Sunday, December 20, 2009

Merry Christmoose



Merry Christmoose to all and to all a good night!

Miles' Christmas Stocking

After shopping (and later dining) locally yesterday, we got home and Ben and Gail got to work decorating Miles' new Christmas stocking...


Ben drew a beautiful Christmas tree in glitter-glue...


Gail wrote Miles' name and added some ornaments to the tree...

Yup, we like Christmas around here, and we don't fool around!

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Still more pics of Miles

Here are some more picture of Miles settling into life in our home and family...


Although his coat is beautiful, he is still quite underweight...luckily, we have experience in the remedy for this problem...


He's such a handsome little man...


One of his hobbies is chewing stuff...including on occasion his toenails...


Miles really like Milk Bones, and he has an amazing capacity to make a mess with them...they seem to explode while he's eating them...


"Look Mom, if I was a reindeer, my antlers would look like this!"


We often find him sitting with his front paws crossed, looking very dignified...


He starts off every night in bed with us, and then at some point gets up and spend the rest of the night on the couch...when I get up in the morning and pad to the coffeemaker in the dark, I can hear his tail thwacking against the couch to let me know that:
  1. he's up
  2. he's happy to see me
  3. he's been waiting
We love Miles and are thankful that we found each other!

Belated Christmas Tree Pics

I remembered that in the stress/excitement of the last 10 days, that I didn't post pics of our Christmas Tree...we got it from out in our woods 2 weekends ago, before the snow came...I went out with Ben to find a couple of suitable candidates, Gail joined us for the final selection, and we brought the winner inside...it's a little "Charlie Brown"-ish, but that's what you get with real trees...


Once we got it up, Gail and Ben took lead on the decorating...I consulted on critical balance issues...Cedar took a nap on the couch...


Decorating the tree took a while, with us taking breaks and listening to Christmas music and enjoying each other and the season and cocoa...


I was shocked to find that I had taken this gratuitously Art-y shot, but here it is...


Ben has started reading to us sometimes at night, and in front of the tree, it's a particularly nice way to spend the evenings...


The stockings were hung by the child with care, in hopes that soon Christmas day would finally be there...

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

More Miles

Miles continues to adjust well to his new home...



Miles and Gail enjoying Ben reading to them in the upstairs (no-TV) living room...




He enjoys chillaxing on the big couch, even when we're out of the house, as is evident by the fort of clothes that he builds...he doesn't chew anything, just brings some clothes that we've worn to the couch and sleeps on them...

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Miles in the snow

Miles has been enjoying the snow today (which is good, because it will likely snow for most of the next 6 months)...


He and Ben enjoy playing in snow in much the same ways, for much the same reasons...


He likes poking his nose into the deep snow to hunt for the best sniffs, and sometimes seems to be chasing mice or other beasties in the grass and leaves under the snowcover...


He listens to all of us very well, even when excited about the great smells in our woods and/or a snowmobile droning by in the distance...

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Welcome Miles!

We had a home to offer and a big need to fill it... this beautiful boy was waiting for us at the Tri-Lakes Humans society with a need to find a family to love...welcome to life as a Sheffield dog Miles! You join a long line of wonderful dogs... Merry Christmas!!!


He eats bones with a messy gusto that makes us smile...pieces fly all over the room...


He came over for a visit today, so he could check us out in our native environment and vice versa...he got along great with Cedar and was very mellow while we ate our lunch..


He's a very handsome boy...


After playing inside and out, with Cedar and Ben and Gail and me, Miles had to work to stay awake...


Eventually he lost the battle with fatigue and took a nice nap next to Gail...


He thought we were crazy for putting ice-cubes in his drinking water...crazy like awesome foxes!



He loves to sit and stare earnestly...Miles is sure that this is his best side...really, they're all pretty super!


We're so glad that his needs and ours match so neatly...he's 18 months old, and had been waiting at the Tri-Lakes shelter for 8 months for us...it's like "The Gift of the Magi", without the painful middle and end (and beginning).

Friday, December 04, 2009

Thanksgiving

We went down to NYC for Thanksgiving, and had a wonderful time...


We started off with a visit to the Museum of Natural History, where along with numerous other great exhibits, we checked out the dinosaurs...in the above pic, Ben is mocking the T-rex's silly forelegs...


After the museum, we found a super Mexican restaurant for lunch...


The Macy's Day Thanksgiving Day Parade begins up by the museum, and they were inflating the balloons when we were up there...


It was cool wandering around, checking out the various balloons in differing stages of inflation...


Ben really liked the Spiderman balloon...


After lunch and balloon-watching, we headed downtown to MOMA to see a Tim Burton exhibit, along with some other wonderful works that Ben had found on their website for children...


"Starry Night" was one of the paintings that Ben had really been looking forward to seeing...he loved seeing the artist's brushstrokes and the varying depths of paint on the canvas...


We had also learned about pointillism, which really only comes alive when you can actually see it up close and personal...


This painting was all black, with a black frame...some interpretive signage insisted that there were slightly differing shades and shapes within the painting, but none of us could see them...still interesting though, it sparked a fun"what is art" discussion...


Ben had also been looking forward to seeing the work of Jackson Pollock, and we enjoyed viewing and examining a roomful of them in various shapes and sizes and colors and degree of fractal-ness (I don't have the right word in my vocabulary)...


The next morning, Thanksgiving Day, Ben Skyped with LaLa...they had a nice video-call...


Ben got dressed up for Thanksgiving, and gave me a serious look for this picture...


My cousin Jon's daughter, Willa, came for Thanksgiving...it was great to meet her


Anti Sarah's friend Danny came with his dog Toby, a sweet little dog who behaved perfectly all day long, even with little and mid-sized children in attendance...


Ben had a fun time playing with Willa...


We had 14 for Thanksgiving, as always, the food was wonderful!


After some of the guests departed Ben started playing with Toby in earnest...they had lots of fun together...


After an afternoon visit with my Grandma, Ben and Muz and D left the city for Connecticut, and the few of us remaining kept working on the cleanup...the lights on the Empire State Building came on and were gorgeous from the far end of their apartment...


We made some dish-cleaning cocktails, hung out a bit, and finished off the cleaning...Gail and I remained in the city for a couple of days, enjoying some movies and fancy meals and sleeping in, and then went out to Connecticut to pick up Ben on the way home...

It was a nice Thanksgiving.

Thursday, December 03, 2009

Penny, our perfect choco-lab

Gail and I were with Penny this afternoon when she was put to sleep this afternoon.

She had been getting progressively worse for a couple of weeks since her surgery to be spayed. After the surgery, the doctor explained that they had noted substantial amounts of "adhesions" throughout her chest and abdomen. It turns out that these adhesions are somewhat like an immune response gone wrong, where injury to the internals of the dog result in the creation of this tissue.

When the doctor opened her up this afternoon, hoping to correct the issue, he noted that the adhesions had grown back incredibly quickly and densely through her abdomen. He presented the option of emergency surgery to excise all of the tissue, but after we made our decision, he agreed that given the rapidity and aggressiveness with which it had grown back, it seemed like a losing proposition.

Gail and I met at the Vet's, said goodbye to Penny, gave her kisses, and held her while the doctor helped to release her.

She was a sweet, silly, loving, gorgeous, wonderful dog...she loved us and we loved her...here are a couple of pictures of Penny.

Reading with Gail and Ben



At the Lake Clear playground with Ben


On a nice and muddy walk/swim trip with Ben and I


Snuggling with Cedar by Upper Saranac Lake


Swimming and fetching in Hoel Pond


Eating her birthday cake


Sleeping with Ben in the element after a long day of geocaching


Swimming with Maggie and Ripple


With Ben on the day that we picked her up


With Gail at a silly geocaching event


Geocaching with me not far from our home.


I miss her so much, and can't believe that she's gone...she was such a love, and we only had her for 18 months, but it was a gift.