Markley on American Idol!

Last night was our first night home with Markley and we made our first royal parenting mistake. We let her watch American Idol before bed. This gave Markley dreams of stardom and being the remarkably driven and persistent pup she is, she couldn't wait another minute to prepare for the Idol Season 11 auditions. Knowing it might be a long night with this budding star on our hands, Brian and I checked in at precisely 10:30pm.

Markley decided to write her own song, I mean, please, she's way too original to cover someone else's tired single. She started as all great musicians begin - with doh, re, mi. Her scales started startlingly higher each round - honestly, I'm surprised she could even hear some of those notes. She experimented with vibrato, staccato and the ever popular Christina-Aguilera-growl-singing.

Here was Markley's rehearsal schedule:

• 11:00pm - (5 minutes) Her Daddy gave her some pointers on how singing from inside the crate results in a purer sound quality.
• 1:30am - (5 minutes) Her Mommy further encouraged the crate-singing and introduced the thrilling vocal warmup of "shhhh..."
• 3:00-3:30am - Her longest song-writing session by far. She just couldn't figure out the perfect lyric to rhyme with sleepless...
• 5:00-5:20am - You know, it's just really hard to have so much talent. You just want to share it with world. All the time. Day and night.
• 6:50-7:15am - Brian and Markley ate breakfast together and it was at this time when Brian discovered Markley was most inspired by current events.
• 9:45am - I awoke to the sweet sounds of silence. Worried she had passed out from the pressures of preparation I ventured to the living room only to find her peacefully playing and watching The TODAY Show!

As her Mother, of course I think she's the most talented little singer that ever did sing. As someone who previously worked in casting, I am going to encourage her to pursue math and science. Regardless, she's a happy puppy and is now running in her sleep on my lap. What can I say, the girl's gotta stay in shape if she's going to be the next American Idol.

Markley's morning nap...

Her crate is set up so that she can walk around

her play pen, but not through the entire apartment.

Markley preparing to pounce on her stuffed carrot!

All tuckered out after a morning of fun!

(Leopard robe courtesy of Jamie "Miss Thang" Harberg)

Today's the Day!

Baby L's reaction to Markley coming home today!

Okay, Baby L doesn't actually know Markley is coming home today, but don't I have the cutest niece in the entire world?! I mean, look at her layered necklaces on her onesie! Adorable. Baby L and Markley were actually born within days of each other - that's how they have that kindred connection. Love 'em both! Life is good.

She's comin' home!

Our first family portrait!

Our sweet puppy comes home tomorrow and - don't judge - we're really nervous! Of course we are so excited to play and snuggle with her and teach her tricks and train her to "eliminate" outdoors. But there are so many things we don't yet know about being pet parents, we just don't want to unwittingly put her in harm's way. Wish us luck!

I just can't take how cute she is!!

"...To being able to do this!"

My brother, Michael, is a competitive breed. He is stubborn, a know-it-all and will fight to the death when he believes he is right. He is also the most loyal friend, the best listener, he puts his family first and is extremely patient and loving. Ladies...?!

This past weekend was his first trip to Austin since we've moved back to Texas. Michael is a lover of all things music and seeing how we now live in the "live music capital of the world" we might as well go ahead and start calling our guest room "Michael's Room." His visit was short - less than 24 hours to be exact - but so much fun. On Saturday night eight of us (all cousins, plus one best friend) went to dinner and over queso and 'ritas Michael proposed this toast,

"To Brian and Kimberly moving to Austin

and to us being able to do this!"

After dinner we planned to go see some bands, but got carried away catching up back at our apartment. Before we knew it the bars were closed and the shows were over. We planned a TacoFest breakfast for the following morning. Teams were assigned to various breakfast taco destinations across Austin and all would meet back at our apartment to share their loot! At that point, Michael challenged me to a Bloggers' Duel as we both have blogs and both love to post pictures of the food we eat. Michael did such a great job of capturing the entire weekend on his blog, I've decided to share the link to his blog instead of attempting to repost his pictures and concoct more cleaver captions.

MusicAndYourMom

We love that we not only have so many friends already in Austin, but so many cousins. We love that we are close enough for family to visit us, but far enough to create our own life. In short, we love "being able to do this."

MARKLEY LUSKEY!

Today, the Santa Monica Luskeys became pet parents! We decided to begin the search for our puppy our first weekend in Austin, but understood that like any love story we would need to exhibit patience while we waited for the one. After visiting Town Lake Animal Shelter, Austin Humane Society and several locations of Austin Pets Alive! we began to understand not only the importance of rescuing a dog (we felt such guilt asking for puppies when there were so many older dogs in need of loving homes) but how quickly puppies are adopted. Every puppy we inquired about already had an "adoption pending" status. We began to wonder if we'd ever get our timing right.

Throughout the week, based on the advice of all the shelters, we perused their websites in hopes to be the first to spot their newest available puppies. Last night, before going to bed, we decided to check the websites one more time and there she was. "Caramel" and her brothers were ready to be adopted from the Austin Humane Society. I immediately emailed requesting to start the adoption process of "Caramel" as she was so adorable and the only girl of the litter. Saturday morning, we awoke to an email saying we were the first hold on "Caramel" and she was ours if we wanted her!

We flew over to the Austin Humane Society and fell in love with a sweet and snuggly two-month-old terrier mix!

So cuddly and sweet...

Sweet, sweet face.

Not so sure what she's supposed to do...

Check out that wide stance!

(She's the size of the floor tiles.)

Wrinkly faces are the best!

Aaaand, she's out.

We left her sleeping like this with her brother.

Snuggle Queen!

And the best sign of all - "I'm Adopted!"

We renamed her Markley after my freshman dorm at The University of Michigan - the place where her parents fell in love! She will stay at the Austin Humane Society until Wednesday, after she has been spayed. To be honest, it feels a little surreal since we didn't get to leave with her, but we already love her so much.

Of course, Brian is now researching crates, dog food and discount ped meds online and I am busy posting pictures and deciding what color collar to purchase. Oh, this little pup is in for a wild ride with us as parents!

If it comes back, it's yours.

For my sixteenth birthday, my parents surprised me with a diamond solitaire necklace similar to the one in the above picture. It was my most prized possession as I had never owned anything as sentimentally or monetarily valuable in my life. I wore it every day and only took it off on the rare occasion when another necklace went with my chosen ensemble more appropriately. Again, this was rare - what outfit doesn't go with a diamond necklace? After 8 years of blinged bliss, just one month after our wedding, Brian and I attended another wedding in Pittsburgh. It was a fast and furious travel weekend - we were in Pittsburgh for less than 24 hours - and while changing in the hotel bathroom out of my wedding guest attire and into my sleeping on the plane attire, I lost my necklace.

This sent me into a tailspin. Here I was, beginning the next chapter of my life with a new husband and in a new city and I had lost the one possession I had treasured and kept on me every day. I emailed the bride (on her honeymoon), I called the hotel and demanded to speak to the head of housekeeping who was responsible for cleaning the ballroom bathroom during the hours of 5:00pm and midnight. Nothing. It was gone. The following weeks I mourned my necklace. I buried my dream of one day passing it down to my daughter on her sixteenth birthday. Overwhelmed with guilt, I called my parents to confess my biggest mistake. I turned all of my luggage inside out and still, the necklace was nowhere to be found.

The holidays came and went and I was sick to my stomach, convinced that someone at the hotel had in fact found my necklace and it was now around the neck of a random hotel employee's daughter who couldn't possibly love the necklace as much as I had. I began to question whether I deserved nice things since I clearly couldn't handle the responsibility of owning a beautiful necklace. Maybe I should just keep my engagement ring in a safety deposit box at the bank until I can prove I am mature enough for such a gift.

Two and a half years later, after Brian's second day at his new job, he asked me to take his car into the shop. Someone in his parking garage had slammed into tapped the rear bumper and he wanted to make sure it was only cosmetic and not a bigger issue than met the eye. Since I have not yet decided what I want to be when I grow up (more on that later) I jumped at the assignment. This morning, as I adjusted the mirrors and shifted his Mazda 3 into reverse, I saw something glistening out of the corner of my right eye. No way. The clasp of a necklace was poking out of the crease in the passenger seat. I pulled the clasp to reveal an entire white gold chain. With a solitaire diamond in the center. My necklace. All along my necklace was with me? I drove that car every day in West Hollywood and again when we moved to Santa Monica. It was with me on my daily commute - for all the good days and all the bad, the road trips, fun nights out, visits to the doctor, important moments and mundane; my necklace was there. Hands shaking, I pulled back the lobster claw and clasped it to the matching loop. I ran my fingers around the chain not only to ensure it fastened securely, but also to confirm I wasn't dreaming.

I'm sure there is some spiritual and zodiacal significance to finding my necklace and finding it today. All I know is it felt like a piece of me was missing and I finally have it back.

Now I'm ready to conquer the world! And by conquer the world I mean unpack box #72...

One Week Down!

Yesterday was our one week anniversary as Austinites and already we're beginning to see why everyone loves living here. While driving around looking for a puppy this past weekend (more on that later) Brian posed a great question. He said, "So I know everyone loves it here and I'm sure we will too, but what is it exactly that people love? Is it a place or an experience or just a feeling and combination of things?" So, of course, we're now on the hunt to discover for ourselves what makes Austin so lovable. Here are three things we've found so far:

Life is easy. It's easy to get from one place to another (however, anywhere would seem easy after 3 years of LA traffic). It's easy to meet people. It's easy to get together with friends. It's easy (ie: affordable) to try new restaurants. Austin is just easy.

The people are great. From the college-kid-grocery-bagger to the tattooed hippie looking for a rescue pup to your friend's friend's neighbor the people in Austin are present. They look you in the eye, they smile and mean it, they ask how your day is going and wait for your response.

Your dollar goes farther. As you know, we are a cost conscious couple and knowing things like becoming pet parents and home owners are in our near future is very exciting. This is possible for us now because we are in Austin. In Santa Monica, we never even tossed around the idea of buying a home and now that's all we can google!

It has been said, "The whole is greater than the sum of it's parts." I not only feel this way about the Santa Monica Luskeys, but am beginning to feel this way about Austin.

Happy Texas Independence Day!