Growing

These are my boys and a backwards-facing Rangers* baseball hat.  

Bo is two and a half and finally starting to calm down.  Except when he's around Ryder.  Oh yeah...I haven't updated this blog since we added to the family.  Meet Ryder and her glowing eyes.

We inherited her from John's sister, whose daughter and her friends found a litter of puppies abandoned on the side of the road.  They kept Ryder for about a month, but they already had four dogs and adding a six-week-old puppy in the mix wasn't working out very well for anybody.  We'd been tossing around the idea of getting a playmate for Bo while we were at work so he would possibly quit chewing up anything and everything that was in the large backyard.  Now we have two dogs chewing things up!  Yay!

(This is where I would insert more pictures of Ryder, except every picture I try to take is blurry, because she does. not. stop.  Ever.  Come back in about a year...maybe).

*Game 2 of the ALCS tonight!  Go Rangers!

Random

I bought the new Zac Brown Band CD at Best Buy yesterday (called You Get What You Give).  You need to check out this band.  I guess they fall under the "country" label, and maybe Texas country?  Anyways, they have amazing voices and wonderful harmony.

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Confession:  I'm a major clean freak.  I hate having anything dirty and out of place.  That being said, I'm not sure that my housekeeping really holds up to my standard of cleanliness, but since we both work full-time jobs that are over 30 minutes from our house, I don't have quite as much time to clean.  But my house is super organized and fairly well decorated, I think, given my low budget for decorating.

The longer that John & I are married, the more clean/organized he's becoming.  Today he cleaned out his truck, and it had only been a couple months since he last cleaned it out!  Apparently, I'm becoming a good influence on him. 

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I always feel like I have a million things to write on this blog, then I finally get a second to sit down and write and I can't think of anything.  So here's a picture of Bo from last fall in his leaf bed:

The Rangers

I grew up with baseball.  My little brother M was practically born with a baseball in his hand, and much of my childhood was spent on the bleachers at the baseball park in our hometown with my mom, watching my brother play and my dad coach.  He coached almost every team that M was on, some of the teams were good and some lost every game.

As you can imagine, my family loved professional baseball too.  I remember the 1996 season, when the Rangers won the American League West Division and subsequently lost the first round of the playoffs.  Since then, I don't think they ever made it close to the playoffs.

This year, after many years of building, they won the American League West Division again.  We fans knew they could keep going - with the mix of experienced veterans and young talent, along with good pitching for the first time in a long time, they could win the World Series. 

Then they beat out the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and moved on to the next team:  the New York Yankees.  The team with more World Series rings than I can remember, and cocky fans, and a huge payroll.  The first game was fun to watch, at first.  Texas got on the scoreboard in the first inning thanks to Josh Hamilton's home run and the Yankees apparently forgot how to hit.  Then the 8th inning happened, and the Yankees remembered how to swing the bat, and the Rangers bullpen gave them pitches they wanted to hit.  Rangers lost, 6-5.

The sportswriters and press had a blast with that story.  Every article I read seemed to have the tone of disdain for the Rangers, like they are kids playing Little League and couldn't handle it in the big leagues with the big bad Yankees.  Even the TBS announcers don't seem to want the Rangers to win.   

The Rangers bullpen did their job yesterday and the Yankees lost 7-2.  Game 3 is going to be a good one.

Introduction

I'm Rachel.

John and I tied the knot in June 2009, so I guess the "newlywed" label doesn't apply to us anymore. 

(I can't find any good pictures of just my husband, so you'll have to trust me when I tell you he's cute.)

We have two four-legged kids.

Meet Bo.

We adopted him from an animal shelter around Thanksgiving 2009.  Originally, we'd just gone up there "to look" and John fell in love with Bo.  I wasn't a big fan of pit bulls, but when I found out that he was going to be put down in several days if he wasn't adopted, I caved and we took him home.  He's incredibly smart and loves to cuddle.

Meet Kally.

She turned up outside John's apartment in February 2008.  I had been wanting a pet and, living in an apartment, didn't want to deal with having a dog.  Once I figured out she didn't have a home (she was incredibly skinny and hung around for several days) I took her to the vet, paid for shots, and kept her.  She's pretty shy and likes to eat.

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I've had several blogs, and I tend to forget to post.  So my goal is to post here twice a week.  I think that's a fairly attainable goal.