best birthday...ever!

thank you all for making my birthday super! shane and i had a bunch of friends over friday night for the bash and it was a complete success!! and yes, the cops were called. we were just told to pipe down a bit...oh no, so sorry mr. officer, whatever. it was the absolute best! and what's even more super is that i still get one more day to celebrate. the fam and i are having birthday lunch at jamie & dave's this saturday with carrot cake too!! how jealous are you? yeah, that's what i thought. for those who couldn't make it or want to see pics and reminisce, enjoy the show . . .



shane & me...i love my roommie!
although i never know what i'll
get with him, i wouldn't trade him
for anything!

jessie & me...bff, i am so happy you and joe
were able to come out and celebrate. ps...gong!!!

chris & me...what a doll, need i say more?

weber opening up the wine bong for
megan...the best invention ever! don't
knock it 'til you try it!

zach, weber, megan, me & scott...all the wine
bongers, minus ben. note to self: close eyes next
time, wine really burns when it gets in your eyes.

zach and ben holding joe for a kegstand
while lisa pumps him full of frothy goodness.
nice legs...i wonder where joe's pants are.

chris & weber...get yourself some
i did, oowww!!

lovely ladies...angie, me, megan & jessie

shane, weber & megan...talk about slipping
some tongue baby!

jessie, scott & me...i have no idea why our
mouths are all open, but i love this picture!

run forest run

a HUGE congratulations to my sister, kristin!! she participated in the go! st. louis half marathon on april 8th. her time was 2hrs 25min, beating her boyfriend, joe by 25-30 minutes. check out pics of kristin running her little heart out here.

also, no post is complete with out more family pics:


my handsome little beast, marshall
tuckered out with a "couple" of his toys

kelly's girls, pasha & lux
frolicking in the backyard

also, in case you may have forgotten, and i don't know how...my birthday is friday. stop by the house because we're having what i hope, but deep down know won't be, a small social gathering. wanna take wagers on how long it takes the neighbors to call the cops? and thinking ahead, any takers on who wants to bail me out of jail? woo hoo party!!

puppies puppies puppies

this past weekend my sister kelly, after many many months of none too subtle hints to her boyfriend iliya, finally got her way. there's a new addition to their happy little family, a little pup name pasha. pasha, named by daddy iliya, is a lab/beagle mix (a leagle if you will, haha) and just over 10 weeks old. she's such a little sweetheart and it makes me want to get marshall a little brother too. however, as mama kelly is finding out, ms lux is not taking too well to the adjusting of having a little sister. lux has had kelly's sole attention for over 4 years and now she's got competition, not to mention lady lux has to share her water bowl too.


pasha climbing on top of kelly

pasha giving kelly some lovin'

lux and pasha having a tail-wagging time

dinner is served

ninja squirrels barreling ahead, 2-0
fear not my my dear readers, it was a false alarm. i know, thank heavens, right? the crazy bosnians that live next door had one of their trucks towed last week. initially, we thought, oh holy crap, the crafty little bugars have struck again. turns out, there was just something wrong with the tires or what not. (i don't know, they speak a foreign language, remember i am the girl who flunked her 4th year of spanish, ok? thank you.) anyway, it's really quite irrelevant what the issue was at this point since i'm still the only known a-town case of having squirrels use my automobile as a teeth sharpener. oh, those cheeky little devils!

look mom, no cavities
good news folks, at my bi-yearly check-up at the dentist last week, i had no cavities! thank you, thank you. i, like the squirrels, find oral hygiene to be of the utmost importance. i've been seeing my regular hygienist for what, 6+ years now; however, she was on maternity leave so i had the other gal cleaning my whomper chompers. perhaps i'm just too accustomed to jennifer's handy work or she's just super gentle, but i'm pretty sure, this other gal raped my teeth. for the love of god, she made me bleed my own blood...oh, my poor gums, youch! but on a happier note, i did get my new toothbrush, dental floss and a smart little pouch to hold them in, delightful!


my sweet dvr and her evil ways
while at work last week on sunday, i get a call from the house. i'm told that the dvr has just decided to stop working. that's right, the boys (roomies + tom) have actually managed to watch so much tv, they wore out my sweet little moxi (dvr). ok, maybe that wasn't the actual reason why, but with the amount of tv they watch, it very well could be true. no problem, i'll just swing the gear by the cable company and exchange her for a new one...wrong. no thanks to the retarded amount of snow received last tuesday, we had to wait until thursday to get a new moxi. the wait wasn't bad, it was reprogramming everything i had already stored in that sweet box that blew. at least she's back to recording once again...and i'm back to countless hours of orangutan island watching, woo woo!

will she ever blaze again
yes folks, the question that's been burning in your loins like gonorrhea on a hooker . . . drum roll please: ba da da da da . . . my beautiful beastly beauty has arrived!! you heard correct, the trailblazer danced her way home this past tuesday. oh how i missed her dearly and now look forward to each and every drive we have together. i barely even recognized her sitting in the lot..she was detailed inside and outside just as sweetly as when i first laid eyes on her. what a magnificent piece of machinery! the first night's sleep with her home was a little rough. i kept fearing the ninjas. thankfully, here we are, 2+ days later and she's still growling something fierce. thank you to all who extended a hand and expressed much sympathy to us in our time of need, it was only through your kind actions and thoughts we made it through...oh and the $4000 the insurance company had to shell out for the 3 wiring harnesses . . . beep beep!

hungry?

since it's not quite lunch time, perhaps you'd like to sample our appetizers. here's a tasty tease for your reading buds:

* ninja squirrels barreling ahead, 2-0
* look mom, no cavities
* my sweet dvr and her evil ways
* will she ever blaze a trail again


remember, these are just appetizers. make sure to comeback later for your full 4 course meal; it's guaranteed to satisfy those pesky cravings!

chump change

i had my weekly talk with tonya today...you know, my new gal pal at the dealership. my new bbf informed me that parts finally started getting ordered last friday and what a shock, it wasn't enough. so again, more parts were brought in this past week and work has finally begun! can you believe it? i know, complete shock.

just for shits and giggles, i asked tonya if she could just give me a ballpark figure on what the estimate thus far was. not including labor and the likely hood of still needing more parts, my beastly beauty has consumed right under $1900 worth of new gear. seriously, she best glide down the streets like no body's business when i get her back.

it has been nice having my bi-weekly conversations with tonya. we've gotten quite close in our phone relationship and have a bit of a common thread with critters, if you will. while i'm busy trying to beat off squirrels (ew, sickos! not like that, pull your head outta the gutter, gross!), tonya has mountain lion problems. apparently, the little darlings were doing their grocery shopping in her backyard with her farm animals and made off with 3 goat dinners. mmmh, that sounds delicious, i'll have that...thanks, but it turns out i'm not hungry after all.

stay tuned for next week...i just might have my kitten purring down your street soon!

marshall

who couldn't love this face?

i love snow, not ice

i know the last post was quite lengthy, me so sorry. i will keep this on the shorter side. for those of you who have been knocked out dead in a coma the last few days and do not already know, the weather has been none too kind.

i woke up thrusday morning to a completely iced over car. now if you paid any attention to the previous post, you know that my beastly beauty, the trailblazer, has been at the doctor due to the crafty works of some ninjas. when the tow truck picked up my automobile (said in the voice of long duck dong, sixteen candles), i thought i had gathered all of my necessities out of her. sadly, i couldn't have been more wrong. how was i supposed to foresee what the great fortunetellers of st. louis or meteorologists to you lay people, would have in store for me?

i seem to had overlooked a highly important clutch in my car, the ice scraper. so there i was, stuck without an ice scraper. deep inside, i know the powder blue mazda 3 or smurf as i refer to him, was chuckling away at my problem. what the bloody hell was i to do?

i had no other choice but to jack the defroster on super high and start rummaging the house for something tangible:

1. cd case - nope, broke in 2 whacks
2. cd - nope, i might have scratched the window a bit (shh, don't tell)
3. calculator - nope, a button or 3 went flying
4. metal spatula - bingo (and yes, i'm talking the one you flip pancakes with)

picture if you will me "whipping up" some ice-cakes off my freaking windows. if any neighbors were watching, they had to be thinking this chick is out of her flipping (haha, get it-flipping pancakes) mind. luckily, i think the only person who was out there was my neighbor, bill; bill is always drunk, even at 9:30 in the morning, what a rockstar!

anyway . . . i scraped the living crap outta the smurf and was finally able to see after only 30 minutes of hacking. i then, ever so cautiously, made it to work and had one of the busiest stinking days ever . . . the end.

ninja squirrels 1, stacy 0

when marshall and i left the city life and moved to our new stomping grounds back here in cozy ole affton, i noticed something about a-town was not the same. ninja squirrels had invaded the area.

in a previous posting, i mentioned something about the squirrels around here and how they are not your typical acorn eating, bushy tailed rodents...but ninja-like. these pesky little rodents have been known to launch acorns at marshall and i while on walks and have now graduated to a new level. it just so happens that the little sons of biscuit bakers enjoy spending time not only romping from tree to tree, but nesting in my trailblazer as well.

surely you're thinking to yourself, "how does a squirrel manage to build a nest in a car?" well, i have news for you, it's possible and those little bugars are quite crafty. so grab your bowl of popcorn and enjoy the "tail" . . .

it all began a week ago last saturday. i went to leave for another exciting night at the office (or hell, either one works). my remote key entry to my trailblazer was not working. i thought grrr, perhaps i just needed a new battery; no big deal, i can hit up the hardware store sunday. so for the 1st time ever, i unlock my car with the key (can you say old school), fasten my seatbelt (safety 1st kids), try to start up my 2 ton killing machine (for those of you who remember crash course) and nothing happens.

now i'm starting to get pissy. i head back inside and grab shane...side note: shane and dave are my roommates. if i was more of a chronic poster, i could have spared you the note, but i'm not; therefore, you must deal. shane moved in back in early november and dave came in late december. we can dish more about them in due time...end side note. shane being the manly man that he is "assesses" the situation and thinks it's the battery, whatever, i don't care at this point. he gives me his keys and tells me just to take his car to work; finally, a boy who's good for something.

while at work, i finally manage to round up a pair of jumper cables. i call shane and let him know i have one of my drivers coming over to the house and for him to help my driver try to jump my beast. sadly, no dice. now i'm getting even more frustrated and who better to call and vent to when things aren't going right then dear old sissy, jamie. luckily for me, wonderful bro-in-law dave answers. being the super bro-in-law that he is, dave offers to pick up a battery, swing by my house and change the battery for me. literally, before i can even thank him, he's passed me off to jamie and he's out the door.

glad you got that bowl of popcorn, eh?

so now, about an hour has passed and i finally get a call from dave. what a surprise, it wasn't the battery. instead, he starts questioning me about any enemies i might have. surely i'm not the nicest person in the world, but enemies, i really don't warrant any, i think. then, like ben franklin discovering electricity for the 1st time, my light bulb illuminates...ninja squirrels!!

upon further investigation, dave finds numerous, we're talking in the ballpark of 15-20, wires gnawed to bits. it appears as though the undercarriage of of my trailblazer makes for a warm snuggly home for these bastardos. the ninjas have not only managed to sharpen their teeth retarded by chewing my wires to shreds, but have eaten away at my insulation on the dash and built a cozy nest by my firewall. seriously?? how does this freakingly awesome luck always manage to find me?

after composing himself from the obscene amount of laughter, dave believes that he can fix my "problem" and takes another trip to the auto parts store. a few hours pass and dave calls at 10pm with an update. the damage is quite extensive, but he is making significant progress; however, he's beginning to turn into a human popsicle, no doubt a tasty treat the squirrels would just gobble up. luckily for me, his neighbor, yet another dave, drives for a tow truck company and happens to be working the midnight shift that night. dave manages to get a hold of dave and has my baby towed out to his house where he can at least try to work on her in better light in the garage and with a little bit of heat.

by now, i've closed up shop, am home from work and am starting to unwind when my cellular means of communication rings at 3am. it's dave and his crazy butt has been working on my car all night long now and has the beautiful beast purring like the kitten she is. he said she'll be completely finished in the morning; he just needs to make one more trip to the auto parts store...what a super swell bro-in-law!!

i'm off to bed knowing my baby is in trusting hands and i'll have her growling down the mean streets of a-town come tomorrow morning. morning comes, i call jamie and dave to make sure the beast is ready for pick-up and hitch a ride out to imperial with shane...woo hoo, he helps save the day again.

i start my kitten up and she's purring like the day i 1st drove her off the lot, yippee!! we arrive back home around 1pm. come 3:45, i gather the trash and make my way out the front door, when dun-dun-dun...i see it with my own two eyeballs. right before me is one of satan's finest ninja squirrels, literally, 7-8 feet away from me, gathering supplies for none other than a new nest. i start freaking out. shane and dave come a-running. i tell them what i've seen. shane grabs my car keys. dave grabs marshall and announces to the squirrels that he's unleashing the hound...right, like my baby would hurt a fly; well, i there was that family of baby bunnies, but nonetheless.

i've been down this road before: no dice on the keyless remote, no dice on the ignition...we pop open the hood (at this point, i'm half expecting a squirrel to jump out at me and claw my eyes out for being a home wrecker) and surprise, nest city once again on top of more new chewed wires and almost all of the ones dave repaired the night before.

so now here i sit...11 days it's been since my car has been unable to blaze any trails. she's been at the dealership since tuesday of last week. i've called 3 times to check up on her and see what the doctor has to say. the last call was yesterday, "i'm sorry ms. morris, we're still estimating the damages and had to take more pictures for the insurance company today. we've never seen damage from squirrels at this caliber before."

luckily, my insurance is covering this whole debacle and i only have to pay my very low priced comprehensive deductible and 20% coverage of the rental; which i might add is a powder blue mazda 3...i feel like i'm driving around inside a smurf. why me?? anyway, check back later to see what's become of my beastly beauty.