Cell phone pictures to round out 2014

Ok here's all my cell phone pictures for the majority of 2014.

Earlier this year, one of our master bathroom faucets started to leak. I've hated these faucets from the day we bought the place, so instead of replacing the broken part, I decided to rip out both faucets and replace them with newer ones. 

In the coming year, I'll rip out the sinks and counter tops too. 

We have the laziest Basett. She likes to sleep up high and will use anything for a head rest. Most of the time, you can find her napping on top of the table in this picture. 

Before we got Rocket, Echo was a grazer. We'd leave a bowl of food out for her and it would take her a week to eat it. We had to put her on a meal schedule so that Rocket wouldn't get to her food. You can now find her laying next to her bowl at 6am and 5pm sharp. I have no idea how she got so good at telling time. 

This is a very pathetic picture. Rocket started getting into the trash cans while we were gone. One day, James came home before me and sent this picture to me. She knew she did something wrong before we could yell at her. 

We took Rocket to a dog park for the first time this year. She absolutely loved it!

Our good friend's daughter had a loose tooth. James offered her $20 to pull it out. She took him up on the offer. James' fingers were too big to grab the tiny tooth so he had to pull out his tool box. FYI, the offer still stands for any kid with a loose tooth. 

We both got new glasses last year. Of course we had to test them out on our dog. 

James got a new ride earlier this year. He was not happy about it, but was a good sport and let me take pictures.

In the first game of the basketball season, James came down on someone's foot after making a lay up. He twisted his ankle really bad. He still has trouble with it. 

Poor James had to work out of town for a week a couple days after it happened. He sent me pictures of the bruising everyday.  

I had the lovely stomach flu. James did not want to catch it, so he drew this on my water bottle to know not to drink out of it....less than 24 hours later, he was just as sick. 

This is another thing that I've hated about our house. The front door had windows that anyone my height or taller could look right into the living room and kitchen. 

We got this beautiful door installed in its place.

We ordered awesome new sliding doors for our 3 doors. We were jumping up and down when this was parked in front of our house. Unfortunately, they had to be returned because our darn builder used off sizes for all the windows and doors and framed the doors with 1x4s instead of 2x4s. 

A week after getting the new door, we got new carpet. It's amazing how much of a difference soft carpet makes. I underestimated how inconvenient it would be to move all of our furniture out of the rooms to be carpeted. 

Fall is my absolute favorite time of the year. I think my mood always changes the day after Halloween. I especially love running in the fall.  I run the same 4.5 mile loop over and over and over and over. The fall colors gave me something new to look at.

This is as close to winter as it will ever look like here. Once again, this was on my run. It's so peaceful to run in the fog. I enjoy the quietness that comes with dense fog. I love to listen to my breathing and my feet on the cement over cars zooming by.

It was a very rough year for Echo. She started out with what we thought was a diseased toe nail. She had the nail removed. After two weeks, the toe would not heal and the vet suggested amputation. Luckily this was really the only option, otherwise I wouldn't have agreed to it. The toe was sent to a lab to be biopsied and it came back as a very aggressive cancer that had actually dissolved the entire bone in the toe. She came home from surgery with this bandage with the doctors signature and date. The neighbor kids came over to check on her and wanted to sign her bandage too.

You may want to scroll past the next picture if you don't like to see stitches.

My heart broke to see her so miserable. It has been a month and a half now and she is back to her normal self.

I finally hung up my art. When we go to Hawaii, I usually buy a piece of artwork that will remind me of that trip. The left one is one we bought while shopping in a cute little town on the North Shore. We have now made it a point to stop in that town every time we are on Oahu. The middle one was bought at a farmer's market on the Big Island. While James and his dad were on a helicopter tour, my mother-in-law and I went shopping. This was the day after we went swimming with the Manta Rays so I thought this picture was appropriate. The one on the right is from the Polynesian Cultural Center. There is a man there that climbs the palm trees to retrieve coconuts. He drew a lovely picture for me on the back.

All of James' family came up to Fresno to go to our zoo. For valentine's day, I adopted the tiger for James, so everyone wanted to see "Uncle Jim's tiger".

That was our year in a nutshell.