Merry Christmas 2008

Merry Christmas to everyone from us here in sunny Arizona.... I gave the dogs each a rawhide bone, and look at where Miss Princess chose to dig in.... :)

She IS quite the gift, you know :)

My friend Rachel had this ornament made for us too.... isn't it great! :) I just love it!


So now I wait for a few hours to pass before I go to get my mom from the airport.... the parents have been called and wished Merry Christmases to... the dishes are done from last night, and now I will sit and relax for a while.

i hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas with your families.....

Best wishes from Kota, Sedona, Chance and I....

Who would they be....

Jinnie tagged me to play this game.... let's see....

Dakota - my 5 year old Cardigan:
-play police
-easily offended if not included in the fun
-pretends like he doesn't want "luvin", but is easily hurt when he's left out
Summary: he seems to me to be like a teenage boy... one who wants his space yet doesn't want to be forgotten or left out of anything. He tries to play the "tough guy" but really is a big ole mama's boy at heart. He's a jock and a scholar. He's good at everything he tries. Like a teenage boy, his first love is food... his second is his mama.

Sedona - my 2.5 year old Cardigan:
-princess
-loves pillows
-demanding
Summary: Sedona is a royal, you know. She *always* sleeps on a pillow... be it on the couch or on my own pillow in bed. She's the popular girl in school who always has her hair just so (as evidenced by her curls on her pants even!). When she wants something she doesn't hesitate to let you know... and if you don't listen, she'll only get louder. She can turn on the charm in the blink of an eye and there isn't a person around who can resist her.

Chance - my almost 2 year old Cardigan:
-clownish
-center of attention
-super affectionate
Summary: Chance is the epitome of "the baby" of the family. Chance is the mama's boy who always wants to be sitting in his mama's lap. One of those kids you see literally wrapped around their mom's leg? Yep. Chance. I also see Chance as a court jester... he loves to be the center of attention... both people attention and dog attention. While being a clown, he hides his intelligence really well... he's that closet nerd who was really the class clown in high school.

I could go on and on for days and days about the personalities of my canine family, but I think this is a decent summary.

I hereby tag Carolyn (ha, good luck!), Kristine and Penni

Christmas gift - early

My dad and step mom sent a package from Virginia... I knew it would contain the yummy candies that my step mom (Kim) makes, but I didn't know it would also include gifts! :) In the package was this lovely lady....

Kimberly and her Corgi

Kim said it just was fate and that she HAD to buy her for me. She knew I was too old for dolls, but since it had a Corgi with it, she figured it would be ok ;-) Kimberly and her Corgi now reside in my bedroom on my dresser.

Isn't she cool?? I haven't added to my Corgi collection in a while, and they're a welcome addition! :)

happenings from the last few weeks

Enjoy the silence??

My computer was ravaged by some evil virus of unknown origin on Saturday the 13th (happy bleepin' birthday, huh?) and on Sunday the 14th I had to run it up to my friends hubby begging "please don't reformat my hard drive.... I haven't backed up in eons!" To which he replied "it may be a good thing you didn't back up, as you might have infected your external hard disk too if you had".

Three looooong hours later, Brad was my hero and saved my computer from the virus. I've never seen someone so insanely talented on a computer. I mean, I knew the guy was smart and awesome on computers, but when he was performing miracles on my effed up computer, I was singing his praises louder than ever!

I came home that night happy, but the next day still had weird things going on... pop ups out of no where and virus scans picking up viruses while I was sleeping. I knew it was nothing I was doing. I got a new virus and spyware program that had a better firewall, and it seems to be straightening out, but weird things were still happening. I'm hoping the latest thing I've done will cease the weirdness, but suffice it to say, i still worry that I'll have to reload my machine in the not too distant future.

I've got toooo much on this computer that I can't afford to lose. *sigh*

So.... the birthday was good.... the holiday party was good.... the last week of school was great and now I'm on Winter Break. Yay!

My mom comes in from Texas on Thursday (yes, Christmas) and stays for a week (yes, she leaves at 7:30AM on New Years morning... thanks John!). We'll see family and friends and hang out and play lots of board games, I'm sure. She hasn't seen my "new" house or my "new" dog in person, so it'll be fun. :)

I'm doing laundry getting the guest room all ready for mom's visit, and wondering whether just shutting the office door will suffice. I don't really want to sift through all the papers on my desk to make it presentable ;-)

The kids have been great, and are loving me being home. My mom sent them all their own individually addressed Christmas cards.... tho she sent them on the same day, they didn't all arrive together. "Ms. Sedona Genaw" and "Mr. Chance Genaw" received cards on the same day, but "Mr. Dakota Genaw" didn't get his until yesterday. I made them wait till they were all accounted for before I divied them up. Sedona took right to it and dug in. They're edible Christmas cards... made from rawhide. :) Interestingly, the other two are still sitting on the living room floor untouched, but Sedona's has been devoured. Go figure.



Santa Claus came to school for pictures with the kids, so I took the opportunity to sit on Santa's lap ;-) He came back a few days later and this is from that "repeat visit". It's a more flattering picture of me, I thought.. but isn't he a GREAT Santa? The beard and hair are real! He's a maintenance guy over at another elementary school in our district, and he dresses up as Santa each year for the kids. :) It was a lot of fun!






While everyone is posting pictures of winter wonderlands, I have nothing fun to offer.... it's been rainy here, and wet, but nothing spectacularly beautiful or anything unfortunately. I had a nice Skywatch foto, but because my computer was being stupid, I never posted it. Oh well. It was similar to the one from the week previous anyway, so no big loss ;-)

I hope everyone is staying warm and dry.... I'm off to go and finish cleaning up and vaccuuming up the 6 corgi's I managed to acquire somehow.... Oh, and Sedona is blowing coat.... just in time to look absolutely NEKKID for SoCal. Thanks Poof. Thanks a lot.

Skywatch Friday

A most spectacular sunset on the 8th... my friend called and said " you have to go outside... right now". She too, is a sky fanatic :)

Happy Friday, and Happy Skywatching!

Foundations - week 2

Tonight Kota didn't "peeter" out like he did last week... he did really well actually and was a typical food mongering Corgi :)

We started out on the table, did a jump, tire, three more jumps and then back to the table. I was pleased with Kota... especially given the fact that he had no experience with the tire before tonight! Then we did that sequence onto the table, then thru the tunnel and back to the table. Kota was weird with the tunnel last week, but did it like a pro this week! yay!

on to the A frame, which Kota loves! No problems there.

then the dog walk... which again, he loves.

then the teeter, which he has no fear of. I'm training "spot" since he'd just charge through it like gangbusters otherwise... he's a superhero, ya know :)

We worked on jumps again, but this time with wings... Kota did NOT care for the wings. They totally threw him off. He got it, but it's not a light bulb moment quite yet... more like a dim night light ;-)

We ended doing wide tunnel weaves, which Kota breezes through now.

I'm super pleased with his performance tonight, but I think it's going to be harder for ME than it will be for him to learn! LOL I can see why this is addicting now ;-) We're having fun, and I can't wait to put a whole series together.... tho holy COW will I die at the end!!! LOL

new photo

As you can tell, I had a "photo shoot" of sorts tonight.... This one turned out so nice I thought I'd slap it up for the main photo for the holidays :) I have a few of the kids separately, and those will come up in time.... but for now, enjoy the GotCorgi crew in their Holiday best :)

the heat....

Yesterday was chilly when i woke up... it was 67 degrees in the house, but I decided to "tough" it out... it would warm up ;-) (it didn't warm up to 70 in the house until after 6pm!)

Today when I woke up and it was 65, I decided I couldn't "tough" it out... LOL I'm a desert rat!

Here we are, December 7th, and my heat has officially turned on.

Pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of life, but it'll be useful information next year when I start asking myself "Gosh, when did I turn on the heat last year?"

Ain't blogging grand?? ;-)

I really wish I hadn't deleted my original blog from blogger... tho thankfully I still have the content, I don't have it on blogger anymore due to some stupid boy ;-) I wonder if I can upload it back on.... hmmm..... anyone know??

passings....

So.... I live in a little town that isn't quite as little as it used to be, but many of us have returned and run into one another....

I was in Wal-Mart tonight and ran into a girl I went to school with. She told me that a guy we went to school with... who was MY AGE.... died of lung cancer this week.

And then I come home to read that Lorna Maynard of "Follywood" Pembroke's died.... she was great to me when I was just getting started with Ollie.... I'll never forget her.

My mom always told me "it" happened in three's... so here's to Bart, Pablo, and Lorna.... may the light be bright & warm over on that side of the bridge.... I'll be lighting a candle tonight for each of them...

paw print dreams

Laura got me to looking, and that Paw Print locket is just lovely.... I've got a thing for paw prints...

For those who don't know, I've even gone as far as to have 4 tattoo'd on my body! Yep. My mom teasingly thought it would be fun for me to get a paw print for each dog I had... but I had visions of being covered in paw prints when I passed to the Rainbow Bridge, so I stopped with the 4 ;-)

It sounds like STL Mommy has lots of great deals and heads up on her site, not to mention really cool give aways from time to time.... darned blog addiction! Check her out! :) http://www.stlmommy.com/

Foundations begins....

We had our first "Foundations 1" class tonight... 8 dogs total, one other Cardigan!!! :) Lottie, bred by Jennifer Roberson, is in my class too! :)

Kota did really well, but peetered out. We're both not in top agility shape, and heck, let's be honest... he's 5. I can't expect him to have the stamina of Sedona or Chance. I really want to take Sedona and Chance through these classes too, but there's just no way I can afford to take more than one dog through at a time... :( I wish I could.

Overall though, Kota did VERY well, and I'm So excited about this class!!! Progress reports to come weekly! :)

Skywatch Friday

Taken today on the way home from my conference... Such beautiful skies :)

Happy Friday, and Happy Skywatching!

Kota's new study guide

I told Kota that there are MANY stories of things "to do" and "not to do" and that he is to go through and learn from the stories in this book.

You can tell from the look on his face what he was thinking...
"uh really? a little help with the pages?"

Thanks Kristine! I can't wait to get started reading this!! I'm sure I'll be doubled over with laughter in no time at all! :)