Meet Me in St. Louis

Personally I think the title of this post in a little misleading.  NO ONE met me or my sister anywhere!  While the events of this post were taking place, we went to a new kennel that has the word "palace" in its name.  I'm not sure if that's appropriate or not.  It's newer than our last kennel, but as it was our first visit, it's not like being at the Cheers bar "where everybody knows your name!"  Maybe in time.

The title of this post refers to Mommy and Daddy taking yet another vacation without us.  They flew to St. Louis where they met Mommy's brother and his family.  I don't understand; Uncle J and Aunt K brought their kids . . . why didn't we get to go???

The six of them spent a whirlwind two days in St. Louis where they took a riverboat cruise on the Mississippi and traveled up into the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, better known as the Gateway Arch.  That first day the heat index was a miserable 111 degrees!!!

Mommy learned a LOT about her brother on this trip . . . she knew she liked mapping out the best route (just like Poppa), but she's got NOTHING on Uncle J!!!  She conceded King of the Maps title to him and never had to lift a finger as far as maps were concerned the entire trip!

The riverboats were aptly named Becky Thatcher and Tom Sawyer. 

Still early in the trip and not showing rivers of sweat yet . . .

The heat is taking a toll . . . check out poor little Cousin A's plastered hair!  It was definitely a two shower day.  Maybe it's a good thing I wasn't on this trip after all.

All six family members crammed into the same pod to make the trip to the top of the Arch.  It was a TIGHT squeeze!

While in St. Louis, they also ate lots of barbecue and toured the Budweiser facility.  Mommy said as far as factory tours, it ranks right up there with the best!

Mommy's only disappointment was that the Clydesdales were kept in their stalls the entire time.  Maybe it was because it had rained the night before and was muddy outside or because it was early in the day.

Uncle J and Daddy did the math and determined a single canister contained enough beer to pour 38 million twelve ounce servings!  There were 32 canisters in this room alone and we can only guess how many more were on the property.

How can you not like a facility that has an amazing three tiered chandelier?

After touring Budweiser, the family drove to Branson, Missouri.  They spent their first day there relaxing in the pool trying to recover from the previous two days of the trip.  Cousins C and A loved showing off their moves!  I'm sure my dawggie paddle would have been impressive too!

Daddy and Uncle J spent one morning catching about five trout each while the rest of the family toured the fish hatchery.  Apparently trout aren't native to the waters of Missouri.

The girls and little Cousin A also did something Mommy had wanted to do for a while.  They Rode the Ducks!  This girl and her sister would have enjoyed the ride as well!  I like a quacker every now and then too!

The family went to two shows while they were in Branson.  One was the Dixie Stampede!  A show named after ME and I don't get to attend!  How rude!  Thankfully when purchasing tickets, Mommy chose correctly.  She chose for everyone to sit on The South side.  Little did she know, The North was going to be pitted against The South throughout the entire show.  This was a dinner show, that served a ton of delicious food.  Or so I've been told.  Notice anything missing from the picture below?

The silverware!  The entire meal had to be eaten with your hands!  I would have had an advantage had I been invited!  And I wouldn't have complained once about not having a fork or knife.  Daddy was sneaky; he whipped out his pocket knife and proceeded to carve away at his chicken!  Mommy felt a bit like a caveman . . . or cavewoman!

Other down time during the week was spent playing mini golf, trying to win the ultimate UNO battle, determining "who started it" between siblings, and hanging on for dear life while Uncle J and Daddy tried to beat the other to the final destinations since two cars had been rented.

Overall, it was a fun week for the entire family . . . as much fun as you can have minus the most important members, the four legged ones.

Maybe next time, we'll get to go too.  Something tells me not to hold my breath waiting.
Dixie

The Path of Opportunities

We're walking every morning around 7AM.  We walk about 3-4 miles each day.  We LOVE to walk!  I think we'd like it better if we weren't forced to wear our pinch collars, but Mommy reminds us that it only hurts when we pull in the opposite direction!  Doesn't she understand all of the GOOD stuff is in the opposite direction???

It's fairly cool in the mornings when we're out walking, but we still get HOT!  Who wouldn't while wearing a black fur coat in the middle of summer?   Several yards along our route have a sprinkler system, and of course early morning is a good time to run those sprinklers.  We don't really like to play in the sprinklers, but we DO like to lap up the water that collects in the edge of the driveways.

We do this for a couple reasons.  First, we need to cool off.  We cool off our feet and we lap up the water to drink.  Second, birds like to cool off in that water too.  And you know what else they tend to do in the water?  Poop!  We've developed a taste for bird poop lately much to Mommy's dismay.  Don't blame me.  Jenna started it.  I just picked up the bad habit from her.

We also enjoy our morning walks because of the rabbits we see along the way.  We used to have cottontails in our old yard, but the rabbits here tend to be BIGGER!  Mommy refuses to let us run after them.  The rabbits at our old house used to bolt as soon as they saw us.  These rabbits think they can perform magic.  They like to hunker down in the grass and try to disappear.

On another morning, Mommy captured pictures of these rabbits!  Can you see them?  I can't believe they don't see us coming and hop away.  It's probably a small miracle we don't hear their hearts beating or they don't have a heart attack!  (Mommy calls this nearby area the "normal" neighborhood.  It has normal size houses, normal size yards, and has trees!!)

It's so much fun to spot the rabbits along the way.  If only we could chase them.  [sigh]  Maybe one day!

Dixie


PS: Happy 280th birthday to Uncle J!!!!!  You're definitely getting OLD!  May you live a long, happy life full of opportunities!

Yard? What Yard?

Some people say we are spoiled and I guess they're right.  We do live a GREAT life!  But what I've come to realize since our move to a totally different part of the country is that our YARD spoiled us!  (Go ahead and admit it; that wasn't what you were thinking of when I said spoiled was it?)  We had almost an acre and a half at our last house.  We measure our yard now in square feet!  It's soooooooo tiny compared to the previous yard.  We also had wonderful grass that looked nice and green.  Our parents had worked hard (as well as paid others to work hard) to make our yard what is was.

Remember this?

[sigh]       [sigh]      [sigh]      Those were the good ole days . . .

Now we have this:

A privacy fence that prevents us from seeing the world walk by . . . although it does NOTHING to prevent us from HEARING the world walk by!   Hmpf!  Can you comprehend the kind of chaos that causes???

And a tee tiny yard that barely allows room for me to run and retrieve the frisbee.  It's preposterous!  Mommy has already thrown the frisbee over the fence!  I'm sure that was just the first of hundreds of times!  See that tennis ball?  We don't actually throw it; Dixie just likes to walk around with it in her mouth!  And do you know why???  Because there's no place to throw it!  Not to mention bare spots in the yard, sandburs (aka goat heads), and lots of places where the grass just isn't green!  Mommy told us she met a lady who had lived here for five years and she said this was the greenest she'd ever seen it!  NOOOOOOOO!!!   Please say it ain't so!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are up in paws about this situation.

And to make matters even worse, there are no dawg parks (or dog parks either!).  This is a crisis.  We need action!

Any suggestions?
Jenna


PS: More to come on those goat heads . . . 

Look What the Wind Blew In!

Last week Mommy got to experience her first dust storm.  She was outside watering plants despite the fact that it looked like a big storm was brewing.  There were huge dark clouds and it was thundering and lightning.  Daddy thought it was going to rain so he went inside.  Mommy wasn't sure.  It frequently looks like it will rain here and then it'll blow over.  She had plants she'd just purchased and didn't want to take a chance with them in the heat. 

She noticed the wind was picking up and at first thought it was just the storm approaching.  She started looking in either direction of our house and noticed the sky was changing from dark to red!  As in red dirt flying!  She was very excited and ran inside to tell Daddy a dust storm was coming.  He'd seen this strange phenomenon before since he's been living here since Easter, so he wasn't impressed. Mommy grabbed her camera to record the moment.  This might be something she regrets since she had to take a shower afterwards!  She had dust all over her, her clothes, and in her hair!  Ick!  But you know Mommy, she loves to take pictures!

It doesn't look like much in the pictures, but it was quite a sight in person.  Or so she says.  She didn't allow either of us to go outside with her.  Probably a good thing since she almost lost her balance at one point.  We'd have been flying in the wind like Toto in The Wizard of Oz!

There wasn't anyone outside taking pictures of Mommy, but she probably looked like this . . .

 Daddy says give Mommy a bicycle and it would look more like this . . . 

remember who Miss Gulch turns into??

But we digress.  Here's what the dust storm looked like:

 One end of the street . . . and the other . . .

And then it was over!  The whole thing probably lasted less than fifteen minutes! 

And it NEVER rained that day!

This dust storm was pretty amazing to Mommy, but it wasn't as bad as a haboob!  Wonder if we're going to experience one of those one day?

Dixie and Jenna

New Place, New Vet

Since we've moved, we've had to find a new vet.  Ugh!  It's so frustrating to have to find someone new to take care of you.  Someone you can essentially trust with your life.  We're still mourning the passing of our beloved Dr. Stoneback from two years ago.  We've been through LOTS of vets in the past two years.  We went from having one vet to a group of vets taking over his practice.  We grew fond of them, but it wasn't the same and now we have to start all over again!

Mommy went online to read reviews of the many local practices and chose one she thought would be best.  Then she scheduled a time to take both of us in to meet the new vet.  We were due for a few vaccines to keep us up to date.  She should have taken us to our old vet BEFORE the move, but . . . instead she apparently thought the torture of meeting someone new would be good for us.

 

Actually, the experience was much worse for Mommy than for us.  The new practice is close to our house and is open until 10PM!!!  That's great should we have some sort of emergency.  What Mommy didn't realize was that the new practice was in a strip mall type of area.  Do you know how difficult it is to get both of us out of the car in a tight space??  We don't either, but Mommy wasn't thrilled with this trip from that moment on.  We were both very well behaved in the waiting room (seriously, we were), but the doctor was running about thirty minutes behind.  Nothing sets Mommy on edge like someone being late.

This new vet practice is large and has several doctors.  EVERY practice Mommy looked at online was the same way.  We are SURE we'll see a different doctor the next time we have to go . . . at least we'd better!  Mommy was less than impressed with the young doctor (girl) we met.  According to Mommy, the vet had the handshake of a fish, never introduced herself, and was probably almost half Mommy's age!  For those reasons alone, Mommy was NOT impressed!

I really liked her because she had squeeze cheese in a can she kept squirting on the floor for us to lap up while she checked us out.   Mommy said on the one paw she thought this was a cool idea, but on the other paw who knows what kind of contagious germs might be on the floor of the vet office.  Do they scrub those floors between patients?  Mommy thinks not!  I don't really care so long as the cheese keeps coming my way!

 

Perhaps the best part of the visit (besides the endless cheese) was that I am still the reigning SUPERMODEL!  I weighed in at 45 pounds and my sister Dixie weighed a whopping 46 pounds!  Whoo hoo for me!

So, the point of this post is that we have made a vet contact, we hope to make a better one next time (or else Mommy will be forced to continue the search), and that I reign supreme!  Wish us luck with the vet.  Of course, wish us more luck that we don't need to see the vet again any time soon.

Jenna


PS: Happy Birthday Mommy!  Hopefully there won't be any vet trips in your day!

It's HERE!

Remember that large blue and white truck that took off with our things?  Well, it's HERE!!!!  It arrived after almost TWO WEEKS!  Mommy and Daddy lived on an air mattress in our new house for that time.  They used two packable bag chairs to sit in and a large cooler as their coffee table.  Thank goodness they brought our crates and beds in the car.  Even though Mommy and Daddy were a bit uncomfortable, we weren't!

That truck didn't have nearly the road space here as it had at our last house.  See that green grass?  First, it's probably a miracle it's actually green considering the climate we now live in and second, that's all we have in the way of a front yard!!!!  Our space here is SUPER TINY!  Where oh where is our big yard????????  Why did we have to leave it?????  Mommy says although she misses our old house and her friends, this move was an answered prayer, so we would have to take our complaints to a Higher Power!   [sigh]

This house is a bit smaller than our last house and it doesn't have a basement.  Do you know how much stuff our parents stored in our basement???  A LOT!!!!!!  When the truck left, there were boxes EVERYWHERE!!!!!

There was only one small path in the garage from the front to the back.  Mommy's pretty sure she will NEVER park in there!

We were very excited when Mommy found our outdoor dawg beds in all the boxes.  She put them outside on the patio for our relaxation pleasure and to give us a sense of home.  It's not the same, but it's the thought that counts.  [sigh]

Mommy began the long, grueling, unpacking process.  She broke all of her fingernails all the way down from tearing into boxes.  She also had bruises all over her legs and arms from running into boxes and carrying boxes through the house.  She even gave herself a black eye!  She bent over to pick up something in the garage and hit herself in the eye with the pole attached to the American flag that was waiting to be hung and lying on top of boxes.  She didn't allow us to post a picture of that!

The good news is that Mommy's finished unpacking!!!!  We are finally settled into our new house.  (The garage is still in progress, but it's looking MUCH better.)  We aren't quite settled into our new yard.  Of course, it's a small yard, so it won't take long!  Or we may never be settled into our new yard.  It's going to be tough to get over the wonderful, BIG, green yard we had at our last house . . . sigh.

We'll share more pictures of the new house eventually.  So glad we're up and blogging again!

Dixie and Jenna

Road Trip

What's the longest road trip you've ever taken?  We bet it's not as long as ours!  After a traumatic two days of watching our things being packed up and toted away, Mommy and Daddy loaded us both up in the car.  That's strange because the four of us are hardly ever in the car at the same time.  It's only happened a few times and that's when Mommy and Daddy are headed to the airport and the drop off to the kennel is on the way.  We thought surely one of us must be seriously ill for all of us to be headed to the vet together.  That's where most of our road trips take us.

But this road trip was different.  The car was packed with the four of us, our crates, beds, a suitcase or two, and a few other items.  We started heading in the opposite direction of the vet.  We drove and drove and drove.

 

And kept driving and driving and driving . . .

 Check out Dixie's "breath" on the window.  She loves sitting up and watching the world go by.

Look at Jenna sleeping on the snack food!  She's showing a great deal of restraint, isn't she?

We didn't stop traveling for two days!  Well, we did stop at a hotel for the night.  That was a new experience for us.  You'd be surprised at all the hotels that allow dawgs.  We stayed at a Fairfield by Marriott.  Mommy says when they made a similar road trip with Hunter over ten years ago, their only option was a Red Roof Inn.  (Still, no one's talking about WHERE we're going!?!?)  We got to ride on an elevator in the hotel.  It was a bit scary at first with that feeling of movement beneath our feet.  But after going up and down several times to go outside to potty, we were pros.

  

Mommy brought an extra sheet to put on the bed for us, but Daddy told us to sleep on the floor.  Slumber party pooper!  [sigh]  The next morning when they woke up, Mommy found Dixie on the floor and Jenna on the sofa in our suite (the only room available).  

Let's go!  Time to roll!

The hotel had a breakfast bar, but we weren't allowed to partake of it.  They also had bunny rabbits outside, but Mommy wouldn't let us chase them.  I guess we had a good time at the hotel, but it could have been better . . . sigh.

The next day was more of the same.  We drove and drove and drove.  The only thing that changed was the scenery.  The land grew flatter and flatter. 

Dixie looks like she's face planted in a food bowl, but in reality she's leaning over behind the tote.

  We put our heads together several times to try to figure out where we were headed . . . 

TWENTY-SEVEN HOURS later, we arrived at our final destination.  We've MOVED!  Why didn't anyone tell us that was happening?  We could have said our proper goodbyes and enjoyed our yard a while longer.  Our new yard is well . . .

More on that later,
Dixie and Jenna

PS: Happy birthday to Cousin S today.  We missed Cousin K's and Cousin A's birthdays a couple weeks ago.  Sorry about that.  We thought about you; we just couldn't write about you.  We were a bit preoccupied . . .

PPS: For the most part, our parents split the driving duties.   We were hoping they would allow us to drive, but that didn't happen.  Thanks to Aunt K for trying to give them a hint.  I bet we could have made the trip fly by!