Just wanted to give a shout out to our fabulous feline who is a year old today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY NIKA! You make us laugh everyday; thanks for being the best little kitty ever.
Some fun fact about Nika:
She sleeps in a ton of different odd positions, and when she is really tired she puts her paws over her eyes to block out the sun--it is so cute.
She is our little world traveller now--Indi, NC, Utah, and all the states in between :)
Some of her nick names: monkey or "monk" cause she is a super duper climber; Nik; precious, muffin.
She is half dog/half human--she follows me everywhere, she follows us to go outside-- often leading the way-- and then when we call her she comes running home. She lets us know when she wants to go outside by extending herself to reach the door knob. She sounds like a baby when she cries; acts like a teenager when she doesn't get her way. She plays fetch with her mouse.
She has her own schedule: whinny for about 20 seconds when we go to bed, telling us she is sad that the day has ended, brings her mouse with her up onto the bed (it's like a comfort blanket for her) and then curls up at my feet and sleeps the night away. Wakes us up in the morning and runs around the house and does her happy, crazy, "a new day is here," dance.
She makes artistic mazes with her yarn, weaving it under the table and chairs, of which she is very particular about it--works all night on it so we have a stunning surprise in the morning.
She plays rough with us--we do tai kwando on her and she loves it. She lets us know she is just playing when, after we stop letting her bite our hands or feet, she starts licking us.
Her favorite game is hide and seek--she loves chasing and being chased around the house.
She loves my vitamin D medicine--licks it off my hand almost every night.
She loves catching our bugs--she's our best little bug catcher.
She doesn't like her paws being dirty and every time she is done in her liter box she wipes her paws back and forth on the floor.
She makes the cutest squeal when she stretches after her naps, almost like a human yawn and then a "ahhh"
She talks to me all the time. I will ask her questions and she totally responds. She knows "where's your mouse," "do you want to go outside," and she knows her treat bag when I pull it out.
One of her favorite toys--my rubber bands, find them all over the house.
She can act like a prairie dog sometimes by getting up on her hind legs and balancing like that for 10 seconds.
She loves laying on our mac computers or having some sort of ledge to prop herself up on when she lays on the floor.
She loves watching me put on my make up. She will jump on the bathroom counter and sit there and just stare at me meticulously till I am done. It is so cute
There are so many cool things about our cat....WE LOVE YOU NIKA!!
Friday, August 14, 2009
1 Years Old
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Indiana
I finally have a chance to update. We got packed up late Saturday night (were able to see the new movie GI Joe-pretty good, kind of cheesy acting, and go to dinner with the office), and left around 9 Sunday morning. We made really good timing, we got in about 7pm. It is insane how close we are to various states-one reason why I love it so much-in one hour we were in Virginia, in two we were in KY, and then Ohio and then Indiana. We were transfixed with the countryside of Virginia and KY-so gorgeous, so picturesque with the rolling green hills, red barns, and white fences/horse pastures. It was so beautiful!!
We immediately loved the area when we drove in. We really didn't know what to expect, for as my mom put it, “who ever hears anything about Indiana?” We loved it because it was more open, still a lot beautiful trees and greenery, but not as saturated as NC. Another bonus-everything is literally 5 minutes from our apartment-AMC theaters, Target, yummy restaurants, local businesses, the church-and the city is 14 miles away. Speaking of the city we were able to go in on Monday and who would have known Indianapolis was such a cool place? There are so many fun restaurants (Chocolate Café where we indulged in a few sweets, Buffalo Wild Wings--YUMMY wings that I know I am going to CRAVE), cool retail shops, and some amazing architecture. Situated in the middle of the city is this beautiful fountain, quite breathtaking actually, with these detailed sculptures representing Indiana's involvement with many of our nations wars. It really is one of the coolest landmarks I have seen in this amazing country. We had so much fun walking around the Garden Atrium where they perform live, free concerts, the huge mall, and of course the city streets. We both love the city so much, and as Mike said, “this has to be one of the coolest cities either of us have been to.”
Another really fun event going on right now, which we will update you more on when we go on Saturday is the Indianapolis State Fair. They have a designated building for it, located near the city. The fair goes on for about a month. The coolest thing is you can take a train right to the fair a mile from where we live, in Fishers. Mike and I are so excited to go, we have literally been talking about this since we first started conversing online. I LOVE fairs, I am seriously a fair JUNKIE! I LOVE FUNNEL CAKE!! A MUST at a fair, and crazy enough this will be the very first time Mike tries funnel cake-YIPPEE!!! I love the rides too, even the small kid ones-there is something so nostalgic about fairs (I know Mike is going to make fun of me using that word, but I love it-nostalgic :)--fav word).
We have already made an incentive board for the two weeks I am here. Mike has been hitting his goal, which means we get to indulge ourselves with fun little things during the week. We have already eaten at the local Homemade Ice cream/yogurt shop featuring a ton of different YUMMY flavors, and The Original Pancake House. I love this incentive idea :)
The negative of this new move-the apartment; it is seriously odd. It isn't as nice as the one we lived in previous in Charlotte; it is an older model. We had so many problems when we arrived. It is on the bottom floor and facing away from the sun (towards this small forest) and so the lighting is pretty bad. When we arrived the first thing we noticed was that it wasn't clean-bugs, hair, YUCKY YUCK YUCK YUCK…and then the smell was pretty bad (which we later tried to remedy with carpet cleaner, air fresheners, and candles). Our toilet overflowed twice, first by Mike, then by me. Doogies were floating over the rim, onto the floor-it was horrible. I was freaking out cause I couldn't get it to stop and I ended up dropping the toilet lid onto the floor and breaking it in half. Then if things couldn't get worse, when we got in we didn't have liter for Nika and she had to pee really bad and unbenounced to me she went on this black trash bag. Well, in cleaning up after the unpacking I picked up the bag quite hurriedly and yep, rancid pee flew off the bag, all over my legs, and all over the carpet. YUCK! I wanted to vomit. To make matters worse they took out our water heater (who does that by the way???) and so we had no hot water till the next morning. We had to take showers that night in the pool restrooms, which, thankfully, housed showers with hot water :. HAHA what a crazy experience!!! Thankfully we have each other to get through the “weird” times and to laugh about them in the process.
All in all, the location is again, another “ideal” place : with everything so close by. Thankfully we are adventurous and thankfully I love living in different places (kind of crazy to pack up and move somewhere after four months only to pack up and move again in two months, but hey we are young, without kids, and are making our mark on the world and loving every minute of it).
