Play Time!!!

Our yard has TONS of leaves...Joaquin LOVES running through the piles of leaves

Can you see the puppy tail?

Where is Joaquin???

There he is...

And of course, here is Monet playing in the yard...

bath time

Here are some pictures of Joaquin's bath time :)

He doesn't hate the baths as much as he looks like it in the pictures!

All smushed and getting dried off :)

His name is what????

Today we added another puppy to our household...basically since the beginning of the summer we had planned on getting a transfer pup at the end of summer and a baby puppy on the last puppy truck of the year...today was the day the truck came!

Mickelle and I waiting for our puppy...

His name is JOAQUIN!!! (not a name that was on any of our lists)

--it's pronounced wah-keen--

His birthday is August 28th, which makes him 9 weeks and 1 day!

His parents are Lamara and GDF Mazel. He has 10 other siblings...

Mickelle is holding Joaquin and I'm holding his sister and brother.

Is he not just adorable???

We are looking forward to a great year with this guy!

Fall

I might not love fall so much...

...but I LOVE Monet!!!

Philly

A few weeks ago, I went and babysat my nieces and nephew in Philadelphia. I also took my 10 year old niece from UT with me to see her cousins.

We went miniture golfing...

And we went to a corn maze...

and the kids played in some hay...

And there were tractors to play on...

Also, when my nieces were in school, I took my other niece to Philadelphia...this is at Independence Hall

in front of the Liberty Bell

It was a fun trip!!!

Only in Utah...

I wen to Philadelphia last week (more on that later)...anyway the weather here had been great up until the day I left-Wednesday...which was the first day of snow this year (although the snow was in the mountains and benches...not the Valley) Anyway, I came back to pouring rain last night and had to sleep with 3 blankets on top of me.

Looking out the window of my classroom the sun is shining in some places, yet immediately outside of my classroom it was trying to snow a few minutes ago and now it is pouring rain...but I can still see sunshine...What the...

Prevent Labor Day...Spay (and neuter) Today!!!

Today was the day that every puppy (and maybe raiser?) looks forward to...the day they get "fixed"... for the males this means the brain fairy comes and they can start thinking with their head instead of with their...other parts. Of course, for the females this means they won't ever have to go into heat or worry about the labor part of having a litter of puppies!!!

Donovan and Monet got "fixed!!!"

Here is Donovan sporting his yellow with green bones

bandage from the IV

And here is Monet sporting the same type of bandage.

I think maybe she was a little put off that they didn't have

anything more girly!

Mickelle and I dropped the puppies off at 8am this morning and I picked them up when I was done with work at 4. The vet said they both were very good patients and that both surgeries were great and went off without any problems! Both pups have been very very mellow this afternoon and evening, I'm expecting them to be back to their normal selves within a day or two.

Donovan and Monet

Please excuse the devil eyes in the picture below...

Some of you may have heard about the SLC school program, where students in Utah have a guide dog puppy raising class and actually get high school credit for raising puppies. This is the third year of the program, and it's been very neat! Anyway, so in the spring, raisers in UT and CO are asked if they would be willing to "start" a puppy for this program. The students get their puppies who are around 7 months old at the end of September after being in school for a month. Donovan was one of the puppies who was started for this program. Mickelle and I have been puppysitting him for the past week and will have him until Friday when we will give him to his high school raiser. He is from CO and is a VERY sweet boy! We like him a lot and think he will be a great school puppy.

being domesticated

Cooking is something that makes me happy. I love to make up new healthier recipes for my favorite meals. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. I also like to try making new foods which is what me and my roomate did on Friday night...we made Swiss Cheese Fondue...

First we had to gather the ingredients...which was fun because we needed

Chardonnay (I have never drank alcohol in my life...or been to the liquor store)

So my roommates and I headed to the liquor store...and we were quite excited

when we got carded...it was fun!

So we grated the cheese and mixed it with cornstarch...

(then it went into the pot with the bubbling wine/garlic combo)

Then we made a healthy salad to go along with our not so healthy

cheesy goodness!!!

This is the picture of the cheese mixing with the wine...

...and then of course we ate the fondue with french bread...

it was delicious, but I learned a few things...

1. When you decide to make fondue...have a fondue pot...you can do it on the stove, but once it starts cooling off, it gets hard and isn't so easy to dip the bread into...

2. After all the clogging artery goodness that is fondue...make sure you have something healthy like salad...makes you feel better about yourself for eating the cheese and bread...

3. perhaps in the future make cheese fondue--but also make chocolate fondue to have with fruit...

4. be prepared to feel like you need to walk for days to work off the calories from the fondue...

crazy dog!

I was laying in my new bed reading one night, and looked

down at Monet in her bed sleeping like this...

I found it entertaining, because she is typically NOT a back sleeper!

Maybe she was hot??? I don't know, but I haven't seen her sleep like this

since!