I think that Tucker was a sled-dog in a past life...

Seriously, that dog loves snow. He and I joined Lisa's dad and his friends in a weekend trip to a yurt in Errol, NH. There was two to three feet of powder all around us which made for some very nice cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. We had a great time, but Tucker had the best time of all. When we would go skiing, he would accompany us. Tucker is a born leader, so naturally he would always be ahead of us to show us exactly where to go. He also made sure that every square inch of trail was free of woodland creatures; a feat he accomplished by zig-zagging across the trail frantically ahead of us. Completely unsatisfied with the workout of simply zig-zagging across the trail, Tucker would often jump off of the beaten path, into the snow which was deeper than he is tall. In that depth of snow moving requires a technique similar to porpoising, only in snow instead of water. Maybe he was also a dolphin in a past life...

More Stuff

We are really making progress on the wedding planning. We have gotten wedding bands and have been working on making the guest list a manageable size. We also started registering for stuff - it's a much more entertaining process than you might think - even Pete was in to it. He got to use the scanner, and it was tough for me to pry it out of his hands so I could get a try! Picking a china pattern was easier than I thought it would be too - I'm really excited with the one we picked.

On a personal note- I've been working out a lot and am running 2 miles at a time now - a fairly respectable distance. In a few more weeks I'll be up to my target 3 miles and I'll be able to work on increasing my speed. At that point I'll start doing more cross-training as well instead of focusing solely on running. Taekwondo is going really well too and I'm hoping to be on the March test list for my blue belt - I haven't missed a class in ages, so I'm optimistic, I just hope I have enough practice time in. We've both been working pretty hard - I'm on a slightly new part of the project at work and I LOVE it. I'm learning some really cool stuff and it's really enjoyable, though frustrating at times when I don't know what I'm doing.

Tucker is shedding up a storm, but doing well otherwise. Granted, he's barked to go outside approximately 15 times in the hour and 40 minutes since I got up, but we'll still say he's doing well. He's learning to sleep on his doggie bed, so we're hopeful that eventually he'll be able to spend the night on that instead of in his crate. I think it'll be a nice change for him. Pete is going on a weekend of cross country skiing and snowshoeing at the end of the month, and he's bringing Tucker. I am excited for the free weekend, but I know I'll miss them both. I know Tucker is going to LOVE it. We're getting him some boots for the trip so that he won't hurt his feet being out in the snow all day for 3 days. I'll make sure Pete gets pictures!

Updates

Things are moving pretty fast around here. We booked the florist today (she's great!) and ordered my wedding band over the weekend. It's going to be custom made to combine elements from a couple bands that I liked. There's no obligation to buy it if we end up not liking it and the price was fabulous, so we went for it. We also found out that they'll do engraving at no charge! I highly recommend Hannoush for jewelry - they've been great to deal with, their pieces are beautiful and they have really fabulous prices. Anyway, enough of my advertising pitch...

Tucker is doing quite well - he's getting much better behaved all the time. We're hoping that by summer he won't have to sleep in his crate anymore. He just has to be better trained with going to his bed and staying there, but that's coming along.

This past weekend we did the guest list for the wedding. It had 40 more people than we were expecting. I blame this on Pete ;) We have had to make some difficult decisions just to get down 15 people from there, which is still well above our target. It looks like we're going to have to adjust the budget, and it's definitely stressing me out. I think I'm going to have to try to get some assisted sleep tonight so I can finally actually sleep! I'm calming down though - we have found a few places to save some money so I think it'll all be ok.

I started going to the gym last week. I'm working on a "couch potato to 5K" training plan. So far it's going pretty well, but I had to miss today due to a nail in my tire. I'll have to make up the day this weekend so I don't get behind in only my second week!

That's the news for now. I'll try to update again soon!