Mackenzie's Christmas photo!

Thought I'd share the photo we're sending to friends this year!



Hope you are enjoying a wonderful holiday season!

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The sing-along!

Our dog, Cody, is back to his old tricks.  He's started singing along when Mackenzie practices her violin.  There seems to be something that's especially interesting to him about the open E string -- that's when he does most of his "singing".

I promise I will finish up the Honduras post soon, but I've just been super-busy...... in the meantime, hope you enjoy this!!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCPL-AsO1jo

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The renovations begin!

Well, the installation of the laminate floors and new foyer linoleum has begun. We didn't get quite as far along as we'd hoped to today, but we definitely got a really good start. We ended up having to do a lot of the cutting indoors because of the heat, so there was a LOT of sawdust generated, necessitating a lot of cleaning up. Here are some pictures from the day:

The first boards being placed

The piano was put in the corner just to keep it out of the way, but I kind of like it there -- it just might stay there!

We decided to let everybody sign the plywood before we covered it with the laminate.  Who knows?  Maybe in 20 or 30 years, the next owner will tear up the floor and "find" us!!

Nelson signed for himself and his wife, Sarah.....

Morgan signed for herself and soon-to-be-husband Solomon.....

We signed for Bryanna and Mike, since they weren't part of this project today......

Mackenzie not only signed, she traced her hand!!

And then Morgan decided we couldn't leave the dogs out, so she "drew" their signatures, too!

A look down the hallway as Josh works on the flooring.....

......and a view down the stairs before work on them began.

Nelson works to set the last planks in the dining room while Morgan supervises!

A view down the nearly-finished hallway.  We still need to do all the trim work and the closet doors still need to be re-hung, but it looks SO much better!

Josh is working on the stairs -- the only part of the project that will be hardwood.  Here's the hard part of all this -- he's putting in oak boards, which still need to be stained and polyurethaned.  This means they need to be kept dry and stain-free until then.  Uh...... with two dogs in the house???  And a rainstorm predicted for tomorrow?  Now THIS ought to be fun....... hah.......  I think we'll be putting plastic over the stairs for the next few days.

Hope you enjoyed looking at our renovations!!  And hopefully, more pictures to follow in the next few days!

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They're "lost" in their own house!

We have been on a major clean-up/remodeling kick here for the last two weeks, and Taylor and Cody are beside themselves. They can't figure out the chaos, the furniture being moved around, the dog crates in a new place, the carpeting being ripped out........ Yes, the world as they knew it is being totally disrupted, and they are NOT happy.

Poor Cody is probably taking it the worst. His crate has always been in Mackenzie's room, from day one. However, he's soooo big that he's now got this ENORMOUS crate, and it was entirely too big to keep in her bedroom -- not to mention the fact that we just re-arranged and re-decorated her room (while she was at camp!!) into a more early-teen appropriate style.

We've moved Cody's crate downstairs to the family room, and you would've thought we were exiling him to Siberia!! The only time he's ever in the crate is when we're going somewhere or when he's trying to escape from Taylor -- so it's not like he spends a great deal of time in there. But he does not like it being downstairs -- I hope he'll get used to it soon.

Taylor -- well, she's just freaking out about everything. The vacuum cleaner has ALWAYS been her enemy, and now it's running all the time. The carpeting being ripped up and carried out apparently is very frightening as well!! All the huge bags of trash accumulating from carpet padding -- those must be barked at and kept under control!! And all the tools and hammering -- she's just jumping out of her skin half the time. Wish the poor thing could settle down and just RELAX!!

So finally, tomorrow, we've got a guy coming to help us install the new wood laminate in the living room, dining room, stairs, foyer and hallway. I'll have to get pictures and post them after the floor's done. I can't WAIT to get rid of the carpeting -- I'm hoping it will make dog hair clean-up much easier!

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Doggie Temper Tantrums....

It's nice outside today -- cool, a slight breeze, not very sunny -- so I decided to take my daughter and our homeschooling friend's daughter outside to do our math lesson. I left Taylor and Cody inside; I knew they'd drive us crazy outside. They sat at the sliding glass door and banged on it with their paws for 15 minutes -- at which point I sent Mackenzie inside and asked her to put the dogs in the crate. This is what she found when she came in --

Can I kill them both now??? Anybody want two used dogs???

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Happy Howl-o-ween??

My husband recently got a new camera which has proven very difficult to use. It tends to take very odd-colored pictures -- but he managed to get these weird shots of evil spirits peering out my living room window...... See if you can figure out what they are.......!!!

My dog is a murderer!

I put the dogs out for their morning pee-and-play, as usual. Shortly, Cody wanted back in, as it's already getting hot out today; Taylor wanted to stay out and continue to play. No problem there.....

After she still hadn't come to the back door in 10 minutes or so, I figured trouble might be brewing and I'd better investigate. I looked out and saw her digging madly in the iris bed...... sigh...... yelled for her to get out of there, which she did immediately -- WITH A BUNNY IN HER MOUTH! Ewwwwww........ yuck......... "Drop it!" -- and surprisingly, she did!! (thank heavens for small favors -- I certainly didn't want to chase her around the yard to get THAT -- especially since I was still in my PJ's!). She trotted right back into the house, happy as a clam, so proud of herself -- the mighty hunter who protected her yard from dangerous intruders! -- and I sent HUBBY outside to clean up the deceased and check the iris bed for any more bunnies!

No more found -- the bunny was not full-grown, but definitely was not a little baby -- so maybe it's the only one. I hope there's no nest of bunnies out there, waiting to be re-discovered. I don't wish to enjoy this "moment of discovery" again!!

What's the penalty for murder in the state of Maryland? I'm thinking that solitary confinement for her might do us both some good......

(And no pictures will be provided with this posting, thank-you-very-much!! Way too gross for public viewing!)

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Then and now

I took a picture of my dogs this AM, and it was so similar to one I took when we first got Taylor back in May -- I just had to share it!

Cody and Taylor then --



-- and now!



Has she ever grown!!

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Our dogs' fun day!

The day began with a toy "explosion" .... (what a shame these dogs don't have enough toys to play with!!).....



... included a rousing game of tag/bitey-face just to get the blood circulating.....



After lunch (sorry, no pictures!), a trip to the local retention pond for Taylor's first swimming "lessons" -- the dogs get in the water together (with Taylor on a rope for protection) and Taylor nearly got drowned in Cody's excitement!!!



And Taylor couldn't decide whether she needed protection from the water....



.....or maybe from Cody!!



After breaking up several near-drowning incidents, we decided Cody needed to sit out for a while....



.....and let Taylor try by herself!




Then Taylor got to sit it out during Cody's turn -- and she was none too happy about it, either!



Cody's free swim -- minus his "shadow"!!



The trip home included trying to mooch Slurpees.....

>



There was also a bath after coming home, but Mom was too tired to take more pictures!!

We also had a long, noisy thunderstorm and a curtain-tearing episode as well, just to finish out the evening!!

And at the end of a long and busy day, they're exhausted (and you know what we always say about tired dogs being good dogs!!) Good night, Taylor and Cody!!!

Everyone needs a friend

This was too cute not to share -- enjoy!

Yup, we did it!

We got ourselves another dog! Can't believe it? Neither can I!!

Taylor is a very pretty 12-week old yellow lab, a bit on the small side, but with Cody as huge as he is, I can handle small right now! The dogs are getting along marvelously.

SOMETIMES you can teach an "old" dog a new trick

Seems like my life revolves around my dog sometimes, doesn't it? Sad........ I think I need to get a life. :)

We've been trying to teach Cody to fetch the newspaper for ages and ages and ages. Yesterday, he FINALLY got it -- REALLY got it. Yippee!! We even put the paper back outside several times and did the trick over and over to make sure he understood what we wanted him to do.

Then I decided to stage it again -- you know, preserve the proud moment for posterity. But here's what ACTUALLY happened when I tried to film it:



Oh, well......... Guess that's what I get for my sin of pride!

At least he finally got it right the second time:

Mackenzie and Cody's new exercise

Yesterday, I realized that I hadn't seen Mackenzie or the dog for quite a while and decided that I needed to go investigate what was happening. When I came into the family room, the video shows what I found!! Unfortunately, I turned the camera sideways to get a better view, not realizing I couldn't edit/rotate a video like you can with a photo! Oh, well..... turn your head sideways, and I hope you get a chuckle out of it.