Twinkie's Tongue Contest

Twinkie has a tongue contest that I've heard about. I had never seen Twinkie's site before, but it seems interesting. I think I'd like to enter! I have a couple good pictures of Maggie with her tongue out from Halloween a couple years ago, here they are!

She's VERY cute! And, yes, that is a birth mark on her tongue. :)

The Weekend

I haven't posted for a week because we didn't really do a whole lot this past weekend. We went to a Pug Meet on Saturday and the only good thing (besides some good conversation) was that we saw Olive!

Isn't she getting so big?! As soon as I saw them show up, I ran towards them. :) She is growing very well and is happy and healthy. She was very wiggly (just like a puppy should be) and this was the best picture I got of her. It was soo good to see her! I also got an update on Elsie ( now Izzy ) - her owners boss is a regularr at the Pug Meets, and told me that he got to see Izzy a little while ago and said she is happy and healthy also, so that was great to hear. Izzy's owner has to work nights on the weekend, so it's not easy for her to try and make it to a Pug Meet on Saturday.

And that's all the good that happened at the Pug Meet. Clyde had fun, but unfortunately Maggie got attacked by some big dogs that were passing by. She's okay, but ended up with a puncture wound on her shoulder from a muzzled mouth. I was so mad, and poor Maggie was shaken the rest of the day. About 10 minutes after that happened, a lady brought Brodie to us with a bloody paw - he had too much fun, and had almost knocked a nail off his paw! Like I've said before - it's not unusual for Brodie to get hurt, he just plays too hard. We take him out to the park and if we don't go to the park, we make sure to play with him at home, but he just can't ever get enough. We've actually given him a pill to make him more relaxed a couple times, but we don't really like to do that.

So, on to other things, Friday night we finally got Clyde a tag and earlier in the week, we picked up a collar for him to wear around. We want him to be a harness dog, but he's to big for a small harness, and too small for a medium, so he will have to wear a collar until he grows some. (Yes, we still have the harness we got him, but it's been to warm to have him wear it.)

Love this guy! :)

I'm determined to keep him in Argyle. :) We got the collar from Target, and I went to PetSmart to make the tag and they have a new machine that will do both sides. So I was able to put his name in a cool font on the front and I put my phone number on the back. I've always liked it better that way.

I've been trying to take individual pictures of them so I can get some 8x10's up of them, so I've kept my camera with me more than usual. I've gotten a few good ones.

(I had to blur my phone number out on his tag - don't really want that for everyone to see - lol)

Maggie goes outside and just lays on the deck, and Clyde has started to sit next to her. I love this picture, but he looks giant!

 I like this one, but it's kind of at a weird angle.

 This one's good, but Clyde wanted to be in it. :)

And the baby. :) (I blurred out my number again :) )

I like the last one of Clyde, but I think the tag ruins it, so I'll just try again this weekend. It's very hard to get a picture of Brodie, I've said before - he just doesn't take good pictures, normally when I tel him to sit, he cries because he thinks it's for a toy or something.

Speaking of Brodie, as you know, he loves his toys. I got a pretty funny picture the other day. A small toy had gone under the couch and he was laying there whining for someone to get it out, so I stuck my camera under there to take a picture. :) Sometimes Clyde will go get it for himself, and then Brodie will take it from him, lol.

Can you see him? Sorry, I think it's funny. Hehe :)

We also cleaned out the garage to make some room for Kelly's weight set and my treadmill, and an exciting new toy that may or may not be joining us by my birthday next month....

Two trips to the dump like this -

Hehe :)

When we moved in last year, we kept tons of stuff we thought we might need, but a lot of it, of course was never used, and the old couch was really dirty, so to the dump it went.

Okay, one more cute picture of Clyde and then I'm done... Goodness, for an uneventful weekend, I sure did post a lot of stuff... Oh boy... Sorry 'bout that.

This might end up as his 8x10...



Pantry Girl

Almost everytime we open the pantry door, Maggie thinks she needs to go in and sit down. I know she knows that's where the food is, but I'm not sure if she thinks that if she stays in there long enough the food will just fall and she'll eat it all. There have been a few times we've locked her in there without knowing! Ther was one time that we left for a little while and came back and wondered where she was. We had just moved into our house and we were afraid she had run away (very unlike her - Brodie is another story...). We asked Dan if he had seen her and he hadn't. We were calling her name and finally heard her from the pantry!

She is always under our feet while we cook, and if something falls, she is there to clean up any mess. There have been countless times I've been petting her and felt something sticky or hard on her back and had to go try and get the dried stuff off. Aahhhh, Gotta love our Puggie! :)

Hope I'm not Destructive This Year!

Hurricane Nicole in 1998.

So, I posted the 2010 Hurricane Name List earlier, and then started wondering if there had ever been a Hurricane Nicole. There was a Hurricane Nicole in 1998, but I had never heard of it. Believe me, I think I would have remembered a hurricane named after me - My mom and I watched The Weather Channel all the time. :) Well, turns out this one was near the Azores and didn't cause much, if any damage, (Phew!)  so more than likely, it would've just been a small news story.  Here's the first paragraph on my 1998 hurricane.

Hurricane Nicole was the fourteenth named storm and tenth hurricane of the 1998 Atlantic hurricane season. Nicole was the final storm of the season, and a very late-forming tropical cyclone. Nicole developed from a frontal low south of the Azores on November 24, and as it moved west-southwest, it attained an initial peak of 70 mph winds. An approaching upper-level trough brought hostile wind shear over Nicole, which weakened it to a tropical depression. Nicole entered an area of lighter vertical wind shear after the trough's passage, and re-strengthened, reaching its peak intensity of 85 mph as a hurricane on December 1, as an approaching cold front brought Nicole to the northeast. It then rapidly weakened over the cool waters of the North Atlantic. Nicole is the most intense hurricane December hurricane, and tied for the second strongest December hurricane.

Nicole caused no damage or deaths.

It's funny to read that with my name in it. :) I got the info from this site.
I was also a Subtropical Storm in 2004, and it was one of the wettest storms in the Bermudas. But according to Wikipedia, not a whole lot came from it.
 
And there's your weather lesson for the day. :)

Hope I'm not Destructive!

2010 Hurricane Names

Alex
Bonnie
Colin
Danielle
Earl
Fiona
Gaston
Hermine
Igor
Julia
Karl
Lisa
Matthew
Nicole
Otto
Paula
Richard
Shary
Tomas
Virginie
Walter

# 50!

Just wanted to acknowledge this is my fiftieth post. :)

I Won! I Won!

When I started my blog, I somehow came across this whole network of Pug blogs. One of my favorites is Punchy over at Pug Possessed. She also has an Etsy Shop where she sells her paintings and clothes. A lot of her paintings are of Pugs and a lot of her clothes are made to fit a Pugs' wider chest. One day on her blog, she said that another blog was doing a giveaway for a $20 gift certificate to her Etsy shop, so I entered, really hoping I would win, and I did! :) 

So, after much deliberation, I decided on a painting, and then bought one other thing. This was around the time we still had all three puppies and were trying to decide who to keep, so I didn't want to order a lot of dresses and only have Maggie for them, or vice versa. So, this is the painting I got:

It was my favorite from the first time I saw it. :)

Since I had a hard time deciding what to get, I bought one other thing: A tie for the boys. Punchy is a genius! I had never seen anything so great for a boy dog! Since at that time, I was pretty sure we were keeping Clyde, we took a wild guess at what his full grown neck size would be. I guess if it doesn't work, I'll order another, because we do have two boy dogs now. Brodie is a skinny guy, so it is too big for him, but I put some tape on it so he could model it for you.

He's not a very good picture taker... but I LOVE this tie!

I'm very excited about it, and I think I may look into altering it. Maybe. I'm not very good at that... I will want to order another though... So I should probably just do that, and then see where Clyde ends up when he's full grown. I feel kind of silly ordering it so big, but I wasn't sure how it was made and how it would come. But I will be using them A LOT. :)

I also took this "family" photo. I think it's a very funny picture. :)

Since finding the blog that did the giveaway, Libby's Library, I've found many other giveaway blogs. I suggest you check them out. I've also won an Avon package doing this. All you usually have to do is leave a comment and you are entered. There are more things you can do for more entries and one of them is blogging about the giveaway. Since I like to win things, I set up another blog so that I can post about the giveaways I'm entering. I want people to know about these great giveaways, even though it lessens my chance. ;) I just started the blog the other day, but go check it out if you want, and then delve deep into giveaway blogs with me! :)

Where were you?

I was a junior in high school. I had to be to school early every day so that I could record the school's morning news. My dad teaches at the high school, and he had Jazz Band practice before school every morning, so he would give me a ride. We were pulling in behind the school and I looked into one of the classrooms and saw a TV on, and I think the first building had just been hit. I walked through the band room, and headed to the video production room, and when I walked in, I saw what was on the TV and couldn't believe it. At that point I think everyone thought it was a terrible accident. I remember standing around the TV while my classmates walked in and nobody would say anything after they figured out what happened. We were watching when the second plane hit and we all screamed. That's when we knew it couldn't have been an accident.

We did the morning news and had a moment of silence, but it was all so new that we weren't even close to understanding what it meant. I'll be honest, being 16 years old and having to do a moment of silence on TV in front of the whole high school was awkward. I don't remember who was on with me, but I do remember them giggling, so I giggled, and I felt so bad about it.

That day during school everyone was buzzing about how likely it would be to have our U.S. Air Force Base hit - The Air Force Base 10 miles away from our town, the Air Force Base that many of my friends' parents worked at. I think I remember hearing that it was likely they could attack us, because at that time, our base was important.

I was the manager of the cross country team, and would go to all the meets and record them. I don't remember where we had a meet that day, but I do remember seeing a big fire in the distance and being a little nervous.

I finally got home that night and gave my parents a big hug. For months we were glued to the TV, watching everything and taking it all in. We had just been in New York City that April for my sisters' wedding reception. We had her wedding pictures taken at a park with the World Trade Center in the background. We walked through the city, and I had wanted to go to the World Trade Center, but we didn't have enough time. We thought, "Oh, we'll just go next time." I'm so grateful I was able to at least see them. I'm determined to go to Ground Zero once in my life, and pay my respects.

I don't know how many of you think about 9/11, but I think about it a lot. I wanted to write it here because this blog is my journal, and I wanted to have it written down somewhere. God Bless the families that have suffered any loss from this.

The Spirit of Boise

On Saturday evening we went down to Ann Morrison Park to check out the hot air balloons. There had to be at least a few thousand people there! (I'm not very good at estimating, but I think there were that many...) We got there just in time to see them start filling the balloons up with air and headed as close to the front as we could.

The pictures are kind of blurry because I didn't use my flash. (Yep my camera is that bad...)

For some reason, we were all thinking they might fly them, but then we thought about it. That wouldn't be very easy! So, as soon as all the baloons were all filled and upright, they started lighting them.

There was an announcer that would tell the pilots (?) when to light up the balloons and the crowd would cheer every time. After a little bit, Kelly, Dan and I realized that was all they were going to do, so after you've seen them all light up, everyone flicker and then try to do a wave with the fire, we'd seen it all.

It was fun, and our parking spot wasn't too bad, so after about 30 minutes, we headed out. A lot of people must've thought the same because they were all leaving, but a lot of people were still coming, also. I hope they didn't miss it all.

I think they are wanting to put this, and the Boise Music Festival together and almost make another Boise River Festival. I hope they can do that, I used to love the River Fesitval!  I guess we'll see what happens next year...

Crazy About Clyde

Well, Clyde has been an official member of our family for a week now. (okay, he's really been here for the whole almost 4 months of his life, but I hope you know what I mean...) As hard as it was to give up his sisters, I'm glad we were able to keep him. He has a big personality stuffed in his little body, and he keeps us laughing.

One funny thing he does is when he's eating. He'll eat his food, and then he picks up his bowl with his teeth and carries it around. I'm not sure why he does this, or where he got it from, but I love it.

Yes, we feed him out of a small dipping bowl.

Then he picks it up and carries it... it's so funny!

Since he is our family member now, we went to get him a harness. I had seen a cute blue argyle collar at Target a couple weeks ago, and loved it, but we wanted to get him started on a harness instead of training him in a collar, then switching. We took him to Petco on Friday and stuck him on a pillow in the cart. We had taken him to a few stores earlier this week, but he was still a little nervous in the cart.

We looked at the fish...

Checked out some toys...

Looked at the harnesses and collars...

 We tried a few different ones on (this one fit, but he wouldn't be able to grow into it. Too bad because it was on clearance!)...

  We found an argyle harness, but I guess he's in an awkward stage, because the small was too small and the medium was too big. So we ended up with this one:

(I took this picture with my phone when we got home) I don't love it, but it will do for a few months. It reversible and has "faux fur" on the other side, so hopefully it doesn't stay too hot. 

He went to his "first" Pug Meet on Saturday. It was his "first" as our only puppy, and he has the time of his life! We let him run around, and he did! He played with the big kids, and everyone loved him!

Here he his turbo-ing around.

He kind of hung out with his dad, Royce. Royce is the one on the left with a hand on him.

He surrendered to Holly, who is a couple years old and loves babies. :)

He got held by his "Uncle Dan" when he got too crazy.

And his "Uncle Dan" gave him a drink of his water. 

Maggie had fun too. She kept a careful eye on Clyde to whole time :)

Brodie spent the whole time running around playing with other dogs. Some people love to play with him, so we just kind of let him run around while we keep an eye on him. We weren't watching him the whole time, and something happened to his eye. You can see in my new blog banner :), he looks like he's winking. He's not. Somehow his eye got hurt. We was opening it more today, and it should be better tomorrow, but we're keeping an eye on it (pun not really intended... but how else should I say it? :) )

Speaking of my new blog banner, do you like it? I liked the idea of our names being together like that, and while I don't love the name BroClyMag, it will have to do until I can think of something better. If you have any ideas, let me know. :)

We went to the Spirit of Boise this weekend, and it was pretty fun. I'll post some pictures of it later. Right now, I'm going to curl up with my Puggies (Yay! I have two I can cuddle with now!) and watch a movie. Thanks for reading! :)

Isabella

 (She's a blinker in a lot of pictures... hehe)

That's Elsie's new name for her new home. :) I will still call her Elsie in this post, though.

Elsie went to her new forever home on Monday. Her new mommy came and met her and took her home. It was very sad for us to see her go, but in a way, it was bittersweet. Bitter because we miss her, but sweet because we can focus on training Clyde and get some order in our house back. (I'm going to squeeze in some of these last pictures I want to share of her and her playing with everyone)

Here she is snuggling up to her mommy.

Elsie and Brodie we playing, but I think this picture looks like they were snuggling. :)

And here we are snuggling before she left. :)

She is such a beautiful little girl, it was so hard for us to decide to give her up, but we just wouldn't have four dogs. I've been putting off writing this post for a few days because I miss her, but I think if I write it, it might help.

Here is Maggie, Clyde and Elsie begging in the kitchen.

Here is her beautiful face (with her eyes open!)

Her new family named her Isabella and are calling her Izzy. I love it. :) I was told she did well her first night, and that she is so well mannered and very smart. I felt so proud. :)

Last week I was playing with the big kids and puppies outside and got some cute pictures.

The puppies love to chase and bite their mom. (Yes - we need to clean the patio...:) )

I absolutely love this picture of Clyde! It's the wallpaper on my desktop right now. :)

Sometimes it's hard to walk with puppies at your feet...

 They play with Maggie on the deck, get her to the edge, and she jumps off. Then, it takes the puppies a few seconds to realize they need to go to the stairs to get down to where she is. (The previous owners had a pool in the back yard and killed the grass, and the people that just put in our automatic sprinklers brought a lot of weeds with them... just so you know. :) )

Speaking of stairs... this is kind of a cute picture... if it wasn't so blurry...

Brodie is cold and wants to go in... this guy is always cold. :)

Can you understand why I couldn't give him up? Look at that face! (not that I didn't love Olive and Elsie, they were extremely hard to give up...)

Then we went inside...

Everyone got a cookie...

And then took a nap. :)

We miss Elsie, but hopefully her new family will bring her to a Pug meet once in a while. :) On Tuesday, we picked the blankets and plastic off the floor and got our living room back! Clyde almost has full roaming privileges over the house and seems to be loving it. We've still kept their area up and keep him in there over night and when we leave. He just needs to be fully potty trained and should gain full free roaming privileges. :)