Vigo's Family

Vigo arrived and was the 5th largest male in his litter. That means it is a fairly large litter.

His brother Vernon is also in Fort Collins, but I'm not sure right now who is other siblings are...I'll have to find out!

Vigo sleeping....

Vernon sleeping. Vernon is darker in color than Vigo.

God's Little Gifts

Besides puppies, I do have some other hobbies. One of them includes gardening. i took some of these pictures this weekend in the garden.

Today I was working from home and took Vigo out to go to the bathroom. I saw a butterfly on the lillies, and went back in to grab my camera. It stayed for quite a while, fluttering from flower to flower.

While I was taking pictures of the butterfly, Vigo peeked out and said, "Hey, don't forget about me! I'm cuter than that butterfly!"

More Vigo

Yesterday was the Guide Dog summer picnic. We had a lot of puppies over at Alex and Stacie's house (thanks guys!) and they played while we ate. Or should I say some of them played. Vigo mostly just slept, but he did get one burst of energy to play with the bigger dogs until he realized that being underfoot of several 50+ lb dogs is probably not the safest idea. But it was fun while it lasted.

Run Vigo, Run!

Little guide dog...

Vigo: "May I go back to my nap now? Please?"

Vigo!

And away Vigo!

Vigo has arrived and he is here to stay! This little puppy is one of the calmest, sweetest puppies I have every met! He is adorable and loves to sleep. We took him back from the puppy truck and spent some time in the shade, which is especially useful since he isn't potty trained yet and doesn't even know his name. But what he doesn't know he makes up for in cuteness!

I love puppies! But with a face like this how could you not?

After being on the puppy truck with his littermate, he needed a bath. He was very nice and calm in the bath.

Puppy Truck

Friday was a big day for Eve as well as us. She went back on the puppy truck. Alex and Stacie and Rob and I all went down there.

Before we could put Eve on the puppy truck, they unloaded the little puppies off the truck. We will be co-raising our next puppy with Alex and Stacie. Originally we were going to wait a while before getting a new one, but I thought it might help me not be sad about Eve to have a new puppy around. So, here we are!

The puppy truck arrived and we got a new puppy named Vigo. Before we had to put Eve on the truck, we got a few photos of the Eve and Vigo meeting, as well as a family photo.

Saying goodbye to Eve -- I think I was prepared for the worst, but since Eve is such a happy and energetic dog, it wasn't as hard because I know she'll be happy wherever she is. The nice guys on the puppy truck were very thoughtful -- they said that they would take Eve into the hotel with them at night. She got a new bone on the truck and a few illegal treats, and off she went. She didn't look too sad to me, which made it much easier to leave.

Rob says his goodbyes. Eve says, "I'll miss you!"

Eve gets to meet Vigo for a few minutes.

Eve's Last Week

This last week was pretty rough -- I knew Eve was going back, but it was still hard to believe. So, I made sure I spent as much time with her as I possibly could -- I think by the end of the week were Eve was definitley tired of snuggling me!

I think she'll do great -- thank you all for your kind words!

Awww. What a pretty dog!

As a last hurrah, we took her to the park and practiced "come" off leash. Eve loves running. You can see Rob in the background -- notice how they started running at the same time, but Eve was a little bit faster ;) She ran so fast that she plowed right into me!

After a few times back and forth, Eve was tired and content!

Good Luck Eve

Eve is going away in one week... I can't even believe it. While we've had her, she's been a good friend for me, so I decided to bake her a going away cake with my new cake calls... here is my process.. it turned out even better than I thought! I will miss Eve SO much...

The undecorated cake



A start of frosting...

The finished puppy.

The final cake!

Cakes 101 part 2

Yesterday at cake decorating class we decorated our first cake. We learned the technique of how to do a border, as well as how to do figure piping to do 'dimensional decorating'! I'd say my cake turned out better than expected! It is amazing how frosting can hide so many imperfections, and how it looks good even if you don't really know what you are doing!

A cherry on top for good luck!



Yep, Rob and I had to have a piece when I got home... mmmmm

Cakes 101

This month I am taking a cake decorating class with my friend Rachel. We had our first class last week, where the instructor made everything look so easy -- of course you cake always comes out smooth I thought to myself....

Alas, my first frosted cake didn't come out as smooth as I would have hoped, but practice makes perfect so they say....

The cake out of the oven ( a nice marble fudge cake!)

I tried 'torting' the cake (cutting it in half) and filling it with pudding. I learned that I should use a decorating tip to make the rim because using a knife certainly didn't work. I ended up thinning the frosting too as it was too thick to begin with.

Then I frosted the top... looks good so far! Unfortunately when I put the two pieces together my cake wasn't quite as even as it was when it was just one piece :(

The final frosted cake. Not great, but not bad for a first try...

And to top off the evening Eve got sick tonight so was throwing up :( Not the way I want to spend my last few days with her... but she stayed with me in the kitchen and slept. Poor puppy....

Eve and Cambria

A few weekends ago we watched Cambria for one whole day. Eve was so happy to have a nice female dog to play with!

They played and played and played. And the key is they played nicely -- no agression, just nice running around with a rope. I love happy puppies!

A new toy

Rob got me a new toy the other day -- it is called a Bamboo Fun, and it is essentially a large touchpad so you can do more 'artsy' things on the computer... You can use it similarly to the touchpad on a smartphone to zoom in and out of pictures or to scroll on websites, etc, and it also comes with a pen. The pen has something like 256 settings of pressure, so the harder you press, the darker the drawing becomes, etc, just like a normal marker. So tonight I had a lot of fun playing with it. It is taking me quite a while to get used to, but it is fun! I'm sure you can do more cool stuff with it, but this is what I did tonight...

Tech Camp Party

On Friday Rob and I hosted the wonderful ladies and their familes of the Tech Camp over for a celebration of another successful camp. Rob and I don't do too much entertaining, so this was kind of a big deal for us.

It was so much fun though! It was a great group of people, with great food, and great weather. Rob was the expert grillman, cooking up some sirloin burgers and bbq chicken!

We all sat outside to eat because it was finally cooling down by the time we started eating! I've been working on the yard quite a bit (I put mulch by the tree as you can see in the picture)

The kids had fun playing with Eve.... who doesn't love Eve, really? :)

Eve especially had fun with this little boy -- she was strong enough that when he laid on the ground, she could pull him around! She just had a blast!

And, as an awesome surprise, my team made me a present! I was so touched, especially by the card and the though that went into it. They made a real money tree out of bills (I can't tell if they are $100 or $1 -- maybe you can tell from the picture :)) It is a REALLY creative idea, and it was done really well. And the rocks in the pot are all these polished rocks from around Colorado and Wyoming. I felt so touched and lucky to have such a nice group of people in my life!

It was a nice day until....

In my last blog post, I mentioned that we had gone on a great hike. Well, on our drive back to the campsite, it started to hail! We were thankful we were in the car and not out on a hike!

We got back to our campsite and it let up for a few minutes, so we ran to Sarah and Dave's awesome canopy. It was nice and dry inside. But we were all cold and wet by this time, so Rob offered to get me my sweatshirts from the car. It was only raining, not hailing at the time.

BUT, as he was going to the car, it started hailing. He waited it out in the car for about 5 minutes, but then decided to make a run for the canopy. Here you can see him running towards me as it is hailing.... what a sweet guy to brave hail so I could be warm!!

In the nice dry canopy, we all played cards for about 2-3 hours while it poured outside. By the time it stopped the temperature had dropped significantly and we were all ready for a nice hot fire!