No puppies on the bed....

So that's Jonathan's motto... Not mine. Kinnick sleeps with me at night, at the foot of the bed and on top of the covers. Actually, he usually gets into bed before me and lays where my legs go... Every night he lays in my spot, like one night I'm going to tell 'Oh it's okay, go ahead and sleep in the middle of the bed, I'll go to the couch!'. And when I start pushing him out of the way he looks at me like I've just ate all his dog biscuits, like he can't possibly believe that I, a lowly human, would make HIM move... It's kind of funny, it's our nightly routine. However, on the weekends that we stay at Jonathan's house, no puppies are allowed in the bed... At least when Jonathan is around! There's been a few times that I've allowed Kinnick to cuddle in Jonathan's bed and Cooper too! Shhh... Don't tell Jonathan! Sometimes they just look so cute and it's hard to resist inviting them to cuddle! For example....

Kinnick, the bed-hog... I think he thinks he's a people!

Cooper looking pretty cute while being naughty,
at least that's what Jonathan says.

The middle of the bed is the ideal sleeping location, especially
when you're not allowed on the bed!

That picture of Cooper was him lounging on the bed at the hotel in Valley City, ND last spring. Jonathan and I actually made a quick trip up North this past weekend. We ventured up to Sioux Falls/Baltic, SD for a retirement party for our friend John, who is married to Abby, who I went to SDSU with. We actually see each other every Fall at Iowa Football games as well, which is always an awesome time! Our first stop when we made it to Sioux Falls was to have lunch with Jonathan's cousin and girlfriend, who now lives in Brookings, SD (instead of ND). We went to Grille 26 and it was super yummy! After lunch we headed over to by far the classiest hotel in Sioux Falls, the Econolodge on N. Cliff. Wow... What a place! First we got stuck with a smoking room, not the end of the world since we'd only be staying one night. After we finally made it too our room (it was a maze to get there), I had to pee (naturally), so after my business was finished, I pushed the lever to flush and heard a snap but no flushing sound. Awesome... I broke the toilet. After some investigating by Jonathan, the toilet could still be flushed by sticking your hand in the nasty water in the back tank... No thanks! So I called the front desk to tell them what's up, and they offered to move us to the room next door, a smoking with a queen size bed, plus 15% off. So we took the deal, only to be called back 2 minutes later to say the room had been booked! Ugh... Jonathan got creative and used a trash bag to rig things up temporarily. The front desk clerk came to our room with a new handle and attempted to fix it. After a few minutes and some strange noises, he had to get back down to the front desk, but would be back. That was Jonathan's cue to take over and he fixed the handle with no issues! He's my hero!

Such a handy-man!

After all that we were read to party! We headed up to the DIG Stop in Baltic for John's retirement party... It was great! Probably the best pork loin I've had in a long, long time plus some ice-cold Bud Light to wash it all down with! It was a great time!! The cover band was pretty hilarious as well. After all that partying, we made a pitstop at Perkin's in the morning for breakfast and then were on the road by 11am headed back to Kansas!! 


The excitement for the weekend wasn't over yet... The highlight of the trip back to Kansas was when a turkey hit Berkey (my Highlander) about 20 miles outside of Manhattan. It could have been much worse but I slammed on the brakes in time for the turkey to almost clear Berkey. The turkey ended up hitting the roof with a very loud THUD! Upon pulling over and inspecting the damage, there was a very small dent but no turkey in sight. We probably should have turned around to find him because he would have been mighty tasty! Anyways, we picked up Kinnick and headed to Topeka since we were taking off Monday afternoon for Omaha. What's in Omaha you say? DCI! Or for you non-band geeks, Drum Corp International (dci.org) or competitive marching band... Who knew?! We headed up to Omaha with Jonathan's brother, Christopher, for the competition. We were thinking it would kind of be like 'Drumline' but it was more like the bands performing their half-time shows. It was pretty interesting, but could have been cooler. It was also pretty entertaining to see that many band-geeks in one place!lol Oh well... It was an experience! We headed out before the awards ceremony and made it back to Kansas around 1am. 
What a weekend!!!
-Anne