17.4 lbs, 35 inches long (including tail)

We have a new addition to our family!

Her name is Murphy's Law though we usually just call her Murph. Isn't she adorable?

This is her watching Regis and Kelly with me. She LOVES attention.

Here are a few pictures of the new place. On the left is the fenced-in backyard that Murphy calls home. And on the right are the pillows we got in Thailand that I bought the stuffers for. Aren't they pretty? And only $2.90 each! I'll get more pictures up as soon as the house is organized.

I should say a little more about the new baby. We've been searching on craiglist (which has little to nothing down here), ksl.com, and the local paper forever for a border collie. I finally found this ad in the local paper. Murphy was raised on a farm (literally - horses, cows, chickens, cats all over the place). She was born right before Easter so she is 12 weeks old. Her dad looked like a border collie and her mom had some lab in her but I don't know what she looked like. The mom disappeared a few weeks ago and they think she was hit by a car or tractor.

Murphy already displays some border collie traits though - she's athletic, gives "the eye", and has all the typical markings. The family has 8 kids which has made Murphy wonderful around little kids. We see them on walks and she gets all excited when she sees them and will just sit down when they come up to her. She loves to be held in your lap and is big whiner when she's not happy. We got her Wednesday night and both Thursday morning and Friday morning she woke me up at 6am with her whining. Thursday the sprinklers came on and scared her and this morning she was just wired for whatever reason. She's keeping me more entertained than I would be by myself though.

Excel Fun

My boss showed me a very cool add-in for Excel the other day. It's called ASAP Utilities (http://www.asap-utilities.com/download-asap-utilities.php) and automates or simplifies all sorts of time-consuming activities in excel. For example, it can unhide all the hidden sheets at once, apply a formula to a group of cells, reset excel's last cell, sort according to five categories instead of just three, delete all hidden rows and columns, and lots and lots of other things (most of which I haven't figured out yet).

Most of that paragraph doesn't interest the majority of you but there is one other thing about it. It has this part where you can launch Funny error messages.
These are a few of the ones that made me laugh:

• Error: Change in Earth’s Rotational Speed
• Government Employee detected. Switching to sleep mode.
• It was OK before you touched it. (Too bad you can't copy and paste these into files.)
  
• Firewall needs cooling.
• Your girlfriend is pregnant.
  (A)bort (R)etry (I)gnore (Probably shouldn't, but this one makes me laugh out loud)
  
• Multitasking attempted. System confused.
• Dynamic linking error. Your mistake is now in every file. (feels like a real error too often)
  
• Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue.
• Press any key to continue and any other key to quit.

And then there are some I don't get but they must be funny:

• You've got the flue! (what's flue?)
  
• Hidden Windows secret: add BUGS=OFF to your CONFIG.SYS

Oh yeah, and we're moving to Cedar City instead of St. George. Long story but the gist is that Chris was offered a position that better fits his career goals and it didn't matter to the people down there because it's all within the same organization so he didn't offend anyone by taking this other one. Chris is going to be based out of Valley View Medical Center now and I will have a much shorter commute. Anyone is still welcome to come visit! Crossing our fingers we should have a bedroom and bathroom just for guests. No more one bedrooms!

Revenue and Prayers

The other night Chris, the great, wonderful husband that he is, gave me a massage about 9:30pm. I promptly fell asleep afterwards which is why I never lay on our bed before 10pm. About 10:45pm Chris comes in and kneels by me. I'm awake 'enough' to sense he's there and that he's ready to say prayers for the night. So I kneeled down and since I knew it was my turn, started to pray. I felt him look up at me at one point during my prayer and realized I had been muttering really bad. So I started to pronunciate better. When I finished my prayer I kissed him and immediately rolled over because I could tell he was laughing at me and I didn't want to bother with it right then.
The next morning the alarm clock goes off and Chris rolls over, "Do you remember what you said in your prayer Erin?" Then he just starts dying laughing. He finally says that I apparently prayed "that the business would be profitable", "that we would have positive net income", "that we could know where to spend our money so that the business would increase revenue" and many other things that he can't remember. He has said multiple times since that he wishes he had a tape recorder or had written it down. I must have been dreaming about my job, which unfortunately, is not uncommon. I'll be more careful about praying when I'm half asleep though.

News

Finally we have some news to post. No, I'm not pregnant nor should you expect that any time soon. But - Chris did get a job! We are very excited because it's in St. George. We will actually get to see sun this winter! He starts June 18 and I still have to figure out if I will be leaving Seattle with him or joining him later. Either way I won't be looking for a job down there as I am going back to school. Southern Utah University (SUU) has a one-year MBA program that I applied to and was accepted. Chris' job is a one-year fellowship-type job so it works out pretty perfect. We're excited!

More pictures of Thailand

This blog is mostly for the grandparents of Trea who don't get to see her everyday like they would like to. It also has a few other pictures of stuff in Thailand. I'm not in most of them, not because we don't have a picture of me doing it, but because I'm the one who gets to decide what goes on the blog.

Family Picture

John and Trea.

Chris and Trea showing off their muscles.

Trea eating a banana in the night market. She was the most popular thing there.

Trea getting tired after a long day.

Trea was at the end of the bed and I told her to smile. She put her elbows on the bed, her chin in her hands and gave me a big smile. It was hilarious.

Try to find the little birdie legs and you can figure out what you're looking at here. They steam the baby birds as they come out of their eggs...

We're kneeling next to skinned frogs here.

Chris playing with the mosquito tennis racket that electrocutes them.

Chris lounging in the pool. The water in Thailand was much warmer than the Mediterranean yet he seemed to enjoy both. At the King Cobra Village. These are not cobras around my neck but they're still snakes. Yuck!

One main problem in Thailand were the beds. They were all king size. We came back to our little queen size in Seattle and kicked each other and stole covers all night long. Luckily, most of the beds in Spain were full size and our queen size now seems spacious, somewhat at least.

Chris by the monkeys. This picture is so cute I had to post it.

The water where we went snorkeling. I haven't done anything to this picture.

Back from Spain

Well, we're back. Now we just need a vacation from our vacation. :) Thailand was very low key, easy going and we only moved our luggage three times, from Bangkok to Khon Kaen to Krabi.

Spain was a little different. We stayed in Madrid three nights but after that it was one or two nights and on the road again.

Here's where we went:
Madrid (3 nights)
Train to Seville (2 nights)
Rental car the rest of the trip to:
Cadiz (one hour)
Jerez (Andalusian Horse Show - 2 hours)
Tarifa (2 nights)
30 min. ferry ride to Morrocco for 6 hours
Nerja (one night)
Granada (2 nights)
Alicante (lunch)
Valencia (two nights - visited the Lladro factory)
Cuenca - one hour
Madrid (one night)

I've finally put the 500 pictures I took on my computer and picked out the ones I want to share. I haven't gone back and tried to remember all of the names of the places where the pictures were taken yet though. That will be done soon.

Chris took one small carry-on bag and his backpack (neither one very full) down to Utah but brought back up three stuffed bags including one big suitcase and a backpacking backpack. What did we have with us after Spain? Not a bunch of souvenirs, his hunting gear. He headed out this last week to Eastern Washington but didn't see any turkeys on public land. Lots and lots on private land, but none on public. So he's going to go try again next week probably.

Titles are above the pictures.

Madrid

Toledo Another Toledo

Segovia - Aqueduct built by the Romans. See the cars down there - this thing is huge!

Bullfighting Ring in Seville

Flamenco dancer in Seville

We rode a camel in Tangier, Morocco

Chris with the baby camels and a goofy hat.

Us at the Rock of Gibraltar.Me and Ape at the top of the Rock of Gibraltar. He put his hand on my shoulder when I went to stand by him to take a picture. Ahhhhh. Chris swimming in the Mediterranean. It was SO cold that he was the only one who did.
Us in front of the Alhambra in Granada.

Update

I have so many more pictures to post it's ridiculous. I have about 10 of Trea (my niece) that I want to put on. But there are some other things first.

It is very difficult to adjust coming back from Thailand with the time change. Going there I had very little difficulty. I was a little tired by the end of the first day but had slept 8 hours on the plane (it was practically empty so I laid out across 3 seats). I had also taken all the advice I got before I left and worked out every day the week before, took an aspirin before getting on and took off my shoes during the flight. I have no idea what helped and what didn't but I know I was sleeping nights there within a day. Chris only slept about four hours on the plane so he was much more tired the first day but we both agree that coming back has been a nightmare.

We arrived Wednesday at 12:30pm and I IMed my boss to see if he needed me. Thank goodness he said no because Chris and I were both out cold by 4pm to about 7:30. At 4pm in Seattle, it was 2am in Bangkok. We shouldn't have slept as long as we did but oh well. Thursday morning Chris woke up at 4am and I don't know if he woke me up or I just woke up on my own. There was no going back to sleep after that though. So I went in to work about 7:30am and ended up staying until 7:30pm. Then Friday I woke up at 5am, in to work at 7am and did not leave until 9pm. It's end of quarter and a million things are going on. So they were a long two days but went very quickly. Then Saturday morning I woke up at 4:30am. I was really hoping to get some sleep that night because I had the GMAT (Graduate in Management Admissions Test - test you take to apply for a MBA program) from 8-12. Do you want to know my score?

First you have to know a little background. I'd been thinking about going back to school for awhile and just couldn't get myself to spend the $250 on the test. Finally I decided to just take it. I took a practice test about 6 weeks ago and scored a 610. Then studied for awhile and took another practice exam the day before we left for Thailand and got a 610. Then I took my book to Thailand, studied on the plane rides, by the pool, at night, whenever I found the time. I took the test this morning and got - a 610. !!!!!!!!! I guess I was destined for that score. It is out of 800 and a 610 is the 73rd percentile. It will get me into most of the graduate schools I am interested in. Since my goal is not to become a CEO by the time I'm 30, a top ranked business school isn't appealing to me even if I had gotten a 750. I'm not interested in the competitive atmosphere anymore that permeated BYU. I only want to learn in a relaxed environment and preferably, a smaller class. So we'll see where Chris ends up and if I can make any kind of deadline or talk my way into a program for the fall. If not, then maybe next year.
Now Chris leaves tomorrow to go to Utah early and I follow on Tuesday night. Work will probably be just as crazy Monday and Tuesday so hopefully I will post more pictures tomorrow.