Quiero calcetines

Tonight Emily and Amanda are sleeping over at my house. While we were eating, they said they missed their Auntie Stevie because she's always so far away, so we decided to make a movie for her. (Uncle Dave -- they miss you too, but they just didn't say it in the conversation). I don't even know if Stevie looks at this blog -- but hopefully you do...because this movie is for you.

Take 1


(Otis and Cooper went a little crazy).


Take 2 -- The real movie, "Quiero Calcetines"

If you need a little more coaxing to vote on Tuesday...

Get free ice cream at Ben & Jerry's on Tuesday after voting!!
http://www.benjerry.com/features/i_voted/

Happy birthday to us!

With my new job, I've acquired a new awareness for email marketing, because that's what half of my job entails. To stay up-to-date with the current trends and such, I've added a few email marketing related blogs to my blogger feed.

Today I read this post about getting special email promotions for your birthday. I thought it'd be fun for us to put together a list for all the websites where you can sign up for emails and receive a special Happy Birthday email. I'll list the websites...and all you have to do is go to the site, sign up for the email, and then wait for your b-day to roll around...and received lots of great coupons and special b-day offers. Consider this my early b-day gift from me to you.

Here's what I got off the top of my head.

• Caribou Coffee
• Noodles
• Kincaid's
• Qdoba
• Cold Stone Creamery
• Circuit City
• Ruby Tuesday's
• Quizno's
• Maggiano's

Are you aware of any other Happy B-day special email offers that you can sign up for? Leave them in the comment section.

What's in a name??

You have to check out this site.

http://www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames/Default.aspx

What you do is type in your last name. Then it shows a map of the world and it shows the density of where your last name is populated throughout the world.

Here's a couple of examples...

Balow
Country FPM (frequency per million)
UNITED STATES 2.02
GERMANY 1.72
UNITED KINGDOM 0.2
ARGENTINA 0.04

Kloeber
Country FPM
GERMANY 5.85
NETHERLANDS 0.32
UNITED STATES 0.31
SPAIN 0.21
ITALY 0.06

Breaking News!!

Watch out Obama and McCain! There's a new challenger in the Presidential race!

WTSDT vs The Captain and Squirts

The Captain and and his wiggly side-kick, Squirts (aka Otis and Cooper), are facing a big challenge. While in Kansas City, we came across a dog store that sells the "World's 'Tuff'est Soft Dog Toy." Like a lot of dogs, Otis and Cooper love to destroy practically every dog toy we give them, especially stuffed toys. Within minutes of receiving a stuffed toy, the seam is ripped out of the toy and the stuffing explodes all over the living room floor like Mentos submerged into a 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke. (And if you haven't seen the video, you need to follow the link and watch!)

Anyway, I fell for the "World's 'Tuff'est Soft Dog Toy" promise and bought the toy. Who wouldn't after reading the description?

Ultimate Construction: Each toy is made with two layers of industrial grade luggage material and 1 layer of soft fleece on the outside. All of these layers are sewn together to make one super strong layer of material. Each toy is sewn together with 2 layers of cross stitching and then 2 layers of linear stitching. After the toy is sewn together an additional piece of black trim is added to cover the four rows of stitching. This extra piece of black trim is sewn with 3 linear stitches to give the product a total of 7 seams.

So we gave the dogs the toy, and amazingly after three days the only damage is to the black trim (which Otis proudly shows off in his photo). We've yet to see spewed stuffed toy guts strewn across our living room floor (graphic, huh?) Stay tuned to see who will win the battle between the "World's 'Tuff'est Soft Dog Toy" and the Captain and his wiggly side-kick, Squirts!

Things to do...

A while ago, a friend of mine posed the question: "What do you want to do before you die?"

I think it's a pretty interesting question, and definitely a fun one to answer. Here's my list. Leave comments and let me know what you want to do in your lifetime.

1) Find a new job. (Completed August 2008)
2) Finish graduate school.
3) Travel to every continent (I can check off North America, Europe, Asia and technically Africa (I was only there for a day)).
4) Meet Justin Timberlake ;)
5) Find a way to make a difference in this world.
6) Be environmentally conscious and reduce my carbon footprint.
7) Be a good mom, wife, sister, aunt, daughter and friend.
8) Paint, draw, throw pots (on the pottery wheel).
9) Learn photography.
10) Sail around the Caribbean.
11) Use my kayak.
12) Lose 10 pounds...and then some
13) Never ever see Dave forced to go back in the army and back to Iraq (okay I just inserted a greatest fear into the list...oops)
14) Own our own home home....mortgage free.
15) And own a cabin by the lake with a boat.
16) Breed puppies and show dogs (Otis is a future agility champion!)
17) Take a vacation with just my nieces.
18) Take a vacation with just my sisters.
19) Own a coffee shop.
20) Take a year or so off of work to simply enjoy life and spend time with family and travel and volunteer.
21) Adopt a child.
22) Buy an old house (with a wrap-a-round porch) and renovate it.
23) Do a mission trip in every continent.

My Celebrity Look-alikes