Fun in the Snow

 Mom and I had a great day yesterday playing in the snow with Anthony.

 Is that my mom or a happy snow terrorist.

 

Anthony charges through the 28 inches of snow in the back yard.

Anthony Bounding through the snow.

Where's Anthony?  The snow drifts were so deep in some spots of the yard that all you could see was Anthony's head.

Anthony making a giant hole in the snow.

 

 "you talking to me?"

 

 cold snow puppy kisses

 

 Colorado's version of a the beach

The next 6 pictures or so are a series of shots.  Anthony jumped off the ledge and completely disappeared in the snow and then came bounding out.  I got pictures of it all and thought it was cute. 

The Black blob is Anthony's butt as he dives off of the ledge head first into the snow

. 

Where's Anthony?  Does any one see him?

Oh there he is - or at least there is his head.

He comes bounding out of the pile of snow.

And then back down face first he goes.

And at last he come running out with what I think is a grin on his face.

 

One last shot of the beautiful snow puppy.

Mom is here!

My mom came to visit for the weekend!!  It is the first time that we have gotten to see each other in nearly a year so I was really relived when her plane landed on time last night despite the yucky weather.

I showed Mom how to do "back time" with Anthony.

When mom got tired, she just laid back and sleepy Anthony just went with her. 

Goodmorning Fort Collins Colorado two days later!

Colorado's weather in my opinion is a bit well ... nuts!  Last week it was 70 degrees and this week we are having our first big winter storm, and it isn't even Halloween yet.  CRAZY!  But fun at the same time.  We have at least two feet on the ground currently and it's still falling.  I snapped just a few pictures when I took Anthony out this morning.  Eve is coming over this after noon so they can play together in the snow so you can expect a bunch more pictures later on.

Our Pine trees covered in snow.

Anthony is nearly buried by the deep snow.  He seems to really love it though and goes bounding and jumping through it with great joy.

Sorry Anthony, but I just couldn't resist this one!  It is really hard when you are a little puppy to go poop in two feet of snow.  Eventually you figure out that you just have to lift your tail and go despite the snow.

Goodmorning Fort Collins Colorado!

One thing I love about winter in Fort Collins are the amazing sunrises!  The picture doesn't do it justice but here is a picture of the view of one of the many pretty sunrises as seen from our deck.

HUGE NEWS!!

Gardner is Graduating from Guide Dog "College" on November 7th!!!    I am super excited for him but said for us and Guys.  We all love him very much and would have loved to have had him back.  I think he will be very happy as a guide dog.  The Guys are planning to go to graduation so I will post pictures from the event when they get back.

Car Wash

Anthony is 5 1/2 months old now and in that time I have never once seen him afraid of anything!  That all changed today.  I was off from work and he and I were out running errands when I decided to get my car washed.  We pulled into the car wash and Anthony started looking around and looking nervous.  Then the water started squirting and the noise started and Anthony freaked!  He jumped strait up into my lap and stuck his head into my armpit and whimpered and shook like crazy.  I felt so bad for the poor guy that I contemplated getting out, but only for a split second.  We survived the car wash but it seemed to last forever!  As soon as we got out I let Anthony get out of the car and sniff the car wash and then we got back in and drove off and he was back to normal. Silly Puppy!

Few new puppies

We have gotten four new puppies in our GDB club lately. Here are a few pics of a couple of the cuties at our monthly meeting last week.

 Acorn - One of Bloomer's puppy!

 Alex playing with one of the 12 week old puppy that is HUGE!

 

 Mulan - I think she looks a lot like Eve did when she was a puppy.

 

I am actually not sure which one this it - but it sure is cute!!

pretty puppy and friends

While I was working  on the cake on Saturday I took a break to take a few pictures of Anthony laying in a sunbeam.  His face is starting to look so grown up.

Anthony loves to lay in sun beams - we often call him "sunny"

What a pretty dog he is growing up to be.

While I was trying to take pictures of Anthony, Bree came in and wanted to play.  I was laying on the floor and she kept rubbing her face on my lens as I was taking pictures.  I ended up with some funny pictures that I thought I would share just for kicks.

Bree, jealous of the attention I am showing Athony, wants some attention too.

"silly kitty, get out of the way".....Purrr, Purrr, Purrr......rub, rub, rub.....and then Anthony had to come run over to play as well and the pictures taking opportunity was over.

The Pumpkin Patch Outing

 Every year the Guide Dogs get invited to a big pumpkin patch party put on by a mortgage company.  It's a fun event and we get free pumpkins too.  There is face painting for the kids and hay rides and food.  We had beautiful 70 degree fall weather and a good time was had by all.  Check out my website for more pictures but here are a few.

We carpooled with the Havlick's and Anthony snuggled with Alex for a

few minutes before he dropped to the floor and went to sleep.

 Eve - What a pretty girl!

 Anthony and Pooh!

   

 The Kaplun Family in the Pumpkin Patch

 Anthony meets sheep for the first time.  Notice his head is through the fence!

 Goof Ball with Tigger - need I say more!

 

Anthony and Mini.

 

What a pretty dog in the pumpkin patch!

 

Anthony and Piglet.

 

Some of the gang.

 

 Mystery - now 15 months - goes back to Calf at the end of the month.

 Guide Dog puppies on a hay ride.  The horses didn't bother them at all but they didn't like the stairs up onto the cart.

 

Betsy and Maddie on the Hay Ride.

Friends?

 Are Bree and Anthony best friends yet?  Well, no not exactly, but they are really getting along  well.  There are still quite a few moments where Anthony thinks he should chase Bree in circles or pounce towards her and play.  I just couldn't resist snapping this picture the other day to show the progress we are making in the Kaplun household.

The other night I picked a sleeping Anthony up and held him on my lap while I sat on the sofa.  Bree came up on the sofa and snuggled up next to me and was purring like crazy.  Anthony's head soon flopped over and ended up on Bree.  After a few seconds, Bree realized it was the dogs head, hissed, but kept purring and then went back to sleep.  I think we are making some definite progress.

A proud new owner!

Because it gets so cold in Colorado we have to blow out our Sprinkler system each fall.  Alex being Alex, doesn't like to pay people to come do this.  He has been looking for an air compressor so he could do it himself.  Eventually he found a HUGE craftsman compressor for an AMAZING price at a pawn shop in town.  He is so excited!!!   I just hope he doesn't blow the lines out of the ground with such a huge machine. : ) 

My next four tier cake

One of my favorite MA's at work was having a birthday party for her 3 year old daughter this weekend and she asked me to make a big cake for the party.  I was really nervous given that my last attempt collapsed but I think this one worked out ok.  Here is the process and the finished product that to the best of my knowledge never fell over.  Her daughter loves stars and pink and so that was the theme of the cake.

Some of the layers with crumb coatings on them.

The cake with the butter cream icing and before decorations,

and I was checking to make sure it wouldn't fall over.

The cake with the fondant decorations.

The cake assembled at the party with the tiara on top.

A Drooling Problem

I am not sure what happened but this past Friday Anthony Started profusely drooling.  I mean really really drooling.  It was forming puddles on the floor and he would shake his head and fling it everywhere.  When he still had it on Saturday we took him to the vet who had no idea what was the cause.  And as suddenly as it started it stopped.  We think he either had a small virus or ate something he shouldn't have.   Look closely at the pictures and you will see columns of spit coming out of his mouth.

 Drooling Puppy

Drool, drool, drool, everywhere.

My first tiered cake

A friend of mine just passed her certification boards and I wanted to help her celebrate by making her a cake.  So I attempted my first four tiered cake.  I learned a lot from this experience that I thought I would share:

1) one should not attempt to bake a four tier cake that requires 8 layers when you are sick with the swine flu - you end up screwing up a lot of cakes and having to throw them away or feed them to your husband.

2) wedding cakes are often dry because moist yummy cakes are soft and therefore don't really hold up when stacked.

3) Using pudding as a layer filling, although yummy, is not a good idea for the bottom layer of a tiered cake as it makes the layer very soft and prone to becoming swamp like.

4)A four tiered cake is very heavy and difficult to transport, especially when leaning and starting to collapse.

5) When transporting a four tiered cake it is not a good idea to use a laundry basket, even if the basket has handles, because people don't find a collapsed fallen over cake very appealing when it is in a plastic laundry basket.

6) When starting to serve a leaning four tier cake, don't start at the bottom.

7) People will eat anything if it is free, even falling cake.

8)Its the thought that counts not the outcome.

The Cake before its demise: (notice it is already starting to lean to the right)

Anthony's first snow

I returned from Salt Lake City to two to three inches of snow on the ground.  Crazy for the first week in October, even for Colorado.  At Guy's house Anthony really didn't like the snow but by the time he got to our house he enjoyed digging and sniffing the snow.  By the second day he thought the crunchy snow was the coolest stuff ever and he had taken to eating it.

Anthony sticking his nose deep in the snow and playing around.  By the way, notice in the background that my rose buses still "had" flowers on them, before the snow hit.

I made Anthony a snow ball and he enjoyed eating it even more than he does ice cubes.

"I love to eat snow balls"

Shawnna dressed Anthony in their pet dog Coco's winter coat and this was just too cute not to share.

With all this cold weather, Anthony's new favorite spot is in front of the fire place. Doesn't he look grown up in this shot?  He is now just 5 months old.

the swine and Salt Lake City

Sorry that I have been such a bad blogger lately but work has been a zoo and I have been too exhausted to blog in the evenings.  I have some cute pictures of Eve's visit with us last weekend while we had Anthony, that I will post when I get home.

I am currently in Salt Lake City for a conference on Colposcopy but the day after I arrived here I came down with the Swine Flu.  I have been hiding in the back corner of the conference room trying not to infect everyone.  I had all these great plans for seeing SLC in the afternoons but so far I haven't left my hotel room.  But at least I have pretty views from my room.