The Johnson Clan

Winter Fall is definitely here. It has been CHILLY. All the leaves decided to fall and make tons of yard work for us to do. The day it started to get really cold was the day our ducting decided to fall apart. Clayton was downstairs Friday morning when he heard a crash in the basement. He went down there and found that this air duct had fallen from the ceiling. It happened to be wrapped in asbestos tape, which is toxic if inhaled. So I called the home warranty people, who told me that they can fix it really easily... next Monday. I thought we could handle a weekend without heat. Silly me. It was so miserable. I now have a very deep appreciation for my furnace, space heater, heated blanket, down feather comforter, sweat pants, and friends who let me stay at their house instead of my frozen abode.  (5ish weeks apart- doubled in size) Abe is doing well. He learned how to ring a bell by the back door to tell us he needs to go to the bathroom. Sometimes he abuses ...

This weekend we borrowed our friend's Corvette and spent the afternoon cruising through the valley. All of the leaves are changing color, the air is getting crisp and cold, and pumpkin spice treats are cluttering our kitchen. A 70's Corvette Stingray is one of Clayton's dream cars.  In the evening we went to a corn maze with 4 other families. The little kids LOVE Abe, and he is getting better with them. I think one of our biggest difficulties will be getting Abe used to little kids running, screaming, poking, pulling his hair, etc. We try to socialize him with them often, but it's not every day. Abe is really good at home when it's just us, but when we have people come visit he is all over them and becomes deaf to us. He's getting pretty big. When we first got him we took him to the vet, and they weighed him at 11 lbs. The next week he was 18 lbs. That's a pound gained every day! We haven't weighed him recently but we think he's s...

It finally happened. We finally got a dog.  He's an 8 weeks old goldendoodle, and we are OBESSED with him.  He had a hard couple of days adjusting, but he's doing much better now. We're crate training him, which is a challenge. He doesn't hate it anymore, but he definitely doesn't love it either. To house train him we've been taking him outside every couple of hours, even at night, and I think it's been paying off already. He hasn't had an accident in the house for a couple of days now. Yay! Abe's favorite past time is running around the backyard. He'll run after the soccer ball or tennis balls, but only if you're running after it too. We've gotten a lot of exercise lately. He also has a pink squeaky toy that he likes to play with inside. When it squeaks, he squeaks. I think he thinks it might be another puppy.  Abe is also a huge cuddle bug. He always wants to be touching some part of either me or Clayton. If I'm ...

Last weekend we went up to Buffalo with our friends Steve and Flavia. They wanted to see Niagara Falls and we wanted to see our Buffalo friends. It's about a 3 hr drive, which in my opinion is the perfect mini road trip. We stayed the night at Angel and Amy Santiago's house. It was so fun catching up with them and see their little kids a year older. The next morning we drove to Niagara Falls. We started the day by taking the tour of the Cave of the Winds. It was awesome! It's a small hike down to the bottom of the falls where you can look up at the waterfall and even stand in part of it. We were all completely soaked by the falls. We had lunch at pub near by and then took the Maid of the Mist boat tour. We lived in Buffalo for a year and never took the time to do any of the tourist activities until now, and I'm so glad we did. It was so fun. After the boat tour we stopped at the giant outlet mall that all the Canadians love and then went back down to Buffalo to have di...

I really enjoy looking back at my blog and reading about the first years of my marriage. It's so fun to see all the pictures and remember the little things that made up our days. After not blogging for the past year and a half, I wish that I had documented some of the things that happened. So here's a brief update on some recent events. 1. We moved to Ohio, and we are loving it. We like Ohio even more than we liked New York, mainly because of all the great friends we've made since moving here and how close we are to my grandparents, who live in Dayton. 2. Clayton made a career change and is now a Financial Advisor at DBK Financial Counsel. He has not regretted it for even a single day. 3. I have been working as a Case Manager for Family and Community Services. I work with parents who have had their children taken away by CPS and are working through a court ordered case plan to get them back. It's a tough job, and I regret it sometimes. 4. We bought a hou...