It's Almost Christmas!

It's almost Christmas and the Millers are ready.

Our pup's stocking is a new addition this year...

Our first Christmas tree!And Christmas breads! Rachel has been attempting to duplicate her mother's breads for our Christmas morning. So far, she has a 50% success rate. (The loaf on the right didn't rise correctly.) But the successful loaf still equals 100% deliciousness.

Christmas Snow

We walked to our friends Phil and Nicole's house last night in the snow storm (for some amazing, authentic foundue) and took these photos along the way. Most of the time we walked in the street because no one in Philly knows how to shovel their sidewalks. But no one knows how to drive in snow, either, so no cars were on the streets.

Altogether we had about 6" of snow. Just enough to stick around until Christmas!

Addendum: The Philly airport reported 23 inches of snow over the weekend! More than 300 flights were cancelled. Glad to be staying in Philly this Christmas!

Snow Dog!

Philly has already had 2-3 inches of snow and it's still falling in big, thick flakes. I know that all you Nebraskans and Wisconsinites think that isn't much, but for Philly it's a lot of snow. Parts of the area are expecting up to 10 inches. It's also Bella's first snow and we were eager to see how she'd react. She LOVES it. Loves eating it, running in circles around us in it, lying down in it, etc. Here's a video and some pics of our snow dog!

Uplift

It's time for a more uplifting post! Here is Russell, watching the Huskers game versus Texas with Bella. (Note: Bella isn't allowed on the furniture. Guess who likes to pick her up and put here there?) Russ is turning the longhorns on their heads. Too bad the Huskers couldn't do the same!

At our trainer's suggestion, we got Bella a yoga mat to chill out on. She absolutely loves it and doesn't think it's a big chew toy, thank goodness. We're currently working on the command "go to your mat." (The dog version of "go to your room.")

Dude, Where's Our Car?

We've lived in Philly for just over three years now, and deep down we knew something was missing. We had eaten the cheesesteaks, become Phillies fans, and embraced the local "how yous doing?" slang. But it wasn't until last month that we felt completely welcomed by the city. That happened when our car was stolen. We parked the car a few blocks from our apartment (and we don't live in a "bad" neighborhood, by the way) on one Sunday, and the next Sunday when we went to drive it -- it was gone. After the headache and hassles of filing a report with the police and going through our insurance company's requisite paperwork, we signed over the title of our missing car to our insurance company. So, if you see our Maxima out there -- call State Farm, because it belongs to them!

On the bright side, we don't need a car to get to work and can now use a car-sharing program when we need to get out to the 'burbs for a few hours. And we'll save a bunch on car insurance, maintenance, etc.

Happy Trails, Maxima! Hope the chop shop didn't hurt too badly!

Those Juiced Yankees

Check out the segment on our local Fox morning show this morning. Philly fans wrote the book on trash talking...

October in Philly

Some highlights from our October:

Octoberfest with Phil and Nicole, friends of ours who moved to Philly this year. This fest came complete with a polka band. Phil wasn't too sure about dancing the polka.

We went to our first Ivy League football game, at the University of Pennsylvania. We were unimpressed with the size of the crowd, to say the least. The view of the Philly skyline was nice though. The Eagles used to play at Franklin Field, which I'm sure pulled a larger crowd. The Army-Navy game was also played here.

We also went to Nebraska for a Huskers game (forgot the camera, so no pics).

And, of course, much of our time has been spent watching the Phillies make it to Fall Classic! Game 1 is tonight, and Bella is ready.

Flying Monkey What?

This summer, I've been eagerly waiting for a new cafe to open its doors in our neighborhood. If you've visited us in Philly, chances are we've taken you to Reading Terminal and I've made you order a cupcake from the Flying Monkey Patisserie. They are fantastic, and the bakery is opening a second location just 2 blocks from our apartment! I have anticipated enjoying coffee and cupcakes on a more regular basis there.

Unfortunately, their new name leaves something to be desired. Seriously, Flying Monkey Deuce? The owners have obviously not hung out with frat boys enough to get that one. I definitely won't be ordering anything chocolate.

Vick in Philadelphia

The Philadelphia Eagles have signed Michael Vick today, and animal and dog lovers around town are furious. If you didn't know, Vick has spent the last 2 years in prison for his sponsorship of a dogfighting group. Here is a summary of his involvement in the dogfighting case: http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/eagles/20090814_ap_summaryofmichaelvickdogfightingcase.html (The summaryis that he organized a dog-fighting group and helped kill 6-8 "underperforming" dogs by drowning or hanging in 2007.)

Here's what I think of overpaid, animal-abusing NFL players:

Let's hope Bella demolishes it!

Dog Bed, Monkey Head

We finally relented and bought Bella a dog bed. She hasn't quite figure it out yet...
We can't show you the other things she's been doing to her new dog bed...just not PG-rated for the kiddies. Needless to say, she loves her dog bed. A lot.

Oh, and that monkey toy she got for Easter from Donna? She beheaded it. Yummy -- stuffed monkey brains...

Camping in the Rain

We ventured up north to the Poconos for camping and hiking this weekend. Ricketts Glen State Park is about 2.5 hours north of Philadelphia, nestled in the Lehigh Valley. It has 22 waterfalls total.


Bella thoroughly enjoyed hiking, although it was tricky in some spots to navigate while walking with her. She was very excited and tugged pretty hard on the leash. Here we are by a "wedding cake" type of waterfall.

And then, the rain began.

And it continued all night...

We huddled underneath shelter that we'd fashioned from a tarp and rope. Here's Bella by the light of the lantern.

"It's a trench!"

Our Dutch friend, Pieter, was driven to divert the water in a system of waterways. (Maybe trenchwork is in his blood?) Unfortunately, there was just too much water.

After a long day of hiking and general muddiness, our puppy curled up on a pile of laundry, still smokey from the campfire. We think that's a sign she'd like to go back.

Dog Bed, Dog Park

Bella is trying to tell us something. That something is: "Get me a dog bed!!" She does this by climbing onto our coffee table, which, to her benefit, is a padded table-bench. But she barely fits onto it, and it's pretty pathetic and adorable. We have avoided purchasing a dog bed because in all likelihood she will tear it shreds. That likelihood is decreasing every day, as she gets older and stops generally tearing things to shreds.

In other news, we enjoyed a beautiful summer evening at the dog park tonight. Here's a video of our pup playing tug with a neighborhood dog.

Doga

While we were down at a beach house in Cape May NJ earlier this summer Rachel and BelAir decided to do some lazy morning Yoga, or in this case Doga. Pretty cute. I think Bella needs to work on some of her moves but shes got downward dog down, although she's rarely meditative while doing it.

Spring Baseball

There's nothing that signals the end of winter quite like baseball. It's finally warm enough to enjoy being outside, the hot dogs are warm and the beer is cold, the field is always bright green, and the long 160-plus game season stretches out before you, promising a long summer. This spring we traveled to see friends and family in two National League cities and to enjoy this spring rite of passage.

In April we visited friends Megan and Brad Riechmann in St. Louis and took in the Cubs-Cardinals game. (One of the hottest rivalries in baseball.) As you can tell from the picture below, the Cubs did not shine that particular day. (Losing 2-8. Although they did come back to win 10-3 the next day.)

The Cubs-Cards rivalry is intense. We felt like we were back in Philly and not in the good ole' Midwest, the banter at the ballpark was so good. To Brad's dismay, Megan has promised to actually put a Cubs onsie on their new baby boy this fall, if one happens to fall into their laps. Don't worry, Meg -- it's on the way!

We also ventured to the top of the St. Louis Arch to enjoy the view of the city. Unfortunately, it was a very windy day and once at the top viewing area you could feel the arch swaying back and forth. Needless to say, we didn't stay long.

In June, we ventured to Chicago to see Russell's brother, Rob, and his wife, Stacey. Rob is a veteran Cubs fan, and Stacey has donned Cubbie blue as well in the last few years. We saw the Cubs play the Cleveland Indians on a scorching 80-degree sunny day. It was especially brutal because we sat in the bleachers, where no shade is to be found. Oh, and it was a 13-inning game! After 5 1/2 hours in the sun we all left Wrigley sunburned and more freckled than when we went in. Popsicles and cold beers helped cool us off.

Sitting in the bleachers, we were able to interact with left-fielder Alfonso Soriano. Russ and I have nicknamed him "the Cat" because of his feline ways and little hops when he runs to catch a ball. Check out this video of a fan spraying him down with a water bottle (which she also used on the crowd, thank goodness!). In the picture, he's telling us how many outs there are (two).

This was an especially exciting win for the Cubs, as it ends the Miller Curse! Russell had never witnessed the Cubs win a game, even though he's been to many games over the last few years. And, until last year, Rob hadn't either. It was the Miller Curse. Thankfully, now the only thing standing in the way of a Cubs world series win is that nasty goat. This could be the year!

We finally heard the Cubs win song, Go Cubs Go!

Walking the Dog

No, not that type of woking. The sort that results in the type of doggie bags that tend to get tossed directly in the trash... As you can imagine, we've been walking BelAir a ton since we got her. A city dogs life is a lavish affair where your owner is forced to take you out for 4-5 walks a day, so you can exercise, relieve yourself, and terrorize pigeons. Rachel and I have become quite well acquainted with all the "deuce" spots in a 6 block radius, and Bell has charted an internal map of all dog parks, dog day cares, and dry cleaners that give out treats (all very good things) as well as all automatic doors and scary dogs houses (bad things that require us to cross the street to proceed).



On this particular walk, Rachel and I went to marvel and document perhaps my greatest parallel parking job ever. It required only two bumps of the cars before and after me (which I believe are officially fair game in the philly parking scene). I had an equally impressive parking spot earlier in the month that I forgot to document.

Since we had the camera, we decided to take pictures of each other by this small and peculiar monument that sits at the end of Clinton street, probably one of the more beautiful lazy alleys in our new neighborhood. The plaque says "A merciful man is merciful to his beast." It must have been put up by an animal lover, I wish I knew more about it, but whenever I walk the pup by there I notice it and call her a beast. We have fun.

Probably the most cute/annoying thing that Bella does on our frequent walks is to go up the steps of a brownstone walkup. At first we didn't know why she was doing this and suspected that she may have lived in one. Our new theory is that these are the walkups of houses that have dogs, and shes going in for a closer smell.

You might think, "Oh, that doesn't sound too bad," and you are right. But as you can see our hood is packed to the gills with these walkups and its not unheard of for her to need to go up 3-4 per block if she is particularly curious that day.

Catchup Post

I realize that we have been very slow to post blog entries this year, so here is a post to catch you up to speed on what we've been up to. Undoubtedly, the puppy is taking up much of our free time! Our Bella is growing at an average rate of 6 pounds a month. Holy #$#*, we're going to have a big dog on our hands! She's currently at 40 pounds (was 27 when we adopted her). Here are some recent pics of her and Russ. (We have to thank Donna for the monkey toy, which is her absolute favorite and she has been very careful with.) She now has a whole routine of tricks: sit, lay down, shake, fetch, touch (touch her nose to our hands), find it (find the treat; gets her into the car), and catch -- but the ones we use the most are No! and Down! Still have some work to do...

Rachel's parents visited us in February, and we had a wonderful time showing them around Philly and the area. We went to DC for a 3-day weekend, seeing the Amish countryside in Lancaster, PA, and touring the battlefield of Gettysburg on the way to Maryland. While still in Philly, we stopped at the obligatory historical spots, like Independence Hall (below) and the Reading Terminal Market for one darn good cheesesteak!

On our weekend trip, we spent a day in Gettysburg touring the battlefield. It's a very well done national park. We bought a self-guided audio tour that we could listen to while we drove through the battlefield, which is huge. The picture at the bottom right is where the famous Pickett's Charge began. (2 out of 3 Confederate soldiers who marched in Pickett's Charge were killed as they marched across the battlefield.) It is a beautiful but very eerie place.

It happened to be Valentine's Day that weekend, and we celebrated with dinner at the Dobbins House Tavern, a historic house from 1776.

Once in DC, we spent a full day touring the Capitol Building and walking through all of the memorials on the mall. Here is the Lincoln Memorial and Greg and Ann at the Nebraska column of the World War II Memorial.

To complete the tour of local battlefields, we also visited Valley Forge, which is just outside of Philly in the suburbs. It's a much smaller national park, and not technically a battlefield, but it's now a nice green space for the neighborhood. They have recreated some of the military settlement of the Continental Army, who were stationed there to watch the British Army that had drive them out of Philadelphia in the winter of 1777. While Philadelphia was being pillaged, Washington and his men waited out the winter until they could continue the military campaign in the spring.

We found an intriguing church dedicated to the Continental Army at the park, the Washington Memorial Chapel. The entire chapel is dedicated to the army, with military banners, wood carvings, and sculptures. It was interesting to see so many military symbols as part of a religious space. Here are pictures of some of the wooden carvings of soldiers.

And to thoroughly catch everyone up, here are a few pictures from our Easter in DC with Russell's sister and parents. Our niece Alexis is so cute!