Keeping Mad Props to my Dog!

Not to upstage our Dog, Brewski, but today is my birthday.


"What is he going to do?" You might be asking yourself. Well the answer is simple; save lives, make a difference, and serve ice cream, duh. I'll be at the Baskin Robins in Louisville raising money for FF's tonight, till about 9 or 10. Then I'll be spending the night at the station on Crew. The worst part is I don't drink on days that I have crew. My whole birthday with out a beer. I hope a tear lands in all of your beers for me, my dears. But enough of my whining.

Last week I took the day off. Got in a nice mountain bike ride at Hall Ranch. It's one of my favorite trails and if you're here we'll hit it up. Then I met up with Jason, Beth and Emily and we went to the Cubs vs. Rockies Baseball game. I splurged and got nice seats, 30 rows up on the First Base side, right at first. We had a blast! Played some of the trendy Texas Hold Em' Poker with Jason over at Buenos Tiempos after the game and called it a night. Pretty good for a day off. The weather was great so that's always a plus. That was a Thursday, I spent all of Friday thinking it was Monday, weird.

Maggie is turning into one great dog. She has a lot more energy and is a lot happier. Her tail might beat a hole in the floor from wagging! Might be time to start up with some training to work on her commands. She knows all of them but is a little vague on the term "command". The more we get to know her the more we start to see she's had a rough past. Any quick movements or yelling at Brewski will start her cowering and tucking her tail. So far she's inappropriately taken down a half loaf of bread and a half bag of treats. So we switched her to the Senior food so she can eat more food and consume the same number of calories. Even getting through the worms she still has to loose another 5 pounds. Brewski is doing his best to get Maggie to play, still to no avail. So that's the latest.

Also I rebuilt the stable and got things organized and easier to access over the weekend. I'll add pictures as I get them. Still no hardware from James to get the finders on but might see that this weekend!

Hope all of you are well, feel free to leave us some comments!

Happy Birthday!

Today is Brewski's 5th birthday! He's getting so old. His new nickname? Old gray beard!

For Brewski's birthday.... he's getting.... .DEWORMED! Ha, great isn't it. Here's the story-
Maggie (our foster dog) had been having accidents in her crate, and couldn't make it through the night without needing out. Often twice a night. Certainly not normal behavior for a dog (Maggie is also about 5 years old). On Monday she had multiple accidents and a rough night. So Tuesday morning we called the vet. Maggie went in, along with special sample from the yard (you get the idea....)
They gave Maggie an antibiotic to help with her tummy trouble and we started her on a rice diet for a couple of days. Tuesday was a much better day, and after her trip to the vet she seemed better already. Well the results of her tests came back today. Maggie is a SICK dog. Let's see, whipworm, roundworm, and hookworm. The poor girl, she has been such a trooper, I think her new nickname is Magatron! Not sure we told you, but she also had an eye infection when we picked her up.
So here's what we have going on at our house....
Hopefully soon we will have 2 happy healthy pups!

Big weekend, no time for Bed Bath and Beyond!

Jon here. So, we had a big weekend! All kinds of fun stuff going on. I had to teach other people how to put out fires on Saturday. Scary as it sounds they trust me to teach new guys. So we spent the beautiful upper seventies sunny and clear day wearing 30 pounds of clothes and 30 pounds of gear running into a building full of fires. It's more fun than it sounds, weird.

Emily was spreading the gospel of science to children. She put on science experiments with her co-workers for children at the Broomfield Library. She put in normal stuff and turned the inside of the beaker, or some glass thing, silver like a mirror. Sounds more like Alchemy than science but she promises it's science. She got to spend the beautiful day in the library.

I took in a show Saturday night, a band called Under a Blood Red Sky. They are a U2 tribute band. So they pretty much get paid to go around and pretend to be U2. Except that U2 plays stadiums and these guys were in the basement of a resturant. They were pretty good musicians, U2 music is pretty tough to play. I kept waiting for them to cover another band at some point, they never did, weird.

We got in a nice ride Sunday and spent the day together, watched some hockey and took care of the dogs. Kind of lazy day but still nice.

I don't really want this thing to turn into a play by play of our lives but it was the best format for today, to show off the wonderful things my Wife and I do to support our community. Aren't we great!

GO US!

IRS

So Jon and I mailed our taxes on Monday (whew, pretty close to the deadline!). We waited because we owed the government some money this year. Wanna take a guess at how long it took them to cash the check?
We mailed them Monday April 14th, the check cleared our bank account on the 18th.
Guess they need that money pretty badly!
:)

Going Green!

Jon and I have been working towards being more "green" (not like Kermit). So here are a couple of things we've done.

We started using vinegar and water to clean most areas including the bathroom. Some baking soda helps for the tough stuff too. It's awesome! It cleans surprisingly well (at least it was a surprise to us!). Not only does it help us keep toxic chemicals out of landfills, waterways, and the air but it is FAR more cost effective!

We recycle. You know, it's so easy, maybe it isn't a huge step, but every little bit helps! We have a free recycle center here in Broomfield, we collect our recycling and when it starts to get out of control and overflowing we take it to the recycle center. The good news is, it's always busy! Lots of people use it! They also have a tree branch recycle center there, you can drop off tree branches and they will mulch them..... so then you can also get free mulch! We picked some up earlier this spring.

We've also started using a soap called Seventh Generation. Check out their website for some coupons! It is not a petroleum based product as many soaps are. We use their laundry detergent for the same reason!

James and Hillary got us some great reusable grocery bags while they were in California. They are super sturdy and hold a ton. When we do have plastic bags we either reuse them, or take them back to the grocery store for recycling.

We've done some of the smaller things too, changing to compact fluorescent light bulbs in the fixtures we use most (and where they will fit!). We always use the programmable thermostat, and use the sun to warm the house when its cool, and close the blinds when its hot.

I'm still trying to get a garden going.... there is lots of talk on this subject, but little action! When we get that started we may try our hand at composting.

So now..... what else can we do? Lets hear some suggestions!!

Jon's Projects, or Bikes

OK, so we just started all this so I'll do a bit of catching up for all of you. You probably already know that I ride bikes. So now Emily rides bikes to. I like riding bikes. Most of the bikes are prety stock. My baby out in the stable, see the stable below,


is my Felt. It's an F1 with a Sram Force groupo and Mavic Ksyrium wheelset. It's fast, one of us ought to be.

You can see Emily's Special ed on the stand there with a sweet new SID holding up the handlebars. I just slapped that on there for her. She should be shredding up some XC trails before we know it. Next bike project is installing the free fenders I got from James on the Colner commuter bike. See her now as she stands with her checkered past.


Once I get the fenders on there I will have one less excuse not to ride to work. The next project is to turn this laptop...
into a digital picture frame. It's running a sweet Window's ME setup and that's about it. The photo display screen saver works, so I plunked the pictures in there, off the external hard drive, and viola digital picture frame. There might be another step in there or so.

I think that's it for now. I'm not including the Honey Do' list on here but as I crank stuff out, I'll be sure to let my internet public know. OK, I'm out!

Newest Foster

Hey All,

So in the efforts of equality and suffrage and to reduce suffering Emily and I are switching blogs. So it's not your "other" personality coming out, these things may take on a bit of a different tone, supposedly, every other time (one of us is a bit lazier than the other). So it's my turn and here we go.

Today we helped a friend celebrate his 30th birthday, a hint of things to come for one of us. Good times, also got some good advice to only get one kid. Also heard that a kid is easier than a puppy. Aside from the advantage that a baby would wear a diaper, I'm not buying it. We also acquired our newest foster dog, Maggie.

Maggie is a Merle female that's 5 years old. She has had puppies in the past and fought a bit of cancer as well. She is a great dog so far.... She is getting along well enough with the man, Brewski, so that makes life easier. Take a look at Maggie...



She is a bit over weight and we will be thinning her down. She also needs a bit of work on the commands, she's a Mom and is pretty sure she knows what's best.

Well, that's about it for now. I don't have much to say but this is the only new thing going on. Got some playoff hockey and Cubs Baseball in the near future so you can wait anxiously for that!

Hello!

So here it is... our attempt to keep everyone updated on what's new in our lives!
So recently we've begun working with the Rocky Mountain Great Dane Rescue (check them out at www.rmgreatdane.org) We've debated getting a playmate for Brewski for a while now, and Emily really likes Great Danes so we thought we'd check the breed out. Fostering lets us learn a lot about the dogs and see if it's a good fit for Brewski and us.
We recently foster a Dane named Elroy, he was a great dog! He loved to play with squeaky toys and chew on his kong. Here's a picture of Elroy. On Friday we dropped him off so he could be transported to Salt Lake City to be with his forever family, that was hard! Emily cried when he left!





On a waaaaay more exciting note, today we changed the outside lights on the front of the house. Jon got to play with some electricity (which he so loves to do!). Emily was not excited about the older brass fixtures out front. So last weekend we picked out new outside lights at our second home (Lowe's). See how much better it is! :) Honestly, most people probably won't notice but Emily is thrilled with the changes!














That's all for now!