Proud of My Sister!!

After three years of hard work, my little sister finished her MBA at one of the top MBA schools in the nation!! Despite the fact that there were 600 graduates in the MBA school (which took almost 3 hours!!), the whole weekend was a blast full of more fun than I can possibly capture here! I'm so proud of her and how hard see worked! This weekend was certainly a celebration and I will remember it and laugh forever!

I got to meet my sisters boyfriend! He is awesome. And his music is awesome too - we jammed to it most of the time we were in the car!

Some of the other highlights included a nice dinner after graduation that my Aunt and cousin were able to attend. The food was tasty, but the company and our reason for being there was the best!

On Saturday, we took an adventure for the record books. I have never laughed so hard and for so long as we did on our little day trip to Santa Barbara. You would think the 3 hour (100 mile) car ride would put a damper on the day, but it left lots of time for a photo shoot!

We got a bit of a late start, and met rediculous traffic, so we didn't get to Santa Barbara until about 3pm. Good thing we found a few tasting rooms that were open until 6pm. We hit up three different locales representing 4 vineyards and managed to get pretty toasty in about 3 hours.

Then the laughter started and didn't end until the car ride home. We rented a 4 person bike and cruised all over thinking we were fast scaring other tourists. We went places we weren't allowed, almost ran some people over, went over a bumb so big it tossed my sisters purse all over the pier, peddled so hard we knocked the chain off, and otherwise had the most fantastic time!

After some brunch and some needed rest on Sunday, we went horse back riding though the Hollywood hills! The day was a little smoggy and pretty warm but it was a great way to spend an hour with family. We also went to see Angels and Demons during the earthquake (I thought it was just good sound effects) and had a good sushi dinner and yummy frozen yogurt.

Thanks "Master" for hosting us and setting up a fantastic itinerary!! It was a perfect weekend and I couldn't be more proud of my sister (and her friends!) for all she accomplished!!

The Un-Crate-Able Sadie Mae

Have you seen (or read) Marley and Me? If so, you know what the first few years of Sadie's life were like. It was tough. She was so adorable I couldn't even stand it, but she was baaaad.

First thing on the list was to crate train her. I worked about 5 minutes from home at the time and so she was never alone for more than 3-4 hours without some play time. She hated her crate. On most occasions, she would poop in her crate. Even in the middle of the night. You can't sleep through that, so a trip outside at 2am to hose off the crate and the dog were required. One night right after she was spayed (at 6 months, about 60 pounds, and about 100 poop clean outs), she was allowed to sleep outside her crate. She never pooped at night again. She also stopped pooping when she was given the 3'x5' laundry room to hang out in. I guess she trained me?

The list of things she distroyed included:

-Any toy. Even the guaranteed undestructible ones.
-Vistors shoes. Sadie had to use her allowance to buy a few people new shoes because she destroyed theirs in about 15 seconds.
-The laundry room. Including riping up the linoleum floor, chewing off the baseboards and 2, yes TWO huge holes through the drywall as she tried to escape.
-The deck. She managed a 1foot x 1foot hole in the deck boards somehow and chewed about 50% of the railing so it looked like there was a beaver in the back yard.
-Countless sunglasses, Playstation games, loaves of bread, pens, markers (on the couch), an ink cartridge, the broom (I'll take the blame for that one, it was funny), you name it, she ate it.

I called her my "counter-surfer" and she still is to this day. If you turned your back for 1 second, she snatched something off the counter. She's a little slower now but she'll still jump up there!

One time, my mom was visiting and she had a new wireless adapter card for her PC. She set it on the table as she got out the rest of her PC stuff. She went to reach for the adapter card and it was gone. She hadn't even seen Sadie come by, but sure enough Sadie had about 10 teeth marks into it in no time flat! She new exactly what to snatch and was bold enough to do it with us right there!! Baaaad dog. But really funny and adorable too, right?

Yesterday, I was looking at the outrageously priced dog treats for cleaning teeth. They're about $1 each for the small ones. I bought a bag of 12 to see if they worked. Sadie ate the entire bag while I was at dinner last night. She's just lettin me know who's in charge around here, in case I forgot.

Overall, Sadie has become a fantastic dog and companion. She has been my rock through the hardest things I have ever faced. She has seen me cry more than anyone or anything else combined. The most amazing thing about Sadie is how empathetic she is to my feelings. She knows when I'm happy and when I need to be cheered up. It is amazing.

Here's to my best friend.

On a hike - she loves to hike: My beautiful girl:
My screen saver for the last year:And of course, the hugging shots:
My favorite picture of all time:

Playing Favorites

I try to be a good and fair "mom" to my two dogs, but having two dogs definitely leads to having a favorite every now and then... I can't help it. When my mom was here last time, she told me that I don't pay as much attention to Sadie as I used to. She's right. At first, I justified it by saying that Maggie gave Sadie more attention than she lost from me. Maybe that's ok, but maybe not. So saying all that, I feel even more guilty about this post, but today I want to tell you why Maggie is such a great dog. Next post will be about why Sadie is such a great dog, I promise.

I don't know if you can see this chart very well, but it is from puggles.org. If it weren't for this website, Maggie wouldn't be my dog. It says that 95% of puggles like to cuddle. If anyone has known me for a while, they know about my teddy bears. There was the care bear, Tenderheart, and of course Kimmy who lost a foot to Sadie when she was a puppy... I always loved having a teddy bear that I could curl up with. Sadie is a good snuggler for a big dog, but she usually gets hot or uncomfortable after about 10 minutes. One or two body parts touching is more than enough for Sadie.

When we first met Maggie, I hadn't heard of a puggle yet, but she was the cutest dog I had ever seen. I went to puggle.org and saw lots and lots of pictures. At first, I was trying to convince myself that I could get a puggle any time, no need to impulse buy. The problem was, Maggie was so much cuter than even the cutest puggles on the website! And they LOVE to cuddle!! So, I had to have her!! Best decision ever. She is the most loving, affectionate dog out there. If you don't want a dog to sit in your lab, don't get a puggle. Just last night, I was sitting on the couch eating dinner and Maggie came up and just laid her head on my leg. She just wanted to touch. It was so sweet! And then, there is the face:

The underbite cracks me up. I really think this is her smiling. The underbite usually only comes out when she is happy, so I love seeing this face.

Anytime I want, I can just scoop her up and give her a hug. And I think she loves it as much as I do! When work is stessful or I'm worried about my house / future / whatever, Maggie is always ready to cuddle and she has a smile and wagging tail to tell me everything will be ok. Horray for Maggie - I love that little dog.