Holiday Rewind

These past few months have been such a blur! Wouldn't it be nice if we could turn back the clock and have a little more time to enjoy the holidays (with all of our work done, of course)?

The spotties and I had a lovely Christmas with my parents. It was quiet and relaxing and a much needed little break after a very busy month. Derby thought his first Christmas was pretty awesome...he loved shredding all of the wrapping paper and playing with lots of new toys. Peyton was pretty much in a state of spotted bliss for two straight days; he loves opening presents and thinks that every one is just for him. He was a very good boy though and only had to be reminded a few times that Christmas was for sharing. :)

As usual, Indy boycotted Christmas. She finds the whole present unwrapping ritual (and Peyton's over the top behavior) totally annoying. I love her to pieces, but she is just so...weird. Spotty Grinch.

Here's a little video of my two boys that actually enjoy the holidays...

Thankfully Santa has not been eaten...yet. I told them that if they ate Santa this year they wouldn't get any presents next year. :) I have to give big thanks to our friends on the east coast who sent us Santa and some other really fun toys...they love them all!

Hope everyone had a really nice holiday! Just think, in 4 more days it will be 2011...how crazy is that!?

Merry Christmas!

Wishing all of our friends and family a very Merry Christmas filled with lots of love and laughter!

There's certainly no shortage of laughter in my household...

Love,

Kim, Indy, Peyton, and Derby

Last Call for Votes!

Johann's Howling Holiday Giveaway ends tonight at midnight! I was thinking it ended last night, but it looks like we have one more day.

Currently, Peyton is leading the votes with 1,001, but I think the votes and views might get combined and if that's the case, we're 13 votes/views behind the corgi. The # of views still has me confused because there are some dogs with lots of views and hardly any votes. I think you have to click on the picture?

It looks like the dog that we were going back and forth with, has had his votes taken away so I suspect there was some voting fowl play going on. Not really surprised since every time we got close or barely past him, he got a ton of votes.

Anyway, if you have a moment and can give one final vote for the spotty boy, we would appreciate it. You can vote here, and thanks again!

And since Indy missed out on the Christmas fun, I thought I'd share a picture of her today...in her own words. :)

Christmas FUN!

I hope everyone had a really nice Christmas!

Peyton thinks that Christmas is the MOST FUN THING EVER. And he thinks that every present is HIS. I think these pictures say it all...

Seriously, could his eyes get any bigger? I think he must go into this PRESENTS-PRESENTS-PRESENTS-ALL MINE-ALL MINE-ALL MINE sort of trance. Such a happy spotty boy.

But nothing made me happier than to see Pongo enjoy some Christmas fun this year! He doesn't care for toys much, but he sure did enjoy shredding some paper and gave us lots of smiles...

That last picture especially just makes my heart melt. I haven't been able to talk about it much, but Pongo has had some difficulties this month and I honestly wasn't sure if we were going to have another Christmas together. I'll give an update soon, but to say the least, these past few days have been extra special.

If you're wondering where the third spotty is...well, apparently Indy has decided that she is not a fan of Christmas. Or maybe she just isn't a fan of Peyton's idea of Christmas. I think she finds his over-exuberance annoying and spent most of the past few days as far away from him as possible. Every once in a while she would give him her best evil snarky spotty face. What can I say, she's a grinch. :)

Surprise!

I entered Peyton in a NADAC trial in Ocala on Friday - Can you believe it? And I'm pleased to say that we both survived. :)

It was kind of a last minute decision on my part, and while I know he isn't really ready to trial, I decided to give it a shot to see what he would do. I entered him in tunnelers first and he took two tunnels and then ran around the ring, stopping a couple times to bark at who knows what, and then took another tunnel before we made our exit. I decided to give it another try and entered him in touch n' go - he gave a similar performance only this time he jumped out of the ring, barked at a couple of photographers, and then jumped back in the ring and zoomed his way back to me. Oh, and he managed to jump out of the ring again on our way out.

Honestly, I'm not too surprised - I really had no expectations...I just wanted to see what he would do. And on a good note, I learned quite a bit from our little experience.

First, I learned that he is going to require a LOT of time working on focus and attention before we run. Because I was running Indy in this trial, I had less than 10 minutes in between her run and Peyton's. This was definitely NOT enough time to get *any* focus out of Peyton before our run. We were pretty much doomed before we even got to the line. I also learned that I have to work on developing a very structured start-line and end of run (or end of zoomies) routine.

I entered Peyton in a NADAC games trial next weekend - only because I think this trial location is about as good as it gets for novice dogs. It only has one ring, and is almost entirely fenced in. I think it will be a good training opportunity, and hopefully with a little more time to work on attention before we run, we might make it past the first two obstacles. But if not, we'll go back to training and try trialing again when we're a little more ready.

Indy ran pretty well at this trial, but small mistakes here and there left us with no qualifying runs...all we came home with was a nasty sunburn. :)

In other news, the spotties had a nice Christmas. Peyton thinks opening presents is the best game *ever*. He had so much fun and as you can see in this first picture, he tried to start a little early with the shopping bag. :)







Hope everyone had a nice holiday! I might post Peyton's runs later - I have to admit, they were entertaining. :)

Almost December!

While looking at my calendar today, I realized December is just one week away. Yikes - where does the time go??

It also occurred to me that if I'm going to do my own Christmas cards this year, I need to get busy!

I really want to do a custom card with the spotties, but I'm thinking that a group photo might be next to impossible. I'll give it a try, but I might need to apply a little creative thinking as the spotties can be less than cooperative when it comes to taking group shots. :)

And just for a little inspiration, I found a few pictures that I've used for cards in the past. These were taken in 2005 - Pongo was 11 and Indy was 1 1/2, I think.

As usual, Indy was less than amused...although, I have to say she looks absolutely adorable sporting her little rein-dog antlers! :)





And one more shot of my favorite Grinch - Indy Claus. :)