Hi to everyone, and happy day before the 4th of July. Things have been busy and time has been flying by so quickly I can barely keep up with everything. I had friends visit, got busy busy at work, then family arrived.  I have skimmed through LJ as best I can, and I apologize to anyone who posted something mondo important to which I should have replied.

The Husband (westonochse) and I celebrated our fifth, yes, fifth wedding anniversary this past weekend. As I told almost everyone who asked or offered congratulations, "Yes, can you believe it? Five years and I haven't throttled him yet!" We spent the time at a swanky Tucson resort where The Husband manged to find an awesome deal, we ate (boy, did we EAT), saw Rise of the Silver Surfer (awesome), and even hiked in the very hot July sun on Sunday morning. We picked up the teenaged daughter for her summer visit by driving to Phoenix on Sunday evening (when she was supposed to have been flown into Tucson; boo on America West Airlines-- their treatment of passengers, particularly a 16 year old girl, goes so far beyond shabby that we weill never, ever, fly on them again). We now have Mom, Dad, nephew, daughter, and miniature Schnauzer staying with us for a bit. It's a houseful and actually great fun (yes, I really mean that). The look on Goblin's face when itty-bitty Finny grumbles at him is truly comical. Tomorrow we have a cookout planned with my Dad and a couple of work friends coming by to join in.

The menu:

• Citrus Orange Achiote Pulled Pork
• Chipolte Coleslaw
• Corn Pudding with Green Chiles
• Red, White & Blue Jello Triffle
• Von's Famous Deviled Eggs
• Whatever other yummy thing we find at the store.

Hardly any work on The Super Secret Project, despite having some time off work.  Really need to buckle down on that.  My good intentions just aren't getting me anywhere.

New pictures in some of the galleries:

    In the Dawgs Gallery, check out "Futility" and "Only If I Must."

    Life Shots has a picture of me and Dad, and me and The Husband's Blue Elvis.

    Arizona Stuff has a couple of shots of a new creature, and the latest update on the Cactus on Steroids.

    Friends has a couple of shots showing recent pals visiting.  Since we live so far away from everything, I have to import my pals, often from the east coast.  Shira comes from there, as do Marsha and Beth, while Michelle lives it up in the California sun.

Dad tells me he's adopted a little girl from the local animal shelter, a Russian Blue named Sushi (now there's a name for a cat!).  That's good news-- he's been lonely since cancer took Sugar several months ago.  Sushi is being spayed right now, and I can't wait to meet her and add her picture to the melting pot that's the Internet!

So, no ghosts for me. Even so, The Husband (westonochse) reported the next morning that he'd woken at 3 a.m. because he felt like someone was watching us. He also said that the doorknob rattled three times during the night, and the third time he got up and looked out the peephole (no one was there).  We both had very strange dreams.  I don't know his, but I dreamed we'd rescued about 4 or 5 full grown Great Danes and a whole pack of tiny Great Dane puppies.  We also had six babies, yes, six, all at the same time.  We'd taken all the dogs to the vet and the grown ones and six puppies had survived, and of course we were presented with an $800 vet bill; in the dream, I remember thinking this wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.  We lived in an enormous house with Victorian red rose rugs on the floor; there was puppy poo everywhere because the family member (who shall remain unnamed) who was supposed to watch the puppies while we were gone somewhere had neither watched nor cleaned up.  There was a bit where I was trying to figure out how to puzzle-fit six infant car seats into a 4 door sedan.  I should have posted this yesterday, when I remembered more; now a lot of the details have fizzled away like mist.

We had a wonderful dinner at Jake's.  The Husband had elk chops and I had fabulous Walleye Citron (insert the appropriate accent mark).  We had buffalo carpacio as an appetizer along with a sort of Thai peanut won ton (I didn't care for that, but Wes loved it).  Ended the meal with blackberry-topped cheesecake, and, of course, there was my champagne martini made with champagne, Chambord, vodka and a mist of citrus liqueur, topped by three floating cranberries.  Yum.

On the way out of Deadwood, I even won $1.00 at an Aliens slot machine.  :)

So thus endeth the Wedding Night that Should Have Been.  It has been a wonderful Thanksgiving with family members, good food, and darned decent weather considering it's South Dakota.  Still, I am ready to go back home to our normal life and rampaging Goblin and the Ghost Great Danes.

As a number of folks know, when The Husband (westonochse  ) and I got married in 2002, we had our ceremony in Mount Moriah Cemetery -- Boot Hill -- in Deadwood, South Dakota. After the wedding, we went back to my new in-laws' home for a reception which included a wedding cake custom-decorated with gargoyles and spiderwebs (courtesy of the new Grandma), champagne, yummy BBQ, and dancing to a CD of our favorite songs which was made for us by a good friend. We were going to have such a hot time that the Grizzly Gulch Forest Fire happened. I say "were going to" because we got to cut the cake and take one bite each, open the gifts, have a sip of champagne, and then the entire town of Deadwood was evacuated. The Husband and I had one dance on the deck anyway, stubbornly ignoring the flames (yes, flames) and smoke on the hill directly behind the house. We had a very late dinner at a roadside steakhouse that we found by accident and spent our wedding night in the basement bedroom suite of a house belonging to good friends of our in-laws. It was wonderfully hospitable of them and actually quite nice. Still it wasn't what we'd planned, which was a night at the haunted Bullock Hotel in Deadwood.

Well, here we are again in South Dakota, this time in Spearfish for Thanksgiving with the family, which is, oh, an hour (??) or so away from Deadwood. And The Husband, who is known to surprise me now and then, has made reservations for us tomorrow at, you guessed it, that same haunted Bullock Hotel. We're going to have dinner at Jake's, Kevin Costner's restaurant in the Midnight Star Casino, which should be really, really yummy. We'll have breakfast at the Deadwood Thymes (you have to check out the menu -- we would have had dinner there but, doggone it, they're only open Thursday through Saturday).

So, haunted wedding night re-enactment here we come. Check back and I'll post if we saw any ghosts. Or if any ghosts saw us. Or (jeeeezus) we have another freakin' forest fire!