One MORE For The Road

You know when you have those days that are just so bad you don't know if you will ever get through it? The best part though is when it makes a good story later, so here we are....with the good story.

You will have to really use your imaginations for this, to really get the full effect of how this all went down.

Last weekend my sister Kelly and I drove down to Westcliffe which is 180 miles away from where we live. Sue has a home in Westcliffe and we went down to visit for the weekend, a good RELAXING weekend is always great. Kelly and I had to drive down in separate cars as we had lots of stuff between the two of us, including FIVE dogs.

The weekend was great, lots of walks with the pups (Annie was pretty heavy in the backpack for the 2.5 mile loop). Sunday morning did eventually come and it was time to head out. Kelly and I stopped for gas about an hour outside of Westcliffe; 10 miles from there my car acted up. I was losing power and speed quickly on a fast moving highway. Lucky for me we were in an area that still had phone service, so Kelly and I communicated via cellphone as it was too dangerous to get out and talk on the highway.

We eventually made a plan to load everything into Kelly's car (a 1997 4 door Nissan sedan) and drive back a couple of miles to a roadside coffeehouse. Kelly ended up staying there with the FIVE dogs while I took her car back to meet the tow truck driver, don't you KNOW that NO PLACE is open to repair cars on Sundays. After a bunch of brainstorming and several phone calls Kelly and I decided that it would be best for me to continue home with her.

I pulled a guy out of the cafe and said..."Excuse me, I know that this is going to be a weird request but do you have a hose I could use to hose down these five dogs?" I went on to tell him that Kelly and I and five dogs had to squeeze into a little sedan with NO AIR CONDITIONING and drive three more hours home. I was offered the hose in the back of the place right away.

Our ride home was a bit crowded to say the least, most people that drove past us stared at the plethora of dogs in the car. Four dogs managed to squeeze together and sit on top of one another for three hours being blasted by hot August air hitting their faces at a soft 60 mph breeze. Annie passed out in between my feet on the floor and Kelly and I looked like roadkill by the time we arrived at my house that afternoon.

Thank GOD for my wonderful sister, patient dogs, and Ipods!!!! Thank GOD for John and Sue who stayed an extra day so that they could drive my beloved CRV home yesterday after the repairs were finished. WOW, what a relaxing weekend...wait what?

Missing: One Adorable, Sweet Puppy

I need all of your help, it seems Annie is missing. Annie is the SWEET, yellow pup that we brought home. It would appear that sometime within this past week, Annie has gone missing. Annie has been replaced by a crazed, juiced up, "there's no stopping me" puppy. The "new" Annie is not a force to be messing with at any given point. The new Annie turns into a cyclone and takes no prisoners to include but are not limited to: the dish towel, the dish rag, her squirt bottle, Eric's work boots' laces, Eric's work boots' inserts, socks of all kinds both clean and dirty, any toy left to fend for itself, magazines, electrical cords, the hose, the lawn, etc... and LET THERE BE TOILET PAPER. I was unaware that you can actually TP the INSIDE of a house, imagine that! The new Annie has taken the word "sassy" to a whole new level. Unafraid of anything, it would appear that the vacuum cleaner and the lawn mower have met their match.

So I am asking all of you, if you find that sweet puppy that Eric and I brought home at the end of June please return her to us. If you need to contact us we will be hiding under our bed.

Sincerely,
Erin, Eric, Reese, and Toby

Lots of Laughs

I received this email from TWO of my friends and laughed just as hard both of the times I read through it. I posted it today to give you all a good laugh to get through your Thursday!!! -ENJOY!

1) This is a picture of an octopus. It has eight testicles. (Kelly, age 6)

2) Oysters' balls are called pearls. (Jerry, age 6)

3) If you are surrounded by ocean you are an Island . If you don't have ocean all round you, you are incontinent. ( Wayne , age 7)

4) Sharks are ugly and mean, and have big teeth, just like Emily Richardson . She's not my friend any more. (Kylie, age 6)

5) A dolphin breaths through an asshole on the top of its head. (Billy, age 8)

6) My uncle goes out in his boat with 2 other men, a woman and some pots and comes back with crabs. ( Millie, age 6)

7) When ships had sails, they used to use the trade winds to cross the ocean. Sometimes when the wind didn't blow the sailors would whistle to make the wind come My brother said they would have been better off eating beans. (William, age 7)

8) Mermaids live in the ocean. I like mermaids. They are beautiful and I like their shiny tails, but how on earth do mermaids get pregnant? Like, really? (Helen, age 6)

9) I'm not going to write about the ocean. My baby brother is always crying, my Dad keeps yelling at my Mom, and my big sister has just got pregnant, so I can't think what to write (Amy, age 6)

10) Some fish are dangerous. Jellyfish can sting. Electric eels can give you a shock. They have to live in caves under the sea where I think they have to plug themselves into chargers at night. (Christopher, age 7)

11) When you go swimming in the ocean, it is very cold, and it makes my willy small. (Kevin, age 6)

12) Divers have to be safe when they go under the water. Divers can't go down alone, so they have to go down on each other. (Becky, age 8)

13) On vacation my Mom went water skiing. She fell off when she was going very fast. She says she won't do it again because water fired right up her big fat ass. (Julie, age 7)

14) The ocean is made up of water and fish. Why the fish don't drown I don't know. (Bobby, age 6)

15) My dad was a sailor on the ocean. He knows all about the ocean. What he doesn't know is why he quit being a sailor and married my mom. (James, age 7)

Lunch With A Puppy

As many of you are WELL aware the dogs in our family are SPOILED. My dogs many times spend the day out at the farm while I am at work. Reese and Toby hang out in pen and Annie is in the house in a crate. Annie has three "Aunts" that care for her during the day: Aunt Jillian, Aunt Sue, and Aunt Tracy. I receieved this email yesterday from Jillian and laughed so very hard as I could picture this entire ordeal in my mind. I have a picture of Faust that I took sometime ago that I have provided as the main photo today; I am guessing he was sporting this same look after lunch. ~Enjoy!!!

LUNCH WITH A PUPPY:

So, I spent the first 10 minutes picking various cottonwood fluff out of her mouth, then gave her a branch with which to strip the leaves off of. That took less than 2 minutes. She then proceeded to do impressive Olympic diving manuevers which included, but not limited to, the pike, the half-gainer and triple flips. Backwards. Finally I called in the heavy artillary and said to Faust "You're up!" He heaved a sigh, flopped down next to Annie, and suffered through variations of: DEATH TO THE TAIL! DEATH TO THE GREAT HEAD AND EARS! DEATH AND DESTRUCTION TO THE BELLY! I hurridly stuffed salad in my mouth while Fausty carnage was committed. I had to laugh - there was tufts of Faust-fluff floating around the yard. Not as much as the cottonwood, but enough you could tell the difference. Hah!Annie did learn Auntie Jillian hates to be jumped on and raked down her sunburned legs with tiny puppy claws.She's back in her crate after drinking a TON of water. (Slaying the mighty Faust is Hard Work!)

Woodland's She's A Pistol aka "Annie"

We picked up our little girl last week and have had a ball with her ever since. I will say that this little girl sleeps through the night from 10-5, LOVE that about her. Annie was originally named Macy but my sister Kelly quickly informed me that Macy sounds too much like Reesie (which is what we call Reese most of the time). The morning after we got her I was abruptly woken up out of a deep sleep by a crash downstairs. I ran downstairs to see Eric laying flat on his face in the kitchen and Macy was over on the other side of the room by the back door. Eric had said that he tripped over her and that was the reason for his fall. I later looked up the meaning of the name Macy and it means "weapon", so it HAD to go. Saturday night I was at a movie night with a bunch of girlfriends and we were talking about Macy. I was telling everyone how confident she was and how she was just such a pistol, and that the name Macy had to go. It was suggested by Lisa that I name her "She's a Pistol" and call her Annie or Oakley. PERFECT!!!! Annie is the perfect name for the pup and she responds well to it. BTW in case you were wondering Annie means Blessed with Grace or Favored Grace.....again PERFECT. I had forgotten how much work puppy's can be and going back to work next week will be a walk in the park compared to chasing a puppy around all week. I hope that you enjoy the video of Reese and Annie playing in the living room, I filmed it today. Reese has loved Annie from the start, Toby has just now stopped threatening her life every time Annie happens to look in her direction (she'll come around).

Duck, Duck, Goose

Well we have some big "doggie" news on our end and I have been a SLACKER and not updated my blog.

June 20th was a stormy Saturday here in the lovely state of Colorado; Eric and I and our two girls ventured over to Brighton for the day. Our local lab club sponsored an event known as the WC which stands for Working Certificate and for a fee you can compete with your dog in this event. Your dog must retrieve a duck on land and must also do two back to back water retrieves no further than 50 yards out. I have been working with both girls over the summer training for this event. I figured that Toby would earn her WC with no problem and that Reese's entry fee would be a club donation. Toby is bird crazy so to speak, Reese is only bird crazy in the water she could care less about being sent out for a duck on land. I had to do cartwheels just about to get this dog to pick up the duck on land BUT she did do it once or twice. The day of the test I informed Reese that the only way she could do the water retrieves and go swimming was to pass the land test. I told Reese, "One duck on land Reese, that is ALL you have to do and then you can go swimming." and she understood and came through on her test. Eric and I had a great time at the event and both girls now have the initials WC added to the ends of their names. GO REESE & TOBY....YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Our newest addition has arrived BUT I will post about that later this week!!!!

Here We Go AGAIN..................................

The arrival of our third child is right around the corner. I am hoping that the girls aren't too hard on the newest addition of our family but all dogs act differently. Macy will be eight weeks next Friday the 26th and that is when we will bring her home. My grandma and my mother-in-law have finally come to the understanding that the only "children" in our home come equipped with four legs and a tail. It shouldn't come as a surprise to many of you that our house is full of labs, since I grew up with labs. Macy will be our THIRD yellow female in the house and she too will soon learn that there is only ONE alpha female in this house and it is ME no matter what Toby and Reese tell her. Due to the fact that we will now have three dogs we had to change our "moxieduo" blog to "three scoops of vanilla" blog. Here you will find many of the same fun crazy animal stories along with a few more I am sure about Macy as she comes into her own. Reese and Toby and my sweet late Ridgeback Levi brought Eric and me so many laughs and good stories for me to share. I hope that you will enjoy this blog as much as you enjoyed the last one.

Thank you all for making my jewelry company such a success and in turn helping out many non-profits weekly. If you haven't visited my site check it out by clicking the picture on the right side of your screen. Please check to see if your favorite non-profit will be featured in an upcoming week. IF you don't see your favorite non-profit on there email me right away and nominate them so that they too can benefit from the sales of the bracelets. I will be featuring a different non-profit every week so be sure to check out the "Featured Non-Profit" section to see who is in the spotlight for the week!

Hope that you all are enjoying your weekend. Reese and Toby are competing in a hunt test tomorrow, and I will be sure to post the results. Eric and I along with some friends will be visiting Macy and her litter on Sunday and I will be sure to post pictures.