Surf’s Up, Dawg!

Finally back home from vacation. I don’t say “finally” because I really wanted to come back, I say it because we can sleep with the dogs in the crate again and I have my camera cord now! So I can bug you all with loads and loads of pictures. Muahahaha (that’s my evil laugh… it needs work.)

South Florida decided to stay sunny long enough for us to swim at Grandma’s a few times, and hit the dog beach! Bruno was much less reserved at the beach. Something about being able to get in gradually? I don’t really know, it was just better in his eyes than a sparkling, crystal clear pool. They both ran and swam and played their little hearts out, and were exhausted for two days after. Thank goodness. Bruno is the genius who ingested his weight in salt water (despite the fact that there was a giant bowl of cold fresh water on the beach for him..) and this resulted in pretty bad stomach upset upon leaving the beach. Yay for having a 45 minute car ride home with a sick dog! Argh. It was worth it for the pictures and the tired puppies!

Lilly tried to leave the beach with another family, apparently we’re just not good enough. Bruno made friends with a Yorkie about the size of his right pinky toe.. he’s a strange one. He really did get all the way in the water though, which surprised me. I have picture proof!

Unfortunately, the furrballs are fully recovered from vacation and have their full amounts of energy back now… really wishing we had a pool for Lilly to wear herself out in. I think after a full week of fun, they’re bored here without us taking them places every day. Poor, neglected pooches.

Onwards to pictures… Hope you have unlimited time for this. Though I do show some mercy every once in a while, so I will not include all of the pictures for the sake of you having time to do anything else today…

Heaven

Here we are in not-so-sunny south FL. For any mothers out there that are reading this- Have you ever taken your child somewhere, or visited someone and been afraid they will never be the same after said time spent there? As in, they will love it so much that they won’t want to go home? And I’m not talking Disney World or something like that, just someone’s house that is SO MUCH MORE FUN than yours? Well that’s my dogs at Grandma’s house. I think when we go home, they may just hate us. They are so spoiled here, attention 24/7, toys everywhere, (really just to keep them from chewing on anybody else’s stuff, but they don’t know that) and best of all- a pool. Ladies and gentleman, I think I have proven reincarnation is real stuff. Lilly is not a dog at all, but a fish reborn in a dog’s body. No joke. Keeping her out of the water is like trying to take candy from a child.

Now, I’ve known dogs that like water, but this is beyond that. This is borderline an obsession. She will swim herself to exhaustion and we still can’t keep her out. I’m actually afraid she will swim herself to death… On the other hand, Bruno wants nothing to do with the water. He loves to sit in it, as long as his paws are on the ground. Too bad, he’s a fantastic swimmer. (As he ought to be with paws the size of my head..) But he basks in the sun on the first step of the pool. Compromise is a wonderful thing.

Unfortunately, I forgot my camera…..

cord. But no worries my friends, I got plenty of shots of the goobers in the pool. Won’t be able to share them until I get home though.

I really think that they will protest leaving here and for a few days after we get home we will probably get the “you guys are no fun” treatment. Oh well. Maybe we will just stay forever? After all, we are getting the royal treatment being here.. I think my mom is actually trying to con us into moving back by treating us so well! I may or may not be considering it.. screw my hopes and dreams, I want my mommy! If only it were that easy.

Can’t wait to get home and get these pictures uploaded, but for now, all I have is a picture of how tuckered out they are after a day at Grandma’s house…

Full

Full is the best word I could come up with to describe today.

In about an hour, we are having a couple of good friends come over for a little BBQ get together. Eat a couple burgers, knock back a few sodas, and lord knows I can eat potato chips like I’m getting paid for it. Before they get here though, we are busy packing for a trip down to south FL to visit my family. (YAY!) After the BBQ festivities are done, we are loading up the car. And let me tell you, there will be no room to spare. 2 dogs, a cripple, and I, along with all of our stuff (the furballs have a LOT of stuff.. spoiled) will begin the 5 hour trek to my mother’s house.

*Dramamine will be my lifesaver today. The big black furry one can make it about 30 minutes in a moving vehicle before the contents of his stomach evacuate. All over my backseat. You can be damn sure he’s gonna be drugged up for this trip!

Once we arrive at the lovely abode in which I grew up, my mom will be bombarded with a black ball of shedding fur, and an orange ball of french-kissing fur. As well as lots of hugs from the cripple and I. My mom has 3 cats and one little dog. Come tonight, she will have 3 cats, 3 dogs, and 4 humans in her home. Poor, poor woman. Come to think of it, maybe I should bring her a bottle of wine as a gift from the gods of Sanity.

While we are visiting sunny south Florida, we will be making the rounds to visit my grandmother, aunt, and cousins. Let me take a moment to enlighten you on the awesomeness that is my family- My grandmother is the sweetest woman on the face of the earth. Everyone who meets her tells me that she is the coolest grandma ever, and I’d have to agree with that statement. My aunt and my mother take after her quite well. Both women to look up to. And my little cousins, let me tell you.. one of these days, folks, I have no doubt that I could be proud to say that one, or both, of MY cousins have won the Nobel Prize. Or become president. Or discovered the cure for cancer… etc etc etc. They are such smart little cookies! All in all, I love spending time with my family. They make me laugh, think, and most of all, feel at home.

If you can’t already tell, I’m pretty excited to visit. Overall, today is one full day. Our tummies will be full, our car will be full, the house will be full, and all of our arms will be full of people and animals to hug.

I will leave you with a picture of the saggy lipped, floppy eared furball looking oh-so-pleased with the amount of room I left for him on the couch.

Somersaults and French Kisses

It’s hot out today. Too hot to play outside, so the dogs and I engaged in a little indoor “training” this morning to stimulate their little puppy brains. Lilly and I decided to learn “Roll Over” since she’s always upside down anyway. She so thoroughly enjoyed this trick, that she has been doing somersaults all morning. She will tuck her wrinkly little head to her chin, and flip straight on over. Not quite the roll over I was going for, but far more entertaining!  Unfortunately, I am not quick enough with the camera to have snapped a photo of her antics, but I will keep trying! If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.

I was pretty concerned at first with the prospect of having two dogs in a small apartment, but so far, so good! We put up some lattice fencing on the porch so the orange one won’t plummet into the bushes below.

She’s been known to climb in-between the bars of people’s porches who live on the first floor and just sit there, looking out, while I whisper angrily “You little sh*^, get your butt out here right now!” in an attempt to get her off their porch before said resident walks out to find a little orange visitor, who will most definitely launch herself directly into their face for some serious french kiss action. That is one thing she is good at. NEVER open your mouth if Lilly is within a 3 foot radius of your face. You WILL end up with a tongue in there that isn’t yours. And removing said tongue is quite the task when a 35 pound squirmy, wiggly, puppy is absolutely determined to get as many kisses in as puppily possible. I think she’s trying for the Guinness Book… if so, she’s got to be close. If you take nothing else away from this blog post, take this: If you come over for a visit, don’t speak, yawn, cough, or anything else that requires parting your lips, unless the orange one is safely secured somewhere away from your face. Unless, of course, you enjoy the taste of puppy tongue in the morning.

Anyways, two dogs. One dog was great, don’t get me wrong, but Bruno has a tendency to serenade you with his beautiful howling voice if he wants to play, and you are busy. *Awrrawrrrr ohhhhohhh awrohhhh rawrawrawwwwohhhh” He’s got quite the operatic voice. If by operatic, you mean grunty, growly, and rather off-key. But after a while, the opera gets old and I feel the need to go in search of some duct tape to keep that cute little mouth closed. As soon as we got Lilly, the singing stopped. (Oh darn!) They keep each other busy, and we still get plenty of snuggles! Just what we were aiming for. The only thing about having two dogs, is twice as many potty trips, twice as much food to buy, twice as many treats, bones, toys, beds, vet trips… etc. Oh, did I say the only thing? I meant the many things! But in all seriousness, there are also twice as many cuddles, kisses, and overall, twice as much love in the house, and in turn, twice as much happiness.

Oh, and also… it gives Lilly someone other than us to french kiss.

Making a House a Home

Warning: There are a lot of pictures in today’s post!

We’ve been living here for about 6 weeks now, 3 of which we have spent with Josh in a neck brace, so the house is still not 100% put together. But then again, this is a temporary home and we will be here no longer than 2 years.  So most likely, it will never be 100% put together. I feel as though no house is ever complete, things always change, new things come, old things go, but that’s the fun of it! Well, today I woke up with the craft bug. Bad. I spent all morning trying to decide what to make, and finally settled on some fabric wall hangings to dress up the living room. I drug poor Josh out to the craft store with me (he needs to get some sun anyway, don’t make me feel guilty for forcing the cripple to go shopping!) and we both picked out some fabrics that we liked. (I’m sure in the pictures you will be able to tell who picked which, lol) We decided to go with a blue theme, Josh’s favorite color. The good thing about this project, is if the room changes, so can the fabrics!

This was quite an easy project. Time consuming, but easy. I cut a bunch of different size squares and rectangles from the cardboard boxes we used during our move…

I arranged them in some strange, asymmetrical order…

(awkward that I got my feet in here, shoulda cropped it out but I’m too lazy. At least my nails are painted)

Then, I simply hot glued the fabric around the cardboard… and made an entirely gigantic mess

But the final product was worth it! Yay!

The poor furballs were a little neglected while all of this crafting took place, so I took them for a romp in the park after I finished. They forgave me. Mostly because I gave them a ball…

(sorry, cell phone quality pictures)

If it weren’t for that ball, I’d probably be getting the puppy-stink-eye for the rest of the evening.

I am off to cook dinner, we are having some friends over for BBQ chicken tonight. I’m pouting because I forgot brown sugar for my sweet potato. What’s a sweet potato without brown sugar? Not very sweet if you ask me!

Hope everyone’s night is sweeter than a sugarless sweet potato. So long for now!

Why Not?

Well this is my first ever blog post.. Don’t ask my why I’m starting a blog, because I have no answer. I don’t lead an incredible life of adventure, risk, and entertainment. The closest I can come to an answer is, “Why Not?” Maybe there will be a better reason down the road, something adventurous, daring, or entertaining may happen, but for now, it’s for the hell of it.

Why not start out with a little bit about myself and my life. Though if you are reading this, chances are you are reading it because I said something to you along the lines of “I started a blog, you should go read it so I don’t feel like a complete idiot who has a blog that nobody reads.” Anyways, my name is Danica (Dani). I am currently attempting to obtain my B.S. in Biology to hopefully one day, get into vet school. That’s pretty much all I do with my life, study, study, eat, study.. but every once in a while I do something entertaining. (To me anyway!)

I don’t really know what this blog will hold, but most likely (hence the name of the blog) it will revolve around the two balls of fur that like to sit on my couch. And leave hair all over it, as well as everything else within a 50 foot radius. I say that this blog will revolve around them, because so does everything else in this household. Those balls of fur sometimes have names, depending on how they are behaving. When they are on their best behavior, we call them “Bruno” and “Lilly”. When they misbehave, well, I’ll leave that to your imagination. Bruno is a good 70 pounds of solid black fur, AKA a black lab mix of some sort, who is about a year old. Lilly is a 35 pound ball of 4 month old Rhodesian Ridgeback/Lab fur.  Granted, Lilly doesn’t shed as much as Bruno, but she does other things. Like bark. And chew. And play 24/7. And lord knows they both eat. A lot. But those things aside, they are quite the little love bugs as well. I live with my boyfriend, Josh, and the two fuzzballs. Bruno is my dog, and Lilly is Josh’s, although, when Lilly is behaving, they are both mine. Like so:

She’s only really Josh’s (to me) when she is being naughty. Like so: (Yup, that’s a sock she is inching her way towards.)

Or like so: (Standing ON the laptop, with snarky teeth)

That’s when I use the “Look what you’re dog has done” card. When she is a good girl, it’s “Look what OUR dog is doing!”

Anyways, it’s about 1:30 A.M. and time for bed, I do believe. Once I learn how to do this blogging thing, maybe I’ll whip it into shape. But for now, an introduction shall have to suffice as a first blog post. Nighty night!

Credit to my good friend Yvonne for help naming my blog, and inspiring me to start one!!