Let's catch up...

So it has been a while since I was able to post pictures and catch up with everything doggie. A few weekends ago Jason and I went to my parents' house to attend my aunt's funeral. After the procedural and family things, we got to spend a relaxing day by the pool with the family. My sister has a Jack Russel Terrier..aka crazy, obsessed ball of energy with fur. His name is Tucker and he is 10 years old. He is a good boy but he has this curious habit that he has picked up on over the last few years. Regardless of weather or season, he 'sees' something in my parents creek that runs through the backyard. Did I mention I grew up on a farm? No one really knows what he sees or why he sees it. But whatever it is..he stays in the creek, splashing
around and biting at the water until someone makes him come out. And even then, he is shivering and blowing water out his nose. But as soon as you take your eyes off him, he sneaks back to the creek and SPLOOSH! He gets very dirty. At least he is cute

He has similar obsession with the pool..any splashing leads him to race to the edge and bite the water. He is so dirty and going so crazy, no one can help but put him in for a swim.

My parents also had a birds nest right at their back door. She nests here every year and we were lucky enough to be there to see them. They are pretty cute but Momma was NOT happy with me. This is about 2 feet from our outside table and about 5 feet from the pool.

And while we were there, I watched my sister ride her retired racing Thoroughbred horse, Mac, around in the ring. She still has horses. After I moved to Richmond, there wasn't exactly a good place to keep them. My horse died 2 years ago but she was retired and lived a good life for about 6 years.

This past weekend, Jason had some buddies over for some drinks. This is such a common image!

Then we went to Kristen and Gyeong's for a farewell memorial weekend to Lucas. You can see all the great things we did in memory of him on Gyeong's blog. And tomorrow I am heading back to Roanoke for another funeral..this one of a man farther up my family tree but was still an uncle/grandfather figure to me. Hopefully, the funerals/memorials will end soon.

Dante misses Lucas.

The greyhounds are weeping

The greyhounds are weeping for the loss of a greyt hound,

We called you chucklehead, big dumb boy and The pony

and the love for your turtle and hedgehog was only bested by the love

for your Mommy and daddy. You were a big, sweet, goofy boy and we loved you.

We will miss you Lucas. We will miss your goofiness, the puffs in the face first thing in the morning, being knocked over by your exuberant love, the joy you showed at the thought of going for a ride but mostly we will just miss you. You will forever live on in our hearts.

The greyhounds are weeping...and so am I.

Roar Lucas

June 20, 2002-June 15, 2007

lazy (big) bum

So..I am lazy and didn't pull out my camera for any of the weekend festivities. BUT Gyeong did! so visit his site and see all the events from the weekend. The interior cleaning he hinted at was quite intense...they were let out to pee every hour I have NO idea how they had any left. ;-) Jason is away again this week on business so after doing all the "boy's chores" on top of mine this week..photography got pushed to the wayside.

We hate puppies

So Daddy is away this week visiting my gam-gam and working so while mommy is at work we decided to fire this thing up and put in a word or two about what has been going on around here lately. Dante and I have watched this process a lot so we have it pretty figured out. Dante is telling me how to do it b/c he is the smart one...but the cord wouldn't reach to his pillow so I am stuck with the dirty work. Dana is sleeping. I will fill her in later during our run.


So the reason for this coup is that for some stupid reason mommy and daddy decided to keep a puppy for a few days. At first, we thought it was staying and Dante started planning his escape. But i knew better..mommy wouldn't do that to me...those pretty skinny dogs are bad enough.
They called him Nail (blame his mommy and daddy) and he is 11 weeks old. He sucked. I don't quite know what people see in puppies. No matter what anyone says, they aren't cute. At all. They are constantly playing and making our toys slobbery and stinky.

They are stupid..I mean Dana got a D in obedience class but even she would know not to sit down with her tail in the water. And seriously..doesn't he know WE DRINK THAT???

He was very clingy also. We couldn't get any loving from OUR OWN parents b/c of him. He was always touching one of them. Even trying to sneak a quick hug would lead to him bounding over "de de de".

We kids found it best to stick together during this horrible time. Mommy and Daddy weren't any help..they played with him and loved on him. What are we...old and ugly? NO we are cute and just hitting our prime!


We tried to stay away from him..he was too stupid to figure out how to get on the couch or recliner..but of course SOMEONE would put him up there. Puppy filth..all over our furniture. No shame. Dante is more blunt than I am and basically let the puppy know early on he is grumpy and doesn't like puppies. The puppy didn't listen well but Dante was persistent eventually hurt Nail's feelings enough that he left him alone. Dana played dead. That seemed to work for her. And if he touched her bed..the WORLD would stop and everyone would come rushing over..

"Stay off Dana's bed" they would say..."don't bother dana". "Here..lay on the couch with Shiloh"

Does ANYONE see anything wrong with this scenario???? Because I am the 'nice' one of the group..he followed me around and annoyed the crap out of me.

I mean seriously...does anyone look happy in this picture? Maybe that stupid kid..but he was too smelly and stupid to realize we all hated him.

Did I mention he smelled? Mommy and Daddy kept saying how his breath smelled good "puppy breath" or something. Gross. They get mad at me when I breath on them. I smell like roses. Dante not so much..but he loves to stink...something about increased manhood. whatever.
The bright side of the weekend was that they took us all (the puppy came too..can you believe that?) to a festival at a winery to support the local SPCA. Since Parker and I came from the SPCA it was kind of like our day.

But of course that stupid puppy got all the attention. Boy was Dante mad! He kept shouting "I AM THE CUTE ONE"..which made me laugh b/c it irritates me that everyone thinks he is so cute. He really does stink. And of course all those pretty long legged dogs were there..Dana is my buddy but they seem to keep replicating. At least they aren't stinky and know how to sleep through the night. But the bonus of this whole event was that Nail was POOPED. He left us alone for the whole evening! This pictures shows his cross-eyes..so stupid.

Luckily he is gone now. There isn't food in my water bowl (or TAIL HAIR!), water on the floor (he couldn't even drink right), my toys are dry, I can lay on my own bed, mommy and daddy play with me again AND it is quiet. whew. We hate puppies!
*Mommy came home and caught us writing. She said we had to put a disclaimer that the above comments and opinions are not necessarily those held by her or daddy and she is in no way responsible for any backlash. She thought he was cute..blech!

HOLA!!!

We have returned to the USA. Wow, what a great trip. We stayed at the Excellence Riviera in Riviera Maya, Mexico. it was AWESOME!














It was all-inclusive so we drank, ate and sunbathed for 6 days.
































The accomadations were wonderful, drinks were quite strong and the service was impecable. We went snorkeling, parasailing and scuba diving.














Scuba diving was an experience. It was thrilling, scary and hard to do but I had fun doing it. It took a lot of coaxing to get me to actually get under the water breathing through that tube, but I did it. The picture of jason and I together kind of sucked. As you see, Jason was pressing on my regulator hose making the regulator try to wiggle out of my mouth...NOT what you want to happen. I held on as long as I could (nanosecond) and grabbed the regulator thinking he had taken the picture. I was wrong. But oh well..the coral was gorgeous and we got to see moray eels and all sorts of colorful fish. This is the 2nd largest barrier reef in the world (yes, ihatetoast has the king of all barrier reefs).

I took tons of pictures. And if you want to see them all (lots of the resort, us drinking, and more scuba pictures) you can see my album at shutterfly. Now it is back to the grind and back to reality. No one pulling out my chair, bringing me a fruity drink whenever I want or having the biggest decision of the day being which lounge chair to nap in and which fine dining restaurant to dine. It was a rough life. ;-) We are going to a winery festival to support the SPCA on Saturday. That should be fun! Check out my album!

Adios!!!

First, Thanks to Gyeong for all the following pictures. We had a party on SAturday to celebrate my new degree (Master of Science in Microbiology track: Bacterial Pathogenesis), Jason's new job and our trip to Cancun in 2 days!!!!;-) We had a large group come over and we all enjoyed a cookout on the deck, watching the dogs romp and drinking a little. ;-)First..the greyhounds having fun with their friends. This is Tristan, Sara and Dana taking the lead in a large herd!











There were a lot of greyhounds in my backyard!











This is the best picture..Ana running to mommy!












Booyah running with the stuffie!!



















Now..for party pictures. Please keep in mind we started partying at 3PM...I will apologize ahead of time to Jenny and Amanda..it is impossible to control the Y chromosome sometimes..but I can't resist these classic photos.






























And we got to break in our chimnea and patio. After an afternoon of eating and enjoying friends, the remaining few stuck around for a long night of chatting and enjoying the fire.












Adios! We will be back in a week and I will be sharing hopefully wonderful pictures of sandy beaches, blue water and tropical fish!

Tastes like chocolate

So this was Jason's first week of working the 'normal man's' schedule. He has worked evenings for the past 4 years and before that worked weekends for 3 years. So having him around all the time is going to be a new adjustment for us both. ;-) But to celebrate his first week, he partied. But of course partying as a 30-something means drinking too much with your friends on your
deck. ;-) So here is Jason with his new boss (left side) and his old boss (red hat) doing Irish car bombs. They are a vile concotion of a 50:50 ratio shot of whiskey and Bailey's irish cream dropped in to a pint of Guiness stout that supposedly tastes like chocolate. Now..to me that is like saying opossum tastes like chicken. No..it tastes like opossum. Which to me..seems like it would taste like licking a bum. Like an Irish car bomb. Besides the obvious tummy trouble that has to result from such a drink, you have to be nuts to actually drink one...and oh yeah..you have to chug it to get the 'full effect'. Idiots.
And yes, they did numerous of these.
But he is still alive and loving his new position with the bank.
Today we went to another greyhound event on the southside of the city. They had games and food. Ana of course won the egg race contest..she actually beat quite a few other competitors. Dana was out early..she became focused on a morsel in the grass causing me to stop. Here is Ana in her last leg of the race becoming victorious!

The event was fun..Jason and I enjoyed the wonderful weather..and yes I got all my hair cut off recently. I go through stages..when you have the mop of angry hair like I do..you grow tired of styles easily. So now I am working with the curls instead of against them for a while. ;-)

Jenny Alfano and Sara striking a pose in the sunshine

And the dogs got to run in a nearby ball field. We let Ana, Blue, Jo, Tristan, Sara and Dana play together. They had a lot of fun.

Next week we are having a party to send us off to Cancun (15th!) for a week! Woooohooooo!