Tricks

We've been working with the dogs and teaching them new tricks. They really catch on pretty quickly. Here are all the tricks they've learned so far. The first video is of Malfoy and the second is Reggie.

Munich, Germany

Tyler and I had a wonderful trip to Germany. I think it is fair to say I had a better trip than he did because while I spent the majority of my days touring, he had to work. He worked many hours with long trips to and from the location. Besides the time difference he was pretty exhausted most of the trip. I was able to experience many wonderful things. My favorite day was Friday when I was able to share the city with Tyler. Munich is the home of the largest and olderst Cookoo clock called the glochenspeil. It goes off three times a day, and people come from all over the world to watch it perform. It was interesting, but also very long and repetitive. The city has many beautiful fountains everywhere. German's also love their dogs, some say more than there children. They sometimes take their dogs to restaurants, but leave their children at home.We saw wiemerieners all over the city, and this made up homesick to play with our dogs. In the main plaza their were many entertainers including, painters, mimes, human statues, and musician. I enjoyed walking around and seeing all the local talent. I had the opportunity to go to the Dacho holocaust camp. It was really sad, but I think anyone in the area should try to go. The part that scared me was that even today the gas chambers can be operational in five min. That is just asking for trouble. The city is known as Hitler's city. We were able to see were Hitler's soldiers were sworn into the S.S.and where he gave his first speeches. The food was exceptionally good. The doner Kabob is basically a pork burger, but is cooked unlike pork in U.S. Their is a big garden that is many miles long. It is also known as a nude beach. Luckily it was overcast the entire time we were there, so we were able to enjoy the gardens without the scenery that is usually only naked men. We had a great trip, but we were really excited to return home. We bought ourselves two pint mugs, because drinking is so big over there. There was really much to see and do.

Summer

We've had a busy summer. We've both been working, just finished up our summer school, went to Idaho for a family reunion, and working on the house and yard. Our garden has done much better than we ever thought it would. So far we've picked 50 jalapenos, 40 banana peppers, 40 cucumbers, 8 pumpkins, and a bunch of tomatoes and green onions and still have many more on the way.

The before picture of our garden in March

Pictures of the garden yesterday

The first banana pepper of the season

Cucumbers...

Pickles. These are two of 25 jars we made.

Apricot Jam

20 lb watermelon that we picked too early

Idaho

We made a deal that I got to dunk her in exchange for a little shopping spree.

Testing out their new dog house

Attending Liz's jam session

Party of the century!

I had a wonderful time this past weekend in Midway Utah for Katresha and Landon's wedding. It was so perfect. She was a beautiful bride, and we had a blast before hand with the Veazie twin's Katresha's younger sisters. I stayed at her house with her parents and four sisters. It was a party and a half. Poor Dristina made 415 cupcakes that were delicious.

Her family was so perfect I felt so loved and if it wasn't for me wanting to come home to tyler I could have stayed there all summer. The reception was at their house in Midway where they have a little island. It was beautiful. Katresha and I spent several hours gluing fishing wire to rocks to use as anchors for the lighted lilly pads they looked so good when we were finished. There was a couple times I thought the canoe would flip. Good thing it didn't because the water was freezing and her hair was already done for the wedding. It was also a big reunion for some of our friends from Virginia. Ashley, Trish and her two kids, and Katrina, Sonja and her new husband David all came to the wedding and it was great to see everyone. I was so impressed by myself for the present I made. Last weekend I was at my sister in-laws house and I saw a personalized clock and I knew that's what I wanted to make for my wonderful friend. It was a heavy task and taking the clock apart was no easy feat but the end product was outstanding. Right now you can see that the bottom is not completely lined up but the background is really busy and you can't tell.
I couldn't help but say how beautiful the area was I was in Midway right next to Park City is where the Olympics were help. One of their neighbors has a pet Zebra and I thought that was hilarious. Overall I am so happy that I was able to be apart of the wedding and see my friends after such a long time. I am very happy for them.

Not Really

I just wanted to clear something up. In the last post I slipped the line in "Liz is pregnant". Its not really true. That last post took me two hours to write (pictures take forever to upload!) and I wanted to see if anyone even reads our posts. It turns out some people do. Sorry if we caused any unnecessary excitement.

Its been a while since our last post. We've both been busy working, going to school, working on the house, and watching our shows. Here are some things that we've been up to.
In February we went to the Broadway musical "Fiddler on the Roof". Liz had a blast. Here is a picture that I feel captured the night pretty well.

Next we have a few pictures from Liz's birthday dinner at Outback Steakhouse. It was pretty cool. Liz wanted steak for her birthday. It was a Saturday at lunch time and we tried 3 different places but none of them opened until dinner. So we thought we'd try Outback and of course it was closed until dinner too but as we were walking away the manager of Outback saw us and offered to call some other restaurants for us to see if they were open. After he called a few and had no luck, he told us "Well looks like you're eating here". So he took us in and sat us down. We were the only ones in the restaurant. He cooked us a couple of steaks and when he found out it was Liz's birthday, he gave us a couple of slices of different cakes. Then at the end he wouldn't accept our money, that was a good day. Below is a picture of the birthday girl showing off her new pearls.

And here we have a picture of a happy man about to be a very happy man when he finds out his steak dinner is on the house.

We've also done a little yard saling. Here is a picture of the dogs laying on their new $10 special bed. Yes we use a Lowes 5 gallon bucket for their water dish, they are a couple of water buffalos! We used a little dish before that and we were refilling it 4 times a day.

The last 4 months we have been working in the backyard. We've put up a fence around our backyard (thanks to Patrick), a fence around our garden, and an electric fence around everywhere and everything that the dogs are not supposed to go, dig up, chew up, scratch on, tinkle on...etc. Holy smokes, if they are not specifically told (yelled at and beatin') to leave something alone, it is fair game in their minds. People keep telling me that it is just a phase and that they will grow out of it, for their sakes it had better be.

When we first put the electric fence up, I preached to Liz that if I was going to put my dogs through getting shocked that I had to get shocked myself. So I went outside and put up a few feet of the fence. I hooked the wires up to the fence and plugged it in. I touched the fence with my arm, anticipating a little shock. Nothing, I could barely feel a tingle. Then I realized I had my shoes on and wasn't properly grounded, so I took off my shoes and socks so that I was properly grounded. I touched my arm to the fence again and let out a loud scream. I couldn't believe it! It hurt pretty bad and it was like the wire grabbed on to me. After that I looked over to see the neighbors all staring at me. They were outside having a barbecue friends over. Liz and I were so embarrassed all we could do was laugh. Then Liz touched it with the same reaction.

Below is a picture of our garden that we just finished today. It is 650 square feet of unadulterated gardening pleasure!




Our crops will include 3 types of tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, watermelon, pumpkin, jalapenos, bell peppers and banana peppers. We also just bought a little black walnut tree that we are very proud of.
We've recently begun taking the dogs to the dog park which is a blast to watch. We were a little nervous to take them at first because they tend to play pretty rough with each other but they both had a lot of fun. Here is a picture of Reggie picking a fight with the wrong dog. This was just before Reggie got tossed on his back by this big fellow.



The rule of the dog park "Sniff or be sniffed".


Reggie eye-balling some sweet great dane booty!

Here are the prisoners trapped inside their electric fence. Reggie has touched it 5 times that I've seen and Malfoy is up to probably 20 (he's dumb as a rock!). Liz is pregnant.


This last week when I was out working on the farm, I found a little dog outside of our fence. Being the sucker that I am, I took the little fellow into my arms, named him Bobo, and made him part of the family for a few days, just until we found the owners. After posting various ads, we came to find out that the dog was a french bulldog and that they are worth a pretty penny ($800 - $1600). We even had one lady offer to buy him off of us. Fortunately/unfortunately we found the owners and had to say goodbye to little Bobo. He was a hilarious little buddy that snored like a rinosaurus.

Holiday Recap!!!

We have been really busy this holiday season. We had a wonderful thanksgiving and Christmas. Over the last few weeks Tyler and I painted our bedroom. We both wanted to do something a little different, and I think we got the look we were aiming for. I know it is not a style many may like, but we absolutely love how it turned out. Our next ambitious project will be painting the rest of the house one room at a time. We also put up some address numbers on our house. Slowly we are making a home one day at a time. I love working on projects with Tyler it's a great time to spend together away from work and school.
With both families being within an hour we have two thanksgiving dinners. Tyler's family started a new tradition this year by going to the Tucson Country Club for dinner. The food was extra tasty and it was really nice not cooking or cleaning after the fact. My family stuck with the traditional packed house and cooking until the kitchen catches on fire.

For christmas we left the dogs in the wonderful hands of our neighbors. It is really crazy how much you can worry. They have been sick with a stomach virus called Geardia ever since we got them and after fifteen visits to the vet and several bottles of medicine they are still sick. I just hope they get better soon because it's not very good to my pocket book. We couldn't wait to get home and play with the little guys. My mom decided that because we don't have kids yet and she spent most of the Christmas money on the grandkids that she would buy some toys for our dogs. This was really nice because a couple days ago we bought extra tough dog toys and they had them ripped up within an hour.

Just in case you noticed. Yes Tyler did shave his head. I think it turned out really good.
I was offered to go back and work on Post over Christmas break that was really nice because the temps get payed desently I am still working as a nanny. I really enjoy my job. It is really fun.
This last picture is for people who don't believe it snows in Arizona. My cousin Sharon in Alaska tried to explain to me what a real Icicle looks like.I would just like to show her that I have seen them before. If you look closely in the following picture you might see one.
Over the Holidays we also had the chance to see some old friends at a wedding. It was the Saturday before our 2 year anniversary and we were getting ready to celebrate in Bisbee we wanted to walk around some shops and go through some tours. Tyler's friend John called and said he had just realized that Tyler never got an invitation, but he was getting married that morning. So, we changed our plans and headed to Tucson. We had a great time. John and his new wife will be living here close to us in a couple weeks because he just got excepted into the Captains training course on base. It will be nice to have some more friends close by.
There was one part of the Christmas that was not fun. That was last night we were sitting on the coach at my moms house and I spilled an entire glass of water on our new laptop. It started working again a couple hours ago, but I am really nervous to see if it stops working again. To bad we didn't buy a warranty.Today we spent the afternoon helping my brother move. It was nice because there were a lot of people to help. The holidays were really nice, but it was really nice to be back home, and play some games and watch a couple movies. My mom got us Planet Earth for Christmas I haven't seen them and I am excited to watch them.