Happy anniversary

Today is my people's one-year wedding anniversary. You know I'm not one for change, but looking back on the past year, it's been a good year of changes. We blended our family pretty effortlessly. No longer am I the man of the house, which is a big load off my shoulders. There's a teenager in the house now, which bumps me down to the second-oldest in the birth order. Lexie and I gained a step-sister in Duchess. Lexie and Duchess still have a rocky relationship, but we are working on it. Since I'm not one for confrontations, I just deal with Duchess by avoiding her (Except for when she comes back from the doggie cleaners like she did Friday and smells really good. I couldn't help but sniff her and she didn't bite me, so I consider that a moment to cherish.) We added a shed to the backyard to make room for all of the people's stuff. There's more people around to throw balls, give belly rubs and keep us fed and watered at descent hours. The male-to-female ratio didn't change as Wes and I are outnumbered by 4-2, but overall, life is good. I'm even thinking about settling down and getting married if for no other reason then to have someone smear caked in my face.

Catch me if you can

Cheryl has had her new camera for three weeks today. She's taken about 250 pictures with it, but still can't seem to take a good one of me. She blames me for not being still. I remind her that a good photographer can capture athletes in motion. You be the judge.

Good neighbors

We have the best neighbors. For the past few weeks Lexie and I have watched and counted leaves as one by one they fall from their trees and litter our yard. Knowing how busy Cheryl is, we wondered when and if they would all get picked up. Last Thursday, Opie's people, Bob and Donna, pulled up in our driveway and unloaded a giant hair-dryer-looking thing and a long orange chord. In no time, all of the beautiful but pesky golden leaves in the front yard were corralled to the road for the big city vacuum cleaner to come and suck up. The undercover leaf pushes' goal was to get the job done and get out of the yard before Cheryl knew who had come to do the good deed. What they didn't know was because of Duchess' runs, Cheryl has been coming home during the day to let her out. (Opie's people really should read my blog). Imagine Cheryl's surprise when she pulled up in the driveway and realized the chore she had been dreading most was taken care of. Though they tried to avoid getting busted, I'm glad Bob and Donna got caught red handed in an act of random kindness. There's no way Lexie and Duchess would have been able to keep the secret. So once again we give a big 'Thank You' shout out to our good neighbors.

PS: In the time it has taken me to write this, 50, no 57, no 63 ... well anyway, lots more leaves have fallen.

What ails her?

Duchess has - and how do I put this delicately? - the runs. She has had this condition off and on for about 6 weeks now. If she makes it outside to do her business, it's not too bad - save for the mess that sometimes is left under the tail area. But if she can't hold it until she gets outside and happens to let loose on the carpet, it's not pretty. After cleaning up one such mess last night and fearing something was horribly wrong with the little white fluffy thing with a dirty behind, Cheryl broke down and made a V-E-T appointment today. After a thorough interrogation of Duchess' eating habits, the doc ran a few tests. His diagnosis: too much protein in her diet. Prescription: white rice, potatoes and boiled chicken for a week. Then she can slowly start eating low-protein dog food and treats, but still no people food, which is hard for dogs to come by around this house anyway. Hopefully with a few changes in her diet Duchess will be on the mend. And thankfully the V-E-T doesn't charge extra if one of his patients bites him.

Fall fun

Fall is my favorite time of the year. Cool nights, warm days and all of those leaves. We spent this afternoon watching Cheryl round up all of those leaves. Around our house none of the trees lose their leaves at the same time. One big oak tree in the front yard goes first. Then the other big oak tree in the front yard goes next. The trees in our back yard are last. While there's not enough leaves in the back yard to pile up and bounce through yet, we still enjoyed the afternoon playing ball with Cheryl after her work was done. We even let Duchess in on the fun.

Say 'CHEESE'

We've been a household without a camera for about a month now, hence the reason I haven't updated my blog in about a month now. Finally over the weekend Cheryl got a new camera for her birthday (which was nearly 3 months ago). Cheryl brags about how nice it is and all of these features it has on it. Blah, blah, blah. All I want to know is if it takes good pictures of me. So far, the answer is no. Cheryl got it out of the box and started shooting away today. We then installed the software that lets us see the pictures on the computer. There is a picture of a flower. Some berries. Another flower. A laundry basket. More flowers. Alison with her braces off. Cows. Lexie. Ouch, bad picture of me, Delete that one. Another bad pic of me. Delete, delete, delete. Even the picture of Duchess is better than mine. Cheryl likes this one of the cow best, so that's why it's posted. She's proud of the zoom capabilities of this new camera. Apparently it even takes really great pictures in the dark. Maybe we'll try to take mine again with the lights off.

The barn in the backyard

Rome wasn't built in a day and neither was our shed. But after 2 months of stop-and-go work, we finally finished it. Because of its color and shape, we no longer call it a shed, but affectionately refer to it as "the barn." Thankfully there's been no talk of adding anymore animals to the property. Which is a good thing because there's so much stuff packed in "the barn" that there's no room for anything to live in it (except for snakes and spiders.)