuum)..giving Daisy a fur cut. She doesn't shed like a normal dog. Instead her fur comes out in clumps. The longer her hair, the bigger the clumps and the more menacing her dog hair fur bunnies become. However, one knows that when you have a pyscho hairy dog you do the one thing you can. Make an appointment with the vet to drug her and shave her while she's out of it. Stay tuned.

Also when she drinks she get her beard all wet and then drips water all over the house. Imagine my horror when I wake up to find that an unnamed person leaves the bathroom door open and the toilet seat up all night (now you understand the carpet shampooing). Are you too looking for long lustrous hair? Well Daisy is about to share her secret. An apple a day!

Out with the old and in with the new...

Out with the old roof seen here. Notice the wagon has a flat tire. Hmmm wonder how long that will be sitting in our driveway??

Hurray for having a new roof. We are not sure about the quality however. See the below pics. We are wondering if the ripples are due to the tiles being fresh out of the bundles that were delivered to the house.

Not looking very "smooth"

Edges near the gutters look less that great

This is on the back of the house

Do you see what I see???

Like waves in the ocean...

Not sure if I should start crying yet.... I'm going to withhold the name of the company who is responsible for our fabulous new roof until I get confirmation that this is a bad job.

Blogger's Block?

Either I have a bad case of blogger's block or my life it just too darn boring write about? You decide. Here are a list of what's going on in the Riggs' Indiana home.

1. Went to see an awesome Easter Pageant at Southeast Christian Church (aka "six flags over Jesus"). This place looks like a six flags park. It's huge. It was a great play. Thanks Matt & Heidi for the tickets!

2. No May graduation, delayed to August. Depressing? Yes, but might actually be a good idea. More details later.

3. Fighting nightly to give meds to a crazy dog with a stinky ear infection. The cause as always is water in the ears. She jumped into a creek....while on her leash...dragging me along with her. Somewhere deep down I hope those ears really sting!

4. Our new roof (ordered in Feb, delivered early March) is still sitting in our front yard. And yes, our old roof is still leaking.

5. Dan is still doing great in his biostatistics class (so proud of my nerd). We even went to some math seminar together. Dan went for the math. I went for the free lunch.....and nap.

6. News from the 8 hour interview. The good news: they like me and offered me my choice of 2 jobs. The bad news: They don't know if they will have the $$ to pay me (at least not until June and Jan). No your eyes are not deceiving you. They are waiting on grant money. People of blog land I do NOT work for free! So I am still on the job hunt!

Long time, no post

I admit I have been a little "blog-lazy" these days. So a little update for my family and friends. First (and most importantly), I had my very first grown up interview. Actually it was a day filled with interviews starting at 9am and ending at 6pm. I think I met with about 7 different people and then gave an hour seminar at the end. I interviewed with the clinical chemistry department for the position of "clinical chemistry fellow." It is a very fast paced and interesting job. It basically trains you to run the hospital laboratory and other industry focused jobs. So it is a 50% step away from research. Hopefully, I will get a job offer. Lesson learned: don't wear new shoes for the first time on an interview. People notice when you are walking funny.

In other news, Daisy has been devoting most of her time to finding mud, mud puddles, and muddy swimming holes in the park. It's a win-win situation for her,first swimming in mud then getting her favorite treat....a bath! (she likes eating the soap)

Dan is doing really well in his first class for his master's in biostatistics and bioinformatics. Currently his grade point average slipped from a 100 to a 97.

Soon will will be getting a new roof. No more hail please! Hopefully, we picked a good color.

That's about it. Surely this thirling blog entry has rocked your world!! *wink* Until next time.....

Doggie Daycare, the best business plan EVER!

I know what you're thinking, "who takes their dog to doggie daycare?" Answer. Me and a whole bunch of other desperate peace and quiet seeking dog owners. Before getting into the story at hand I would like to make a few points about how I've wasted years and years and years (I digress) in graduate school when I could have thought of THIS! First, it is extremely popular here for reasons I will describe later. Second it commands a decent fee, almost as much as daycare for a baby..a human baby that is. Obviously there is no "teacher to child ratio" requirement found in daycare centers. Brilliant! All this equals $$$$

"Why" you are asking? Because my dog is insane. Not just "playful, energetic" or even "hyper." She is like a Tasmanian devil on speed. Where? Barkstown Doggie Daycare. For $15, Daisy got six hours of running, jumping, barking, biting and driving every other person and dog crazy. It was so worth it!

Test #1: Daisy had to under go a "vicious dog" evaluation. Just as a side note, a bird scared Daisy in the park recently. She past.
Test #2: Daisy had to be "matched" with a dog of her caliber (i.e., size, energy, temperment). The only dog that could deal with her shenanigans was a Saint Bernard. Eventually, she calmed down and was allowed to roam with about 25 other dogs.

Now, lets talk about doggie discipline. At doggie day care naughty dogs get squirted in the nose with water. They use this to break up fights etc. When I picked Daisy up, she was the only dog who's entire head was dripping wet. Perhaps more than a squirt or two? My guess is she wasn't the teacher's pet.

In conclusion, it's too pricy for everyday but it did the trick. The dog slept the whole way home in the car and just layed around the rest of the night. It was heaven, however by 7am the next day she was back to her old self. I'm looking for "buisness partners" (aka poop scoopers) if anyone is interested :)

Superbowl party recap

Better late than never is what I say! We had a great superbowl weekend. Jim and Rochelle came for a visit from Purdue over the weekend. We had a great time. Sunday we hosted a superbowl party for some friends. We had so much food, many recipes I've posted on my recipe blog. It was a fun time even though the game didn't get exciting until the 4th quater! Here are some pictures!

Owen chewing on the furniture...I'm seeing Daisy's influence here...

If you look closely you can see Dan in the background, totally fixated on the game

Some friends hangin' out
Where's the dog your wondering? Locked in the bedroom for most of it!