Mardi Gras World

We are wearing masks that they wear on the floats; they are made of styrofoam and covered in paper mache and paint. If you ride on the float you must never have your face be seen, so everyone wears masks the entire ride. You also have to be part of that floats' "crew" to ride their float, which costs between $600-1500, which covers the cost of making the floats. You also have to provide your own beads, moon pies, coins, etc. that you will be throwing.

Zach is in full costume, minus a mask, next to a camel made of styrofoam and paper mache used to decorate the floats.

Zach in his gorgeous queen attire.

We are sitting on bench with a king that was also used to decorate the floats.

The front of one of the floats from this year.

Zach and the giant shrek that was used to decorate the floats.

The most photographed float, and I think one of the scariest. The arms move the two smaller heads back and forth.

The trojan horse float.

We are posed with King and Queen Kong that are in the parade every year. They are gigantic!!!

Dental Prom

We had 9 of our friends over for a delicious dinner (stuffed chicken, scalloped potates, and a spinach salad with Zach's applecider vingerette dressing) that Zach made before the dance. It was a blast!

Zach's Car Wreck

On Sunday night we were going to run and grab a bit to eat and it was snowing and icy and a SUV turned left into our lane and we could not stop. It turns out the driver is uninsured, gave us a fake number (hit and run), has a suspended license, and was driving an unregistered vehicle. The next day my car wouldn't start, so we had to carpool in Zach's beat up car the next couple days until we could get my car towed and fixed. As our neighbor said, "if you guys don't have bad luck, you don't have any luck at all."

Max's Emergency Vet Visit

Last weekend the amazing bread maker my mom got me for Christmas fell off the counter (because I left it too close to the edge). The dough landed on the ground, so we threw the dough in the garbage. We put the dogs in the kennel and went shopping. We got back to find the dogs had gotten out of their kennel for the first time ever and had gotten into the garbage and ate the dough. We didn't think much about it until Max didn't sleep all night, was stumbling all over, couldn't stand up, and had diarrhea all over the rug. It was Sunday and 6 am when we looked up online what happens (the yeast ferments in their stomach into alcohol and rises which can cause blockage and cause them to get drunk) when they eat dough and read that they could die, so we called an emergency vet clinic and they told us to get him in right away because he could indeed die. He was on an IV and had activated coal to detox. It ended up costing us $1000!

Christmas in Montana

My parents puppies Tido and Pumpkin (aka Mr. Burns).

My dad coaching his basketball team to a win against one of the best teams in the conference.

The three boys stuffed in the back on the way to the game.

Tido in his Christmas hanky and shirt.

It is so nice to see my siblings! I love you guys!

Snowmaha

We have had multiple huge snow storms, and Manny loves to run around and play in it!

Snow Day!

All the schools in the area, including Creighton are closed because we had a blizzard yesterday and last night. Zach got to leave work early yesterday because it was getting so bad, so when Zach left work yesterday his boss said to call in tomorrow if he can't make it. Zach was sure he could just plow thru the snow, and the end result......his car got stuck and we spent 45 min. getting it out.