Tennessee Aquarium

Sunday afternoon, it was pouring rain in Chattanooga, so Wade and I went on a fun date to the Aquarium. Here are a few of my favorite little creatures we saw:

This is just wrong... What kind of self image is this fish going to have, being called a Blotched Chub all its life?

This was a cool jellyfish... And I think this picture looks like it belongs in a science textbook, but maybe I'm biased :).

Some kind of shark... I guess that's not a hammerhead, but it has kindof a weird eye/head structure.

A ginormous sturgeon... They had a LOT of sturgeon. What the heck is a sturgeon?

Adorable little tree frog... Look at his cute little arms and legs all tucked underneath him :).

Loved the otters... It was really hard to get a picture of them because they jumped in and out of the water so fast! But somehow I managed to snap this little guy in the midst of play.




And here's a little video of a turtle swimming... He was so cute too.

We also saw penguins, seahorses, butterflies, stingrays, alligators, an octopus, and a whole lot more. It is really, really amazing how creative God is and how big - that He designed and created all these different animals to be suited to their environment and to interact with each other, and that He sustains them every moment.

My Valentine

I got to spend 95 hours with my Valentine this past weekend - yes, 4 whole days! I drove up Thursday while Wade was teaching, and got there in time to make a Valentine's dinner for when he got home from his afternoon seminar.

Here is the romantic table setting... Too bad we had to be that couple sitting on the same side of the table, because they only have one bench!

I made beef tips over rice and steamed green beans - one of my favorite meals.

Friday night, we went out for a day-after-Valentine's date to Macaroni Grill. I wore my new dress and sparkly silver earrings and felt super special. And Wade looked quite handsome, I might add, in his navy blue and khaki!

Wade had already brought me roses on Valentine's Day, and he told me on Friday that he had basketball shootaround (practice for their game Saturday night) at 8:30 a.m. Saturday. I said that would be good, because I could work out while he did that and then go ahead and get ready for the day. He said, "oh no, you just sleep in - you'll have plenty of time to work out later in the day before my game." I don't know why I didn't question him more about that, because why would I stay home while he was working out and then go work out separately later? But for some reason I didn't - so Saturday morning, Wade comes in my room with 3 big sunflowers and a box of Total Cranberry Crunch cereal. I asked if it was already that late that he was finished with shootaround, and he said shootaround really wasn't til 11:30, but he just wanted to bring me flowers and breakfast! On his birthday!

How did I get so lucky?

New Dancing with the Stars & Bachelor

They just announced the next Dancing with the Stars cast, and I would just like to say I can't wait to see Monica Seles and Priscilla Presley ballroom dancing :).

Also, the next Bachelor premieres March 17th (in 27 days according to abc.com). I love how they refer to the show as "ABC's highly-rated, popular romance reality series." Umm, sure, if that's what you want to believe. The new guy is British and "THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL BACHELOR EVER" as I'm sure Chris Harrison will remind us - oh, 5,893 times during the course of the show. I think they are forgetting how much they touted Lorenzo Borghese as an Italian prince, because that's pretty international to me (even though he barely stepped foot in Italy before the show and spoke no Italian).

And how cheesy is their intro line to the bachelor bio: "The British are coming! The British are coming!" Puh-leeze, Paul Revere. If he shows up in a triangle-shaped hat with a feather sticking out, I will never watch this show again.

Abc.com also says that the new bachelor (Matt Grant) "believes that the woman he has been looking to fall in love with all this time will be among the 25 lucky Bachelorettes waiting to meet him in America." Poor, silly man - have you ever watched this show?

Beaver Golden Retriever?

I've heard of being a beaver / golden retriever in that one personality test with the otters and the lions.  But I think I've got the real thing.  See below the gnawed-off branches that attest to my dog's split personality.

These used to be 5-6 feet tall.  Now they're 6-12 inches.  Thanks Paisley... that's the neighbor's "yard."

This is right outside my front door.  Notice the thickness of the branch and yet it's just ripped off.  I came outside one day to find her standing on her back legs with her paws up on the tree, gnawing the branch off.

So this is the reason for all the tree destruction...

Today at lunch, as I often do, I let Paisley out for a while to run around free and let off some steam.  And I thought I'd take some videos with my camera to show a little glimpse of the neuroticism of my dog.  This is the opening of the front door, also known as "release the hounds!"  Sorry it's sideways - not sure how to rotate the videos.

And here is a longer clip of her...running, chewing a bone, exploring, pretty much her M.O.  Turn the sound on for added effect - you can hear my commands in the background, and her dropping her bone numerous times :).

Little Paisley, you bring so much joy to my life! :)

Too many changes

Sorry for the obsessive compulsive constant changes to my blog format... I've been trying to find a look that suits me, and the graphic designer in me is never satisfied. I think this one might be simple enough for me. I'll try to stick with it.

Oh so sad...

I HATE losing to Duke! Arghh...

Close game last night, as expected. And I thought we actually hung in there pretty well, considering we had no Ty Lawson or Bobby Frasor, Hansbrough missed half his free throws, Danny Green and Wayne Ellington were missing everything, our main point guard was Quinton Thomas, and Stepheson was getting frequent flyer miles for traveling so much.

I hope the announcers were right and our boys will learn a lot of lessons from this game. Hopefully we'll be back with a vengeance on March 8th at Cameron Indoor.

Winning Streak

I just want to say how proud I am of Wade and his teammates for their 3-game win streak and the exciting game we got to watch last night against Montreat :). Mom and the Tapps and I drove up since it was only 2 hours away, and it was close the whole time, with Covenant pulling out the 1-point victory at the last second! I was glad mom got to see Wade play a game, and it was a good one too.

Only 6 more games, babe, and you never have to play basketball again in your life!