Sorry...

OK, so I missed a few days, err weeks... Well, Sara and I have enter a transition period in our lives so we kept ourselves busy arranging that and I haven't been able to blog or most of the things I would have written about would have revolved around this change.

We are headed to Kansas City the first week of May where I will start a new job. I am very excited about the new opportunity and being closer to family. Sara is hoping to kick off her career as a teacher next fall (she is finishing her course work at the end of April).

Bottom line is, for the moment, our little fledgling blog is being suspended, but we'll be back with more info and antics soon.

Here are some photos and videos of the last few weeks.








Miele on the nature trail at Eisenhower State Park (she did great, which came as quite a surprise to Sara and I)

Looking out over Lake Texoma at Eisenhower SP

The track and decorations at the AWANA Grand Prix

Fit box (used to check the cars dimensions) that Dan helped me build (It worked perfectly, Dan, thanks so much)

Sara's new shirt that Cheryl bought her, it is very cute and she received several compliments

Whirlwind

It has been a whirlwind week so I didn't get a chance to update the blog. Nothing to exciting this week, just the same routine but we somehow managed to fill our spare time with various small projects.

We are all doing well. Miele has had a little bit of a limp the last day or so but it doesn't seem to bother her and is better today than yesterday so hopefully it will pass soon. Otherwise we are healthy and happy ; )

Over the weekend we caught up on chores around the house. We got quite a bit of rain Saturday so that kept us in most of the day.

Saturday evening we went out for Valentine's day. Sara had an Olive Garden gift card and we had an AMC gift card so we had a free date. The Olive Garden didn't impress us too much but we enjoyed the time out together. We saw the second National Treasure after dinner and it was very good. We really enjoyed it. Now we just need to rent the first one and see it.

This coming weekend we are headed out to Tom's farm for some fishing and tree planting. We plan to take Miele as well but we will prolly have to tie her to a tree since she can't be trusted off leash.

I am afraid that is about it. I will close with another video of Miele.

What a Zoo!

Well, we had another great week. This week my parents came into Dallas on Weds and were in town through Saturday morning. They came down with a group of 12 high school students from the Christian school for a leadership conference. We planned to meet them for dinner Thursday night and, after consulting our maps, we were finally able to make the rendezvous at On the Border in Addison. We then caravaned over to the Galleria and spent some time wandering around there. Some of the kids went ice skating but we just walked around. It was good to see my folks and for them to get to meet Miele.
Friday we left Miele at the house (in the backyard) and drove into to Fort Worth to meet the group at the zoo. It was a fantastic day with clear skies and warm weather. Neither Sara or I had been to the FWZ so it was a new experience for us. The zoo is (according to their sign) one of the top five in the country and although several exhibits were closed for the winter it did not disappoint. We really enjoyed seeing all the animals. I especially liked the hippos (although I couldn't get a photo because they were so close to fence). We all enjoyed the male African lion (see video). He carried on like that on and off all afternoon. You could hear it all over the zoo. The gorillas were also interesting. They seem to look at you like you would be fun to beat up, quite intimidating those fellas. Other highlights include the giraffes (always Sara's favorite), reptile house, otters, and many types of birds.


We stayed until the zoo closed at 4 and then went back to the hotel where the group was staying and ordered pizza. Sara, mom, dad and I played Scrabble while the kids swam and ran around the hotel. We left about 8 and headed home to take care of Miele. Sara felt bad for leaving her out all day so Miele ended up sleeping on her doggie bed in our bedroom. A first, which she did well with. She stayed in her bed all night and seemed to enjoy it. Maybe she will get the privilege again some day...
Saturday and Sunday we took it easy. We went on a walk with Miele down a new road (read: lots of new smells). She behaved well except she was a little startled when we passed a yard with several large dogs that barked and barked at her. Sara and I did some pleasure reading and Sara got some homework done. I finally finished the storm door on the back door.
Sara is gone now with Miele to agility class. Miele is in some trouble today for getting a hold of a piece of Sara's clothing and tearing it up. I think it will all be smoothed over tomorrow, here's hoping anyway. Miele has also begun digging in the backyard again so I will have to look into how to break her of that. She doesn't dig very deep just tears the grass off mostly. Who knows what she thinks she will find.

continued

After church Sunday we bid farewell to Dan and Allison. We spent the afternoon tidying up the house a bit for our Superbowl party. We had invited several couples from our Sunday School class as well as some other friends and we had a total of 10 people. We had a great time watching the game and visiting. Sara created a Superbowl Bingo game with prizes and we made chili dogs. The chili dogs weren't a big hit (I had 2, but not too many other folks partook). Although we had little allegiance to either team we cheered for the Giants as the underdogs.

Monday it was back to the work routine. Sara received a call just before 7 am to come in as a sub so she was back at work as well. I was supposed to have an orientation flight with the flying club at work but it was very windy so we rescheduled for next week. I am planning to do ground school and take the FAA exam for my private pilots license. No plans at this point to do all the flight training but having the ground school will be good experience. We also had our first obedience lesson with Miele out at Paw Power Agility. I was not going to be able to go since I was going flying but since it was canceled I went along.
Miele did a fantastic job and was the star student, at least for the first half of class. There were three dogs in the class (usually there will be four but one was not there). The other two were a very young aussie puppy and a somewhat older aussie. They worked on target training (getting the dog to touch a target) first and Miele and Sara did very well. Then they worked on "rear end awareness" by using a stool to train the dog to be aware and move their back end without the front end. Miele was quick to put her front feet on the stool. Then she was the first to be able to pivot on the stool, keeping her front legs on the stool and moving her back legs around the stool in a circle. The trainer was impressed with how fast she learned.
Then the class worked on going through weave poles that were spaced such that they form two columns (Instead of weaving the dogs can just walk between the two lines of poles; as they get better the poles can be moved in so that the dog has to begin to weave). The trainer held Miele and Sara stood at the far end of the poles and called her. Miele did OK at this but was not as excited as the aussies. She is a little timid with new things like that. They worked on the weave poles for quite a while and Miele got a little better but seemed to get tired as the class wore on.
At the end they tried sending the dogs through the chute. This is a barrel with a sheet over the end that the dog has to run through. The trainer held Miele and Sara knelt at the sheet end and held it open so Miele could see. Miele wasn't fond of this but did come through a few times.
The pictures aren't too impressive because it was after dark and I was afraid the flash might distract the dogs.



Please feel free to leave comments, even if they are anonymous. I can't tell that anyone has visited the blog or read it unless you leave comments.

Dog Tricks

Here is just a quick post to add a video of Miele doing her tricks.


It is a little confusing for her when we play the video on the computer and she hears the clicker and the commands. She evens comes to the computer at the end.

My Hopeless Beard

I realized today that I had forgotten to post a few funny stories from Sunday.

Sunday morning we picked up several folks from the "retirement lodge" and took them to church. Then after Sunday School some of them prefer to return and not stay for the worship service so we shuttle them back, no news there. Well, after the service we were driving the remaining two, a sweet lady in her nineties and a gentleman who is notorious for not being able to hear anything, back to the lodge and they were discussing how our new pastor (he has been there about 18 months) is hard for them to hear and understand. The man said that he uses a listening device that picks up a broadcast from the sound system and he is able to hear much better that way. The lady looked at the little box and said she would have to get one (she has one, she has used it at church before she has just forgotten). Then she asked if he had a hearing aid. He said, "Oh, yeah. I keep it in my pocket." Th guy driving said, "Oh, that's a good place for it". Don't worry, they didn't hear him. No wonder he can't ever hear us when we talk to him.

OK, so maybe you had to be there.

Anyway, Sunday evening I had a meeting with a group that has been working on some long term planning for the church. The meeting was supposed to last from 7:00-8:30 but went from about 7:15-10:00, but that is not relevant to this story. We were sharing some things about what the different sub-groups had been working on and toward the end one lady, who is a great lady but is a little....well, out there sometimes, decided she needed to share. She was talking about good things that had been going on in the church and how some ministries were going, which was good because the meeting had been a little dry and somewhat tense until then so this lightened the mood a bit. Well, she ended with this great story. She said:

A couple weeks ago a man came to our church and he was really a rough looking fellow. He came to the church and was unshaven and messy and people who don't shave there faces are just without hope. It's a sign of hopelessness. (At this point I begin stroking my beard and since I am sitting beside her and everyone is basically looking right at us a couple guys across the table began smiling at me.) And then that gentleman came back this week and he had shaved! I just know he has more hope now and our church has really helped him along.

I was really having to work hard not to laugh at the end. One of the guys came to me afterward and told me he never knew I was such a hopeless guy. Sara and I got a big kick out of it. Maybe one of these days my hope will be restored and I can rid my self of this hopeless beard.

Winter has Arrived!

As the title implies, it is cold here. Thus Miele is less and less interested in going out for walks and to do her doggy business with each passing day. The photos show her new adopted spot on the bed in the office. Anyway, she is learning more and more what is acceptable and not so acceptable. The amount of jumping up on people and the furniture is much more manageable now. She now can sit, wait, shake, dance, and come with some small amount of consistency. We are also going to a basic doggy manners/obedience class soon. That should help to accelerate some of the things we have been working on.
In other news, we had a great past week, but it was pretty busy. Sara started her last class last Tues and it went well. She will be certified to teach in May when she completes this class. She also decided to join a university band. It is a "just for fun" band and they met for the first time Tues as well and Sara loved that. She has missed being able to play her trumpet. They will be performing in April, so we look forward to that.
As for me, I am busy as usual at work and things are going well. I am going to start golf lessons again this week. I have two lessons left so that will be fun. I hope I remember something ; )
Sara and I are also planning to big trip for April. We are going to visit Big Bend NP, Carlsbad Caverns NP, and Guadalupe Mountains NP. That will be three to add to our list of visited parks (on our way to visiting them all). We will do some camping, spelunking, hiking, and just relaxing. Unfortunately, Miele will have to stay behind. The National Parks don't allow dogs. We are still working on what exciting experience she will have without us.

Dog Parks and Storm Doors

We got up early Saturday to take Miele in to the dog park in Dallas (http://www.whiterockdogpark.com/). We thought she would enjoy some room to run since she often wants to sniff off on some trail when she is on walks with us, however she was a little timid in the unknown surroundings and took some time to go off on her own. As Sara says, at least we known she is bonded to us. She stayed at our heels for a while then did some exploring. We started out in the small dog area which she tolerated, then tried the big dog area which was much with much trepidation. Although, if I was 24 pounds and three dogs with a combined weight of over ten times that came to greet me I would also be trpidatious.

We also went to a friend's birthday party Saturday. It was a Monopoly party but neither of us partook (lack of patience I think). They played a new version in which all the $$ amounts are multiplied by 10,000 and all the spaces are real "pop culture" places. The birthdy boy won (we heard, we didn't stay) after nearly 4 hours.

This morning brought the usual Sunday routine, I rode out to pick up folks at the nursing home... i mean assisted living lodge. They are always a riot. Church was quite cold this morning, something was apparently wrong with the heating system. I checked the thermometer on my watch and it got down to 64 and was still falling when I had to get up to go. In the van on the way back we were discussing it and Jeff said his bald head was cold and one of the old ladies said her bald head was cold too, lol. Jeff said he would have to tell the facilities guy to get it fixed and the lady said, "Tell him I had icicles on my bald head". They are so funny. One lady calls her mints deltoids, we always get a kick out of that.

This afternoon I went to Lowe's and bought a storm door for our back door. Let's back up a step... We thought it would be nice to have the back door open when Miele is out so we can keep an eye on her and she doesn't feel so separated from us (she has some separation anxiety I think).

OK, now to Lowe's, I measured the back of the Subaru to see how much room I had because I thought it might be close. The door is 32" x 81" and the Subaru had about 82, maybe 83 inches with the driver seat pushed up about as much as I could stand it. I went into the store, tape measure in hand and went to the door Sara and I had decided on. I measured the box and it was 84 inches tall. I went back to the car to see if I could squeeze another inch. It was going to be tight but I thought I could make it. I purchased the door and the cashier asked if I needed help loading it, "Oh no, its not heavy", I replied. Well, it wasn't heavy but it was definitely a tight fit. I couldn't quite close the back hatch so I thought maybe I could just tie the hatch shut, well there wasn't a good way to do that. I thought, maybe I can open the box and take something out because I know the door is 81 inches tall maybe a little less. I opened each end of the box and it was full to the end. I considered unloading the pieces into the car but thought I shouldn't mangle the box until I was sure this door would work for us. Finally I was able to prop th box up a bit in the front and get the hatch closed. I jumped.... make that snuggled into the driver seat and headed home.

Sara and got the door mostly put up. I just need to finish the latch side and caulk the seams. We did have to return to Lowe's for some shim material and Sara found a nice piece of edging that fit the bill perfectly.

Well, we bought a new antenna tonight with a gift card Sara received so I need to try to get that hooked up. We also found that with the new TV we don't have sound through the TV when we play DVDs so I need to solve that as well.

2008, off and running

Well, it is past time to kick this off. I have been meaning to start a blog for Sara and I for some time to record what we are up to and display photos of our exploits.

We kicked off 2008 with family in Houston and came home and immediately picked up our new "puppy" Miele (above). After just a few days at our home she came with us to Tulsa for a friends wedding. It was the wedding of the last of my roommates from OSU. Aaron was married first (second from right), then James (right), then me (second from left) and, this past weekend, Sammy (left). We were able to get a picture of the four of us at each wedding so I hope to get all four photos together and frame them.

Well, this is my quick opening, more of the basic info on our little family to come soon.