I do not mind shoveling snow, however today was a bit of a pain. It had been snowing quite a bit yesterday. We had shoveled our driveway twice as well as shoving my parents-in-law's driveway twice. Overnight, we got at least a foot of snow. We were almost unable to open our back door (my parents-in-law were unable to open their front door). We tried shoveling for a bit, but the process was too tiring and inefficient. Fortunately, we have a small electric snow blower. It is not the greatest, but after two hours of work, we were able to get the driveway cleared.

Today is the first day of winter. Surprisingly, today has been warmer than the last couple of days. Yesterday, the temperature dropped to seven degrees and it never got higher than twenty degrees. Today it is nearly forty. It is a bit weird to see snow on the ground for a day, then nothing, and then snow again. I wish the snow would be a bit more consistent; I rather enjoy shoveling it (yes, I'm serious about the shoveling). The dogs love the snow too; I have to keep telling them to not eat the snow (especially the yellow snow).

Last night when Rachel and I were watching TV, the wind started to howl. I think that we were getting gusts of up to fifty miles an hour. In addition, the temperature dropped at least five degrees in as many minutes. When, I got up this morning, there was hardly any snow on the ground. However, through the course of the day, we got at least two inches of snow. I guess that once you start to shovel snow, you know that winter's upon you.

Since Kara and Kelly got to get their pictures taken, we thought that it would only be fair if Emily got her pictures taken as well. I think that the third and forth poses are my favorite.

Well, I thought I was done writing for the night, but I have another entry. Our upstairs toilet overflowed. I was able to shut the water off to the toilet, but not before water started to run through the floor to the downstairs. I had to poke a small hole in our downstairs bathroom ceiling so that the water had a place to go. Looks like I've got another chore to do tomorrow.

Tagline for today: "I took a baby shower." - Steven Wright

I have been on vacation this past week. Rachel and I went up to Casino Windsor to celebrate our third wedding anniversary. The trip there took about four hours. The major delay was the route we took. Instead of taking the Ohio Turnpike most of the way there, we took Route 2. Route 2 follows Lake Erie's shoreline for the most part. The scenery was nice, but had I known that the speed limit would drop from 65 to 35, I wouldn't have taken Route 2.

(This is a long entry so please bear with me). This week has been extremely busy. But, as it is nearly midnight, the week is fortunately almost over. On Sunday, Rachel and I handed out candy for Halloween. One of the things that I like about our neighborhood is that there are set times for trick-or-treating. This year, the kids were allowed to go out between 6:00 PM and 8:00 PM. We got our first kid shortly after 6:00 PM. Forty-five minutes and thirty pounds of candy later, we were all out of candy. Unfortunately, we had to turn some people away.

Yesterday was Kara and Kelly's last day of advanced training classes. They both got diplomas. Like last time, they got their pictures taken as well. The upper-left corner shows Rachel and myself holding Kelly. The lower-right corner shows the two of us holding Kara. The other two pictures show the other classmates. The dog on the left is called "Harrison"; the dog on the right is called "Jack".

The company that I work for doesn't allow me to carry over vacation years from one year to the next. Consequently, I am taking Wednesdays off for the rest of the year just to burn up my vacation days. Today was my first day off. I was looking forward to sleeping in this morning. However, the dogs decided to get up at 4:00 AM. After we brought them back inside, I tried going to sleep, but it didn't last long. I got a couple of calls from work. I figured that I might as well just stay up.

When we got our dog Emily, we had problems seeing her in our backyard at night. She has a dark coat and at the time we didn't have much lighting in the back yard. So, we picked up a flashing ID tag at the local PETsMART. The tag is pretty cool. It only lights up when it's dark and when there is motion. This is exactly what we wanted.