The Many Faces Of Bella

Ok, so I'm a little obsessed, but I just had to show you her many faces. Enjoy! :)

Her first bath! She was shaking and nervous. Poor thing. She's a lot skinnier than what we realized, since she's so fluffly with hair!


This is how she sleeps! What a silly!


Sitting at the back door telling us that she needs to go potty. What a good girl. Except for the 100 times she has pooped and peed on our floor already. Rrrrrr.


Laying underneat the dish washer. I think she just likes to be where the action is!


Stretching out, playing with Titus.

That teddy bear is tasty!


Suck in that tummy!


Doesn't she look like a really little version of Bigfoot?!

Hog Joggin

Well, our weekends and weeks are flying by. It seems like the summer is always like that. It's always fun, but there's always a lot to do too. Lately, it's definitely been action packed. Let's see....we celebrated Father's day with both Ethan's family and mine. We are privileged to live close enough to see both. On the Friday night, we stayed in Flora,and then participated in the Hog Jog festival the next day. Well, at least I did....Ethan backed out on me!! He was supposed to run it too, but decided that he hasn't been training and he is so competitive that he wants to be able to run it really well. I didn't care...I just wanted to finish it without throwing up!!

It was my first race ever, which was a little nervewracking. But at the same time, it was only a 2 mile, so I thought it should be a piece of cake. Well, I ran it, and everyone told me to start off really slow because everyone starts out fast and dies about half way through. So I started out REALLY slow. I started in the very back, hoping that I was at the back of the runners and wouldn't feel stupid when old ladies passed me. BUT, everyone was passing me. I kept thinking, where did all of these people come from?!! Well, I started running with one of Pam's (my mother-in-law) friends and she told me to go on ahead of her, she couldn't keep up. I got about 1 mile into it and was WAY behind everyone. I felt absolutely great, and had been talking most of the time! (Ethan didn't tell me until afterward that you aren't supposed to talk in a race.....I wondered why everyone was staring at me like I was crazy when I was yelling hi to everyone. That's so me, chatting it up while I run. HA) Anyway, I kicked it in because I still felt great and knew I only had 1 mile left to go. I started passing people left and right, and got to the final home stretch and almost died!! I kept thinking, "I'm going to puke!" How horrible would that be to cross the finish line of Ethan's home town and puke?!!

One funny part though, I passed these two guys on the home stretch, and one of them turned to me and said it must be nice to be young and still have some kick left at the end. Well, I started talking to him about how it was my first race, and then went on to pass them both. Next thing I knew, I heard one of them on my heals and I kept thinking, "His goal is to pass me!!" Well, he passes me before the finish line, and the competitiveness came out in me. I thought, "There's no way!" I sprinted past him into the finish line! Ethan and his friend were yelling for me to pass him. Afterward, I felt bad! I didn't mean to humiliate the poor man. One of his friends yelled, "You got beat by a girl!" How funny. I told Ethan that I felt bad, and he said, "It's a race!! You are supposed to do that!"

The rest of the time was spent stopping for people to hold Bella and tell me how beautiful she is. I take pride in that as if I had something to do with it. Like she is my child.


I got to spend time with my crazy whacky cousin (who is like my sister) and we had a big family get together including the dogs. We decided to compare Bella to one of my collectable Boyd bears. Which one is real and which one is fake?! :)

Bye Bye Camping

Well, call us crazy, but 2 days after we had Bella, we decided to go on a camping adventure with some friends! We drove down to Turkey Run State Park and camped out in tents. Bella LOVED it. She doesn't do car rides well, so at first she was whimpering, but once we got there she had a blast.




She really is so good! She didn't cry or make a sound the whole time. She romped in the leaves and played with her piggie until it got sooo dirty!! She started to really come out of her shyness, and be herself. She is VERY playful.

One mistake I made though was to take her on a canoe trip. Well, I didn't realize that I would be rowing, since we were thinking that one more friend was going to show up and help out. Well, he didn't come, so I ended up rowing for 15 miles with Bella on my lap. Poor thing. At first she was scared to death! Anyway, toward the end, it was peaceful and she just slept. It was kind of relaxing. We saw a hawk that flew right by us, and some sort of muskrat thing in the water! There were really huge fish too. I believe that Ethan called them Gars since they had really long gross noses. HA.

When we got back, we sat around the campfire and ate s'mores and played games. It really was great to relax with good friends. Bella slept with all of us in the tent during the night, and I guess she decided to visit the other people, because she crawled over onto another guy and slept with him for a while!! Oh, and you are NOT going to believe this. Some raccoons opened her cage and got out her food. In order to open the cage, you have to pinch the springs together. I can't beleive that they were able to do that!! How tricky! What are they going to do next? Unzip our tents?? So, I heard them partying it up in the middle of the night, and it woke a couple more people up. Jessica was brave and went outside, scared them away, and rescued the food. Craziness.

So I guess our doggie will have to get used to our active lifestyle. We are an adventurous couple, and our dog (less than a week with us) has already been camping and canoeing. What will we do next?!!

New Baby!!! Well...Puppy!! Same thing :)

I'm SOO excited! I just got the best birthday present ever! My little puppy. She's a beautiful little girl!! Her name is Bella Michael, since she is beautiful. She even has little pink blush on her cheeks. She's an apricot schnoodle and she will grow to be about 8 to 10 pounds full grown.

We had been calling all around for a puppy, and I couldn't decide what kind I wanted. I liked Yorkipoos, Bichon poos, Schnoodles, and Cockapoos. It was a really hard decision. I love poodles, since that's what I had growing up, and I knew that I wanted a small dog so I could carry it around everywhere. Well, the Cockapoos got too big (15 to 20 pounds). Mom has a bichon poo, and it seems to be a little too needy. She's a sweetheart, but I would feel bad being gone as much as Ethan and I are. I went to look at Yorkipoos on my birthday, but they aren't as cute as fluff balls. Their hair is more silky.


Sooo, yesterday we went to a place in Greentown to look at female schnoodles and I fell in love. They were sitting at a fence in the yard just looking at me when we pulled in!! There were three girls to choose from, and Bella walked right up to me and put her little paws up on my lap. She climbed up and was content to just sit there. When I looked at her little teddy bear face, she started licking me. She has such a sweet disposition. She looked the most like a teddy bear of all of them!

Her father is an apricot miniature poodle, and her mom is a silver miniature schnauzer, so she's an apricot silver color, if that makes sense. She looks just like the Boyd Bears that I used to collect! She was so sad to leave her family, and I felt so bad for her. She whimpered all the way home. When we got home, we got her to play with us in the yard and she was having fun. She caught on quickly how to play with a ball, and in this picture she is pouncing on a piggie. She likes it because it squeaks!

She's got a really fat belly and it's so cute! She woke me up at 5:30am, so I'm really sleepy. I looked like such a dork running around outside in my pajamas in the back yard with her. We ended up laying down together and looking up at the sky. What will the neighbors think?!

We are going camping this weekend with her, and I can't wait to see how she does. I hope she likes it! My sweet little Bella!

Our New House

This is our new house that we purchased in December. We love it, but it's been a long process of trying to get it to actually look like a house. These pictures are only the first floor. We finally finished painting that floor about a month ago. Our next venture is to paint the second floor. It has a loft, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms! Guess we still have a lot to do.

On the first floor there is a dining room, really nice kitchen, small breakfast area with a sliding glass door that leads out to our screened in porch. Then a living room and a bathroom. The back yard has a vinyl fence that is perfect for when we get a puppy.


I'll have to take some pictures of the outside since we just mulched and planted some perennials. I've never really been into the whole plant thing. They always seem to die on me. BUT, this whole perennial thing is a new discovery. You really don't have to do anything with them, and they come up and look beautiful year after year. I'm a big fan.

Well, our house is big enough to start a family in. The neighborhood is really quiet and nice, and still in the city. There are kids and pets everywhere, and I just can't wait to expand our family......with a puppy!!! :) YAY. I'm getting one for my birthday. Thousands of pictures to come!

Our New Life

Let me start by saying that this is my first blog and I have absolutely no clue what I am doing. This is in honor of Abby Veldman and her encouragement to keep people up to date with my life :) Well, Ethan and I got married almost two years ago and we became the Michael family. We moved to Indy where both of our jobs are, and bought a house in December. Our wedding was everything I had ever dreamed of, and started the married chapter of our lives. It really was the best thing that has ever happened to me, and God was there every step of the way.

Ethan and I met our freshmen year of college, and have been together ever since. I think that's 6 years now! WOW. Anyway, when we met we were just little 18yo punks and have grown up together ever since into mature, knowledgable adults. Ya right!! Anyway, it's hard to believe that we are old enough to be on our own in this city, but here we are...making it with the Lord's help.

Ethan is a financial planner in Carmel, and I'm a producer for an advertising company in Downtown Indy. I also just started modeling since I am done cheering. I love it!! It is so much fun. It's like playing dress up for grown ups :)

Anyway, back to the wedding. Ethan looked so handsome, and yes, I did make everyone wear hot pink. Including the guys. Well, I prefer to call it magenta. I loved that day. Just looking at the pictures make me smile. I'll include pictures of our house later, since it is a slow process of making it look like a home. It's slowly transitioning from a college dorm room right now.

Well, if I haven't bored you already, stay tuned for more postings! Praise God for all of His goodness and for every breath.