Results

Well, it looks like the preliminary experiment might have worked. I feel like I got more sleep than the night before. Surprisingly, Grace laid on my bed the entire night. I thought she might be getting on and off to go play or eat but she stayed right by my side. She woke me up a few times because she moved or wanted attention but I would just tell her "No" and push her away and she got the point. I would take a few wake-up's that I immediately fall back asleep from over staying awake to meowing all night anytime. I think I will try this again tomorrow night and hopefully will have the same, if not better, results. Here is a picture of the subject.

Experiment

So, after getting woken up at 4am every other night by a meowing cat, it's time for a change. I am tired of looking in the mirror each morning to find red, blod shot eyes and some under eye puffiness (not sure if this is do to lack of sleep or cat allergies, only time will tell). So beginning tonight, I am performing an experiement. Grace will be allowed access to my room tonight which hopefully will prevent night time meowing becasue I beleive she meows because she wants into my room. The cat just loves to be around humans. However, if I am awoken at any of the wee hours of the morning to a scratch of the face because she wants to be pet, she will be banished from my room for good. Stay tuned because I will provide a report on my findings tomorrow...and please pray for a night full of sleep and a quiet cat.

New Roommate

For those of you who don't know, I have only had one roommate in my life and her name is Jane. We were roommates through all 4 years of college and were a match made in heaven as far as roommates go. As of Sunday, I have a new roommate in my life. Unlike Jane, this roommate needs constant attention, cries when I go to bed without her, ruins my clothes, and is incapable or using indoor plumbing. To clear up any confusion, my new roommate is Grace...the kitty cat. Apparently when you upgrade your relationship to "fiance", it requires more sacrafice than just a dating relationship. Grace is Casey's cat and since his little Missy passed away and is now in Kitty Heaven, Grace has been moved to Grapevine so she doesn't get lonely. To be honest, Grace is actually a really good cat (aside from the fact that she was never declawed so whenever she reaches for you you have to fear for your clothing because there might be a claw hole in after she gets done with you). The biggest adjustment is just sharing my space with another living (non-human) being. Since I didn't grow up with pets besides fish, you can assume that it really is a large adjustment. I no longer have control of my couch since she has claimed half of it. About every 20 minutes she demands a good 10 minutes of petting and belly scratching, and she meows at my door every morning beginning around 5:30am. I guess the one upside so far is that I have had no need for an alarm clock for the last two days.

Side note: For any of you who watch informercials...in approximately 4-6 weeks, I will be the proud owner of the Emery Cat, a device which allows your cat to file their own nails (claws). Expect an update on that!

I'm ENGAGED!!

Boy do I have some big news for the blog...are you ready? I'm engaged!!! I was so shocked when it happened. Casey completely caught me off guard. He proposed on Saturday, December 13th. We had just gone out to get ice cream at our favorite place and then to drive around and look at Christmas lights. When we got back to my apartment, he started acting weird. I walked into my room and he was kneeling by my bed like a kid prays by the bedside. I sat on the bed while he kneeled and we talked for a while. I finally asked what he wanted to do that night and he told me to go put a movie in. So I did and got all cozied up on the couch. Well, then he realizes that he wants me to be standing when he proposes so he tries to get me to stand up. In my mind, he had just told me we were going to watch a movie and I was snuggled up so there was no reason to get up from my warm spot. He kept trying to get me to stand up so I decided to make him work for it (not knowing of course that he was trying to propose). I have this stuffed dog that I have had since I was a kid that Casey is not a huge fan of so I told him that if Dog asked me to get up, I would. So Casey went into my room and got Dog and held him up to his face and did this "dog-voice" and asked me to stand up and give him a hug. Well, I was so entertained by this that I wanted to keep it going so I then said I would get up if he danced with Dog, which he did so I stood up and gave him a hug. Turns out this isn't what Casey needed me to do either because since I was facing him, he couldn't discreetly get the ring out of his pocket. So he asked me to go into my room to get me to walk in front of him. When I turned around, he was awkwardly leaning against my door and I kept giving him a hard time because he was just acting so bizarre. All of a sudden, he's down on one knee and says, "Well...I want to know if you will marry me?" Tears instantly start pouring out of my eyes and all I can say is "Are you serious?" over and over again. This is the part of the story where Casey likes to add "I was down on one knee holding a diamond ring, I'm pretty serious!" So I finally said yes and we were engaged!

Side note: I was wearing sweatpants, an old T-Shirt, and had no make-up on when he proposed so the only picture taken that night was of my ring. The picture below is the first photo we took post-engagement.

Spending the weekend outdoors

This past weekend, Casey and I went camping in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge with some camping friends of ours. The area was really beautiful. We had lake front property for our cmapsite and we saw a lot of cool animals while we were there. Here are some pics so you can get an idea of our trip...

This was the first stop along one of our hikes...

I had no idea Oklahoma looked like this!! We just missed the Fall colors so we hope to go back next year to see how pretty it is around that time.

The camping gang: Pam, Rusty, Candace, Ryan, and Casey (I'm the photographer) We hiked to the bottom of the litte ravine and then I spotted 3 "billie goats" trying to climb up the side of it back to the top On another trail, we found this cool cave made from several GIANT boulders
On our way back from hiking, we spotted a real buffalo!!! I had never seen one like this so I thought it was really cool (as seen in my expression)

Before dinner, we went to the top of Mt. Scott for a beautiful view. Although, it was crazy cold and windy up there, we still had to get a photo op.
For dinner on Saturday, we ate in the small mining town of Meers, OK (home of the famous Meersburger). It's ranked the 8th bets burger in the country and its HUGE. We split the Siesmic Meersburger and it was plenty of food. The funniest part was that the bun is stilla verage size and then the meat hangs over about 2 inches.
I caught this photo of a Longhorn on our way out of the refuge. No zoom was used. There were a bunch just wandering this close to the road. I've seen longhorn plenty of times before but I jsut thought it was cool to see them in their natural habitat.
So overall, it was an awesome trip! We played bean bag toss all night (the boys won the tournament we played which did not make us girls happy). Another animal we saw was an entire field of nothing but Prairie Dogs which was hilarious. They would pop up form their holes and yell to each other in a sound I can only describe as the sound Beeker from the Muppets makes. This is definitely a repeat camping spot!!!

The Grinch in ICE!

Yesterday the annual ICE exhibit opened up for us to preview so we got a sneak peak at everything. This year is definitely the BEST that I have seen yet! The whole exhibit walks you through the story of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Here are some pics to give you a sneak preview too!!

The Grinch stealing the little Who socks...

The Grinch stealing thier Roast Beast...

Max the dog getting dressed as a reindeer...

All the Who's singing even without their Christmas presents...

The Grinch's heart changes and he joins them for their feast...

Here is the group of us going through ICE...

Happy Halloween!

This weekend was Halloween! Casey and I went to his friend Justin’s house for their costume party. Justin’s girlfriend Alyssa had decorated the house really well so it really felt like Halloween. There were also a lot of trick-or-treaters in their neighborhood so it was fun to pass out candy to them. As far as costumes go, Casey and I went as AC Slater and Jessie Spano from Saved by the Bell. I naturally have the same hair as Jessie so I didn’t need a wig. Casey however, went out and bought a disco afro that we were going to cut down into more of a curly mullet (AC Slater hair). Well, he didn’t try on his wig until right as we were walking out the door. When he took it out, I thought it looked really small for an afro wig. As he tried to put it on his head, I picked up the packaging with the picture of the disco, afro-wearing guy on it and saw that it read “Included: Side burns and chest hair – Additional add-on’s: Afro Wig.” So Casey was trying to put chest hair on his head. We tried to make it work as you can see in the picture below. Sadly, we didn’t win any costume contest this year. Justin (aka Gumbi) or as the trick-or-treaters liked to call him, the giant pickle, ended up winning Bets Overall Costume. His girlfriend Alyssa, is the fairy next to him.