Family Togetherness

My daughter and her husband came to spend some time with us and they brought Noah to visit his girls! You may recall that Noah's diabetes has been quite difficult to manage, and so he has been staying down here with Nicole. In addition to being closer to his regular vet clinic, Noah gets great care from Nicole who is a former vet tech and hopefully a future vet (won't that be handy?!). Anyway, Noah's excellence as the Feline Puppy Nanny has endeared him to all the girls, and each was very happy to see him -- but especially Halo...




Zoey is having no trouble getting along with people in Utah! This is Zoey with the son-in-law, Doug.


I hope there is some togetherness going on in your life :)

Back to the Regularly Scheduled Programming

I hope your Thanksgiving was good one, and that nobody exploded from excess of anything except good will and gratitude! We had a very nice day, even though Dear Husband had to work. I would be just fine having cereal on Thanksgiving -- I have never baked a turkey in my life! But traditions are good and so we all did the usual, which is to go over to my wonderful brother/sister in-laws' house.

Kim's brother and his wife have nine kids, including two sets of twins, and now the nine kids are multiplying and so it is quite the family event -- luckily they have a big house! They are the nicest people, and we always have a lot of fun so it was good to see them. I left early to take Kim a plate of food so that he at least got to participate a little :)

But before that I spent the day baking fun desserts, which made me very popular with all the family. I also took Zoey and Sydney over to our usual park to have a playdate with Syd's littermates, Tara and Rainey. Poor Rainey -- the only way he gets his picture in the Blog is if I travel all the way to Utah to take it ;)

Rainey wasted no time at all letting Tara know who was Top Dog!


Kiko, the surrounded pug, made an appearance and the puppies thought he was quite interesting.


Here is Rainey again. Unfortunately, Rainey had an elbow chip that had to be removed and so he has a shaved leg and still has a limp :(


However, that did not slow Rainey down -- he took on the very fast and athletic Zoey



More Zoey and Rainey


Rainey and Tara must have seen the celebrating picture from the Turkey Bowl and were trying to figure out how Tanner and his friend did that...


Sydney


Sydney and Tara are twins -- you had to look close to tell which was which


And here is Rainey's mom, Joan, with her other dog, Bella (Halo's littermate)


A look at our puppy play date


Finally, Rainey and Kiko did some male bonding


I certainly hope you are not doing anything dangerous today - like shopping!!! Perish the thought!!!!!

Have a happy day!

Turkey Bowl

This morning the boys organized the annual Turkey Bowl, and I went over as the official photographer. In what is no doubt a test, I was asked to put pictures on the Blog -- no doubt they are checking to see if I loved them as much as the dogs :)

Well boys (and Cassie) -- here you go!

Matching uniforms did not seem to be required so I am not sure how they could tell who was on what team but they seemed to have a system -- here is Jake, one of ours.


And home after two years in the Washington DC area, here is one of our younger boys, Tanner.


So this is what a huddle looked like...


And here is the opposing team all lined up and ready for action (!)


There were some excellent displays of skills -- and no doubt a bunch of sore people tomorrow!


Galen is wondering what kind of dance Jake is doing...


Another great catch -- and the young woman was more surprised than anyone!


Jake and Tanner mixing it up


And all that watching Sydney chasing Zoey came in handy -- Galen knew just want to do when someone else went running by with the ball!


Here is a team picture of Team One


Team Two


Jake with his fancy helmet


Tanner and Jake


Galen making a great catch of his own!


Tanner and his friend celebrating who knows what :)


Galen, the left-handed quarterback


Jake's wife, Cassie


The girls think the human kids are a little whacky and wanted you to see what a real Turkey Bowl looks like...


There you go, boys - now the baking is behind schedule!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Travels

We have this traveling to/from Utah down to an art! We left Montana and stopped at the usual dog stop in The Middle of No Where, Idaho. It is much easier to just let the dogs run free for a bit then to stop and walk everyone on leash, and so we head off the highway, across a cattle guard, and down the dirt road for a ways and we have our own personal dog park that is both safe and extremely spacious.

Here is Sydney enjoying the chance to stretch her one-year old legs...


And here is a picture of all four of my BMDCA Versatility Dogs :) Mother-daughter Maize and Cadi on one side, and mother-daughter Halo and Asia on the other!


We are planning some puppy fun while we are here -- check back in a couple of days for pictures and in the meantime, have a lovely and grateful Thanksgiving!

Happy First Birthday Glitterati! (Revised!)

At the risk of slighting the F Litter, who did not get birthday pictures posted, today we have recent pictures of the Glitterati in honor of their first birthday. My ability to post a Blog is directly related to what else is going on, and this weekend just happens to be at home and easy -- hence a birthday blog! We will feature the F Litter in holiday photos -- how's that?

Okay, let's see how those puppies are growing! We start with Murphy (Sutton) who lives in Montana with his devoted parents, Gail and Tom. As is true for the entire litter, Murphy is a happy and friendly puppy.



Mika (Ireland), the Birthday Queen, lives in California with John and Kristine, and a wonderful extended berner family. Her mom has made birthday cupcakes for her and her cousins. I can verify -- having seen Mika this fall -- that she is a whirlwind of happy, friendly energy!


This is also Mika, working on her tricks.


The Rock Star is still very handsome even though he joins his siblings in that gawky adolescent stage. Ruben (Hudson) lives the Life of Riley (figuratively and literally, since he lives with Uncle Riley ;) in Phoenix with Kay and Sue. They report that he is 26 inches tall, 87 pounds, and loves everyone he meets.


Ruben in profile.


Cooper (Whitby) lives in eastern Oregon with Jennifer, Ralph and their crew of kids. Happy and friendly, Cooper is about 90 pounds of fun. I will get to see Cooper in January as Jennifer and I are going to a show together :) Here are a couple of pictures of cute Cooper...




Cute Tara (Geneva) lives in Salt Lake City with Liz, Sam and her varied emotion pug brother. She is also a sweet, happy puppy who loves everyone -- thanks to our friend, Nikki Roberts, for helping Sam and Liz with Tara's training :)



Zaida's mom is also having fun celebrating a birthday -- Double Happy Birthday!!!! Zaida (Jamaica) lives in the mountains of Colorado with Barb and Keith. She weighs 75 pounds and also has the happy wiggle gene!





And now we have the other Birthday Queen -- Sydney. She is about 69 pounds, 23.5 inches, quite without coat at the moment, and a bundle of friendly, happy energy :)



Poor Rainey (Toronto) is not yet included in our birthday blog but I am sure we will see pictures of Rainey very soon! Likely his family is too busy celebrating to send pictures :)

Happy Birthday to our cute, happy, friendly Glitterati babies!

Let It Snow Part Two (aka Fun with Snowballs)

Galen decided to take the Bernese Mountain Retriever (aka Zoey) out to throw snowballs -- she LOVED it! I took these from the deck...

Waiting for the snowball to be fired...


Oh, it is going this way!


I know its in here someplace...


My tongue is frozen!


Who needs a cape?! AIR ZOEY flies again...


Okay, Homecoming Queen/Head Cheerleader and Super Hero, too...


Hope your weekend is an amazing one!