Elias on the calvert cliffs.

Elias in an igloo

SnOMFG

So DC received two feet of snow this weekend. Here are some pictures of the food and frivolity. Elias loves romping in the snow. Yesterday I baked two loaves of Pascha with Dave and they turned out rather well.

Elias romped both by day and night.

I don't want to play with the scarf. Rub my belly!

Jajamien

There is a Chinese Restaraunt in my town. Calling the town mine might be a stretch. I am here in Korea. The town is here in Korea. I'm in the town. I doubt the town is mine though. There is one Chinese restaraunt. I go there once a week. Sometimes twice a week. I always order Jajamien.

An old man runs the place. He might be Chinese. I walk my dog down the main street of town every night. I open the door push Elias to the side and bellow, "Anyeonghaseyo". From the back bumbles the old man he grins and pushes a menu toward me. People walking down the sidewalk dart into traffic to avoid getting close to Eli. I smile and say "Jajamien joseo". He shapes a bag with his hand and points to the door. I smile and nod again. The people in this town must think foreigners smile a lot.

He shuts the door and I wait for the noodles to cook. Elias does his best to look cute. The Korean children giggle daring each other to pet him. We try to stand against the building to avoid scaring 40 year old women. The bean and meat sauce cook in ten minutes and get dumped on the noodles. The old man pops out of the door and I give him the 3500 won for my dineer. I tried to give the a bowl to put it in. They put the noodles in a Styrofoam bowl anyway. I smile, again, say, "Gansamneda" and scatter the crowd of children gathered around Elias, the noodles get cold in ten minutes.

Elias attempts to block my keyboard

Elias' Fourth Birthday

Elias turns Four today. It's been a lovely 3 years with my puppy who will always be my puppy regardless of his age. I got him some nice pot roast and a piece of sweet potato cake for dinner.

Eli gets diminutive Korean lovin.

Down to the River to Play

Elias loves his river here. And fortunately its not polluted like the vast majority of Korean waters.

Elias loves peanut butter

To bribe him into not barking when I leave Eli get a spoonful of peanut butter in his kong every day. Once a week or so the glorious occasion arises when he gets to lick the insides of the jar clean. If he had opposable thumbs we'd all be doomed. Or subjected to ceaseless licking.

So Elias' lump came back last week resulting in a rather unseemly incident involving blood and Micheal's comforter. I took off work last wednsday to get Eli to the vet where he remained until today in convalescence. He has quite the row of stitches down his neck which will be removed on the 27th.

Poor elias

Elias would like a summer ham

Bread Bowl, hatchet, and Prayer Book

Niko and I exchanged our Christmas gifts today. I received a hatchet, prayer book, and a bread bowl. The bread bowl is particularly lovely. Niko hails from south eastern Ohio a region that was noted for its production of stoneware for well over a century now. The bread bowl is a match to one he purchased a few years ago and that I have been lusting after since first I laid eyes on it. It seems that the pottery that made these has gone out of business and the mold for this particular bowl has been lost. Meaning that unless someone really cares and wants to reconstitute the mold from an existing bowl there will be no more of this lovely bowl. It's very deep and probably holds a solid three gallons.
Here's a new picture of Elias cuddling with me.

Elias and His Malady

So imagine my surprise when Elias was playing with Garvin last Tuesday and Bill's father informed me there was a large lump. Like the size of an egg on the skin under his jaw line. Apparently they had been playing and Garvin snagged Elias along the inside of his lower gum creating a puncture wound that went through the main vein in those parts. This promptly had a balloon like effect filling the skin in his lower jaw with dirty blood. We had a drain put in on Saturday but because it is staying in until this coming Saturday I will not be traveling to Short Mountain.

Elias is in good spirits and has enough antibiotics to stop the plague. As you can see the area effected was quite large and it gave me quite a scare but the vet says he is doing fine.

Christmas a bit early

Micheal and I did Christmas on Monday as we both spent the actual holiday with our families. I roasted a chicken and made miscellaneous side dishes. Micheal who is much classier about such things then I am made cute little rice domes and threw together a really tasty pan sauce. We opened presents; though I had spent much of the week trying to get him to open things under the tree. He got me some lovely books and a camera (hence my ability to blog again) and Elias got a nice bed so he can stop taking over our bed.

We came home to find Elias perched in the window like an overgrown cat awaiting our late night arrival.

Oh Shenandoah

Yesterday Elias , Niko, and I went to Overall Run in the Shenandoah National Park. The hike was about eight miles, four of which were uphill. The end of our hike was this waterfall which is the largest in the park and I believe in the state of Virginia at 93 feet.

If you look behind Elias we came around the ridge just above his ears. The valley floor is roughly 1400 feet below where the waterfall is. We meandered up a switchback trail and got back to the car around 6 .

Pirohi and Eli Pictures Taken by my Housemates

Me making pirohi


Roofus and Elias being ridiculously cute as always.

My dog is rather gay and it appears submissive . Elias' new friend is named Jake and appeared to be a corgi.

Elias in Pennsylvania

We wandered up to Pennsylvania late last night to go to my neice Ella's baptism.

Eli was terribly confused by this flock of turkeys.

So I decided to insult his doghood and see if he wouldn't chase them with me.

Eventually he got the idea and and a fun time turkey herding.

Here he is with Jake my brother Michael neurotic miniature pinscher.

He really wanted Jake to get off my mom's lap so he could ocupy that position.