Angus being Angus

Angus the Scottish Terrier is part cat!

He likes his belly scratched, when he wants it scratched.  

When he's decided he has had enough of human contact he will go far away from you and lie down.  He loves to walk on the edges of the furniture, including in the car.  

He is not as nimble as a cat however and has fallen off more than once, hitting himself in the head!  He doesn't seem to mind, though.  He just gets up and pretends nothing happened.

Angus is too smart for his own good.  We put some fencing up in our backyard, because he is too tiny and can get through our fence slats.  I put him out back one day and went to go to the gym.  When I came back I couldn't find him, but I had to get Joseph to an appointment so I ran around looking in neighbors backyards real quick, because I knew that's where he would go.  He loves saying hello to other dogs and other people.  I finally had to go, though.  Max texted me when he got home to say he couldn't find him.  I told him that he had run away and to go with his friend and go look.  Sam saw the text too and ran home to look.  That started almost a week of putting his picture and information on several different websites, pleading for help to find him.  I was sure he was either hit by a car, eaten by a coyote, or stolen, since he is so cute, pure bred and not fixed.  Finally Max made up flyers and I walked around with him to put them up.  2 days later we got a call.  He had gotten into a neighbors yard to say hello to their dog and then they had blocked the fence so that he couldn't get back out.  Then they just sat and waited until they found someone who wanted him.  The boys had gone door to door, but they skipped that house, because it is one of those latin homes with the gate then a walkway and then a door.  He went nuts when we came to pick him up!  I guess he does at least like us!

 We fixed the fencing so that he couldn't pull it apart and left for church.  Rob said, "I just want to go around the corner and see."  Sure enough the dog was out!  He had learned to jump up on Rob's arrow shooting targets and jump over the fencing.  As the boys chased him, a lady yelled at them to secure their dog or someone would steal him.  Ya, thanks a lot lady!  Now we have an additional layer of fencing, but we don't trust him out there.  We have come out several times and seen him working at it.  We got a collar and tag and a bigger crate that he can walk in a little and that's where he has to stay for now!  Poor silly puppy!  But the kids were absolutely devastated when he was gone and we can't risk it again!  

Birthday fun

I had a sweet friend set up a birthday lunch for me.  It was nice to have people come and say we like you enough to show up for lunch.  I have had a hard time in this ward feeling wanted, needed, relevant, or having anything at all in common with any of them.  I was looking out at the ward leaving from sacrament meeting one Sunday and Robert asked me, "what are you thinking (or feeling maybe?)" and I said, "I'm just depressed."   That's what I feel almost every Sunday now, depressed!   Luckily, there are some people that  help make it better and these ladies definitely help.

Besides a lovely lunch, my family took me to the Cheesecake factory.  We all ordered different cheesecakes and I got to try each one.  Sam refused to get anything interesting and only got the plain. It was my least favorite.  Rob actually got my favorite and I ate more of his than any others!  Joe really didn't want cheesecake, but he was forced to order one.  He got the Hershey's and it was actually quite good.

 Nice pose Sam!  Check out Max just checking out the cheesecake- it's his favorite too!

All those yummy cheesecakes in a bag!

For Emma and my birthday I had a friend send a bunch of chocolate from Germany, too. 

I sent some up to Emma, but she definitely didn't get the mother load that we got!  Yummmmmmm

Well anyway, Happy out of your teen years Birthday to our beautiful daughter!

I would run 500 miles and I would run 500 more!

One of our goals for 2016 was to run 1000 miles.  It required carefully keeping track and being very regular about our running.  I liked the regularity that we needed.  It was hard while we moved and went on trips to keep it up, but we did- even on cruises.  We both finished the goal a little early- Rob a little earlier than me (and he even had two bone spurs and plantar fasciitis.)  I also dealt with a little plantar fasciitis, but my main problem was being so exhausted all the time.  I still haven't figured it out, but I am slowly getting better.  I can't run like I used to, but I am slowly getting faster and being able to run longer again.  Remember when we were training for and running marathons?  Ya- not even close any more.  I can barely run 6 miles and I am exhausted for the rest of the day.  But I'm not giving up and I'm not giving in!

Definitely had to buy new shoes after 1000 miles!

Here's to keeping and meeting your goals!  We crushed 1000 miles!

Sam is a Mess!

In the middle of our Picture Perfect Christmas we had to stop and take Sam to they urgent care for cauliflower ear.  He had it sliced open and drained- although it seemed to take forever for it to go down in size.  We were very afraid that we had waited too long to have it done and it would now look like that forever.  

Somewhere during our time up north he developed a rash and some "drainage" that didn't look good to me.  I told him I thought he might have ringworm, but he blew me off.  That is until he got back to school and the coach took one look at him and said, "go home, have that checked out by a doctor.  I think you have ringworm and maybe impetigo.  You can't wrestle until it's gone."  So off we went to the clinic and sure enough he had ringworm and impetigo!  He is still fighting with the ringworm to this day!  He is now taking oral medication.  I was not a happy mother when I found out how many people on the wrestling team were fighting ringworm and that they never clean their mats!  Absolutely disgusting and unsanitary!!  I decided this one wasn't worth the fight however.  If he decides he absolutely must wrestle next year, we will have a discussion.

But wait that's not all!  Right after new years, Rob wanted to take his clay shooter out and try it out.  

This is what the ground looked like where we took it to try it out.  Angus kept trying to eat them!

While we were setting up, Joseph stepped back to get out of the way and accidentally stepped on the trigger mechanism which shot the throwing arm right into Sam's shin!  I was sure he had broken a leg!  When we got him to the urgent care, they were full and unable to take more patients.  Sam decided he had made it in without a wheelchair and therefore he didn't need to go in.  It seemed to heal Ok.  

Boy what a wreck that kid was over the winter!  Let's pray for a little break from accidents, injuries and diseases for a little while!

Picture Perfect Christmas

In order to have a picture perfect Christmas- 

 My front entry way.

you must have family around.  Emma was not going to be able to get more than a day or two off of Walmart so we decided it would be another away Christmas.  We generally don't like to go away for Christmas, but we did last year, so why not again this year? 

We stopped on the way to pick up a new addition to the family.  The boys have been begging for a dog for years and we always had a good excuse not to get one.  We no longer have an excuse!  Rob found this dog, after almost getting tricked into an internet scam "dog."  Luckily, I kept feeling it was a scam and kept nagging about it, so he made me check it totally out and we figured out it was indeed a scam.  Non-scam dogs are much more expensive! 

Angus is a full bred Scottish Terrier.  He is cute and smart and also too smart for his own good, but more on that later.

We also stopped to see a couple arches at Arches National Park as we headed up.

Next we stopped at my parents house to give them their presents and get our.  The boys got a day at a fun center with go karts and mini golf and laser tag, among other things.  I got a night out with Mom to see the Nutcracker Ballet by Ballet West. 

It was wonderful!  There were all kinds of little girls all dressed up with their moms there.  It is obviously a tradition for many people in the area.  We just had never done it before.

Rob and Sam hopped over to Rob's brother's home and did some picture perfect snow machining.  

Lots and lots of snow is required for a picture perfect Christmas and we got just that!  

The kids made a snow dog to go with the snowman.

Poor little Angus was buried in the snow every time he went out!  I don't think he enjoyed going out much- besides that he still wasn't trained to potty without a door open all the time.  He pottied a lot on many different rugs!  Oops! Sorry!

Lots of dog friends, family and fun games made it even more perfect.

Christmas day was nice.  They don't get excited as they used to, but they still play along pretty well.  Sam wrapped Joe's present that he really really wanted, but I refused to buy, up with some bullets for his nerf gun.  Joseph said, "oh, I know what these are.  Yep, bullets." And then he saw the game he had wanted.  He went crazy!  It was super fun!  Best thank you ever.

Before New Year's we left, since Robert had to go to work right afterwards.  We had a super subdued New year's.  In fact I don't think anyone actually stayed up.  We were woken up by gun shots at Midnight however, because that is obviously a thing you do here in New Mexico on New Years!  We have since had one snow day.  This was our crazy amount of snow that day-

Dosen't quite compare, does it?  We had a few heavy presents that couldn't come with us visiting, so we opened those too.  One was a basketball hoop and one was clay thrower for Rob.  

The Holidays are fun unless You are Puffy!

This December we had lots of fun stuff to do.  

St. Nicholas came, 

we payed our taxes

and went to "Bethlehem", 

Sam got his wisdom teeth out, 

 we went to a fun parade in the next neighborhood over,

 Our Friends and fellow basketball players the Burks

 Our friends the Chapmans- She was in charge of the whole parade!

I made snowflake cookies for Max's Christmas celebration at school

and the boys made gingerbread houses at YM.

Oh wait- one of those things wasn't so fun!  We- Ok, Mom- decided that Sam could only have gas and Novocain to have his 4 wisdom teeth out- I didn't want him fainting and his heart stopping again with an IV- which is what would have been required if he had any other medicine.  Unfortunately, he didn't like the gas either.   He started to pass out on them and they had to give him oxygen and put ice on his neck and head for the rest of the procedure.  The good news is that we got that money back and now we get to put it on Joseph's wisdom teeth that need removing! I guess this makes my decision easier.  I am against surgery unless absolutely necessary.  So I am not a big fan of the churches stance on having all the young men have their wisdom teeth removed before they go out on missions.  I was planning to fight it.  Well the Lord must know me pretty well and took care of that little road block with the need to have their wisdom teeth removed!  We still have Max- so I might have my fight after all!

Momentous Occasion

 Yes- this happened!  Who can stop time from marching on?