Mom & Wayne's Ski Trip to Kirkwood...January 26th-29th!

Wayne's company, Power Engineering has a cabin in Kirkwood up near Tahoe.  The owners allow their employees to sign up for and use for free during the winter months!  Wayne reserved 4 days from Wednesday January 26th through Saturday January 29th 2011.  Wayne, Amy and Kailey went for all the days and Mom joined them for a couple too!!!  They had a good time and it looked like they had really great weather the entire time!!! 

Home Improvement Project...More Concrete!!!

Ever since I hired a company to pour sidewalk on the gated side of my house I've wanted to do the same on the other side of my house. My brother and I started planning out how to go about getting the side yard ready to pour and I decided I wanted to tie in the new concrete in with the existing patio...which meant taking out some grass and sprinklers. With Wayne working and living up north I with the help of my mom did most of the digging and initial prep work then I'd send pictures up to Wayne for "approval". On a couple occasions he was able to come into town to help fix issues I ran across, the first of which was a sprinkler highway and the next was getting my drainage trench to have enough fall. Finally we were down to the final touches and we got things all framed up on Friday the 25th, wrapped the house in protective plastic and did a bit of a dry run to be sure we were all on the same page so to speak. Then Golden Empire Concrete truck and Chucks pumping service were at my house by about 5:45am Saturday morning ready to pour! My brother and Rodney did most of the standing in cement initial work while the pumper guy handled the hose...mom and I were "on the ready" to hand off tools to the boys and then later we started floating it to knock down the rocks. My biggest job was edging...which was easy on the patio portion but it was quite a challenge as I moved down the side of the house because you only had space for you foot and I wasn't tall enough to reach the wall with my hands like the boys could so I got creative and used by leg! The weather was on our side that morning and the trucks were gone before 7am...we were done working it by around 9:30 or 10! I think it turned out really well, it was a fun project that I had a hand in creating and with a lot of sweat equity and some borrowed hands and equipment it was much cheaper this way! Thanks to all those who helped make it happen...I REALLY appreciate it!!!

New Year's Eve Play Date '09

It was the last day of the year and I got the "spring cleaning" bug...took down all my exterior Christmas lights! In trying to put them all away in the garage I decided to take in the nearly years worth of recycling in to the exchange center to reclaim my space. I had 14 pounds of plastic and 27 pounds of aluminum which amounted to a stifling 57 bucks!!! Later I took Kailey, Baylie and Ginger back to my house to play for a while in the back yard before I needed to be back at mom's place for our belated Christmas now that Carter is feeling better.

Finally Playing Together!

Well it has only been a week since I brought Ginger home and FINALLY Baylie is beginning to get used to the idea that she's here to stay! In the beginning Baylie didn't really want anything to do with Ginger and it didn't help that Ginger is at that stage were she likes to bite EVERYTHING...including Baylie's face, legs, and tail!!! Baylie has snapped at her a few times and I think Ginger is now understanding "the rules." She is 8 weeks old now and she's already learning to go in and out the doggie door (although it is not fool-proof just yet). She has a sweet personality and is super clumsy! Ginger loves chasing around the Baylie and Kailey to the point that I think it starts to annoy them...they'll get used to her eventually. The biggest breakthrough happened yesterday when Baylie and Ginger got into a tug-o-war match!!! It was great to see them playing together...so I also took the opportunity to get some group pictures!

My Birthday Weekend in SLO and Avila...Happy 29!

Ok...now if you've noticed the dates on my last three posts you'd see that they are all out of chronological order! So to stay in consistency...I'm now jumping forward to February 9th, 2008. Mom and I went up to visit Wayne on my birthday weekend...I really just wanted to get outta town and get someplace beautiful! The weather was beautiful and only the evening was chili enough to force a sweatshirt. We went out for fish and chips for lunch at a cute little place in SLO that had an outside patio so the pups didn't have to stay in the car. Baylie especially loves to people watch and she and Kailey both typically have pretty good manners when we're out in public. After lunch Mom, Wayne, Amy and I hit the dog beach in Avila to let the girls run and play. Baylie always plays until she is literally sick...I think she just ingests too much of the salty water and sand but she never lets that stop her! Both girls played for a solid couple of hours and slept all the way home! They even seemed slightly lethargic the next day so I know that they had as much fun as we all did watching! It made for a relaxing birthday weekend away from work and the grind of everyday stresses.

Winter 2008...Baylie's 1st Snow!!!

I haven't been able to update this in a very long time so I apologize to any of you that have checked my blog and been frustrated to find that nothing had changed. So let me now back-track to Christmas...I was dogsitting for Kailey while Wayne worked in San Fransisco at his internship and so we did some fun Christmas pictures and then went to the snow! This was Baylie's first trip to the snow and I'm not sure if Kailey has been to the snow before or not but what I do know is that they both had a great time! Baylie, who loves to fetch, got her first taste of a snowball! This was quite funny because when she caught the "ball" it then shattered and melted in her mouth and she looked a bit confused! Even better, when she missed the ball she would've been running at full speed ahead and then the ball would hit the snow and be untraceable...she'd turn in circles searching for it and finally look back at us with and expression like she'd been cheated or teased...although this wouldn't stop her from playing again and again!