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Monday, July 26, 2010

Check Out These Faces


***Olive***

***Elsie***

***Clyde***

I mean, My Goodness, are they cute, or what?! We've been sadly trying to figure out who we are keeping (Should have known it was going to be soooo difficult). They all have their reasons to stay around. 

We didn't want another boy, but we even consider Clyde, mostly because he absolutely loves me. :) He is always climbing in my lap, like this:

 He fights his sisters from my lap because I protect him since he's so small. 

Olive has such a cute personality, she is very energetic, but we can't imagine her being like Brodie, but she would be a great playmate for him, if she keeps it up. Elsie seems like she might be a carbon copy of Maggie, she looks like her and seems to act like her, and this was the reason we bred her. (I know, you aren't supposed to breed for that reason, but we did.) It's going to be so hard to decide who to keep. We've got to make the decision soon, so that we can start focusing our energy on training just one, after the others find homes.


Here's a video of the puppies playing with Brodie. Like I've said - They love him. :)



Sunday, July 25, 2010

Boise Music Festival (Pictures of Trees...)

The Boise Music Festival was on Saturday (Yesterday, technically), and they kept advertising like you needed these free tickets to get in. So, after failing to go to where they were giving these tickets away for the last few months, Mix 106 told people to call or email in and whine for them. A lot of people were calling or emailing with tragic stories (cancer, divorce, and so on), and who knows if these stories were true. I figured it was worth a shot, so I emailed in and told them that I work nights and haven't been able to meet them anywhere for tickets because I sleep all day. A couple hours later, Kate McGwire emails me back telling me they had tickets for me at the front office, and I just had to go pick them up. Yay!

There were a lot of local bands playing on small stages throughout Ann Morrison Park, but the big names were Macy Gray, Bret Michaels and The Backstreet Boys! Now, I was more of an N*SYNC girl growing up, but the Backstreet Boys were the next best thing. They were performing at 7:50, and since we didn't really care about the other acts, we showed up 7pm, and waded through thousands of people to try and get close to the stage. Since this had been an all day thing, there was no way we were getting right up front, so we stopped when we figured it was only going to get harder and waited. When the Backstreet Boys came on stage, this was our view.


Sorry it's blurry...


We were right next to a tree, so after much deliberation with myself (am I going to embarrass myself?), I climbed the tree. The view wasn't any better, in fact, it was worse...


I was stuck up there for three songs because every time I would try to get down, someone would be in the way, or some kids would be climbing up. Then, when I was ready to get down - they were starting their last song! They only sang four songs! Two old one and two new one. Since I hadn't really been able to see the stage, I started weaving through people to try and get a good picture, this is the best I got.


Can you see two of them? I can't even tell who they are!


Ugh - I tried to upload a video four times today, each time for over an hour, and couldn't get it to work, so I guess you can't hear the concert... :(


We didn't stay for Bret Michaels, so we left after they went off the stage. I'd say it almost wasn't worth it, but I can now say I "saw" The Backstreet Boys.

Okay, sorry - I know all these pictures are lame... The stupid video wouldn't load... at least you could have heard them....

Climbers

Olive and Elsie can now up all the way upstairs without any problems. Now, getting down is a slow process, but they bolt upstairs if they have a chance. :)

 I think it's chasing Brodie that helped Olive learn to get up the stairs.

The girls follow their mommy up the stairs, too.

Poor little Clyde can't climb the stairs yet. :(

They are getting so big! We have started to take them outside on a daily basis to see if we can start potty training them, and they seem to like to get out in the sun. Before I know it, they won't be little puppies anymore!

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Their Little Buddy


Well, We've always called Brodie Little Buddy, but the puppies seem to think he is there for their enjoyment.


Brodie and Elsie playing.

Brodie is gently biting Olive's paw, while closing his big eye to protect it. :)

This is actually an action shot of Brodie and Clyde, just imagine paws going up right after this was taken...

Brodie is a very high energy dog, and he loves to play with these puppies. He never hurts them, even though they can make him cry. If Brodie enters the room, they all run to him to play with him. I think they have been very good for him, since we can't go to the park every weekend like we would before they were born. Don't worry, Brodie, we'll start going to the park again very soon. :)

Monday, July 19, 2010

Finally! Some Puppies!

You'll have to excuse my last two posts if you are just here for puppies. :) Like most, my blog is my journal, or scrapbook, so I gotta use it for remembering stuff!

 Top to bottom is Elsie, Clyde and Olive 

So last Sunday, when I got home from Utah, after being gone for four days, I walked into the house, and Kelly had covered the whole living room, first with a plastic drop cloth for painting, and then with every blanket we had been using for the puppies. He's so smart! See, this solved a problem - ever since the puppies have been old enough to run around and play, we've let them out, and they seem to relieve themselves right away, and it was getting quite stressful for us. Now, the carpet wont be damaged. Love that guy!  :) I looked at the puppies as soon as I could, and right away they looked bigger! In just four days, they had grown, but most of all, they were excited to see me! (maybe they had forgotten about me, and were just excited to see someone new, but I like to think they missed me :) ) Because of my second degree sunburn (yes, it really was that serious to talk about like that... I couldn't move! lol) I didn't take many pictures the first few days I was home. But I'd like to think I got some good ones in the past couple days.


If you haven't seen in any pictures, we have a sunken living room, so there is a step, and for the most part, the puppies couldn't get up there, but now Elsie and Olive can. Clyde can crawl up if he has enough motivation. (Food mostly...lol) Maggie and Brodie used to jump up the step to get away from them, but now they have to jump on the couch or go upstairs.Olive seems to be the most daring. Elsie kind of steps down off they higher part, but Olive jumps. I got this picture perfectly!



We are pretty sure we have exceptionally cute puppies. They love to play (but what puppy doesn't?) and they love to play with Maggie and Brodie. They started playing with Brodie first, and then just this week, Maggie started to play with them. Brodie gets really nervous when they try to get him, but he rarely runs from them.

Doesn't he look a little nervous?

Maggie will gently play bite-face with her babies.

They of course love to chew on anything, mostly my shoes though. I know it's bad of me to let them, but they aren't causing any damage... yet

Clyde is chewing on my Adidas I've had forever.

They are all fighting over my flip flop.

They love to play tug of war, so we need to get them a rope or something they can all fight over, but for now, they just have flip flops and camera strings.

Here's Elsie tugging on my camera strap.

Speaking of Elsie, here's a cute picture I got of her chewing on some paper.

The paper, of course, was removed from her mouth right after I took this.

And speaking of cute...

Here's a cute picture of Olive on her back.

When they get tired, they all crawl under the loveseat. It's their little cave. 

Here's Clyde (in front) and Olive (behind) taking a nap in their "cave"

Olive has recently started to get brave and try and climb the stairs. We always ruin her fun and get her down, though. 

I think those are all the cutest pictures of the puppies I've gotten over the past week. They are almost 8 weeks old, and it's about time for them to to go their new homes. We don't have any set up though, we have been trying to decide what to do. We are going to keep one, but of course, we want to keep all three. They all have their pros and cons (mostly pros) and once we decide, we will find a perfect home for the others. (Someone we know and can keep in touch with.) It's hard to think they won't always live with us, but we knew that's what we were getting into when we bred Maggie. Speaking of Maggie, she turned 5 years old on Monday, July 12th! A couple years ago, we had fun and threw her a birthday party, but this year, we just got her a special meal, and fed it to her.

She knew it was something special.

It even had pieces of pasta in it! Yep - we fed it to her on a special plate.

She thouroughly enjoyed it. We mixed her kibble and some rice with it. (Rice has helped her tummy recently)

I love knowing that I've had Maggie for almost 5 years now. As most people say, I never thought I could love a dog so much! I didn't have a dog growing up because my mom got bit by a Rottweiler when she was 6. When Kelly and I started dating, I was thinking of getting a cat, but he convinced me to get a dog, and I got Maggie. One of the best moves I ever made. She really brings so much joy to my life. :)

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Cutest Gretl Ever!

On Saturday night after the hike, we went to the Ellen Eccles theatre and saw my cousin's 7 year old daughter, London play Gretl in The Sound of Music. She was adorable! She said all of her lines and sang all her parts perfectly! It was a Utah Festival Opera production and runs through August 7th. Every time London would say or sing her part, the whole audience would go "aaawwww" We were so proud to be related to her! At intermission, my sisters and I would be talking to random ladies (most of them would come up to me to tell me that my sunburn looked like it hurt, lol, and we would talk from there) and we would tell them we were related to Gretl and they would tell us how great she was doing. Goodness, you would think we were her mom we were so proud! Of course, we couldn't take any pictures during the play, so all I really got was after the play when her grandma (my aunt) gave her some flowers.


Isn't she adorable?!

Mount Naomi Peak

Sorry it's been awhile since I've posted. We decided to go on a 7 mile (almost) hike on Saturday and I actually got a really bad sunburn. (STUPID....) My shoulders are blistered and I have a hard time moving. I thought I was going to be really sore after the hike, but I think the sunburn was so bad, it overshadowed the soreness. But, boy it was a beautiful hike. We went up Logan Canyon and hiked Mount Naomi, which is the highest peak in Northern Utah. Lots of pictures to follow!
This is Tony Grove Lake, where we started.

Here is my niece, Emma at the beginning. She went the whole 7 miles!
There was still some snow on the mountain, and Emma, who has grown up in Phoenix, loved it!

It made these really cool caves as it melted.

There were some small waterfalls.

We made it all the way to the top! (My dad didn't have a hat, so he wore one that was sitting around my grandma's house, which happened to be a paino one, lol)

Beautiful view of the east

Cache Valley was to the west (where Logan is)

The elevation is 9,980 feet, so we were hoping if we jumped, we could reach 10,000. Here's my sister, Alicia jumping. I didn't get a good picture of me jumping.

We came across a Pug about 1/4 down the mountain!

We cooled off in the streams on the way down. They were just little trickles on the way up, and then pretty strong on the way down. (If I would've known we were going to go hiking, I would've brought better shoes!)

Saw a deer run across the trail when we were close to the bottom, can you see it?

When I started to feel the burn on the way down, I found a leaf towards the bottom to cover my shoulder.
 This is the dirt mark (and later the tan (burn?) line) when we got to the car.

I took a picture of my sunburn on the way home Sunday, and that doesn't even look near as bad as it has looked this week.

As we were leaving Logan on Sunday, my dad pointed out the mountain, so I took a picture. :)

It was a lot of fun, I thought I wasn't going to make it because I'm so out of shape, there were times I wanted to say "I'll just wait here for you to come back down" but it was the determination to get to the top that helped. It was good to spend time with my sister, niece and my dad, and I'm glad I'll have that memory always. (But hopefully no scars from the sunburn! I'm probably going to head to a dermatologist in the next week or two to look at it, it's that bad!)

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Still Not Enough

Do you see the five pillows we have to keep them in? It used to be two.

The puppies used to not be able to even scale two pillows.

Yesterday, Elsie (not Olive!) climbed her way out over the five pillows we have to keep them in. I think it was only the way we had the pillows situated, not the amount. I wish I had a picture of it, but I was in the kitchen, and I heard Kelly say "Elsie is getting out" So I came into the living room just to see her come over the top of the pillows and then look down like "okay, now what?" It was pretty funny. And yes - we have a 24 pack of Pepsi sitting there. It's to hold the "fence" in place, because it keeps sliding.


This is a normal site that we see when we walk up to their area. They all run to the corner and jump up for us. THEY ARE SO CUTE!!! 

I'm heading out on a little vacation this weekend. I'm going to Logan, Utah to see some family. I have some family down from Seattle and my sister and her daughter are up from Phoenix, so I'm way excited to go, but sad to leave. (Kelly and of course the puppies and Maggie and Brodie are staying home. :(  ) My Cousins' daughter is in the big production of The Sound of Music playing Gretl (The youngest of the Von Trapp family). So we are seeing that this weekend. It should be fun! 

Hope everyone has a good weekend! :)