Our Little Zoo

Well, our little family has just recently added two new members - no, I'm not pregnant with twins - we have a new parakeet and a new puppy! Yep, there are now 6 of us. Let me explain. You see, when our beloved little Petie flew the coup, not only were Will and I depressed, but so was Petie's little yellow buddy, Lois. I was telling some of the girls at work about how lonely she was, and that we were thinking about trying to find another friend for her. As luck would have it my co-worker, Judy, just happened to have a parakeet that she wanted to find a new home for. She had had him for about 6 years and had spent a lot of time with him, until her two kids came along. Now she has very little time for him and felt that he was probably a little lonely too. Wa La. Meet Phil.
As for the puppy, we originally got him with the intentions of giving him to my brother Jimmie and his girlfriend Stephanie for Christmas. To make a long story short, we got attatched - and we realized that they might not be in the best position for a new puppy right now. We knew when we got Molly that we eventually wanted to get a second dog - it just happened sooner rather than later. Here's Dexter! So there you have it... our zoo is complete... for now anyway :)

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Will & Brandi ... We love you!!!

The Name Game

Last night, after studying every feature of our puppy and doing some research on the internet, we came to the conclusion that she may be a pure-bred staffie after all. It turns out there are a few different variations on the breed. The most popular are the English version, which is what we originally were drawn to. They look like this:

There is another version called the American Staffordshire, they are a little larger and have more of a pitbull looking face:

Finally, the Irish Staffordshire bull terrier:


As you can see, they have a leaner body, a longer snout, and their haunches are more even with their shoulders. Fascinating, I know. We might be wrong, but it doesn't matter... the point is that we decided since she is Irish, she needs an Irish name! So I am happy to say that "Bob" is now "Molly"!

PUPPY!

am happy to announce a new addition to the Ridd family... we got a puppy! We have been wanting one for a long time & finally decided that we are at a good point in our lives to bring one home. We have been studying breeds for awhile now and have had our hearts set on a Staffordshire Bull Terrier. The people we adopted her from claim that she is a pure bred Staffie, but we are pretty sure she is a mix. All we know is that she is absolutely adorable & has already proven to be a great dog! She is about 6 months old, and constantly wants to be wherever we are...if you sit down, she will immediately climb in your lap. I told Will he could name her... so, we've been calling her "Bob". If anyone has any better suggestions, I am sort of hoping to change his mind. If not, it's kind of starting to grow on me. Anyway, on to the important part - pictures!

I tried to fix the red-eye in this one, so her eyes look a little creepy...

That's right, she's a Colts fan! Good Girl :)

I'm sure there will be many, many more pictures of her to come! Hooray for puppies!

Farewell...

Now that we are settled in our new apartment in Utah, I want to give a tearful farewell to Santa Barbara. I thought about making a list of the ten things I am going to miss the most, but I couldn't narrow it down. We have so many fond memories of our 2 1/2 years there. We made some amazing friends and grew closer as a couple. Rather than trying to put into words my feelings about that beautiful place, here is a little slideshow of a few of our Santa Barbara moments...

Last, but certainly not least, I have to say farewell to our little feathered friend Petie. Through a stupid error on my part, Petie flew the coup the day I left Santa Barbara. Apparently he didn't want to leave. I can't say I blame him. We hope you are enjoying your life as a free bird, Petie, thanks for being our little buddy!

Upside-down, Inside-out & Backwards

For those of you who don't already know, Will and I have decided to move back to Utah. In fact, I have already been living in Utah for 2 weeks now - Will won't be joining me until the end of this week. I had to hurry out to start a new job, and Will had to stay to give his current employer more time to find a replacement (his shoes are a little harder to fill than mine!) So, here I am, back in Utah, back in parent's house (temporarily), learning a new job, FREEZING, drying up, and miles away from my hubby. Hence the name of this post.

Ok, so it's not all that bad. My new job is going great, it's nice to be back around family & friends, it's not really that cold, the fall colors are gorgeous right now, and I will have my husband back in 4 days.

I miss you honey!

Get a free purse!

Hey ladies... handbagplanet.com is a new website that is about to launch.  To celebrate, they are giving away 24 free bags - go check them out & enter to win.  Yeah!  Free purses!

Go Giants!

Go Colts!

Look Out!

Sit back, relax, and grab some popcorn because I have a story for you! A couple of weekends ago, one of the members at the country club Will works at gave us his season tickets for a Dodger's game that they weren't going to be able to attend. There were 4 tickets, so we decided to invite my cousin Brianne and her boyfriend Clay who I haven't seen in years, and Will has never met. We have been wanting to get together with them for awhile and figured this would be a great opportunity to meet in the middle. We had a feeling our seats would be pretty good based on who they came from, but they were more than pretty good. We were directly across from first base, behind the opposing team's dugout, on the first row of seats that aren't reserved for the V.I.P's. Here's a picture that gives you an idea of our view:



As soon as we sat down, Brianne said something to the effect of - oh boy, this is dangerous, if anyone is going to get hit by a foul ball, it's going to be me - I have terrible luck! Will was stoked because we were in prime area for the players to toss a ball to us after each inning. Clay was excited because he is from Wisconsin, and the Dodgers were playing the Brewers. I was just happy to have a chance to sit and chat with my cousin. Which we did. Bri and I were pretty much unaware that there was even a game going on because we were so busy catching up. At the middle of the third inning, after the Brewer's third out, Will told me to stand up and try to get one of the players to throw me the ball on his way into the dugout. So I did. And sure enough, this player, Prince Fielder threw it right to me.

Well, I'm not exactly the best catcher, so it bounced out of my hands... but, luckily Clay got my rebound and we got a ball! We thought that this would be the most exciting part of the game, but we were wrong. Bri and I went right back to talking and forgot all about the action. A few innings later, for no apparent reason, we just stopped and turned to watch the hitter. This is the first time the whole game that we were actually paying attention to the play, and we couldn't have chosen a better second. Ray Durham was at bat, and he crushed a foul ball straight at us. I swear the ball was going in slow motion, but in actuality, it was hauling. I leaned toward Will, Bri leaned toward Clay. The ball wizzed right between the two of us, barely missed the little boy sitting on his mom's lap in the row behind us, and CRACK! nailed the lady behind them square in the mouth. For a minute, I thought that the commotion behind us was just people scrambling to get the ball, but then people started shouting for a medic. I won't get too graphic, but let's just say it was pretty bad. Amidst the chaos, the ball found it's way down to Will's feet. He picked it up and gave it to the woman's husband. After what seemed like a really long time, some "officials" of some sort came and helped the lady up the stairs and she recieved a standing ovation. It was pretty nerve-racking. Needless to say, we intently watched every play from that point. And I'm glad we did. It was a very exciting game that went into one extra inning, and Manny - for the second time - wasted a game winning opportunity, blowing it for the Dodgers. Oh well, go Yankees!

Piece of Cake!

So, I am not usually one to brag... but I am so proud of myself today! I completed my first wedding cake, for a real wedding, and it is awesome. Let me back-track a little. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to learn how to decorate cakes. I'm not really sure why - I've just always loved to "create" things, and cakes seemed like fun. But it wasn't until recently that I actually decided to act on this desire. A few months ago, I was talking to a friend of ours who is getting married this fall and she was telling me all the details of her wedding. When she started talking about the cake, I happened to mention that I've always wanted to be a cake decorator. She proceeded to tell me how cool the girls were that are making her cake, and that I should check with them because they were really busy and could probably use an apprentice. She was right. So for the past couple of months, I have been helping out at "Crumbs" cakery on Saturdays while Will is at work. Free training for me, cheap labour for them! It has been a lot of fun & has been a great way for me to get my creative fix!

Well, recently a couple came in wanting something a little different for their wedding. The groom is a tatto artist, and the bride really likes "Ed Hardy" brand clothing, so they wanted something kind of based around that style. The other girls I work with were not very excited about it, and asked me to try to come up with some ideas. To make this long story a little shorter, they really liked one of my ideas, and the girls at Crumbs decided that this would be my first "on my own" cake. I was a little bit nervous and intimidated, but really excited to be able to do it exactly how I wanted it done. I ended up having a blast and it turned out better than I expected.

What do you think? Go ahead and tell me how cool I am... :)

2nd Annual Summer of Devon!

What a fun week we just had! Our nephew, Devon, came from Phoenix to stay with us & it was so much fun having him here. The week was filled with golfing, surfing, hakki sack, bicycle rides, a visit to the bird sanctuary, teaching eachother new songs on the guitar, and just all around good times. Devon is not your typical 13 year old boy... he is so polite, helpful, TALENTED, smart, funny, I could go on and on - he's just great! Since I am still recovering from my knee surgery I wasn't able to surf or golf with them, so I played photographer all week. I think they got a little bit tired of me making them smile for the camera, but they were good sports. Here's a few pics and videos of the action:

We can't wait for you to come back next Summer, Dev... and Courtney, Morgan, and Nicole can come too!

Our "kids"

So, most peoples blogs have cute pictures and videos of their kids....so I decided to put a video of our feathered kids! This is Peter and Lois (a.k.a Petie & Lolo) playing around with some of their favorite toys. It's kind of long, and may be boring to some of you, but I think they are adorable! We have had Petie for almost a year, and we just adopted Lois 3 weeks ago, and they are such fun pets.

Ode to Music

We love music.  As I was putting together our playlist for this blog, I just couldn't help but think about how much better music makes everything.  Some of my favorite times with Will involve music - going to shows, sitting at the computer for hours reading lyrics and checking out new bands, educating each other on our favorites as we drive to/from Utah, seeing how passionate he gets when he talks about certain bands, etc. etc.  It always amazes me how music has the ability to change your mood in an instant, or bring you back to a specific time or place.  If I ever start to freak myself out (you know, after watching a scary movie or something), I just pick a primary song, sing it in my head, and I'm all set!  There are so many great songs out there that this list doesn't even scratch the surface, but hopefully you can enjoy a few of our favorites & maybe discover some new tunes from our list.  And if you don't like our taste, you can just turn it off! Hooray for music!

New Bloggers!

Hi Y'all!  The Ridd's now have a blog page!  We have really enjoyed being able to keep up with the happenings of friends and family through their blogs, so we decided to jump on the wagon and create our own.  Since we don't have kids yet, there probably won't be much on here that's too exciting, but at least I'll have something to do at work while I'm waiting for my boss to catch up with me :)  No idea how to do anything cool on here yet, so stay tuned.  Here we go!