New Words

Lately, Izzy has been coming up with new words that Chris and I have not taught her. By that, I mean she is learning them on her own without prompting from either of us to say them. The first one she threw out there was "Cupcake", after hearing it on a TV commercial. After that, she came up with "Buh-bye" when she says good-bye to the dogs as we leave the house. In the car, she said "Shake It" (or a mushy version of it) when we were dancing to the radio. I haven't heard that one since. And yesterday, she started saying "Puppy", which we call the dogs sometimes. So, she is definitely having a verbal growth spurt!

Izzy loves her some Flo Rida

Raisin and Maggie Sitting in a Tree

Well, apartment living has been **RUFF** on the pups (hehehe). They have had little time to run and play, because we only take them out when they are on their leashes. So, the other day, we sent them to Doggie Day Camp at Petsmart, so that they could have a day of playing and socializing, while we had a nice day of no dogs, and a nice evening of sleepy dogs. When we pick them up from Day Camp, they get "Pawgress Reports" to keep us updated on how they did.

This is a typical report, with both dogs on one report, and the boxes checked off. This one is from last Friday, when Chris's parents were here. The dogs had a good, if uneventful, day.

It says "Raisin and Eden did awesome! They loved playing and made a lot of friends!"

And this is the report from last Tuesday, when we took them, just because.

If you couldn't read it, it says "These two pups are total sweeties! Raifin (yes, they called him Raifin all day) was a little shy at first, but, when he became more comfortable, he played a lot with "Maggie" (a very pretty girl retriever (heart)).

So, we guess that Raisin fell in love. Which, to us, is pretty hilarious. Also hilarious was what happened when we picked them up from day camp. We were greeted by a very nice woman. Chris thinks she was 70, but I think she was only mid-40s. Regardless, she was small, and not very muscular looking. When she went back to get the dogs, another girl came out to see if we were taken care of. This girl was extremely unassertive, and went to help the other woman get the dogs. So, the desk at the Petsmart is in it's own room. There is a glass door behind the desk, and to the right of the desk is a big glass window that looks into the kennel area. As we're waiting for the dogs, we look in the kennel area through the glass window, and what do we see? Each girl holding a dog, getting PULLED all the way down the hallway, towards the window. I mean, the best way to describe it, is water skiing without the skis or the water. That in itself was pretty funny, but to top it off, we look over to the glass door, where the dogs are supposed to come out, and all the sudden we see Raisin run past the door. Seconds later, there goes the woman, trying to pull him back, but getting pulled past the door, too. Oh, this description doesn't do it justice, but it was so hilarious that I am laughing as I type this. Anyways, the woman gets Raisin in reverse, and hands him over. Then she says to us "We have a wonderful trainer here." Well, we mumble something about him already being trained, and then Chris, who has Rai, tells him to sit. And Rai just sat. The woman looked stunned. And while both dogs didn't walk great out the door, they weren't pulling us all over the place. Clearly, the dogs had recognized someone who was not the Alpha, or even the Beta. I'd guess that those two were probably Llamdas, if not Sigmas. And our dogs, seeing that, took full advantage. To those readers who are now saying, "well, your dogs seem out of control", the answer is, yes, sometimes they are. We recognize that. We're working on it. But why would anyone work at Petsmart, if they don't know how to give a sharp tug and establish dominance? Anyways, it was pretty funny to see, and even funnier to remember. And most of all, we're pretty sure that at night, Raisin now dreams of his perfect day with Maggie.

Our First Snow storm in Colorado

We had a pretty big snow storm last Thursday. Chris got to come home early from work, and Fort Carson was closed on Friday. On Saturday, when the weather started to warm up, we headed over to the park to experience the snow. Since we moved here from Arizona, Izzy had NO real winter clothes, so we had to improvise.

This is Izzy in her winter outfit.


Here she is walking on the snow...oh to be light enough to walk on the top of the snow, and not sink ankle deep...


This is Chris and Izzy making weird faces (what we call "going crazy").


This video is with our new video camera, and is edited because this is a family blog. I cut the last 20 seconds off, where the rope wraps around Izzy's ankles, and pulls her over. Fortunately, she landed on her shoulder, not her head, but it still looked pretty scary.


Here is Izzy in her winter outfit. We're going to go backwards, and see all the layers.


And under the jacket was another sweatshirt jacket.


Under the jacket and fleece pants was another outfit. And notice that her mittens and boots were taped on. She likes to pull her mittens off, and her boots were too big, so the tape held them on, too.


Under that, were her leggings and socks pulled up to her knees and a long sleeve shirt.


Under the socks were plastic bags on her feet. Yes, they were taped to her leggings.


And this was her base layer. Not her base base layer (which would have been her diaper, but we all know what diapers look like.).


All in all, she stayed warm. Next winter, she'll have all the cool gear.