2nd Anniversary...check.

today marks the day of our second year of wedded bliss :)

i am truly lucky to be traveling through this life with someone like Ben, possibly because he is always prepared for it seems just about everything...like a boyscout, but more likely it is because he makes the everyday stuff great.

and....he buys me flowers, not only for special occasions, but sometimes just to get flowers. see exhibit 'A'

my gift to him was a homemade loaf of bread. see exhibit 'B'

(who am i kidding, i totally used the bread maching...but the house smelled GREAT!)

AND wally didn't eat it this time around!!

anyway, enough mushy stuff mum....on to MY weekend!!!

my "girlfriend" is visiting...we are having so much fun chasing each other and playing tug of war with my rope. it's really the perfect life having a friend over.

she's smaller than me and not a perfect airedale like me, but she's super fast and has the energy level of an airedale that's for sure! mum took some video of us 'ruff' housing, but i don't think she knows how to load it up to the computer...figures!

well, that's all for now, i have some patrolling to do and tug of war to play.

take care!

WOOF!

did that car just float by????

well, we haven't completely been swept away down here in central Texas!
after torrential rains from tropical depression Hermine, we have lots of destruction to deal with! at villa debellis, we received at least 10 inches. other parts of austin and surrounding areas report 12+ inches. crazy! luckily our little neighborhood fared well and we have no damage...thank goodness!



all this rain has caused one big fluffy aire-head great displeasure...he is not toO keen on going outside to do his business in the rain. (he finally "went" when it was more than he could bear) i think these pics show his opinion of t.s. Hermine....

...um....that's some stink eye for you!!!


anyway, back to the flooding and destruction...
here are some pics of some of our parks in Round Rock that are much worse for wear.

we lost some asphalt at a few of our parks...

this was a storage barn, as you can see the water just ripped into it.

this is a GIANT pecan tree that totally flattened that poor little bench! our arborist said it was 2" wider in circumference than their largest saw. that sucker was big!

at our memorial park our WWII torpedo display was basically dismantled by the floods...the torpedo was busted out of its concrete cradle and went as far as it could before the trees stopped its journey...if not for the trees it might have floated on down to some other town! i am saddened by this picture, our vets worked really hard to get the torpedo and have it restored and it's only been on display since last fall.

while these photos show some pretty big obstacles, we will clean up and patch and repair!

hope everyone has a great weekend.
bark at ya later!

WOOF!

dog days of august are over...

howdy everyone!
the pinkies are all wearing maroon and excited about something called "college football"....personally i'd rather be chewing on a bone. but apparently this weekend marks the beginning of the season. (mum: lets hope the aggies can pull off a respectable season...WHOOP!)
it's the start of labor day weekend and it's shaping up to be a good one...the weather dropped significantly and i already got in a quality walkie with the mum today :)
cross your paws that the weekend stays on the cool side of the 90's!!

mum has been busy, she abandoned us boys and went on a girlie trip to fredericksburg for a bachelorette weekend for her friend Gennie K. apparently they had a great time, although i don't know how she could have had that much fun without me...just sayin'.
here are some snapshots...they did some action stuff and also tooled around the main drag in town, and visited Luckenbach, Tx too...where everybody's somebody!!




















hope everyone has a safe and wonderful labor day weekend...
WOOF!

catching up

howdy folks! just wanted to let you all know what i've been up to :)
lots of laying about...evidence here-



i've also gotten pretty good at stalking the squirrels in the tree in the back yard. here i am ferociously waiting them out! sometimes i get so excited i try to climb the tree! mum is never fast enough to catch that in action...



i also spend a lot of time begging for a piece of the cheese sticks mum and dad seem to have everyday...they taste wonderful!

well, that's what's new with me, i suppose i have to turn this writing stuff over to mum so she can tell you about all the "cool" things they've been doing (as if they could be cooler than me..)

we have been doing cool things!
my sister came to visit for a few days a couple weeks ago. we ate some mexican food and embarked on "Craft Day 2010". now, i had a whole list set up of some reasonable 'beginner' crafts that we could accomplish in one afternoon...sad to say, we chose to lounge about in the morning and then eat mexican food. by the time we got home from the craft store (we needed some minor supplies) it was late afternoon!!
the results of "Craft Day 2010" are a beautiful set of cloth napkins made from a vintage table cloth that i had and audra learned how to hand embroider. yes folks, we have made things with our hands!!! (trumpets playing...ok maybe i hear led zepplin) see below for a pic of the napkins.



we also had a wonderful dinner last night with our friends jorge and julieth and their pretty little girl pricila, who was born this past february (the best month in my opinion for birthdays) we got to pose with little pricila for some pics!





she was such a good girl and is very strong. she was so happy she didn't want to go to bed...we have that effect on people :)

as i close, wally is super focused on ben out in the neighbor's front yard, he is helping to take down the dead tree :( so sad, we'll miss the shade and it looks so strange without something there now.
until next time, au revoir.

WOOF!

Can you believe it's August?!?

nope, neither can i.
July was a pretty busy month for our household. it involved lots of travel on the weekends and busy days during the week. we are kind of hoping August is a little bit slower :)

July 4th weekend marked lots of celebrations, including Wally's birthday. we went to some parties and watched the fireworks from the comfort of our driveway. our neighborhood puts on a pretty good show. luckily the RR fireworks were canceled due to weather conditions so i didn't have to work July 4th like i usually do. considering this is my favorite holiday, i was elated.

The second weekend in July our good friends from louisiana came for a visit with their son, D3. it was such a good weekend and we had a great time seeing them. we always enjoy getting together with such good friends...we only wish they didn't live so far away! we got lots of shopping done and tons of good food was had by all. we really like to feast when we get together :)



Wally had his first prolonged meeting with a 9 month old and that went surprisingly well. he was very concerned anytime D3 made baby noises and really enjoyed sniffing the heck out of his diaper! we all noticed that since D3 was so busy scooting to and from Wally, he actually got faster at crawling and improved his pull up skills in one weekend! i guess dogs are good for something!

the next weekend saw the postponed RR fireworks show on fri. and so i had to work the event afterall. all went well and everyone enjoyed them. Ben and i left that sat for a quick trip up to his cousin's house in forney, tx. Adam and his wife Jamie live there with their 9 month old Ava. Ben's other cousin Paul from NYC was visiting as well, so we all had a good time catching up. Forney has really grown since my last visit a few years ago! Ben's cousins have a beautiful house and little Ava was a sweetheart!! she looks like her mom, but has the activity level of her dad. we got her this little frilly outfit from target.



if that's not enough car time, the next weekend we drove back to the metroplex to visit with my parents and family. my mom's cousins from Kansas stopped in to the FN Ranch on their way down to S. Padre Island. it was really great to see them, it's been almost 7yrs. since Ben and I saw them!!! the farming life doesn't leave a lot of time for vacation. we had a good time and had some great food at Joe T's in downtown fort worth.







yesterday we did some work around the house which included power washing the driveway and sidewalks and we painted the front door a lovely dark maroon...it looks fantastic!





whew!
that was a lot of travel!! luckily wally got to travel with us to the FN Ranch and got some good pasture running in. as our final weekend in July closes, we are clean and resting after a good morning down at town lake on the trail. hope everyone had a good july, here's to a happy august!!

WOOF!

That state of OK

we are sitting in the living room and my mum is watching her funny show 'Little Britain' laughing really loud...i just don't see what's so funny really, there are no squirrels or rabbits and no dogs catch the bird.
anyway...my pinkies left me TWICE in the last two weeks (i don't know how anyone would want to leave my cute face behind) but they had to go up to the metroplex to be with mum's dad who was not feeling well. turns out after a surgery to get rid of an infection he is doing better and is now back at the ranch. which is a good thing because he was getting pretty cranky being in the hospital all that time!
THEN, last weekend mum and dad took a road trip up to Oklahoma! (the state of Oklahoma! must be written with an exclamation point behind it otherwise it's just that wasteland on the other side of the Red River) anywho, my pinkies went up to Oklahoma! to visit some old friends from college and see their new house and just hang out.
since i wasn't with them, i guess i'll hand over this post to my mum...

we had a great time in Oklahoma! we visited that school that happens to be in norman,ok..we did not see bobby stoops. i think our campus at A&M was much better! we also drove over to Oklahoma City and saw the bombing memorial which was truly beautiful and very striking to see. it is very well done and conveys the story of that sad event in America's history.







after a GREAT steak dinner made by Lesli' (it was soooo good, thank you Lesli') we hung out and enjoyed a movie. the next day we ate at 'The Diner' an awesome breakfast establishment in historic Norman (it was so good we ate there twice..yum!) excellent blueberry pancakes.


all in all, we had a good time and our friends' house is beautiful and we are so happy for their success (even though they live in Oklahoma!) kidding!!

mum give me the computer back!!!
so while they were away my uncle brian was lucky enough to watch over me all weekend...thanks so much!! i was a bit of a toot though mum says as i got a hold of the remote control and decided it looked like a bone....i don't know why she got so mad...

well, it's almost bedtime, hope all of you are doing well.
goodnight

WOOF!

Some Landscape Architects Live Here...

Wally's pinkies here...taking over for a moment to show off our MAD SKILLS!!! we took the weekend to create phase I of the front yard landscape. (for those of you that don't know, we are both landscape architects and we tossed a coin to see who gets to design the front and back yards...i got the back :) i digress.
we attacked the front planting bed with shovels, a chainsaw, and brooms and all manner of hand trowels. we ripped out some burford hollies from the 80's and did some serious soil amending (central tx sits on a gnarly clay pan).
Ben wheeled and dealed earlier in the week for some heavy guage steel pipe in differing heights to serve as planting "pots". boy were they heavy!



after a round of rolling them to different spots in the planting bed to determine the perfect location...we set them and filled them with soil.
to keep out the weeds and serve as general eye candy we got a yard of small granite gravel (the said yard just barely made it home from the nursery...my f150 was the little truck that could..) we spread that all around (back breaking work) and then started placing the limestone boulders that Ben liberated from a job site earlier in the month...perks of working outside :)





on the final day of working on phase I, and under the supervision of one Wally the airedale, we began installing the plant material consisting of cacti and other drought hearty species of plants.



if you are familiar with the landscape of el paso our planting bed will bring back memories.



i think overall our planting bed is a great success, our neighbors have all come over and given it their stamp of approval. they also want to know if we can do their houses. (wait until they see our fee!!!)
so hope you like the pics, Wally stayed out on his line with us for the whole day, chewing on the planting pots we pulled off (one of his favorite past times) and in general surveying the entire sweaty business of our endeavor.



his comment for the weekend..."I don't do yard work."
WOOF!