Pets Are People Too

While reading through all the annual letters we receive from long-time friends around the country and around the world, we were struck by how many include mention of pets as if they are truly members of the family.

Our love and sympathy goes out to Tom and Shelly in Carlsbad, Calif., who lost their beloved lab Pancho to cancer this past summer at the age of 12 1/2. They are blessed to still have their 4-year-old lab Annie, but she really misses Pancho so it sounds like she may be getting a new canine companion soon.

Just last month Norm and Bunny also said goodbye to Fweedie, their faithful feline companion of more than 17 years. Their Midgie is now an only cat, and she seems to be enjoying the extra attention as she also adjusts to life in the new condo in Sun Prairie, Wis.

We lost our little buddy Maynard the cat this year too, so we know exactly how they feel. But we also know that we all share a special kind of love that only pet owners will ever experience, and many wonderful memories of our four-legged friends.

To all of our favorite people and their pets, we wish a very Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy new year!

I love Doug!

I like all the guys here in our neighborhood, but I really LOVE Doug! It's not just me either, all the dogs in the neighborhood love him. He doesn't have a dog of his own right now, so we all feel the need to shower him with kisses whenever he comes to visit.

Doug is right up there on the list of Mom and Dad's favorite people these days too, as he's been a huge help with the basement renovation. He's quite the craftsman, and today he helped Dad drill a big hole in the foundation of the house so they could install the vent for the new fireplace.

The Energy Shop guy came over a couple weeks ago to check things out and recommend the right size fireplace, but they are so busy right now that he couldn't schedule an install until early February! However, he noted that Dad has a great collection of tools and he's obviously very handy, so he could surely figure out how to do the install himself.

So far so good ..... the vent is installed, and tomorrow the gas and electric should be connected. Posing in front of their handiwork below are Dad and Doug, the Dynamic Duo!

Friends and Fellow Football Fans

My dad is a pretty lucky guy. He went to the game last Sunday with three lovely ladies, and he didn't have to answer any stupid questions the whole time because these girls know and love football!

Teresa, the one in the middle, is a huge Colts fan but the Packers are her second fave team. She came up from Indianapolis with her cousin Kelli, and they somehow brought some of their winning magic with them because the Packers actually won! Against the Lions, by a field goal, in overtime, for a final score of 16-13. Not that it makes any difference in their abysmal record this year, but it was a revenge thing against the Lions so that made it really cool.

This was Kelli's first trip to Green Bay and Lambeau Field, and she definitely got the true Frozen Tundra experience. She was never in the Army like Mom and Teresa were, but she proved herself to be quite the trooper sitting there in the freezing cold to the bitter end. Perhaps it was the huge mug of "Packer Punch" she consumed at Anduzzi's Sports Bar before the game .... that stuff is about the same color as anti-freeze!

In addition to quite possibly being even a bigger football fan than my Mom is, Teresa is definitely way more hip to this blogging stuff. Her site rocks, and she shared some tips like how to create links within posts, so we're going to try getting a little fancy here too. We'll see if this works .....

Inspired by Teresa's blue tree in the Colts shrine at her house, we now have green and gold lights at our house. Eventually they will be part of our Packer shrine in the basement when the renovations are done, but for now they are festively adorning our front window for all the neighborhood to enjoy! (You have to click on the pic to make it big enough to really see the lights.) If you look really close you can see me peeking out the window, wondering what in the heck my mom is doing outside. Did we get some snow here last night or what?

It's officially winter here!

Whoohoo, Bryn and I got playtime after our walk today! It was actually above 20 by the end of the day, which was warm compared to the sub-zero wind chills we had the last few days.

A year ago today my mom was in Iraq, stepping out of her little trailer (not much bigger than my kennel!) and shivering in the mid 50s temps. Today it was exactly ZERO when we got up, but she's adapting well again. Good thing she has a closet full of coats, and gloves and scarves and hats, and cool boots too. We really love to get out in the snow and the fresh air every day!



And we're styling with our green and red Christmas scarves this month!



But we can only take just so much of this cold ... we both spend our days inside our houses now, either on the bed or the couch. If I'm lucky, my mom tucks me in with a little blankie before she leaves.

She is probably one of the world's worst bloggers, because she hasn't posted in almost a month, but she's been really busy with some other writing projects at work that actually earn her some money!