Mom is such a SLACKER!!!

Seriously, she is SUCH a slacker. Just because she has spent the last couple of weeks sorting through (literally) thousands of pictures of our smiling faces to pick out 180 (yep, 180) "potential candidates" for the annual calendar, and then spent ALL weekend (so she could get the calendars ordered while the big sales were going on) narrowing down the 180 pictures to 49 (4 per month plus one on the cover) and then organizing them so that each month had some sort of theme (hey, 'Bitey-face' is a legitimate theme...)... just because she's been busy doing that, she thinks that is an excuse to hog the computer and not let me check up on all my bloggie friends. *sheesh*

At least I can happily report that the calendars are done and ordered. I'll even share with you what it looks like; click HERE . (If you can't open the calendar, Mom posted it on her Facebook account, if you're really interested...) It's not the greatest quality preview in the world, but it gives you an idea of what 12 moths of us is like! *grin* If it doesn't load, I'll give you a sneak peak of the cover picture...

Seriously. What better way to get ready for the new year than to look at our smiling faces?

Heehee.

In other excitement, we have been playing Frisbee. Sort of. We had two 'soft' Frisbees; one that is more for water, and one that is just a soft Frisbee. Note the use of the word 'had'. A certain sister of mine has this tendency to jump on the Frisbee once it hits the ground (we've caught it out of the air a few times, but, um, Mom's throwing skills are not exactly conducive to an easily to catch out of the air Frisbee) and this tendency leads to Frisbees sometimes getting buried in the snow. And being buried in the snow sometimes leads to not being found despite Mom's best efforts to search the area.

So. We have our Chuck-it "flying disc" (since I guess 'Frisbee' is sort of like 'Band-Aid' in being a brand and all), our now-lost soft "flying disc" which actually would fly like a real Frisbee on the odd occasion where Mom managed to get a good throw, and a hard plastic thing that neither of us have ever liked (but it has been put into action because, well, when there is only one toy and two of us, there is a lot of this that goes on:

And a lot of this, too:

So Mom brought out the plastic purple Frisbee (that gets really hard and also not conducive to being caught out of the air when it is 4 degrees out) in an attempt to get us to actually run around the frozen tundra that is currently out backyard. If you look closely (or biggify the picture) you can see part of the flying purple UFO in the upper right-hand corner.

This is the first (and only) picture we have of a Frisbee actually in the air. Mom blames it on not being ambidextrous, and thus not being able to throw with one hand and snap pictures with the other. *sheesh* Two hands and opposable thumbs and she still can't get a picture of a Frisbee in the air? Of course, her complete lack of throwing skills might also contribute to this... I mentioned that she's a slacker, right? *double sheesh*

Anyhoo, frankly, neither of us is actually interested in the frozen solid plastic Frisbee - it's just a bit of a distraction so Mom can get the other Frisbee from us and throw it (for the record, when the Chuck-it gets covered with snow, and it is 4 degrees out, it flies like a brick...) so that Abby (or I) can run around the yard with it until a tug-of-war ensues...


Eventually, chasing each other with the Frisbee gets a little old (although it takes a while to get old...)

And we go back to to a little old-fashioned bitey-face.


And while Mom might have been a little cold (something about how she had to take her glove off to use the camera and it was 4 degrees out, and her hand was getting cold...*sheesh*), we were having fun!

*kissey face*
-Fiona and Abby the Hippobottomus

PeeEss: Mom would like to state that on 'CyberMonday' Petco was having a HUGE sale and she picked up a couple more of the soft 'flying discs' so that Abby can bury a few more we won't have to try to play with the frozen hard plastic disc of death...

PeePeeEss: The Christmas cards are supposed to be here today! If you would like a Christmas/Holiday card from us, pee-mail Mom: lizdranowATmodernskiracingDOTcom - she's got plenty and would love to exchange cards with bloggie friends!

Our First Winter Hike (And a Bunch of Other Stuff)

Mom's been hogging the computer, working on the annual calendar (I know that sounds kinda redundant, but Mom does this every year so that all of our family members can have pictures of me year-round... I know the bloggie sort of serves that same purpose, but you don't exactly hang the bloggie on the wall, now do you?) and tapping away at stuff that doesn't involve me (Can you believe it? I can't either, actually...). Anyway, since Mom's been a computer hog, I haven't been able to make the rounds for a while - it might take me a bit, but I'll try to catch up with everyone.

At least when Mom hasn't been on the computer, she's been taking us out to play in the snow (and trying to figure out her camera and how to get the best snow shots...be patient - she'll figure it out eventually!).


It actually was so cold a couple of days ago (we had a high of 10 degrees - Fahrenheit - which is like -130 Celsius or something like that... ) that I didn't want to go outside in the morning. Which was a bit of a problem, as I had been in all night, and well, you know... I went out (it was still in the negative numbers) and stood around looking pitiful, holding up one foot at a time, hoping I could levitate out of the snow because my feet were SO COLD!!!

Because I rarely pull the 'pathetic card' Mom knew I was pretty miserable. So, she hustled us back inside and broke out the booties. If you recall, we had tried out our booties once before, so Mom got us both in our booties so we could go out... I will admit that I wasn't totally sold on the idea (again).


However, after tossing (and losing) a couple of tennis balls around I was a much happier camper. And once I discovered that with these things on my feet, my feet weren't going to fall off from the cold, I was back to my old self in the snow.

MUCH BETTER!

The storm that brought us the super-cold temperatures didn't bring us enough snow, but it made it so that our snow should now stay until spring. Which makes us all happy! (And keeps the dryer busy as Mom keeps drying towels; see, we collect snow in our hair, so we've got giant snowballs on us when we come inside, and when we come inside, we (of course!) want to get up on the bed and say hi to Dad, so Mom puts down towels so that when we melt, we don't soak the bed clothes. It kind of works. Kind of. But it's better than mud, right?)

It has warmed up a wee bit, so we've been able to get in lots of bitey-face time.

And we've been doing lots of snow zoomies...


Somehow, Mom thought that we might want to 'fetch' things in the snow (well, actually, it came about because while I LOVE chasing snowballs, Abby tends to get a little frustrated because she can't 'find' the snowball in all the snow...). As I mentioned with the booties, Mom had tossed some tennis balls around, but they were very quickly buried. Duh. They get covered in snow and look like, well, the rest of the backyard.

So, Mom though we might be interested in Frisbees. We don't like the hard plastic kind, although that may have as much to do with Mom's throwing ability (or lack thereof... note to self: DO NOT EVER enter Mom in a Frisbee golf tournament; she'll never make it past the first flag... eesh...) as anything. However, Mom figured that if we didn't like the soft Frisbees, at least they wouldn't get lost in the snow. Abby could find them easily enough (Mom got two as we, um, sometimes don't like to share so much...)

And they are entertaining...


For the record, the Chuck-it 'buoyant' frisbee is really tough. Actually, the other one is, too. So far...

But I was going to talk about our hike, right? You know how we've been going on hikes all spring/summer/fall, right? Well, today was our first trek on the trail when it was covered in snow. We put on our booties (the original reason for the purchase, BTW), and off we went.

It's a multi-use trail, so there were a bunch of people cross-country skiing (although no one skijoring!) other people walking doggies, and even a crazy guy on a bicycle. Mom and Dad have declared the park (where we stop and chase tennis balls) to be 'done' for the season (something about tennis balls being elusive in the snow...) but the hike was still lots of fun, and I'm getting more used to the booties.

We may not be sled dogs, but we had fun!

And now we get cookies, right, Mom?!?

Happy snow times!!!

*kissey face*
-Fiona and Abby the Hippobottomus

Blizzard, schmizzard

We were supposed to have this HUGE blizzard yesterday afternoon/evening; there were all these civil warnings, news stations were sending out alerts, etc., etc., etc. And it did get pretty windy. And it did snow, but it wasn't exactly an epic blizzard. It has, however, turned a wee bit nippy; Mom says that the temperature hasn't been out of the single digits at all today. Apparently she's just happy that the numbers are at least positive numbers, and aren't negative numbers. That will come tonight, I'm told.


Mom is using this as an excuse to not got skiing today. Well, that and Park City Resort only has one run open right now, and even though she has a bright orange helmet, she's not too keen on skiing with a zillion other people on one run. She's hoping that they'll open up more stuff tomorrow, as she and Dad would like to go skiing.

Abby and I are much hardier souls, however, and don't care what the temperature is. We've been having fun!











Good times!!! And when we're done, we get cookies! ;-)


Here's a picture Mom took last night during the 'blizzard'. I think it's kind of pretty - sort of like it should go on a Christmas card (except that our Christmas cards should only EVER contain pictures of doggies... I'm just saying...)


Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

*kissey face*
-Fiona and Abby the Hippobottomus

More Snow

Hmm. Haven't I used that title before? Yeah, I thought so, too. Maybe I should change it to something more interesting, like "Bat Child Found Alive in Mummy's Tomb - Pictures Inside!". But that would set me up for a Dennis-like bloggie entry, and Mom is muttering something about having stuff to do other than play around with Photoshop for me all day. *sheesh*

So, 'More Snow' it is.

Dad has been playing around with his snow removal toys...

We were up on the porch, steathily barking at Dad when Mom got this picture. Hey. We're dogs. We're supposed to alert the staff when there are strangers in the yard....

Luckily it is not all-work-and-no-play for us; Abby and I have had a few opportunities to frolic in the winter wonderland that is our yard.



We have also been trying out some dance moves. Our Most Graceful friend, Honey the Great Dane is truly an excellent dancer. Seriously. She's in competitions and stuff, and she is AMAZING. Go on, check out this link; I'll wait : http://bighoneydog.com/2010/11/chinese-dance/

See? For a big, long-leggedy gal, she's QUITE the dancer!

Anyhoo, Honey has inspired us to try out a few moves of our own. However, unlike Honey who has her Mom for a partner, my Mom has two left feet, and so I've had to resort to dancing with Abby. (Which is kind of like 'Dancing with the Stars' but totally different.)

Unfortunately, we both want to lead...

Since we both want to lead, one of us invariably mis-steps and then we end up clinging to each other in an attempt to keep our balance...


And once we get to this point, it never ends well...

And from here, well, you know where it goes from here...

So, we may leave the competitive dancing to Honey and other more talented doggies. Not that we won't continue to try, because anything that ends up in bitey-face can't be all bad!

*kissey face*
-Fiona and Abby the two-left-footed Hippobottomus (oh, wait, she DOES have two left feet...)