Summer lovin' had me a blast

So we are in the thick of the summer heat here in Mesa! Consistently hitting 110. For those of you who have never experience such intense heat, be grateful! You walk outside and it's like opening an oven, the heat at times feels like it is burning your face!! When you first get in the car it's awful! The air conditioning is not even a relief at the start. All it does is blow HOT air in your face! But despite how uncomfortable it can be at times I still think it's a great place to live! You just have to fugue out how to cope with the high temperatures. I was noticing the other day Bosco is getting fat. A direct result of my not exercising him! Bad I know! But when he got Valley Fever we COULDN'T walk him for a while and then we got out of the habit! So I decided for his health it was time to get back in the habit. Prefect timing, right about the time it's consistently hitting 110 I decided to start going for walks again! The only way to way to take dogs for a walk in this kind of weather is to go early in the morning or late at night. Since Brent and I hit the sack pretty early and try and do things together in the evenings that leaves early morning. So We get up every morning, I make Brent a lunch, and then kiss him goodbye. Then the dogs and I head out. Now even at six in the morning it is still warm for walking. Especially for dogs. They were getting over heated about half an hour into our walk. But We have figured it out. This is how we have learned to stay cool.





He just goes and stands in front of the sprinkler at the park. Works great! Cools him down for the rest of our walk! Bentley on the other hand is not quite at bright at Bosco. He is kind of a prissy dog and hates getting wet! So he will not of his own free will get wet to cool off. So I have to drag him back and forth in front of it a few times till he's sufficiently wet! He actually hates it so much that if we are walking on the sidewalk and the sprinklers come on where we are he tries to run away! Poor little guy just doesn't get that it's for his own good! It's like the sprinklers scare him!
Ha ha speaking of scare.............so my big strong Bosco is pretty much a scardy cat! He is so scared of loud noises. Well the other morning we were walking and it was trash day. ( I never really like walking on trash day, it always seems like the dogs go on the opposite side of the trash cans as I do!) Well we were walking one direction down the street. Then the garbage truck turned down the same street and was headed toward us. Bosco freaked out! I have never seen him do that before but it was like he was fearing for his life. At first he backed into the corner of the garage we were near, but that was not going to work. I had thought we'll just stay put right here, in between houses and let the garbage truck pass us. Bosco had another idea! After he decided the corner was not going to protect him he took off!! Now I tried to get him to at least walk, but that was not going to happen. So I'm sure the garbage man got a good laugh as we RAN away!! Bosco dragging me behind him, booking it out of there! I was laughing as I'm trying to imagine how we much look from the view in the truck. The three of us running away! Had to have been too funny! But poor Bosco was so scared, by time we got around the corner he was shaking! I guess I know for next time, try to avoid the garbage truck!!!

Mail

So I was thinking today, as I stopped to check the mail, how some things just loose their charm as you grow older. For instance, checking the mail. I can remember as a kid sitting out side just waiting for the mail man to come. Trying to sneak out so I would be the only one out there. That way my brothers and sister wouldn't be out there so I could be the only one to carry in the mail. Our mail man even knew who we all were, and was so nice as to bring us candy every once in a while! Now the mail man brings me bills. Not quite as exciting! Or junk mail. The junk mail really only makes me irritated. I just think of how many trees are dying so I can just drop them right in the recycle bin. Stupid things too like the add for the carpet cleaner, coupon for the local deli, and latest porcelain doll available! So here is to the wonder and excitement that you tend to loose as you grow up! Kids enjoy it! It doesn't last long!

Hybrid Cat/Dog!

So I decided we have a hybrid cat/dog. Bentley must be! He's about the size of some cats, he loves to chase birds, and yesterday he was playing with yarn! I had left a ball of yarn on the floor when I went to work on some clients, I got home and this is what I found!

This is in our bedroom! All the way at the end of the hall! It looks like there are about 4 strings, which means he managed to get it up and down the stairs at least 4 times!

From the top of the stairs.

The top part of the stairs. Note the HUGE knotted mess!

The bottom of the stairs! Yes he even managed to get his brush stuck. There are also bite marks and pieces of the handle missing. I'm wondering if while Bentley was playing with the string Bosco was playing with the brush!

This is where the trouble began, all the way down in the living room! One more bit of evidence that he is a hybrid cat/dog I could swear sometimes that he purrs when I pet him. Well it's not exactly purring but he does make noises!

Taste Test

So we got a nice "taste test" of what parenting will be like. Some of my clients had a funeral to go to over the weekend. His uncle had passed away. Since it was a family member and all there babysitters are family they had no one to watch the kids. So they asked if Brent and I could watch there younger two and they would take the older two. They have a 4 yr old a 3 yr old and 6 or 7 mo. old twins! We got to watch the twins! It was way fun! They are both so cute! They were so easy too! Just play and laugh. If they got fussy they just needed a nap! We watched them from 6:30 am on Fri. to 5:00 pm on Sat. Mostly because it was a new house with new noises but Brent and I were both up almost every hour all night! Needless to say we slept in late on Sunday! Over all we decided it's not that difficult! And a lot of fun!

Ethan Came to Visit!

Ethan came down for a couple of weeks for his summer break. I wanted/want to have my younger siblings come and stay with us so we can hang out and get to know each other better. Since Chelsea was only 5 when I moved out and Ethan was 8 and Cameron was 10 they were still pretty young. So I'm trying to make a point of making time to build a relationship with them, despite the age difference. Which is much easier now that they are all older. While Ethan was down here we had a good time. We played Rock Band a lot! Ethan is a huge Guitar Hero fan. So he rocked out on the guitar. And he did a really good job on the drums too! There was one really hard song he kept playing over and over till he got it! He would play it, die go play another song, then try it again. It piratically took him the whole two weeks he was here to beat it but he finally did! I decided if he put as much dedication into anything in life as he did beating songs Ethan could do anything he wanted! I loved seeing that much tenacity in him! He also got his learners permit the day or two before he came down. So he got to do a lot of his first driving with me! It was only mildly terrifying! ha ha just kidding he did a great job. There was only one time when I was seriously concerned about my car! But I'm very proud of him! He's doing a great job! And having him here helped me learn what a great kid/person he is! They truly broke the mold when they made Ethan! He is one of a kind! I'm so glad he is my brother!

What a Day!

So Ethan and I decided to take the dogs to the dog park. The high was only supposed to be like 99 So it wasn't too hot in the morning. We went to Cosmos Dog Park in Gilbert. It is a really nice dog park. It's supposed to be one of the best dog parks in the nation. I don't know who goes around rating dog parks but I'm sure there's someone who does. Any way it has a lake for the dogs to go swimming in. Well the lake only has a fence about half way around it. The other half is not fenced so other people at the park can enjoy the lake. Well my problem child Bentley decided to escape! He had not been swimming at all. He is not a big fan of water (makes bath time a joy!) But he decided to tough it for a min jumped in the lake and then jump out on the other side of the fence! Ethan was close thank goodness but not quite close enough to just catch him. Bentley just stood there for a sec. like ok I'm out now what do I do. Then he saw a bird. There was no hope of stopping him after that. He LOVES to chase birds. I have never seen a dog run so fast!!! He ran up a hill and at least a quarter of a mile before he finally stopped. He wasn't even in the park any more! I was running and thinking for sure he was gone forever! That I'd never see him again! That he dash out in front of some car and get mushed! I was also thinking man I need to start working out! I was huffing and puffing, even more then the big bad wolf! I'm so glad Ethan was there, he was able to keep up with Bentley, unlike me who had to keep stopping to catch my breath! We finally did catch him! Thank goodness! That would have been awful to just loose him like that! The were both so warn out from the dog park they slept most of the day! Bentley was so tired he couldn't even move. I would push him with my foot and he would just lay there! Not even move a muscle! ON the drive home they both just collapsed and slept the whole way home!











Bosco was so funny. He climbed in and got on the floor between the back seat and the front seat. I never would have guessed he'd fit there. But apparently he did!!!





Then after we rested from our busy morning at the park Trenton and Seth stopped by. It's always so fun to have them come over! I can never believe how big Seth is getting! I had a great time playing with Seth while Trenton crashed on our couch for a bit. He was super tired. I got some cute pics of him!

He was having fun trying to play rock band!

And Bentley thought he'd play too!

It was a fun day! I'm glad we got to see Trenton and Seth for a little while and I'm glad Bentley was still around to play with Seth!

Apologies

My apologies in advance! We haven't blogged in a while, so we were behind, so there are lots of new posts at once! Sorry! We also learned how to add a link to the text so any words you see in red, bold and italic are links to what they are talking about! We do hope you enjoy! Please feel free to leave some love AKA comments!

Boys Night Out

Brent and Ethan went to a concert last Friday night. They went to see a band called Seconds to Breathe. They are a really good local band. I really like them, but I was too tired to go so they went just the two of them. They had a really good time. Ethan even met the lead singer and one of the guitarist. They had awesome tickets to the show too. Not location, the actual tickets were pretty cool. Here is a nice shot of the boys all dressed up for there night out.

Then this Friday they went to see the movie Don't Mess With The Zohan. They went by themselves because I thought it looked stupid and didn't want to pay ten bucks to see a movie I most likely would not like. So I staid home and my sister in law Heather came over and we watched Spider man 3. I hadn't seen it yet, it was ok, not my fav. but worth watching.

The Great Outdoors, Indoors????

So over the weekend we headed to Dave and Busters. It's a cool place that is like Peter Piper Pizza only for adults! It has an actual restaurant and fun big kid games. We've been there before and thought it would be a fun place to take Ethan while he's here. So we drove all the way to the Tempe Market Place only to be told you have to be 18 to get in!!! There were bouncers at the door checking ID and every thing!So we scratched that idea, very disappointed. We walked around there a bit trying to figure out what to do. I said let's go to Ted's Hot Dogs since we are on this side of town. And that is what we did. If you live here and you have never been to Ted's Hot Dogs, you need to go!! They're great! (spoken like Tony the tiger) While standing in line I noticed the ceiling, and this is what I saw.................

There Sky lights had panels on them to make them look like the sky.

This is one up close, Maybe a little too close, eeew dirty!
This was the row of them, a little "sky" peeking through! I just thought it was a little funny and random so I took pics to share. Looking at this blog now, maybe I should have taken some pics of us, not just the ceiling!!! HA HA HA HA HA

Desiree and Royal Came to Visit

Desiree and Royal came to visit a while ago! I hadn't been able to blog about it because one day, I forgot my camera, and so I just had Des take pics on hers. I figured I'd just download them before they left, but we forgot to do that. So Des had to email them to me, and we all know how busy life can be. But I now have all the pics I wanted to post so here it is, the blog about there visit! We had a great time! It was so fun to just hang out and have a good time. We watched a lot of The Office!!! A favorite of us all! One day Des, Royal and I went to the Arizona Science Museum. It was pretty cool. But it was dentally geared more toward children. I'm sure it would be the coolest place in the world if I were a kid. I'm sure it even would have a blast taking kids there. It's always fun to watch kids faces as they learn new things and experience new situations. There was a display thing where you stood on a platform and it let you experience different weather conditions. hurricane, tornado, earthquake, fire, etc. That was pretty fun, even as an adult! There were a ton of hands on things! And the museum it's self had some cool architecture and just funny things so I got some random funny pics.

I liked this shadow on one of the walls

Something we all need, a little air!

There floor was pretty cool.

The floor just another direction.

I don't know what the purpose of these was, but they are pretty cool looking.

Cute Desiree and and Hubby Royal

Ok so I really had to fill in the lighting so you could see me so the pic quality is really bad, but I'm holding up the world just look to the right!!

And here is just the world.

This sign just made me laugh!!! I don't know why, it probably in not nice, but it's just the wording of it! Too funny!

Then another night we went to the temple for a session. After ward we went to the visitors center to check out this amazing display they have. It is pictures they took of the actors that are in the Easter Pageant. They are of Christ's life. If you haven't seen it you should check it out! It's called Reflections of Christ. It is a very touching video. If you are looking for a pick me up for your day, here it is!!!! So of course we took some pics of ourselves.

Brent and I

Here we are again!

Desiree and Royal

We really had a great time! I love Des! She is the best! So in extension we love Royal! They are so much fun! We were so glad they were able to come visit and spend some time with us! Bosco and Bentley sure enjoyed having there here too! They love it when people come to visit, as do Brent and I! So feel free to come and visit!

Psycho Dog!

So when we first got Bentley he was a wonderful well behaved dog. Then he started giving me problems. When we first got him we let both dogs sleep in our room with us. But once we found out Bentley has awful allergies and sneezes and reverse sneezes so loud it would wake us up every night they got kicked out! This did not make Bentley happy. We moved his little bed just out of our room but he then adopted the body pillow that spends most of it's time next to the bed as his new bed. He was determined to let me know this was now his spot. It started out when I would go to get him and move him out of the room he would growl at me, but I could still pick him up and take him out. I just thought he was letting me know, hey I don't want to leave, I'm going to but I don't want to. Well then it progressed to him growling, bearing his teeth, then he added barking. Finally it progressed to the point that one night I had come up stairs to go to bed. Bentley was already up there, laying on "his" pillow. He saw/heard me coming up and didn't even wait for me to get to the room. He came at me down the hall. Now I know Bentley is a little dog but there are some big teeth in his mouth. And I was bitten by a dog as a child so I'm always a little nervous about that anyway. So I was pretty terrified. So terrified that I let out a scream that would have won an award it it had been in a horror movie! I sufficiently scared Brent! He came tearing out of the bed room and rescued me from our dog! Well I had a dog trainer at the house the next week (it would have been the next day, but our schedules wouldn't accommodate that) She gave me some great pointers, taught me a lot! She gave us a choke collar for him. She said the choke collar reminds them of the feel of being snatched up by Momma dog when they are pups and do some thing wrong. It speaks to there natural instinct. She said we had to be VERY consistent. Don't let him get away with so much as a growl! Time to put my foot down and show him who is top dog! Well as traumatizing as it was on me (I cried a good cry one night, I'm a silly girl) it seemed to be working. With a snap of my finger and a low stern out he would leave the room. I was SO happy and excited! We had honestly thought that if the training didn't work we would have to get rid of him. I can't have a dog that is coming after me! Just thinking about that makes me sad! But Bentley was responding very well to the training. There was like 4 days in a row with no problems! Then one night, Brent was already in bed, I was tired, Bentley went out of the room and as I was closing the door, he growled a little tiny growl. I thought I'm too tired I'm just going to pretend I didn't hear that. That was a VERY bad decision! Now we has started back at day one. It is like I had done nothing at all! Worst thing, he seems to have gotten worse, like the little growl made him braver. He actually bit me a few days ago! Thank goodness he is little, the actual bite didn't hurt much. Although in talking to the trainer, we both don't think his intention was to hurt me since he didn't break skin. But the bruise it left was quite tender. Epically when I'm giving massages!!! So the trainer encouraged me to keep doing the training and be consistent and give it a week or two and see if he goes back to his good obedient self he was just getting to. If he gets any worse or does it again though.....I don't even want to think about it. That would be too sad! So pray our little Bentley can learn to be a nice dog!!! Here are a couple of pics of where he bit me!! You can't see too well but it gives you the idea.

We've Been Robbed!!!

So we went up to Prescott on Fri. to get Ethan to spend a couple of weeks with us during his summer break. We just made a quick trip up there, get Ethan, come home. Oh well we did stop at the outlet mall in Anthem on the way. I found some great deals! But that's not the point of the story! We got home and I walked in and came into the living room and saw our bamboo knocked over and on the floor. The vase has rock and sand in it, it looks (or should I say looked) pretty cool. I was trying to figure out why it was on the floor. Did the dogs do it? That would be random. Something felt off, something was not right. Then it hit me, our mirror was GONE!!! I saw the mess and cried out "Brent we've been robbed!!!!" Then I looked to my left, the tv was still there, then looked to the right, nothing else was missing. "Oh wait never mind maybe not!!" Maybe I jumped the gun in thinking we'd been robbed! But by then Brent was already racing in from the garage! He was a little frantic, he came in and I told him oooops actually we weren't. He told me "well you got my heart racing anyway." I went a little further into the room and our mirror was laying on its side half way across the room! It was on the other side of the stairs, that's why I hadn't seen it! Apparently if fell off the wall!! After a year of living on that spot it decided it was time to move! In the process it cracked the end table, and put three big holes in the wall, and some scrapes. But over all I'm amazed that it did not do more damage. The two vases below it, not broken. The glass and candy dish that were on the end table, not broken. The table it's self was only cracked, it would not have surprised me if a whole corner had been snapped off! The mirror it's self only had a dent in one of the corners, it was not broken either! We are glad we just have to patch a few wholes and nothing more! The mystery is just why after a year of contentedness the mirror felt the need to abandon it's post and head toward the front door!!!!



This is the hole by the front door. (the front door is just to the right, bathroom to the left)



The two holes in another wall (to the left of where the mirror is supposed to be hanging)



The scratches the mirror left.



More holes and scratches.




Dustpan full of the former contents of the bamboo vase.



Crack in the end table.



Where the mirror fell. I'm still amazed nothing was broken!



Where the mirror USED to be!!!!



Run away mirror. See how big it is!!! This is why I'm shocked there was not more damage done, the thing is huge!!! We now have to figure out how to rehang it. Obviously the huge anchors we had it the wall were not enough. I had a client suggest Hercules Hooks. If you've never seen the infomercial you don't get it but that was funny to me!

26

Whoot! whoot! I'm twenty six now! We didn't do much for my b-day. Just went out to dinner. We went to Black Angus, I got a free steak dinner, because it was my birthday! I also went to Krispy Kreme and got a free dozen donuts, you guess it because it was my birthday! So maybe I'm wierd or cheap I dont know but did YOU know if you google free and birthday you can find lists of all the free stuff you get for your special day? You should try it! It was awesome! Well enough about the free stuff. Looking back on the past year I've just got to think how very blessed I am! My life is pretty wonderful! So here is to another wonderful year!!!!!

Cuteness!!

My dogs fall asleep in the most random positions sometimes. I love it when they fall asleep together! Or when Bosco thinks his head needs to be falling off the couch for him to be comfortable!!! They are too funny so I thought I'd share!!!






How this could be comfortable I have no Idea!!!!


Us just lounging in bed



Bosco fell asleep on Des, it was so cute!!!


Maybe he just wanted the chocolate bar!!!!