Puppy School Report #1

Puppy School Report:

Well our first day of puppy school was a success. We had some clicker training and we learned how to make eye contact on comand. We did pretty good with socialization but we liked to lay down and observe the other puppies before jumping right in and playing. Sometimes if we thought the other dogs were being too rough or not giving us enough attention we would bark. So as usual we got the award for most vocal animal and first one to bark in class. Other than that we did well, not the best but not the worst. Sounds like most of the other mommys and daddys have the same frustrations we do and surprisingly some puppies are even more stubborn.

Since puppy school we have already gotten better at coming when called in the back yard. Tim didn't join us at puppy school because of his laser eye surgery but we are training him how to ignore Taupo when he bites; say owe and walk away. He rarely bites me anymore but he still thinks Tim's hands and feet are toys so we are working on that. Here are some recent pictures of the little guy.



This is how Taupo tells us that he wants water. We used to keep his bowls full but after dumping it a few times now we only fill it a little at a time. Nine times out of ten he drinks the little bit of water and walks away but the other 1/10th of the time when he is finished and there is water left he picks it up and dumps it. Hence we don't leave bowls full anymore. Now when he is thirsty he picks up his bowl and brings it to us. I guess we should get heavier bowls but we find this very entertaining :)

Meet Romo

This is Aly and Marc's new puppy Romo. He looks quite cute and cuddly and I can't wait to officially meet him. He is slightly larger than Taupo but we are hoping that the two of them will be great friends. Taupo doesn't know it yet but he is excited for his first play date whenever that may be :)

Taupo pictures

Here are some recent pictures of Taupo. The one in the bath is an old one but it was too funny not to include.


This one is tiny on the collage but it is my absolute favorite; since he wants to eat the camera whenever it comes out it is very difficult to get a good photo.


This Saturday we start puppy school, so next week we will start reporting on our progress. First items on the agenda are:
1) Learn to stop biting hands, feet, ears, and noses. (Right now we love toys but we love human flesh much more and since we have very sharp puppy teeth this is not fun for mom and dad.)
2) Learn to come when called. (Right now we only come when we feel like it so if we are doing something more interesting then we just look and go back to what we are doing.)

Taupo knows he has progress to make and we hope he will be a very good student.

In other news Aly got a new puppy last night so we are also looking forward to a play date soon.

A visitor from Japan

This past weekend our brother-in-law, William came to visit. He lives on a US Air Force base in Misawa, Japan with his wife Katie (Tim's sister) but was out in Texas for a training course so he came to Houston to visit us. Unfortunatly I had to work most of the weekend because of the marathon but we had fun hanging out, playing games, and watching Laurel run the half marathon. THe rest of the group got to enjoy themselves at the Saint Arnold's brewery while I was working on Saturday! On Sunday we walked to the marathon course from our house to cheer on Laurel and decided to bring Taupo with us. By the end of the day we ended up walking all the way downtown (~4 miles) to meet Laurel at the finish. She did awesome at the race and was nice enough to drive us all home afterwards. Poor little Taupo passed out for a few hours after the longest journey of his life.

Taupo was whining and Tim thought he might be cold so he wrapped him up in his jacket. (Please ignore the red neck hat he is wearing, he is having laser eye surgery next week and can't wear contacts so he claims he needed this hat to keep the sun out of his eyes)


The boys waiting to cheer on Laurel!!



Laurel at Discovery Green Park after the race, I'm pretty sure I didn't look that cute after my race but luckily there are no pictures to reference :)


Hope everyone enjoys the rest of the week, I'm looking forward to finally catching up on some sleep this weekend!!

NEW YORK CITY...........FINALLY

I know, I know I am not doing well on my promise to blog often and share the details of this trip. In my defense last week was my biggest week of the year at work and I had to work all weekend. Anyways enough excuses, let's move on.

Disclaimers:
1. This will be long (I'm going to try to make a long story short but Tim claims that I make long stories longer)
2. You will be overloaded with pictures!!!

So we planned to leave for New York City first thing Thursday morning but I guess mother nature had other plans. My parents arrived there Wednesday night and my sister was on her way on another airline. At 4:30am I checked my phone and it says our flight is cancelled due to weather in Chicago. I call southwest to figure out our options and there is a 3 hour wait to talk to someone, next I check online and all flights through other cities are full, this is when I PANIC and get emotional. I call my parents in NY (it is now 4am there) and I am very upset because as far as I can tell we aren't going to make it. I started planning this trip in August and I've been packed with outfits coordinated for 5 days now not to mention we have tickets to Wicked on Broadway and a pre-paid hotel. After lots of me crying and Tim laughing at how ridiculous I am we decide to go to the airport and see what they can do for us...... BUT before we leave Tim tells me I need to pack my two large bags into one carryon because we will be in a "stand by situation". I will downplay my reaction and just say I PANICKED AGAIN but eventually we both made it out the door with all of our limbs intact.

After being shuffled around the airport with false promises we are finally booked on a flight from Houston to Jacksonville to Baltimore to Long Island. We then had to take a train from Long Island to Penn Station, surprisingly we only arrived about 3 hours later then our scheduled time and we were able to enjoy our time in New York.

We saw.......

Rockefeller Center and the Tree: It was lit but as we walked down to take a picture they shut off all the lights and began taking it down :(


St. Pat's Cathedral (so beautiful)


Trump Tower & Tiffany's (I found a very simple necklace I thought would be a good bday present for myself but after being informed of the price they directed me to the upper levels that have silver rather than white gold and platinum)


Carnegie Deli (Aly and Marc's sandwich looked almost impossible to eat but they managed)


Wall Street



Battery Park and the Statue of Liberty


Chelsea Market (We pigged out on some yummy and fresh seafood soups, oysters and fresh bread; before we left town we even made time to make a quick stop and get lobster rolls togo)


Wicked
The extended Yarnall Family at dinner before the show. We ate at the greatest restaurant in Chelsea and got to enjoy the company of all the Gebert girls!!

The small Yarnall Family after the show


Times Square


Central Park/Tavern on the Green



Empire State Building and the views from the top




Lombardi's (first pizza place in the USA and sooo good)


Washington Square Park (Marc is taking this picture and Mommy is blocking Susan)


Staten Island Ferry (before and after sundown)






Our final night in the city we went to this cute restaurant right under the Brooklyn Bridge and just sat and ate and drank for hours with Kate and Sue Gebert. The boys watched the Cowboys game and we all had a blast. Then we went back to Kate's place and enjoyed some cupcakes from Magnolia's. Once again it was a great trip to the city and we have the Gebert's to thank for that, we love you guys and can't wait to come back.


Best Friends Forever, LOVE this picture they are so cute :)

Daddy and his girls

Mommy having too much fun

The girls (Elizabeth we missed you)

Taupo's Arch Nemesis.....

The Door Stop




Taupo discovered this yesterday and he can't seem to figure it out. Please excuse the camera shaking I couldn't help but laugh. He has since had many more entertaining battles.

I know, I know I promised a New York post and it is coming. I only have a few minutes before I'm off to the gym and I had to share this. Hopefully I will have time tomorrow to give New York the time and energy it deserves and share all the emotional details.

First Blog Fail

Well it's my first week of blogging and I'm already failing. Our life is exciting, at least I think it is, but nothing really seems blog worthy at the moment. Here is what we are up to unfortunatley no pictures but I promise to deliver on those when we get back from New York City next week.

Tim is working hard while I try to keep little Taupo entertained. Mondays are always the worst since he get's spoiled on the weekends and then has to be in the kennel all day. He is making progress with the potty training, no major accidents and he seems to be FINALLY sleeping through the night. I know I'm not ready for babies when two weeks of puppy training exhausts me but at least you get time off work with babies.

I am getting a little nervous about my upcoming new adventure.....Teaching. A week from Friday I will get some practice presenting at the marathon expo and then at the end of January I officially become a biomechanics professor at The University of Houston, Clear Lake. I am excited for the new adventure and working on all my materials but I'm a little nervous especially since I will probably be younger than many of my students. I just hope I can make them all love Biomechanics like I do, Kristy (college professor) was the one who got me into this field and maybe I can do that for someone else.

Other than that I'm just looking forward to Thursday when we leave for New York. I wouldn't be myself if I wasn't already packed and ready to go;actually I was packed and ready to go Sunday afternoon so I might use tomorrow night to repack and make sure I didn't forget anything. Greg and Laurel have offered to take Taupo because he is sooooo cute. We did warn them that he isn't always cute when he is being a little pill but they are up for the challenge so we will see how much they still like him and us when we return.

So with that I'm off to NYC, I will report back all the wonderful, chilly details when we return.

Happy New Year!!

2009 was an eventful and very exciting year for us.....

We got married,


Went to New Zealand and the Cook Islands for our honeymoon (I'll share the exciting details in a future post)







and just recently grew our family when we got a new Welsh Corgi puppy and named him Taupo after Lake Taupo, New Zealand.


Plus, we were able to go home many times to celebrate with all of our friends who got married this year so we were lucky enough to spend a lot of time with our family and friends in 2009.

I am starting this blog to share all the new adventures of 2010 with everyone we know who lives far away. As someone who loves to read blogs I hope to make this one fun to read and very entertaining, although I may have to steal some old material from 2009 to keep it lively!!

Happy New Year everyone!!