Bucket Butts

This is a fun toy at the park in Estacada. Everyone had to play! We had so much fun.

Doby the Princess

This is a nose. This is a nose on a dog. This is a nose on a boy dog. This is a nose on a boy dog named Doby. This is a nose on a boy dog name Doby who is a princess. So, therefore, this is a princess nose. It's kinda cute for a mountain dog who is not a labrador.

Pupp and the dorks

This is a pic of me and the dorky nephews at the park in Estacada. It was a fun park and I have tons of pics to share!!

Waterdog Cove

These are pictures of the waterdogs we saw when we were camping. I was pleasantly surprised that my pictures of them turned out so nice. The kids got out of the boat and played with them. After a while, the dogs chased them into hiding so the kids got bored and wanted back into the boat.

Mr Waterdog's Boat Ride

These are pictures from camping this summer. Mel and her honey rented the boat and the rest of us got to play on it all day. This is Mel driving, Tank, Doby, Pupp, and Mr. Dave.
This is Mel navigating through the rocks while Mr. Dave drives.
This is Butch, Jay, Sam, Mel, Jett, and Jenn looking out for the water dogs aka salamanders. The cove was filled with them!

Jenn rides da fish

We discovered this great park in Estacada this summer. We went there every day when we were camping alone. I took some great pics there. So did Jenn. I'll share more later.

Estacada Mural

This is my fav mural in Estacada. Estacada is a small town up river from Portland where we go camping each year. This mural is on the wall of the local grocery store. Estacada has a group of local artists who do a new mural every summer. Nephew Butch and I spent a morning this summer in town to take pics of many of the murals. They have some nice murals that I will share later on. I really love public art, especially murals. There is a lot of great public art in my area. I'm working on getting pics of as much as I can.

Studio Wall

This is a wall in my studio aka our sun room. You can see my pirate flag and some wooden skeletons that I painted. There is also a sketch of the Venus of Willendorf that I did in preparation for a painting that never happened. The other newsprint papers on the wall are other sketches I did for paintings. The sun room isn't the greatest room. It leaks in the winter time and is too hot in the summer time. What I really need is a bigger living room so that I can work and leave it out in progress while still hanging out with the family in a temperature controlled room. The other half of the sun room contains Jenn's craft materials and a study area for her. I really need to get something set up soon though because I think I'll do paintings for my family for Christmas this year.

Good Boy Movie Review

Good Boy is one of the bestest movies ever! I give it two paws up, a tail wag and a scratch behind the ears. http://www.goodboy.com/
There are so many great lines in the move. My favorite is from the Boxer who realizes that the boy can hear from them so he asks for a cookie...then he goes for it. "Can I have a cookie? No, wait...10 cookies? 100 COOKIES?!?!" They also give a very good explanation why dogs turn around so many times in their bed before laying down to sleep. This is a feel good movie where the dog doesn't die. I don't watch movies if the dog dies. I don't find that to be very entertaining. We'll even walk out of a theater if it happens. No "Yeller Dog" movies in our house!

Sleepy Radar Dog

Here's Tank the first time she had to wear "The Cone". Tank is allergic to corn and gets very itchy/scratchy after eating it. She was so tired from fighting this all day that she passed out. Later on, I'll share more photos of Tank and "The Cone". Tonight we bought a Halloween costume for Jett. Tank will wear "The Greater Dane" costume that we bought and modified several years ago. We don't say Scooby in our house because it upsets Jett. When Jett was a baby, I had a Scooby Doo collection and she would get in big trouble if she stoled my Scooby Doo stuffies. Later on, after I gave most of the collection away, someone gave her a stuffed Scooby and she refused to play with it. If someone says Scooby with Jett in the room, she gets up and either runs to us and leaves us!! So we say "Greater Dane" like they did in the Movie "Good Boy".

Shelf yet once again

Ok, here's another shelf. That's a Snoopy and Woodstock telephone. I traded a Mickey Mouse gumball machine for it about 12 or so years ago. There's also a ping pong ball gun complete with blue ping pong balls. The gumball machine is the first one I ever got. At one point in my life, I had about 100 gumball machines. It took over my house. There was a point when I was buying them just because I didn't already have one like it. I gave away all of them but this. I kept the very first one, this one, and one that looks like a Texaco gas pump. I made Jenn the rainbow menorah for her birthday one year. We try to light the candles around Hanukkah every year even though we are not Jewish. But I figured any reason to pray was ok. It's the same God. And the candles are very cool and pretty when lit. The first time it was lit was during a dinner party we had right before Christmas several years ago. The power went out and we lit this. It provided light for the entire house. And it was way cool.

Korean Mt Dew

This is one of the pictures that Jenn took this summer while she was in Korea. It's kinda funny because our house loves Diet Mt Dew.

Camp Hangover

Nephew Hayden. He just looks like he was out all night drinking. This is what a camp hangover looks like. It comes from playing hard all day, eating too much sugar, talking a million miles an hour, laughing until you hurt, staying up too late by the camp fire, sleeping in a tent, and fighting the rain all night.

Germs from hell

This guys have moved into our home.
AND, I'm quite sick of them.

Ruffing it

This is another picture of CampPupp 2008. This is Jenn and Tank sleeping in the RV late into the morning. I know from experience that Jenn can yawn as big as Tank is right now, I just didn't catch it on the camera. The little RV has a queen sized bed in the cab. It's very comfortable. I love the little RV for several reasons. I love that no matter how owie I get from hiking, swimming, fishing, etc. - that I can sleep in a comfortable bed. Also, I don't have to hike up the hill if I have to pee in the middle of the night. It's also very nice when it rains heavily for a long time. It's great for camping in the winter in the Pacific North West. I'll post a pic of it later on.

Skateboard Dreams

My nephews spent about 3 weeks with us this summer. Tank and Jett think that that nephews belong to them. Tank thinks she can do anything that Butch can do. This is Butch trying to play on his skateboard in the back yard. Tank isn't helping much because she wants to play too. He tried kicking the soccer ball then racing to his board to play while she ran the ball down. But the backyard just isn't big enough. I think he finally had to put her in the sun room while he played by himself for a while. I wish I had taken a picture of her looking out the window at him skateboarding without her. She cried and thought that he was torturing her. She even tried coming back into the living room and tattling on him.

The Beat of a Different Drummer

Jenn at a drumming event.

Space Capsule

Here's a pic of me and my bestest pal, Mel, at OMSI. If I remember right, I'm not sitting quite right in it cuz Mel goosed me. Girls can't keep their hands off me, I tell ya!

Ugly Betty

Jenn and I have been watching Ugly Betty on DVD. I give it one paws up. Ugly Betty is about an average girl who starts working for a fashion magazine. She's the real person trying to do her job in a plastic world. We like it because of the positive messages it sends and because we like to watch things that have queer characters, like Marc on this show. Marc is not a positive gay role model, but he is fun in an evil, self serving way. Ugly Betty also has our guy "Rico" from Six Feet Under. Last night I watched American Crime. It's about a real case of child abuse from the 1960's. Critics say that it's not graphic enough. I kinda like it when I have to use my imagination. In this case, graphic scenes would take away from the real message of human suffering. It wasn't an easy movie to watch. But I'm glad that they made it. Sadly, it's only one story of child abuse. There's plenty more out there. The girl at Blockbuster tried to warm me about the movie. I thought it was odd coming from someone 20 years younger than me. Afterall, I'm a social worker to the core. I am familiar with "A Child Called It", which is a book about the worst child abuse case in California history at that time. I think American Crime takes place in Indiana. I give American Crime one and a half paws up.

Bonz

This is Bonz. He's a Build-a-Bear guy. He's really a grizzly. Can you tell? He's ruff and MEAN. Ok, not so mean. Bonz was born about 7 years ago. I originally bought him a leather jacket and jeans to wear. He also has the cutest lil tighty whiteys. Later on, he got a police uniform and a nurse uniform with a doctor's bag. For Halloween this year, I wanted to get him a costume. I wanted a skeleton outfit. I thought it would be perfect in my office as there are a lot of skeletons and skulls there already. But they didn't have a skeleton outfit. When I saw these boxers, I knew he had to have them. Build-a-Bear is a fun place. http://www.buildabear.com/

Roughing It

This is Jenn and Jett roughing it during family camp 08. This is them sleeping in the rv late into the morning.

Shelf Again

Another shelf. This is the same bookcase as the last shelf blog. This one contains my Community Inspiration Award. It also has two miniature radio flyer wagons. In one of the wagons is a lego black lab that I made. There is also a ceramic tile that I made that has our wedding date on it with the pride flag and two wedding rings. There is also a variety of DVDS. I think I see "Over the Hedge", "Platoon", "The Last of the Dogmen", "Purple Rain", "Papillion", "A River Runs Through It", "Chocolat", "Monsters, Inc.", "Freaky Friday" and "Holes".

Ears to you

This is a big ear at OMSI. http://www.omsi.edu/
I insisted that everyone have their picture taken with the ear so that I could use it in my blog! It's funny that I now have a reason to take some of the stupid type pictures because I need blog material. I'm not sure how I missed the other two kids that day. One nephew went with his godmother before these were taken. But I'm still not sure how I missed the other two. I know that I was very insistent that day that everyone was going to have their picture taken. I did have to promise the kids that if they would take a good picture without making silly faces, I would let them take a silly one afterwards. I'll show some of those later.

Shelf

This is a picture of a book shelf in my living room. I like taking pictures like this because I think it tells a story. It's like taking a picture of someone's desk. It says a lot about them. This particular shelf includes a picture of mom my that she gave all of us one Christmas. She sneaked away to get this great picture taken. I say sneaked because she kept it a secret. I think it's a great picture. The other picture is of Jenn, Mom and I the same Christmas. My mom said she wanted a nice picture of us. So, the minute we got off the plane that year we told her we needed to go to Walmart. Then we told her that we weren't going to take the picture unless she did it with us. Also on this shelf is a small plastic juke box that I've had for years. And there's a tin box with pictures from the Monolopy game on it. We keep small emergency candles in it. And there's a stuffed quail. Why is a stuffed quail there to clutter up the area? It was still very new when one of the dogs ripped it open. I'm sure we stuffed it up there thinking that when we get the time we'll sew up it. My guess is that it's been there over a year. At the very bottom of the picture, you can see that the next shelf contains DVDs that are stacked to the top.