Anniversary Time

We celebrated our 4th anniversary on October 15. Traditionally the gifts are flowers and fruit, and the contemporary gift is appliances. We got a little of both for each other! 

Robb gave me this beautiful bouquet of 4 roses (representing love in our four years of marriage) and 5 sunflowers (representing happiness for our fifth year of marriage). I was so impressed by his bouquet and meaning of why he got it for me. Very sweet!!

I also got this beautiful watercolor orchid plant. 

And a temperature set water warmer for my tea. 

Robb lives watches and I got him a skeleton watch with "Rose" gold on it. 

Plus I gave him a scrumptious gourmet caramel chocolate Oreo covered Apple! 

On Sunday, we went out to brunch at the Fieldcrest. They even set up our sweetheart table next to the fireplace. The same spot we sat for our reception dinner. It was so cozy and romantic. ;)

Still looks the same, our perfect place. 

What a nice time we had, celebrating our anniversary! ❤️

It Was A Cold and Rainy Day

So we warmed to up with some of our favorite Chinese food! Actually Siam Cafe IS our favorite and it really hit the spot!!

I just loved all the red balls hanging from the ceiling. It was so festive. Hot tea for two! 

To start, I had some beautiful summer rolls with peanut sauce and Robb had some of their spring rolls. Their spring rolls are the best I've ever had, and their home made sauce is incredible! I wish they could make them vegetarian. 

Next up was a brightly colored tofu veggie noodle bowl. It was steaming hot and so scrumptious. 

Robb ordered the General Tao's chicken, and he said it is the best ever. He said that the sauce has so much flavor and is fantastically prepared. 

We both thoroughly enjoyed our most delicious lunch and time together! 

Pizza Friday - Out!

Last Friday, we went out to pizza at Biga. Biga is a wood fired pizza restaurant in Kirtland. It's such a treat and indulgence to go!

We started with a yummy antipasto tray filled with Merlot cheese, pesto spread, olives, fire roasted tomatoes, salami (for Robb), and fresh baked bread.

Our next course was a very fresh margarita pizza. Oh my is that good!!

As if we didn't have enough, we had to have a home made baileys ho-ho for dessert. 

What a lovely way to spend the night!!

Five!

Today our Sweet Pea turned 5!! It's hard to believe, time is flying!! My mission on my animals birthday is to do all their favorite things. I think we did pretty good today! 

Char slept in an lounged around this morning. It's ok to relax on your birthday. 

I baked these special peanut butter banana squirrels for a birthday treat and to celebrate at school tomorrow. After I was done working, we plyed obedience school, and then played agility in the yard, until Robb got home. Then we went out for some fun. Our first stop was Petsmart, where we let Charley pick a new toy out from the bins. Guess what he picked... a BIG ball! (big surprise;)

Aftrwards, we headed to the park for a nice hike, talked about fun things we would do with Charley as a 5 year old, and then went home for dinner and cake!!

Charley's cake was made of chewy pizza dough, aka the crust! We made it just for him, it's his favorite part, and he enjoyed every bit. 

Happy birthday my Sweetest Pea! I love every moment I spend with you. You are one very special boy. XO!!

OAJ and Weekend Agility News

The biggest news of the weekend was Charley got his Open Agility Jumpers title!

He ended the weekend with a perfect score, 100/100, and was the only dog out of all the group that qualified!

On Friday, he also got a 2nd leg towards his standard title.

 Good job Charley!!!

Big Weekend in Agility

Sorry, we've been absent from blog land lately. Weekends have been really busy around here doing lots of fun summer things. Including agility! This weekend, Char and I have a two day trial, and it could be a very big weekend for us. We are two legs away from Chars novice standard title, and one leg away from Charley's Open Jumpers title. I'm pretty nervous, not for the legs we need to get, but if Charley passes Friday, we have to move up to Excellent. I know this doesn't mean much to you people reading this, but basically this is the highest level of agility, and really the highest level of any event we've trailed in. I just read this article from an agility blog I follow, and will try not to look ahead to the possible move up, and really concentrate on the levels at hand. But you never know, and that's in the back of my mind....

From Agilitynerd.com:

I sometimes get questions from novice handlers asking about preparing for competition and especially about getting stressed out at competitions. Stress and anxiety they happen to us all.

But you know what? The more you do it the easier it gets.

You will make mistakes.

You will learn from those mistakes and know what to expect and then you'll know what to do.

You will forget things (collar on? collar off? brought your dog? entered in the trial/run? treats? crate? the course sequence?)

You will find that the trial tests your skillsand uncovers your weaknesses and then you'll work on improving those skills.

You'll train out the "but we can't" excuses and you will become a better team.

You'll hang out with people who support you and your goals (and you'll stay away from the rest).

And the whole experience will get easier. The packing, travel, hotel, trial check in, course walk throughs, warm up, run, cool down; all will become things you know how to do and with practice will become second nature.

Because if you do anything enough times you will own it!

You can move past the anxiety and overcome the stress with one important mantra:

Just DO Agility

--We will try our hardest and have confidence that all our hard work and practice will see us through!!

Daffodil Hill

One Sunday in April, we went to the Heights for some brunch and to look at daffodil's.

We usually just go around the cultural gardens, on MLK, but stopped in Lakeview Cemetary to take some pictures.  Lucky us, we found out that they had  something called Daffodil Hill.  

Every year volunteers plant more and more daffodils, which total in the thousands, and bloom down a hill.  It was an awesome discovery, as there were way more flowers than the other place.

So many different varieties!!