March 11, 2011 is a Good Day to Have a Baby!

Congratulations to Stacy, Ryan, and Aidan! Aidan is now a big brother, as Stacy gave birth to Austin John Chambers at 1:03 pm today. He was 9lbs, 8oz and 22 in long! I will update with pictures when I get them. Just wanted to share the happy news!

Monster Snowbanks

I will never ever forget being in Tahoe, when they had 155 inches of snow in a matter of days. Yes, days. I had never seen so much snow in my whole life, and still haven't. The roads looked just like this! It made for the most amazing snowboarding EVER! Kirkwood is the mountain/ski resort in Tahoe that gets the most snow. Something about the way weather comes over the Sierra Nevada's, it always drops the most on Kirkwood. It is really sureal.

Please click this link for a bigger photo. Carson Spur Monster Snowbanks - iWitness Weather Photos and Video Photo "After 12 feet of new snow in a week, the Caltrans crew were working hard to clear Highway 88 westbound around Carson Spur. They shuttled cars to Silver Lake on Saturday afternoon, because, as you can see, they were still working on that snowbank. Kirkwood has received 475 inches of snowfall to date." That's almost 40 feet!!

Puppy School

Charley has been learning how to be a good dog at Digging Dogs puppy school. Although Charley is a yard digger (we will stop that), Digging Dogs does not teach digging. They have a nice Puppy Discovery Program. Charley was with other little puppies and learned many things, He was working towards getting the AKC (American Kennel Club) Puppy Star certification. The AKC puts out a test that a puppy must pass to get this certification. It's open to all breeds of dogs, not just purebred AKC breeds. The AKC supports good dog citizenship for all breeds and mixes of dogs, so this is a nice way to recognize all their hard work.
Here's puppy school!

This is me and Charley, practicing walking. Charley learned how to heal (which he's naturally very good at), and then stop when I stop, and sit. He was very good at this.

Here's Charley again, sitting by the "stop" cone. Good job!

This exercise teaches the puppy to listen to your voice and come to you. (We're still working on this, especially with coming in from outside) The teacher would hold the puppy, and the handler went behind that curtain in the corner. Then we'd call our dog and see if they could find us. Charley did great!

Then the other person who was with the dog got to come out and hide, and do the same thing. Here's Robb and Charley playing foot-paw high five while waiting for their turn.

Ok, Charley is up!

After class, we had puppy play time. This was a good chance for the puppies to socialize with each other. (we're very lucky that Charley gets to socialize often with the pack of dogs our neighbors dog sit, so he was an old pro) They also got to explore strange textures and objects, like a teeter totter, walking through a ladder, and tunnel. I love this picture because all of the puppies are blurs, and the humans are in focus. Just like real life with a puppy!

Charley playing with another pup.

Class was for 6 weeks. Charley learned to sit, down, stay, heel, walk next to me and stop, turn around, go through a ladder, a tunnel, and a hoop. He learned how to leave it, and began to come. The last week Charley had a big test of all these things for his Puppy Star Certification...

Valentine's Dinner

We celebrated Valentine's day Saturday night after our hike. We had a shrimp cocktail appetizer and then I made a delicious pork tenderloin with fresh sage, cider, and honey crisp apples. To go with it, we had garlic green beans and a crispy baked potato! For dessert as a special treat, we had hot fudge sundays and cheesecake! Delicious! Last shrimp! My favorite!

Pork tenderloin, sage, apple cider, apples!

The whole meal!

It was soooo good!

Then we played our new favorite game, Mexican Train Dominoes!

My Valentine present was in this beautiful bag! It was all fuzzy!
I got Robb a keepsake box with Charley's picture on it, and also a baby Charley mug!

See all of our lovey cards!
This is my Valentine's bear this year! Two! Stuck like glue! :o)

And my very sweet Valentine Bear!

On actual Valentine's Day we went out to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. We'd never been there before, and it was pretty yummy. We had a blooming onion, fresh bread, salad, sweet potato, mashed potato, baked beans, pulled pork, and fall off the bone ribs! It was a treat!

Since it was our first time eating there, they sent us home with a bag of peanuts and some coupons! It was a nice way to celebrate with my Honey!

Winter Hike

Saturday afternoon, Robb, Charley, and me went to Chapin Forest for some hiking! The weather was decent enough, and Charley had to practice in his boots. We are teaching Charley to hike with boots on, because sometimes we encounter terrain or snow that would hurt his paws. He has really really fuzzy and webbed feet that suck in snow and it gets matted and packed into his paws. Ouch! So, dog boots are the solution. This is the second time he'd worn his boots, and has no problems at all! He walks and runs around like they don't bother him at all! When he gets all grown up sized we'll buy him a nice pair from Ruff Wear, like these!

Look at these example dogs! They love their boots!

Charley's feet were dry and warm the whole time! Wait till he gets professional boots!

Charley and Robb running through the trails!

This is a usual sight... Charley with all four paws off the ground in the air! He's a very bouncy boy! Poodle in him!

Talking about something...

Sweet happy puppy face!

Me and my Charley!

Happy with his boots on!

This water made the most relaxing sound as it trickled down the almost frozen creek.

We saw this really neat chunky bark tree on our hike.

Very happy Charley loves the park. Here he is with the sun on his fur and wind in his hair!

Charley is amazing us with how quickly he learns. He's always been a very smart puppy, but continues to show his intelligence with everything we do. Since it's been very cold and snowy, we haven't been on too many walks, except for in puppy school. These last two hikes, we taught Charley to heel, and he really gets it. Most of the walk, he actually wanted to walk right next to me, and didn't pull at all. There was literally no slack on the leash, and he walked right by my side. When he got just a few feet in front of me, he'd stop and wait for me to catch up, and then walk next to me again. This is a very good thing for comfortable walks, and off leash training. Except, now, we have to teach him how to be in front and pull, which apparently doesn't come naturally to Charley. We need him to do this for rollerblading and cross country skiing, where he needs to be in his harness, in front, pulling. To try to teach him this, we run through the park with Robb in front, then Charley "pulls" me when he tries to catch up. I think this will take more work to get him to understand "GO", versus the little work it took to teach him to "HEEL". We hiked on Sunday also at North Chagrin Metroparks, but didn't take any pictures. He did just as good!

Getting Big!

Here's my sweet little Charley riding in the car on the way to the puppy food store. I can't believe how much he's growing!

We love meat!

Saturday night after the wedding, both families went out to celebrate at Brasa Grill downtown.

Here's the description of what Brasa is from their website. It just makes the most sense to copy and paste instead of me trying to explain..

Brasa Grill Steakhouse is Cleveland's first Churrascaria (choo-rah-scah-REE-ah). A Churrascaria is a restaurant that serves meat, mostly grilled, and Rodizio is a method of serving the different cuts of meat that originated in Southern Brazil in the 1800's. The concept is to serve you a wide variety of different cuts of beef, pork, lamb, chicken, etc. in succession to each diner individually right at your table.

And what a delicious concept this is!
The Newlyweds!

Kendra and Kelsey enjoying their meat!

These guys just ran around serving meet off their swords. There was 16 different kinds of meat flying around. Some of my favorites were the leg of lamb, chicken thighs, and top sirloin.They were in a real hurry. They'd start by shaving of a piece, you had to grab it off with these little teeny pincher tongs, and then they'd finish cutting, and ran to the next person!

Rings!

They had the most wonderful salad bar! It had 40 items including shrimp, mussels, olive and cheese bar, and pastas.

Beautiful glass light sculpture that hung over the salad bar.

Long table of full happy people!

Congratulations Ray and Kathy!!