Bella Bella Bella --- Queen of the House !

My retirement gift to myself was a puppy! I know....having a new puppy is like having a new baby. Am I crazy?

This is Bella. She was born on Feb 13th (my Valentine puppy). Bella is a puggle. Her father is a pug and her mother is a beagle. When I got her on April 9th she weighed just about 5 pounds. Now at 3 1/2 months she weighs 10 pounds. Both her mom and dad are small dogs so I don't think that she'll get too big.

Right from the beginning she has ruled the household....and, yes she is spoiled. She gets to sleep in bed with us and gets plenty of attention. She is going to puppy class so that she can learn to be a good puppy. Puggles are very smart and she can already sit, lay down, stay and come...WHEN SHE WANTS TO,

It amazes me that she can find the smallest piece of paper we drop and is constantly chewing on everything. One of her favorite things to chew on is the fringe on our oriental carpets. My daughter told me to spray her with a squirt bottle when she chews on something she shouldn't __ that seems to be working pretty well. I'll be happy when she gets through the chewing stage.

It has been a long time since I've had a puppy and do I ever have a lot to learn. I waited too long to have her nails clipped the first time and ended up with big scratches on my hands (I had to explain to everyone that I really wasn't a cutter; I just have a new puppy). She has already outgrown her first harness, her first bed and her first crate. On a happy note, housebreaking is going good and she rarely has an accident in the house. The poor baby got a reaction to her shots and her usually wrinkly face became really puffy and wrinkly. Now she has to be pre-medicated before her shots so that she doesn't get a reaction.

She is personality plus and I love her to death. I could use advise on how to get her through the chewing stage. Does anyone have a good chew toy or chew stick that their dog loved? Oh well...I didn't really like my shoes, rugs and clothes anyway. I just need to move closer to my daughters so that she can play with Princess and Big Sweetie and then she'll be too tired to chew.

Daughers are Wonderful!

This weekend my scrapbooking buddy Linda and I got to spend the entire weekend with our wonderful daughters. What fun!

Linda and I have been co-workers, friends and scrapbooking cohorts for many years. We have always thought that our eldest daughters sounded like two "peas in a pod" and would get along great if they ever had a chance to meet. Since they both love to scrapbook about three years ago we talked them into going to the CK Convention in Bellevue, Washington with us. Linda's daughter lives in Utah and my daughter lives in Idaho. Just as we suspected, in no time at all they became the best of friends. Since that time the four of us have enjoyed some great times getting together for "girl" weekends.

This past weekend the two girls flew to Oregon so that the four of us could scrapbook all weekend at our favorite scrapbook store --- Scrapbook Fever. It was a marathon ...from 8:00 am until 2:00 pm each day. We got lots of scrapbooking done, but the special joy of the weekend was getting to spend with our daughters.

On Friday night Linda's husband (and Christy's dad) surprised us by bringing us Christy's favorite pizza and delicious berry smoothies (very much appreciated since it was 97 degrees here on Friday).

The weekend involved lots of laughing and giggling. We are known for being a bit on the outrageous side when we all get together so the store put us upstairs with other people who were as crazy as we are. Jenny got a chance to use some of her social working skills when two of the people had a disagreement over what type of music we should listen to. When one of her fellow scrapbookers found out that her dog had some major hip problems, Christy and Jenny tried to make her feel better (right Christy?). We all finished the weekend with dark circles under our eyes from no sleep, new friends, lots of completed scrapbook pages and wonderful memories of our time together (did I mention that Jenny set off the security alarm by accident at 3:00 am?). We already have another "girls weekend" planned for November. We can hardly wait.

Ganny is back among the living!

This winter I went "soft in the head" and let my former employer talk me in to working part time for the months of November through February. When February came they begged me to stay until the end of March.

The good things about working are --- I love my job, I love the people who I work with and finally I love the money. The bad thing about working...it definitely cuts into my leisure time. But now I am again a member of the "retired" world. Hurrah!

Do you judge a book by its cover?

What is your first impression of this guy? You can't see it in this picture but he also has tatoos all over his arms. He has piercings in his lip, both ears and his nose. Some days he wears a belt that is made out of chains and a bracelet that has spikes on it. He has tiny square black glasses. I have never seen him wear anything other than black.

In the past I probably would have been petrified if I saw someone who looked like this. However, for the past year I have worked in a different work location that draws its workers from an entirely different demographic of people. Most of the people that I work with have tatoos and many of them have multiple piercings. We have several people with black and red hair. Although there is a dress code, their style is very casual and is far from the "formal" atmosphere that I am used to.

Actually the young man above is one of the nicest people you could ever meet. He is always at work at least a half hour before his shift begins and is always ready to work when the start time comes. He is extremely conscientious and never misses work. Although he has only been on his present job for about 9 months, he has worked for the company for 8 years and has done an excellent job on all of his previous jobs.

If you call our company, he might be the Customer Service Representative that you speak with. If so, you would be very lucky. He is soft-spoken, very polite and makes each customer feel like he has been waiting all day for their call. Since he's still fairly new on this job he has things to learn but he does his best to make every customer feel special and to resolve their problem. If you were on the other end of the phone, you would probably never picture him to look like this.

He and the other people I work with have taught me to be more open-minded and not to "judge a book by its cover".

Oh, by the way, his hairdo is done with a flat iron, elmers glue and lots of hairspray. He says it takes him about 20 minutes to get it in place.

State Cheerleading Championsip

My beautiful granddaughter Hannah is a cheerleader for

Lakeridge High School. Although this is her 3rd year as a cheerleader, it is her first year being part of their compeition team. There are 15 girls on the team.

She has had quite a year learning the routines and mastering her back hand-spring. Thank heavens she isn't one of the fliers....I'd have a heart attack for sure.

Yesterday was the state championship. Lakeridge was one of 55 teams from all over the state who competed. I must

admit that I am a sucker for this kind of event...I love to see all of the cheerleading uniforms and see their amazing performances. Each teams did a tumbling routine, a cheer and a dance routine. For the most part all of the teams were sesational.

This isn't Hannah's team but it will give you an idea of what the competition looked like. I did take a video of Hannah's team butit is to big a file to load here.

Her team placed 8th in the competition. Even though they were hoping to finish in the top 5 so that they could get a trophy, placing 8th out of 55 teams was outstanding (especially considering that several of the girls are new to the competition team this year. My old high school placed 3rd, so I enjoyed watching them also.

Congratulations to Hannah and her teammates. You did great!

FFF - Favorite Foto Friday

This is a picture of my son-in-law Zac at his wedding reception in Gatlinburg, Tennessee on September 10, 2001. The reception was at a german restaurant and Zac became the entertainment. We all had so much fun....the next day was 9/11 and the world changed.

Box Crushers bring it home!

Last weekend the Box Crushers (the pool team that my son Travis plays on) competed in the Tri-Cup pool tournament.

As you may recall from my earlier post, a few weeks ago the team won 2nd place in their Monday pool league. That win qualified the team to play in the Tri-Cup tournament. This tournament pitted the winners of the local leagues in the Portland and surrounding area (from Salem to Vancouver and Hillsboro to Gresham) against each other. Sixty five teams completed.

After a grueling two days of competition Travis' team came in third and won $1000. This was quite a feat considering they were playing the best teams in Portland. No one had ever heard of the Box Crushers and thought that they were absolutely no threat. Now they are a legend.

The next step in journey is the regional competition to be held in June. This will bring the winning teams from Oregon,Washington, Idaho and Montana together. At this point they don't know where the tournament will be. They are hoping that it will be somewhere out of state. If finish in the top 8 in that tournament they will progress to the national tournament in Las Vegas. Stay tuned for the next installment.