Car fixed...for now.

Nothing much to report. Allen had today off, so he took his car to the shop. Turns out he did have a busted hose, so we paid to get if fixed. It was a lot cheaper fix than we thought it was going to be. So now we are able to use two cars again. We will use Allen's car for our in town running and my car for the longer distances.

Tonight we played tennis for an hour and went swimming at the YMCA for an hour, and poor Allen had to mow the lawn again today. At least it was a BEAUTIFUL day! Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope it doesn't rain on Saturday.

WONDERFUL WEEKEND!

We had a great weekend! Saturday Allen had to work, which wasn't so great, but Josh came to town in search of inflatable boxing gloves, like those sock-em-bop-em gloves, and picked me up. We ate lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings. It was only the second time I've ever eaten there. Then Mom and Caleb met us at Wal-Mart. Josh and Caleb took off leaving Mom and I to enjoy the rest of our afternoon shopping. It was really nice to get to spend some alone time with mom. Then when Allen got off work we headed over to mom and dad's. The plan was to do some night fishing, we got ourselves all set up, but then a storm blew in. It was too windy so we jumped in Josh's truck and headed to Hannibal to rent movies. I was VERY suprised at how many people were there at 10:30p.m. picking out movies. We rented Fanboys, The Wrestler, Pink Panther 2, and The Codes. We watched Fanboys Saturday night and The Wrestler tonight. Both were HUGE disappointments.

Today we went fishing again it was a lot of fun. The boys put out a trout line, but didn't catch anything today. We took several pictures on my cell phone, so the quality if pretty low, but if you want to check them out, click on this link: http://photobucket.com/summer09cooley . (Link also in the side bar.)

Hope everyone had as nice of a weekend as we had! Congratulations to our friends Jessica and Alex for celebrating one year of marriage! :) We are very happy for you two!

Completely UNBELIEVABLE!

This little kid is CRAZY! I want to know where he found his moves. We figure this kid must be watching hours and hours and hours of MTV or something. Even if you don't like the music, you HAVE to watch this little kid dance. We both laughed out loud and couldn't believe it.
Click link to view video on You Tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azhgVB5uXlo

Besides getting a kick out of this you tube video, we bbq'd pork steaks tonight and had corn on the cob from the grill. MMMMM.

OH YEAH!

We paid for our Y membership tonight, picked up our cards, ate dinner, took care of Penny and went swimming for an hour an a half. It was REALLY great! We both are pretty tired now , though, lol. Swimming is awesome exercise. We saw two of the guys I graduated high school with. It was kind of wierd to see them there. Think we're goin to bbq hamburgers and hotdogs on Friday, which is only two days away. Allen got the good news today that he got the 4th of July weekend off from work! :) YAY! Can't wait to eat up all that fish! YUM!

Tuesday night fishing

Tonight we went to Missouri for dinner at Mom and Dad's. Josh cooked fajitas and they were GOOD! :) Then we went fishing. Allen, Josh, and Caleb each caught a great big fish...and a bunch of smaller fish...and I didn't catch on single fish! :( Oh well. It was a hot one today! A storm blew up on us very quickly, but we made it home before it rained.

Well tomorrow's Wednesday, which means three more days until the weekend. Hope everyone's week is going great so far!

Dear Quincy Drivers...

Passing a vehicle on the right is STUPID and DANGEROUS! Don't do it anymore, please?

Sincerely,
The Cooleys

Tonight, we about has a serious accident because someone couldn't wait two seconds for us to make a right hand turn...that's right...we were turning RIGHT and she tried passing us on the RIGHT! Why?

It's fun to stay at the...

We have been tossing around the idea for a while now. Weighing our pros and cons...and we've have finally decided to suck it up and buy a YMCA membership. I get a very nice incentive from my work that we can use towards 1/3 of the cost, and in looking at the pros of it it's going to be an investment in our health, which is really in the long run going to save us money. If we are healthier people now we will hopefully run into less expensive medical bills for our future. (Cost was the ONLY con we could come up with, which we can afford it for now. If we get into a situation where we cannot afford it, we are signing up for the month to month membership, so we could cancel if necessary. Also, the cost con is completely negated by all of the benefits for our health) Allen LOVES to swim, I like it a lot too. The Y is only a five minute drive from our house, so it's going to be very convenient. We're going to go on Thursday. We were going to go get it tomorrow, but Josh wants us to come fishing with him, and since it's only one and half more weeks until the 4th of July fish fry, we'd better give him as much help as we can.



So, Allen called an 800 number for a job ad that was in the paper for an emergency med tech, paid training offered. It ended up being a phone number for the Navy...and I call shenanigans on that!!!!! What the heck! The guy that Allen talked to though, said they are seeing record enlistments...which is probably true because of the job market right now. I have a lot of respect and love for our service men and women, but I don't really want my husband to be one of them. I would miss him WAY too much.

It's ON! :)

So, we did decide to go play tennis. It was my very first time, but Allen used to play when he was in summer school. It was actually a lot of fun! A LOT OF HARD WORK, but excellent excercise and a good time. Of course Allen won, but we are going to play more often so I can get used to it. Next time we go we are going to take Penny with us and put her on her lead so she can join the fun! :) We only bought one canister of three balls. Which, as I just found out, is DEFINATELY not enough, we need at least six! Otherwise instead of playing tennis, we will just being playing fetch! LOL! :)

Happy Father's Day and our 100th post! YAY! :)

We love you all you so much!

Yesterday I made my black bean and sausage burritos and took them over to mom and dad's for dinner. Then we brought Caleb home to stay the night at our house. We took our traditional midnight trip to Wal-Mart and we bought me a tennis racket! :) YEAH! Allen already had one, so now we can go play tennis together. I'm very excited. I've never played before, but it is supposed to be really great exercise. We have several tennis courts right up the street from us. In fact as I am typing this we are thinking about going now. WOO HOO!

Today we went to church with Pop Pop and we ate a delicious pizza and salad lunch. Played a game of wahoo and uno with grandma and our cousins Meghan and Evan. It was good to get to see everyone else. We were thinking about Allen's dad Phil, too. We are very lucky to have the parents and grandparents that we have. We are very lucky to have the families we have ,period end! Charlotte, if you ever read this, we missed you being there.

Almost the weekend...

Josh came over for dinner tonight. We had stuffed chicken breast. It was yet again, another new recipe. Josh and Allen liked it , but I have to say...:( I was very disappointed. I don't know what it was about it, but I just didn't care for it. Oh well.

So, Allen got Sunday off, he traded with a girl. He was supposed to have tomorrow off, but instead he's going to work tomorrow and she is going to work on Sunday for him! YAY! See you on Sunday , Grandma and Popop! :)

Bring on the heat!...blech...

Geez was it hot and muggy out today or what!! It's only the middle of June, so I imagine it's going to get worse. Which, I suppose we're due for a truly hot summer. Last year was very very mild. This year, I think we will be glad to have our central air! Every stay cool! We are...cuz that's what us "Cool"eys do. (Yeah, you knew I couldn't resist!) Love you all!

Dachshund School: Lesson 1

The word dachshund is german, literally meaning badger dog. Our little Penny dog is so small that we have joked if there was such a thing as a toy dachshund, Penny would be considered one. Turns out that while not recognized in the United States, there is a third size of dachshund, a category in which Penny fits perfectly, the kaninchen size, which means "rabbit" size. AKC doesn't recognize this size as a separate category, but 83 other countries in the world do.

Standard Dachshund: 15-28 lbs.

Miniature Dachshund: Less than 11lbs.

Kaninchen "Rabbit" Dachshund: 8-10 lbs.

Non-buzz Buzz

YAY! Tonight we decided to buy some decaf coffee and some creamer so that we can enjoy something sweet and tasty in the evening while we are winding down watching tv online. Allen and I just can't seem to kick our evening snack attacks, so we are going to attempt to curbs these with decaf coffee with creamer and pickles! Yep...I have a sweet tooth and allen has an affinity for the salty snacks. So this is what we have decided to try in attempt to decrease our "too close to bedtime" calorie intake. :) Oh, and Brenda and Phil, we should thank you for reminding us we have a coffee maker, (thank you Grandma Downing, it's an awesome coffee maker!). LOL! It's not that we didn't know we had one, we just never really think about using it, as wierd as that may seem, but I'll tell you what, we programmed the coffee maker to have coffee ready for us when we woke this morning and it was a pretty sweet deal! :) Mmmmmmm...

Penny's first ball game

Last night we took Penny with us to Philadelphia to watch Caleb play ball. She did really well with all of the little kids who of course wanted to pet her. Caleb's team lost but they played a good game. The game was REDICULOUSLY long. They are supposed to have a two hour time limit, but the coaches decided to let them play the full 7 innings so the game wasn't over until almost 10:30p.m.! We had fun though. These are some pictures of the night, pictures of Caleb at bat , and one of Penny's encounter with a black lab/pit mix. Today Allen's parents are coming to see us on the motorcyle. It will be nice to see them. In fact they will probably be here about 30 minutes!

Mmmmm! :)

REPORT ON HOMEMADE RICE PUDDING: IT WAS GOOD!

DIG DIG DIG!

Today seemed like the LONGEST day ever for both of us at work. We decided to just eat frozen pizza and watch netflix for most of the evening. Random note: tomorrow I think I am going to try and make rice pudding...will let you know how that one turns out, wish me luck! Tonight Allen and I were talking about how much we love little Penny dog, but she has started this one habit that is irritating us to no end. She has decided to use the underneath section of the loveseat as her "secret" stash place for her Nylabone, but then as soon as she shoves it underneath of the loveseat she immediately starts trying to dig it back out. Only thing is, the love seat is not DIRT and it doesn't move so pretty much she is just scratching the heck out of the bottom of the loveseat!!!! She can get it under there but she can't get it out. Allen says she is just using her "dachshund digging" intincts. I guess "burying her bone" under the loveseat is the best way she can figure out how to do it. So....needless to say sometimes she gets her bone taken away from her for extended periods of time, like any time I don't feel like crawling down onto the floor to get it back out for her every 3 minutes! LOL! I'm going to try and catch it on video. If I do I will post it up here.

Put a smile on your face :)

Not anything to report today. We ate dinner and watched the movie, "What Dreams May Come", and STILL had time to take an evening walk. Oooohh and we bought a lot of fruit during our grocery shopping trip and we are having to eat it quickly so it doesn't go bad. I think we have both had 300% of our daily vitamin C intake for the day! :)

Marinated with WHAT?!

PLUS = GOOD :)

Allen and I went grocery shopping last night. Groceries are SOOOO expensive but it is still WAY cheaper than eating out and still much better for us. We decided to buy a whole pork loin and Allen cut it into several different pieces for us to freeze. It was $2.59/lb to do it that way, and $3.99/lb to buy it already cut up. So, we saved some money there for sure! We also went to County Market and with a $50 bill, we only ended up paying $25 because we used coupons for every single item we bought except for one! :) I was pretty proud of it. LOL!

So tonight Josh came over for dinner. We tried another new recipe. This time it was Grilled Ginger-Peanut Pork Tenderloin! We marinated it over night. The recipes calls for a little bit of peanut butter, soy sauce, curry powder, garlic, and ginger. It ended up being REALLY good. Allen put it on the grill. Now Josh is telling people that I cooked him pork marinated in peanut butter. LOL! It had peanut butter in it, but to hear Josh tell it I slathered a couple pieces of pork in peanut butter and let them sit overnight. LOL!

Baby Bunnies, Weeds, and one dirty dog!

Friday night Allen and I stayed home ate pizza and watched movies. We were going to BBQ and make shish kabobs, but mom said that they were going to BBQ whole chickens on Saturday night so we decided just on pizza. Saturday night I was invited to go to a Spa party at my friend Tonya's house in Shelbina, but Allen didn't have to work and he would have been a little out of place at a spa party, lol, even though Tonya said Allen could go. Instead we went to mom and dad's and went fishing with Caleb. Josh wasn't home this weekend but it was still important to go fishing because the 4th of July is less than a month away now and there isn't enough fish in the freezer for a full blown fish fry yet. So, I think at least until the 4th of July we are committing our weekends to helping Caleb and Josh fish so that there will be enough fish for everyone to eat! We had some last year and it was AWESOME! This year mom wants to only do fish. I'm looking forward to it! We also helped weed the garden....well sort of...mom and dad had most of it done by the time we got there and the only thing left was the onions. We planted two whole rows of them but not very many of them survived. Mom said that it's because of the soil. While we were weeding Penny fell into the fish pond next to mom and dad's rose garden and then proceded to jump into the garden and roll around in the dirt. This is a pic of her sunbathing immediately after the dip in the pond.

Notice the look of satisfaction on her face! The top picture is picture of mom holding a baby bunny from the garden. Awwww....

Today, Allen has had to work so I have been working on laundry, cleaning and the grocery list. I have developed an interest in cooking but definately a dislike for the list making and the cleaning up afterwards, lol.

Hope everyone else has had a great weekend!

Our yard was a jungle...

I am blogging while Allen is mowing, Allen Cooley=Jungle Slayer! I'm really glad I have such a wonderful hubby that will mow the lawn for me. Not much to report other than tomorrow is Pay Day Friday! WOOT! :) Love those days! Since there isn't really anything exciting to type about. I thought I would post a pic of one my all time favorite books! I used to read this book over and over. Yeah, lol, my parents really suckered me into the "good kid" thing with this book! :) It was a book about obedience but it was SOOOOOO cool! LOL. When we have kids I hope we can find a copy of it!

A culinary first...for me that is...

Tonight was my first experience cooking salmon! I have helped my mom cook dinner involving salmon before, but never cooked it all by myself. LOL! I feel accomplished. Is it sad that successfully cooking up some salmon makes me feel accomplished? It was really good! Salmon is a good for you fish and it's pretty versatile. I have found a lot of different recipes on line that have a wide range of flavors. Tonight I made balsamic glazed salmon served over citrus rice with steamed broccoli and baby carrots. It was a little scary determining whether or not the fish was actually done, but it's been a few hours now and neither one of us are sick. Keep your fingers crossed for us, LOL! No....seriously, I really think it was done. The recipe said to bake it until it was flaky so I cooked it about five minutes longer after it was flaky.

So, this weekend we were trying to figure out what to do because Allen only has to work for an hour on Saturday, some kind of mandatory training by the local police...we were thinking about going fishing but it looks like it's going to rain all weekend. WHAT A BUMMER! Maybe we will get to see our friends Kate and Seth's new house. Who knows.

A good day!

WHHHHEEEWW!!!!! :) That is the sound of a HUGE relief! Allen had to today off, so I took a PTO day today also. We made the very last payment on my Buick. It's officially ours! That stupid box has been taken out, and now I'm officially an Illinois driver. I have an Illinois driver's license and now Illinois plates. It's all legal now! :) YAY! It's a HUGE relief to have this car paid off. It was a short loan so the payments were pretty hefty! Now that it is paid off there is alot of money that can now be used elsewhere to pay bills and to save! Not to mention the fact that very soon we will have another car payment for Allen. He's probably taking his care in tomorrow to have it looked at, but that car is at its end!

With the rest of our time off today we went to our local used book store and bought four books! Hope they are good...we are into the Sci-Fi/Fantasy books...and it can be very hit and miss as to the quality of the books.

Looks like rain....

Love you all!