Four years ago today, on Friday the 13th, we brought Benny home.  He was two years old then and now he is six.  I can’t believe it.  Time has flown by.  The past four years have been so chaotic and fun with him.  I’ll try and take some new pictures when I go home, but for now, here are some from Christmas break.

Happy 6th Birthday, Benny!!!

I have a very large amount of pictures to post from the Inauguration. I have decided not to put them all in the same post. Plus, I only currently have my brother’s pics on my computer. So here they are!

This is the Capitol Building the day before.

Washington Monument the day before.

White House the day before.

Bus that decided it would be a good idea to try and drive down a street filled with people.

An ambulance that tried to do the same.

After my bro and his class realized they wouldn’t get into the mall, this guy climbed on top of a SWAT team van and started preaching about how everyone needs to embrace Jesus and let him into their lives. Then the cops made him get off.

Then, this other guy climbed up and started speaking about communism.

And, of course, here is the huge never ending line of porta-potties that must have been imported from multiple states.

I have been tagged by Yoon, in the photo tag/snag.

Here are the rules.

1. Go to your picture files
2. Go to your 6th folder.
3. Go to your 6th picture.
4. Tell us about it.
5. Tag 6 friends to do the same.

My computer organizes my pictures based on year, so I don’t actually have a 6th folder. They only go from 2005-2008. So I’m taking the 6th picture in the 6th folder under my 2008 folder.

This is a picture of a double rainbow that appeared over my house this past June. I must say that it’s rather funny to post this right now, since it’s currently 1 degree at my house.

And I tag Baja, Shark Tales, Tortilla, VaZ, Road Back Home, and Yoon (because I don’t know of anyone else to tag).

I hope everyone had a good Christmas. I did. I got some clothes, CDs, movies, an iTunes gift card, hair ties, Christmas socks, and a bunch of chocolate.

It went by too fast, though. The entire Christmas season has flown by at a remarkably fast pace. I am sure this is partly due to the fact that Thanksgiving was so late and partly because I was in school until halfway through December.

I went shopping the day after Christmas and got some good sales. I got Taylor Swift’s new CD on sale as well as a bunch of clothes.

Benny had a good Christmas, too. We got him a stuffed squirrel (an inside joke because Benny picked up a dead squirrel out of a pile of leaves a few months ago) and a few different kinds of treats. Here are a few pictures of him opening his stocking!

Mother Nature blessed us with about six inches of snow last Friday.  It started snowing in the late morning, although my siblings did have a snow day.  They got an anticipatory snow day.  I thought it was a good idea.  My mom went grocery shopping and was hoping to get back home before the snow started.  That didn’t happen and she got stuck on a hill on the way home.

The roads were horrible.  The plows couldn’t keep up with it and they didn’t plow around my house until late in the day.  I was supposed to work at 1pm.  I called and told them I’d be late due to the crappy roads, but they told me just to not bother coming in at all.  So I got a snow day, too!

Then we got another few inches yesterday.  I hope this is a sign of what the winter will bring.  I want more snow like this!  I could do without the -20 wind chill factor, though.

Here are some pics I took on Friday.  They’re not that great because I was holding Benny’s leash at the same time, but they do show how snowy it was.

This is the bottom of our driveway and the street.  There was over a foot at the bottom of the driveway.

And here’s a video of Benny because videos capture his love of snow so much better than pics do.  He was dragging me all over the yard.

All right, that didn’t work.  I’ll just give you the link.

Benny in the Blizzard

Last week’s ice storm blessed my siblings with an early release on Thursday and a snow day on Friday.  I was thoroughly disappointed that the storm brought us a mere 2 or 3 inches of snow, when forecasters originally called for a foot.  Instead we got a quarter inch of ice followed by a pathetic two inches of snow.  So much for the first big snow storm of the year.

On Saturday, we decided to go get our Christmas tree.  We always go chop down our own.  Half the fun is picking it out and chopping it down and bringing it home.  I was quite excited because there was actual snow on the ground this year.  Usually we get the tree in the rain or mud.

However, we did not think about the fact that the ice had not yet melted.  The ground was an ice rink.  The trees were covered as well.  We could not find a single tree that was not coated in a thick layer of ice.  Eventually, we found a satisfactory tree and chopped it down.  The thing was extremely heavy due to the amount of ice on it.

When we got home, we realized that if we put it in the house right away, it would melt all over the floor.  So we set it up in the garage with a tiny space heater to try and melt the ice.

Unfortunately, the heater did not do much to decrease the ice on the tree.  After a few hours, my dad just decided to bring it inside.  The trunk was frozen solid and he had to use a hair dryer to warm it up in order to put it in the stand.  He set it up and it wasn’t until it was inside that we realized exactly how much ice was left on the branches.   We also realized that it was quite crooked.   Of course, the ice immediately started melting into the carpet, which brought back fond memories of The Fish Tank Saga.

The carpet was quickly becoming saturated in water, which made my parents very glad they hadn’t replaced it along with the upstairs carpet over the summer.  They also worried if this would cause them to have to replace the carpet after Christmas.

My sister and I began to pull ice off of the tree while my bro used the shop vac to suck the water out of the carpet.  We also vacuumed the actual tree, which was hysterical.   We spent about an hour doing that and it helped.  We pulled a bucket and a half of ice off of the tree, which was most of the ice.

After that, the tree was still wet so we could put the lights on and decorate it.  My dad decided to let it sit in the kitchen all night to dry and completely thaw out, while the family room carpet dried.

After all that work, we were able to decorate it Sunday night.  It’s smaller than most of the trees we get, so it’s quite crammed with ornaments and we had a lot leftover, which we put on a fake tree in the basement.   Here’s the formerly frozen tree in all its decorated glory.  It’s still not straight, either.

Notice the lack of ornaments on the lower branches.  That’s because of our resident Mischief Maker.

Due to the large amount of food that is prepared and consumed on Thanksgiving, it is Benny’s favorite holiday. He spends the day in the kitchen hoping that my mom will drop some sort of ingredient or even better, the entire turkey. He then spends the meal trolling the floor for crumbs and putting his head in everyone’s laps, giving them the most pitiful looks.

After dinner, he lays at my mom’s feet while she takes the rest of the turkey off the bone, hoping that she’ll take pity on him. It is then that he finally gets the prize. His own Thanksgiving dinner. This year’s dinner for Benny consisted of rejected turkey off of people’s plates, giblets, my youngest sister’s leftover potatoes, and some gravy. He consumed it in all of ten seconds and then spent two minutes licking his bowl.

When we were on vacation, there was a pink wooden bird in the lobby of the main lodge.  My siblings and I routinely argued about whether or not the bird is a duck or flamingo.  I think it’s a flamingo, but think we should just call it a fluck and be done with it.  What does everybody think?

I finally took some pics of the new carpet and my room with all the stuff back in it.  I think it was more of a pain to put all my stuff back than to take it out in the first place.  My room looks pretty much the same as it did before we got the new carpet, since my sister and I really couldn’t rearrange our furniture.  My brother and other sister rearranged their furniture, though.  My sister and I just have too much furniture to really be able to move it around anywhere.  It barely fits in there as it is.

I’m not sure if you’ll really be able to tell that the carpet is new just based on the pics.  But it’s really nice.  I love the color and it’s very soft.

The mess that is our closet.  It actually looked much worse before we redid the carpet.

Carpet shot, along with my 4-foot duck.

And another carpet shot, just outside my room.  Yes, we’ve got a random dresser in the hall.  It was mine, and then it was my sister’s, and now the drawers aren’t in the best shape.  My dad’s trying to sell it on Craigslist.

A couple weeks ago my bro’s fish tank leaked all over the carpet in his room and he had to rip up some of the carpet.  My parents decided that they might as well just replace all the carpet upstairs instead of just that little corner of my bro’s room.  They had been thinking about redoing the upstairs carpet for a few years now, but they hadn’t done it yet since it would be so much work.

A lot of work?  That was an understatement.  We’ve spent the past few days taking everything that we have upstairs and putting it in the basement, living room, family room, and office.  It only took me a couple hours to move my stuff, but my bro and one of my sisters took a couple days to gut their rooms.

They’re doing the carpet today and we’re hoping it only takes a day.  Then we get to move everything back.

I took some pictures of my room and the piles of stuff in the basement.  It looks like we’re moving or something.  I never realized how much junk we have.  It’s kind of funny.  I made the pics really big just for yoon.

First, mine and my sister’s bedroom.

And here is the basement.  There’s hardly any room to walk down there.

I’ll take pics of my room once the carpet is finished and all my stuff is back in it.  Poor Weasley is spending a few days in a fish bowl.  His tank will be the first thing I move back to my room.  My room will probably be the cleanest it’s been since we moved in once I’m done moving everything back.