weeerreee baaaaacccckkkkk!!!

Just wanted to let everyone know we are alive and give a quick preview of what is to come.

First of all, sorry for being MIA all summer. We had an incident with our computer and have not had one for the last few months, but as you can probably guess we finally got a computer so be expecting to hear from us often!

I really have to get to bed but we do have much to report about...

We had (are having) a great summer from Billy Joel to Boneanchor to Jimmy Buffet from Atlantic City to Deltaville to Seattle, including an apartment move, birthdays AND our one year anniversary! It has been busy! It is probably good that we didn't have a computer; I am not sure we would have had time to update as often as we should. I have taken lots of pictures to share with everyone so you can look forward to that as well.

I will try, but cannot promise a post tomorrow (fingers crossed!) updating everyone on our fun but hot summer, as I do have to pack for our summer finale to Seattle on Saturday for 10 days!!!

Here is a picture in the meantime...Us before our anniversary dinner at the Hard Shell downtown.

I have thought about this blog often and have been very impressed to hear how many people missed it so I will continue to stay as up to date as our busy schedule allows.

We hope this finds everyone enjoying another great summer!

Love,

your finally reconnected richmond rices.

just another day at the rice house.

Our party went great. It was actually super fun, so better than great. Almost all of our favorite people came out and everyone acted like mature adults... well almost everyone. But overall a very good and drama-free party!

This is what Fletch did during the party. I guess he was either tired or overwhelmed because he usually loves new people.

His foot has healed quite nicely, in fact, we went to the dog park today for the first time since it all happened and he had a great time! You could tell he hadn't been in awhile because it took him a little bit to warm back up to all the dogs.

Hopefully, if the rain stays away, we will be back on our everyday schedule. I gotta say he is so much more cuddly when he has been at the dog park all evening... I guess because it wears out all that puppy energy!

Saturday, my grandparents from Maryland, my cousin Elizzabeth, my sister and her Boston clan, my parents and of course, Rick and I went to the annual Central Virginia LSU Alumni Crawfish Boil. It was out in Southside on the River. It was such a great day to be outside and to be pickin' some authentic Louisianner Crawdads!

View of the River

Rick pickin' away.

My empty tray and my grandparents working on theirs...

Delaney in awe of the balloons.

One just wasn't enough!

Bored with the balloons now onto mardi gras beads. Take them off, put them on, take them off, put them on, take them off, get frustrated because they won't come off, auntie erin takes them off, put them back on. It was surprisingly entertaining for the both of us!

Isn't she just the cutest!!!

On a different note...

At school, we are preparing for our annual charity event, the Spring Fling. The only part that I have really had to accomplish is helping my kids prepare a painting for our silent auction, which raises money for Safe Kids.

Each classroom was assigned a painting of a famous artist, for us: Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh. Our job was not to replicate the painting but borrow the style to make our own painting. The basic concept was to use quick and easy brushstrokes like van Gogh uses. We also used some of our newer concepts of artistic expression and added in our new knowledge of secondary colors.

Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night

Instead of using the entire painting for inspiration, we limited it to this one corner and focused on shapes and motion instead of landscape.

Our inspiration providing corner...

Preschool 2's masterpiece!

Obviously, there is no justice with a picture but it is pretty amazing. They really did a great job of not only following directions but making the artwork their own. They have come so far in 9 short months!

Pretty advanced for 3/4 years olds, eh?

Hope this finds everyone enjoying the last few weeks of Spring as Summer is just around the corner!!

Love,
your artistically-inspired richmond rices.

good doggy news!

Fletch had his vet appointment this evening and it went quite well. He had his dressing changed to something that is about half the size of the one in the picture from the last post, but for some reason he is more interested in licking this one! The vet said to keep it on for 3 days and then his paw should be healed enough to go without any bandage!

I am a happy mom!!

Love,
your feeling-less-gimp richmond rices.

started off as a happy post! :(

So I am home alone Monday through Friday each week and you would think that would mean I have all this free time, but in fact it feels like the exact opposite. I guess when I have to cook and clean for myself every night by the time Fletch and I are both fed and Fletch has had his long nightly walk, we are both ready to veg on the couch for an hour before we have to go to bed.

So as you can guess, that was my very logical excuse on why this blog is constantly neglected.

This by no means means I have nothing exciting to report. In fact, that too is the opposite! Our life has been really quite entertaining considering Rick and I's limited time together.

So before I begin, I should apologize first for the lack of photographs. I have not been so good with keep my camera around these last few weeks.

So, my birthday was April 30th. I cut 12 inches of hair off on the 29th for a new fun quarter-of-the-century haircut! I absolutely love having short hair again, especially since it has gotten so hot!

Sorry the pictures are so blurry... they were all taken on my camera phone.



On my birthday, I went out to eat with my parents to the Bamboo (mmm filet mignon!) and then we went downtown to this new place called Julep's to have.. you guessed it mint juleps and the best bananas foster outside of Nawlins.

At the Bamboo my parents gave me my birthday surprise!!! Two nights at the Berkley Hotel!!! I have been talking for quite some time about how much I wanted to be able to stay downtown for a weekend, so I could actually enjoy what downtown has to offer. Rick and I never do anything downtown because so much driving is involved as well as parking being a pain!

Well, we had the longest, most relaxing weekend. It was like a mini-honeymoon! We ate at awesome restaurants, shopped at interesting stores and listened to some very awesome live jazz. I really felt like we had gone on vacation.

THANKS MOM AND DAD!!!!!!

I went to the allergist on Monday for the first time, only to discover that I am allergic to everything outside. The scratch tests were so bad that the doctor insisted on me showing him how to use my camera phone to take a picture so I could see how bad my back reacted.

Proof I am allergic to the outside world.

I am now on an allergy steroid for this whole week which has helped tremendously! I have an allergy pill to take daily as well as a nose spray and an eye drop. I go back in about 2 weeks... not sure if they are doing more testing or if it is just to see how things are going. I guess we will see.

So, needless to say, I have laid low this week. Fletch and I haven't been to the dog park all week because of the weather! I am sure he is super sad, but I have been trying to walk him every time there is a break in the rain. This does mean that we have been caught in torrential downpours! We do plan to go to the dog park on a puppy play date today! (Heidi is watching her boyfriend's boxer for the weekend, so we are meeting them in a bit!)

Last night, my parents, my cousin Elizzabeth, Rick and I went to a play called the Great Trailer Park Trash Muscial at the Firehouse Theater. It was pretty comical, a little long but definitely had its good parts. It is exactly everything you would expect from the title... raunchy, redneck and ridiculous!

Then we headed to Mulligan's for Karaoke night which was pretty fun but not as fun as our birthday bash is going to be tonight! About 20 of our friends are coming over to hang out on our patio to celebrate both Rick and I's birthdays.

Elizzabeth and Heidi singing a country song?


So as I was posting this about 4 hours ago, I hear a crash and then Fletch yelp and jump from the couch. When I look up there is blood all over the floor. He had broken a picture frame and stepped on the broken glass. He sliced his right paw pad pretty deeply. So deep, we called the vet and thankfully they were able to squeeze us in.

Long story short, they bandaged him up after cleaning his wound very well. We have to go back on Monday to make sure it is healing correctly and get a bandage change. They are going to make the call on stitches or not on Monday. I have been so sad for him, he is my baby and this is our first injury! I feel crazy!

While we were there, I had the vet check out Fletch's ears because they have been looking a little funky. Of course he has an ear infection in both ears! Its no wonder they say you should get a dog before having babies of your own!

So, Fletch is passed out on the couch after his long and stressful morning. He has 2 different medicines for his ears that require 2 people to administer, so this single-parent-thing during the week is going to be interesting. Luckily, I have very kind friends who have volunteered to come over at 6am and help me do it!

Needless to say, we will not be meeting Heidi and Jackson at the dog park later. Nor will we be going to the dog park anytime this week. :(

Have you ever seen such a sad soul? He has tears welling up in his eyes :(

Well hope this finds everybody having a better day than we are. At least we have a fun night to look forward to!

I will keep posting about Fletch and try and take lots of pictures at the party tonight!

Love,
your sad-gimpy richmond rices.

Ps. Looks like Fletch is the perfect match for our little family seeing as how I am such a klutz who has the freakiest most random accidents!

from the rice cache.

So not really from the cache...this was only yesterday but too silly not to share!

Fletch truly is some pup!

Love, us.

busy, busy week!

So Rick was out of town the whole week. I thought I would get used to it but I haven't one bit! I am so glad I have Fletch to hang out with!

This weekend we worked on my dad's birthday present (it was on the 19th but he and my mom were in Key West all week).

Since my parents did all those crazy renovations on their house (I think it has been about 4 years now) my Dad has talked about wanting a post with signs and milage pointing to all his favorite places. Well, finally we made one!

Colors mixed, base down.

Free-hand painted by the talented rices. I have to say I was quite impressed with our skills.

My handy-man husband.

Our friend Matt came over to help us!

Rick teaching Matt how to use power tools!

The finished product that we will be putting in the yard soon!

As for this week... Although Rick is going to be gone once again... I do have an exciting week!

Tuesday: tickets to see Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy (Thanks StyleWeekly - I won them!) with Careyann (Rick's youngest sister)
Wednesday: donating my hair to Locks of Love for the 2nd time! Goodbye long hair!!
Thursday: My birthday!! Dinner with my folks and I get my top secret birthday surprise!!
Friday: Have the day off from school... don't know what I will do but I know it will be fun!

So sad that Rick won't be around for my exciting birthday week. But I am sure I will still have a great time.

His birthday is coming up on May 11th.. he will be out of town for that too! :(

As for the month of May, we have lots to look forward to!

May 9: The Rice Birthday Bash (cookout for our birthdays)
May 11: Rick's birthday; my brother comes to town for a weekish
May 16: Crawfish Boil and my grandparents will be in town from Maryland
May 30: Our friend from pdx will be in town for about 2 weeks

I hope this finds everybody happy healthy and staying cool in this hot weather!

Love,
your about-to-turn-a-year-older richmond rices.

fletch is getting big!

So the first week without Rick wasn't nearly as bad as expected. He was only gone until Thursday! Which was definitely a pleasant surprise. The bad thing was that Fletch started to get used to the schedule we had so it sort of threw things off last weekend. I think it was going through a "protect my house" kind of mentality and did not appreciate Rick leaving his "scent" all over the place.

This week Rick didn't have to go out of town. The place where his work was, was close enough that they didn't have to stay at a hotel. I think this has helped Fletch having both of us around. But Rick does leave on Monday morning for 4 days so we will see how that goes!

Don't know if I mentioned it before...
We learned about Life Cycles a few weeks ago. This included egg-baby chick-hen/rooster, egg-tadpole-frog, seed-plant and egg-caterpillar-chrysalis-butterfly. Well, part of our preschool program is to have live butterfly eggs! So over the last few weeks our caterpillars hatched, ate and ate and ate until they formed their chrysalids and over last weekend they emerged into butterflies! All 10 of them! On Tuesday, we released them because quite honestly I am not interested in explaining death to my 3/4 year olds!

Say "BUTTERFLY"

Opening our habitat...

Absolutely one of the coolest moments, my kids were in awe!

That speck about the trees is one of our butterflies!

On a different note...

We had our first vet visit today! Fletch has gained 7 pounds since we got him. I was a little concerned that he wasn't eating enough, but apparently that was unnecessary. I guess the Iams bag says to give him too much food!

After the vet, Fletch and I went with my friend, Meredith and her dog Maddy to Barker Field. It was Fletch's first time and boy did he have fun!

He was very nervous, as it is very overwhelming to see all those dogs for the first time. But he got comfortable and even play fought with a few dogs. He was so worn out he fell asleep in the car on the ride home and is now taking a nap on his favorite blanket!

Fletch playing in his favorite place, the leaves!

Sleepy puppy! He looks so old in this picture! :(

"Stop taking pictures of me!"

Down for the count!

Well, that is all in our extremely exciting rice world. Hope this finds you all happy, healthy and enjoying the sunshine!

Love,
your lazy-saturday richmond rices.