1:37 a.m.

I was awoken at 1:37 a.m. this morning (I looked at the clock) to incredibly strange and out of place noises. I opened my eyes to see little Lexi standing on my shoulder, scratching at me and making play noises, as if saying "Mom! I got out of my cage!! Wake up and play with me!!!!!!" When I reached over with my other arm to pick her up she got SOOO excited!!!!

Unfortunately, the excitement quickly turned to disappointment when I brought her back to her cage! Boomer ran after us expecting me to play too and also was disappointed when he got put in the cage without a Yogi, because Mom was too tired to take the time to give them one!!!

It was a very interesting night!!!

Random Thoughts

Yesterday it was in the 3o's and Mom and I were so warm we rolled down the car windows and took off our jackets.

Yep, we live in Wisconsin....
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Barack Obama is officially running for President!! YEAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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All my favorite TV shows are back on! American Idol, Lost, Survivor, and Grey's Anatomy- an Eau Claire girl made it to Hollywood on AI, and the last three have all at some point made me scream at the TV!! Which makes me sound crazy, but they're just really good shows that get me totally get involved!

Make sure you tune in to Grey's Anatomy for the last of a three parter actually filmed in Seattle! It has been incredible so far and I'm sure this last one will blow us away!
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My dad randomly got me a Death Star pez dispenser! It's very cool!
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I think that's it! Hope all is well with you!

A Touching Story

In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University.

On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Mbembe approached it very carefully. He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot, and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked the wood out with his knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.

The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments. Mbembe stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned and walked away.

Mbembe never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, Mbemb was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Mbembe and his son were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Mbembe, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mbembe couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant. Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder.
The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Mbembe's legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.

Probably wasn't the same elephant.

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Isn't that hilarious?!!! I got that in an email and it was so unexpected that I literally laughed out loud!

Just thought I'd share!

Wisconsin Cold

Ok, so there's cold, and then there's Wisconsin Cold. You know, that cold where people make fun of us because we say crazy things like "Yes, it is 10 degrees but with wind chill it's -5!!" I think that in most places in the United States when it gets to 30 degrees people think it's cold. This winter in Wisconsin it has been 30 degrees quite often. And we were all realizing one thing- global warming IS happening! We're always around 0-10 in the winter! We get warm streaks where we go up to 20, but in general we are right around 10. So this winter we were wondering "When is the other shoe going to drop?!" When will we finally get cold?

Well, we finally got cold! On Friday we went below zero and we haven't gone above it yet. On Saturday we went to Carrie and Riley's house and we had gotten groceries. When we got home and were putting the groceries away we noticed our bread was frozen solid from sitting in the car!!! On Sunday we ran our normal errands and then came home to watch the Super Bowl, business as usual. I remember thinking, we are true Wisconsinites- yes it is VERY cold out there but we just take precautions and stay out of the wind as much as possible. Other than that we're still doing our normal things. I was SO proud! "The cold doesn't affect me! Sure it is -19 on the car thermometer, but no biggy!" I was above it all!

Until this morning!!! The thermometer said -19, but the windchill was -37 (which for those of you lucky people who don't need to know what windchill means because you live in warm places- it means it feels like it's -37 because of the wind!). 4 days with subzero temperatures did a number on our car and Jason's truck, both of which were sitting outside. This morning Jason went to go to work and he couldn't- neither of those vehicles would start! I think he even said that the car was frozen- the door was frozen shut, and when he tried the key, the ignition was frozen and wouldn't turn. So, Jason took the garaged Jeep to work and hopefully Sylvan will cancel like every school in northern Wisconsin so that I won't be late for work tonight!!! So much for my "this is no biggy" attitude!!

The cold may not affect us, but it DEFINITELY affects our vehicles!!!! The Wisconsin Cold finally did me under!!!