It's been exactly 1 week since my SRR rescue ratties arrived from South Dakota.

Aspen & Curry were introduced to my boys last Monday evening. There was some "wrestling" but no really bad fighting. My boy Fennel is still a bit pouty that he has to share his cage with 2 more ratties, he's such a spoiled boy. My nakkie rat Barley is always pretty laid back so he wasn't too bothered by new brothers. The boys were all living together within 2 days with no issues.

Curry & Aspen

It took about 4 days to introduce my 2 new girls Olive & Fern to the group I have them living with in the bottom half of the Ferret Nation cage. I had to do a few nights of supervised play times with all of them. My girl Iris is territorial and so is Olive so there was some fighting for a few days. As of last night, Olive & Fern are now living with Ivy, Iris, Jasmine & Daisy.

Olive & Fern

For intro's there are a few tricks I do. First off I introduce the new & old ratties in a neutral place, a bathtub, table, chair. I will rub vanilla extract on all of the ratties. I will take bedding and swap it around so the ratties get used to each other's new scents. When I do supervised play time in the cage, I will take out all igloo's, boxes, etc where a rat can be cornered. If I need to, I will also give the most territorial rats a quick bath because it will distract them. Sometime's intro's will be very quick and other times it can take up to a week before you get your new rats living with your current ratties.

Curry in a cardboard tube.

Our Easter was a bit uneventful. My whole family has a really nasty bug going around so F.B. & I had to cook our own little Easter Dinner. We had Tofurky & gravy, corn, green bean casserole, cheesey garlic mashed potatoes & cranberry sauce.

I've been looking for a pair of plain comfortable ballet flats for 2 years now. I've gotten a few pairs that were very stiff and gave me blisters. I saw these ones featured on The Pioneer Woman's blog and decided to take a chance on them. 

They are called The City Flat, by Gap. I first ordered a pair of plain black ones. I do a lot of walking now that I'm commuting on the train to work every day. I didn't get one blister the whole day I wore these. They are very light and flexible, perfect for warmer weather. They are also 100% leather.

The only thing you will need is a pair of very slim gel inserts by Dr. Scholl's, etc. (I have Dr. Scholl's for her); because you will feel the pavement on your heels every step you take. With the gel inserts it gave me better impact support. I loved the shoe so much, I ordered it in pewter too. (Still waiting for it to arrive!) Gap sells the shoe in a bunch of different colors.

Black

Pewter

I also ordered this plum metallic purse that was on clearance at Gap. Excited for it to arrive!


















(Nope, not getting paid to recommend these products! I just wanted to share them, because I love them!)

Tonight we picked up my 2 boys and 2 girls from our rat train driver in Philadelphia. Our Star's Rat Rescue rats traveled 1,500 miles from South Dakota to Philadelphia. Brittney the owner of SRR along with 4 other drivers helped get them here! 

My husband and I were out doing errands waiting for our rat drivers call to say when he would be at the Petco to meet us near our house. We just happened to be at the dollar store in that same shopping center when our driver called to say he had arrived.

We picked up my two boys Aspen & Curry. They both look like tan berkshires. They have small circles of white on their bellies. Curry has a broken toe from an injury he got before he was adopted.


My two girls are Olive & Fern. Fern is black capped and Olive is a hooded agouti.


We also picked up another adopters rats for her, we are meeting her tomorrow evening at a Petco in Philadelphia to drop her two girls off to her and finish the SRR Rat Train.


After we got everyone home, we cleaned out their cages, gave them new baby blankets and food and some yogurt peanuts. In a few days we will try moving the boys in with my two boys and my new girls in with my other girls.

Thank you to all the drivers who helped!!!

I tried baking the Pioneer Woman's Coffee Cake- (Literally). It turned out great, it's really moist and very sweet & rich. The coffee flavor isn't overpowering, my Mom hates drinking coffee, but even she liked this cake. Yummy!




I may be getting my 4 ratties from Star's Rat Rescue this weekend! Really hoping all the drivers are able to make this work! Our Philadelphia driver from last year will be going up to meet one of the other drivers in Ohio and then bring the Philadelphia ratties back! Very Excited!

And here's a cute picture of Hazelnut, Honey, Rosie & Clover from the other evening. I'm always finding this gang sleeping in funny positions! (Lily is in the background.)


F.B. is still searching for a job everywhere and anywhere! Offices, Stores, Restaurants, etc. We mailed my sister in law some baby gifts, she & her husband are expecting in Sept. And also my cousin Chrissy & my cousin Heather. (Lot's of September babies.) Tomorrow evening we'll be going out with my cousin Jessica to take her out for a birthday dinner.

Happy World Rat Day! Just a few photos of some of my gang! (Click photo's for larger image.) <:3 )~~~

Yesterday, Yes; April Fools Day... was our 7 year anniversary! It's been seven years since we defined our relationship. (See our time line!)

This is the first April 1st, anniversary that we've actually gotten to share in person together, since we started our long distance relationship! 

We decided to go to The Cheesecake Factory up at Willow Grove Mall for our anniversary. We drove up there right after I got back from work on the train, so we missed the evening rush and were seated right away.



(Yes I know I'm wearing the same shirt as our last picture together, but at least I've got different jewelry on and a different hat. I'm growing out "bangs" so you'll be seeing me in hats until the end of this year, lol!)

I got a long island iced tea and F.B. got strawberry lemonade. We were going to order 1 appetizer and 1 of their "small snacks", who knew their small snacks were pretty much a huge appetizer as well, lol! We got onion rings and Spicy Ahi Tempura Roll.

Don't mind F's fingers, lol.

I also got a bowl of clam chowder but no pictures, their "cup" of soup is quite big so I didn't finish it, but it was amazing. F.B. got Hibachi Steak with mushrooms and wasabi mashed potatoes and I finally tried a Portabella "burger", which was sooo amazing! Still have half left for lunch later.



And of course you have to get cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory! When I went to Florida with my cousins in 2007, we went to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch but we didn't get cheesecake, (big mistake, lol!)

F.B. got classic Cherry Cheesecake and I ordered Red Velvet Cheesecake. Mmmmm.



We had a great time, but it's definitely an anniversary type restaurant. ;-) We were so full we walked around the mall for a few hours afterward. F.B. got me Charlotte Brontë's, Villette. I own Jane Eyre one of my favorite books, but I've never read any of Charlotte's other books, this one looked interesting.

Last weekend F.B. and I went to King of Prussia Mall, the largest mall on the East Coast. We walked the entire mall. (Tiring!) I got to get a few things from L'Occitane!

At Macy's I picked out these gorgeous dishes that were on sale, we only got enough for two place settings, but I love them!



F.B. got me this cute purple Chinese Zodiac Rat from a little Chinese Shop at King of Prussia.


P.S. I missed my blogging anniversary on March 17th! But it's been 3 years since I started this blog! :-)

At Walmart last night I finally picked up some Sally Hansen Salon Effects! My coworkers and I keep seeing the ad in magazines and we wanted to try them. They are actual nail polish strips that you peel and put on your nails. They took about 15-20 minutes to apply and you don't have too, but I put a top coat of Sally Hanson hard as nails over top of them.

They are gorgeous!!! (Color is: Misbehaved.) I want the Zebra color sometime, but it's hard to find. They are $8.50, and they give you 16 strips in case you mess up, which I did mess up one nail and had to remove it with nail polish remover. Now we'll see how long they last... lol!


I've also gotten some new music in the past few weeks.

Panic At The Disco- Vices & Virtues, which I love every song on the album! They went back to their original sound from their 1st album, their 2nd album had a very mellow sound and I didn't like it at all, but this one is great!















Avril Lavigne also has a new album, Goodbye Lullaby. I only like about 5 songs on the album, but it's nice to have some new music by her.















(I do use Amazon Associates, but not because I've made any money- because I haven't! lol! But I like that I can show a picture/link with a book or music when I'm blogging. Plus I do recommend Amazon.com for their low prices. That or Ebay!)

After a Sunday of cleaning rat cages, the bathroom, our bedroom and doing laundry. F.B. and I cooked dinner and dessert.

We made Ginger Tofu Stir Fry with mixed veggies and broccoli. (Same sauce I use when I make my Ginger Chicken Stir Fry.)


And for dessert. (We ate these before dinner, hehe!) The Pioneer Woman's French Breakfast Puff's. They were amazing! Though of course anything rolled around in butter and covered with cinnamon sugar is going to be good!

F.B. & I have been so busy the past two weeks. I went back to work this past Monday.

Last Friday F.B. & I went and saw 'Gnomeo & Juliet' but we didn't like it that much. Then we headed up to Willow Grove Mall to walk around and hang out. We went to Jannie's Chinese Japanese for lunch and had sushi and young chow rice, tempura.



Saturday morning we went to my CPA to get my income taxes prepared. Then because it was still so early, we decided to take a train downtown to Center City Philadelphia and walk around 30th Street Station, see Love Park and City Hall. It was pretty cold and windy though.

Seagull sitting on bridge above Schuylkill River.

Philadelphia!

 That evening we went out to Applebee's with my cousin Jessica. And she took a picture of us to share with everyone, because we've been lazy. :-p



We picked up a Wegman's Cheesecake for my family and this amazing fruit tarte for myself.



Monday it was back to work, so we didn't go out until Wednesday night after work to pick up some groceries at our new Giant Supermarket around the corner from the house. F.B. drove finally and he's been driving me to the train station and picking me up after work. His SSN card and Resident card came in the mail earlier this week.

We got Sushi and Baby Octopus Salad at Giant. The baby octopus weirded me out at first because they had heads. But they were actually really good in this spicy chili sauce. It was like a Bizarre Food's Episode, hehe. See you never know what you'll find even in your own supermarket! :-p



We made Shannon's veggie lasagna Wednesday night. We couldn't find medium zucchini's though so our "noodle" slices weren't very big so it turned out more like a casserole. It still tasted amazing though! We just had some leftovers for lunch today. So want to make this again, might add in some eggplant next time too. :-)


 Friday evening after work F.B. drove back up to Willow Grove Mall so we could get headphones we saw on sale last weekend. We were lucky they were still there. F.B. got noise canceling headphones and he bought me a pair of earphones that were marked down from $69.99 to $19.99. Hehe! The bass sounds really awesome on them!

We also had to pick up a new router because our old one kept shooting our internet signal out for two frustrating days. This time I got the 2 year Best Buy warranty on the new router for $14.

F.B. treated us to Arby's again for dinner. It's one of his new favorite fast food places in the USA. I only had the small fries and regular roast beef though. Their salads had more calories then just the regular roast beef sandwich! It's been a very busy two weeks!