Ain't Nothin' Like the Great Outdoors

My aunt and uncle invited us to a camp out in their backyard this weekend! It was great fun! We took Hazel and Xujey and borrowed my aunt and uncle's new tent.


Rosco, my aunt and uncle's oldest dog and my FAVORITE pet in the WHOLE world, was fascinated by the tent. I ran into their house last night to get an extra pillow and came back to him sitting on our tent keeping watch. He was a great guard dog and we all slept safely through the night! :-)


My aunt, uncle and Andy slept in their pop-up camper last night. I forgot to get a picture before my aunt left for the morning, but I thought this was a fun one of Andy and my uncle...and a few curious dogs!

Special Olympics

Special Olympics Arizona hosted the 2009 Summer Games this weekend at Mesa Community College. The Wal-Mart Foundation donated $70,000 to Special Olympics Arizona to help with the Healthy Athletes Initiative - a program that provides free dental, hearing, foot, bone density and other screenings to the athletes.


The program has saved lives in other states, and was able to improve lives at the games this past weekend - many of the athletes who had hearing aids were still unable to hear well. With a quick hearing aid setting change by the audiologist, their hearing was improved dramatically.

We set to work to do some PR for the games and the Wal-Mart donation. ABC 15 was awesome and did their weather at 4:15, 5:15 and 6:15 p.m. live from the games. The athletes were THRILLED when they got to be on TV!


It was fun to be part of something that was so cool for the athletes! I was especially impressed by a program they have called United Partners. In this program, Special Olympics athletes train with regular athletes at a local high school. Then there are several events, such as relay races, at the Special Olympics that allow them to compete together. Both sets of athletes seemed to LOVE this program!

Happy Birthday Elsa!

We had a girls night for Elsa's birthday, Wednesday. It was great fun!!!

He's Trying to Tell You Something

Saturday, we took Elvis on his very first hike at Thunderbird Mountain Park. He loved it!

Surprisingly, his favorite part was climbing up - he loved having to lift his legs high to get them on the next rock.

When he would start to get sluggish and pant heavily...we would pull a small bowl out of our bag and give him some water. He was getting tired, but seemed to be doing fine when we passed a small clearing off to the side. While Wil was mid-stride - not pausing, not stopping, but still walking - Elvis saw the clearing, walked off to the side a bit and laid down.


He was NOT moving! In fact, we dropped his leash and he just laid there as people walked by...something that is UNHEARD of for him! We decided we would give him some more water and just wait a while until he was ready to go again.

Our favorite part was the lady who walked by and said, "I think he's trying to tell you something."

Gee, you think? Whatever could he be trying to tell us by laying down and refusing to move while hiking a mountain?!?


This is Merle...the ONLY reason Elvis got up was because he saw this beast walking up and was curious. Merle the great dane, all 170 pounds of him, was as tired as Elvis was and was excited to have an excuse to rest. He sat down right next to Elvis and decided not to budge - not sure how you would budge a 170 pound dog, even if you wanted to!

After this, we were able to coax Elvis the rest of the way up the mountain - which was only about five more minutes.

It was tons of fun! We'll have to go hiking - and take Elvis with us - more often!

***Editor's Note: This excursion brought to you by the purchase of a choke collar! By far the best dog purchase we have made! I can actually walk him now without feeling as though I'm going to lose my hand through loss of blood or by being torn off.

Living at Work

I feel like I've been practically living at work the past few weeks. I wake up, quickly get ready, head for work, work, work some more, work even more, head home, eat dinner, relax for not very long (if there is time) and go to bed.

Needless to say, we've been crazy busy! Last Friday, we had two simultaneous events in Tempe and Tucson. Thursday night is by far the latest I have ever stayed at work - it was about 8:15 p.m. when I headed home only to grab something off my computer when I got there and take it to Kinkos to be printed.

I would not have been at work nearly so long, except apparently while I figuratively live at my work, there is at least one person in the world who literally lives at my work...or just outside of it. You see, the printer broke in our building, so we had to run to the building next door to pick up 70 copies of the press release and fact sheets off of the printer. Several people stayed late to help me, so while I was typing away on my computer and gathering supplies, Amanda (one of my favorite people) ran next door to pick up the print job. While she was there, Sharon - the only person left working in that building - walked by the front entry way to find a homeless man curling up for a long night's rest against the door and five more homeless men staggering down the alley behind our office. She did what any rational female would do in this situation...she freaked out!

Amanda and Sharon called the non-emergency police line to let them know a homeless man had made himself at home in front of our office. The police told them no one should leave the building until they arrived...which left Amanda stuck in the other building with our copies, while we waited in our building to take those copies and stuff them in press kits. (For the record, I requested a picture of the homeless man for this very blog, but she told me no! How rude!)

So we waited, and waited, and waited for the police to arrive. We sent text messages to family and friends, and our boss that said: "Still at work. Stuck here until police arrive to remove sleeping homeless man from parking lot. Eating cookies and crackers to survive."

Finally, about 30 minutes later we got tired of waiting. Alana and I had just decided that the one sleeping homeless man separated from our door by two small fences and a patio was not going to attack three of us, if we were together. Alana opened the door to go get Amanda, but Amanda and Sharon had gotten tired of waiting as well. We walked Sharon to her car and then ran quickly up the stairs and locked the door to our office. We commenced stuffing press kits, grabbed everything we needed, turned off the lights, set the alarm and walked each other to our cars.

It was then and only then that two cop cars on patrol rolled through the alley behind our building to rescue us from any unwanted visitors. I think our homeless friend was gone, probably scared off when he heard people still inside the building.

I'm a Tree!

Friday, my aunt and uncle came over for a birthday celebration. I wanted to have dinner at the park by our house, so they brought their dog Smudge for his very first real dog park excursion (please note, they have three dogs and an acre lot - so every day at their house is like a dog park excursion).

Smudge and my aunt were a bit nervous at the dog park, not sure what to do if the dogs got in a fight. Luckily there was no fighting Friday.

I was excited to show them the ropes of the dog park and show off all of my cool knowledge. I imparted my wisdom about the ridgeback breed of dog and how they all walk funny like that and their hair really grows in a ridge on their backs, it's not just groomed that way. I then went on to explain that you had to be careful where you sat on the picnic tables because some dogs liked to relieve themselves on the legs of said picnic tables. Also, you probably want to steer clear of being too close to the tree.

It was after I had explained all of this and was standing comfortably chatting with my aunt when a dog walked up to me. Since we were at the dog park, this did not seem so uncommon...I glanced at the dog and continued chatting. Until, a woman said, ummm...I think he's peeing on you.

YEP! Definitely peeing on my leg...do I look like a tree or a picnic table leg??? EWWWWW!!!

It's a Table Door... or is it a Door Table?

When we bought our house, it came with a bonus - a very large solid wood door resting in the garage. That doesn't seem so odd, until you realize this door was several feet too large to fit on anything inside our house...so it really was just a random door sitting in our garage.

We kept this random door, vowing to put it to good use and make something really cool with it! Ta Da...Our very own Door Table...


Wil decided to cut it down and make a workbench out of it. He bought folding table legs at Home Depot (I had no idea they sold just the legs for folding tables, think of the possibilities!) and went to work. He's even found a good use for the holes where the door knob and lock should go - see the nifty drill holder!

Now, we just have to find a use for the other 3 foot section of the door - it's got to be good for something!!!