Labrador Diaries -- Volume 4

The last time we made an appearance in Blogville, we were recovering from our surgery that made us more neutral, non-puppy bearing beasts animals.

We are happy to announce we've made a full recovery and are at the top of our puppy game!



The smaller humans have completely welcomed us into their fun-size pack:






Before it got to be as hot as blue blazes we spent some time working on our tans:




However, one our favorite summer memories will be playing in the little green pond:







The Alpha Dog has put us to work.....something about earning our keep. We help fold clothes for food:






Speaking of food, we've had a brief taste of fresh meat.....so brief, it got away from both of our mouths!

Meet THE enemy:


Oh, we know he or she looks cute, but that doesn't stop us from trying to get one more taste of this little delicacy.





The humans have tried dragging us inside during the HOT summer, but once we see our little "friend" scurry down that tree, we absolutely MUST go back outside! We MUST!




Recently our people have been disappearing all day again. That's ok because we love playing in our big yard. We have a lot of shade and we are still working on that hole to China, wherever that is.




The other day we even had a special guest pop in on us:

Meet our cute little neighbor "Bear". We guess he wanted to say hi, but when we ran over to greet him, he disappeared back into his yard.

He probably thinks the grass is greener in our yard!

We think so!


Until next time.......

Allie:

Sophie:

Back to School Blues

School Year 2010-11 is underway! We got back into the swing of all things school this past Wednesday. I officially have a 6th and 4th grader in my home.

What?!

How??

Where does the time go?

It seems like yesterday each were graduating from Kindergarten.

And now look where we are:






LegoMan has graduated from hanging out with the elementary kids in the cafeteria before school, to hanging with his buddies in the gym:




And the Princess has her books and new bangs ready for a new school year:





Happy New School Year, y'all!

Summer Rewind

*knock* *knock* *knock* Anybody still here??

We are on the final 3 week countdown until school starts......well, the hubby and I might be the only one counting down.

Our summer has been quite busy around here, it's been filled with GOOD, BAD, and UGLY! (warning: LOTS of photos)


GOOD:

The kids have spent most of the summer in the pool on a summer swim team. They swam 4 days a week and competed in a few meets. Both won several ribbons in their events and Lego-Man made the summer All Star swim team! I am a proud swim mom!!






We also took some time out for visiting family. It's always a good time when the littlest cousins get together for a week. It is non-stop F-U-N.






The local Princess turned the big 9. It's her last year of single digits.....*gasp*



BAD

The biggest bad news of the summer involved this sweet face:




And these cute boys:

As some of you may remember, last year's birthday present was tickets to see the Jonas Brothers. Earlier in the summer we found out her favorite boy band was going to be touring again this fall. The Princess begged for two more tickets for he birthday. I bought them and made plans for a fabulous weekend in Nashville with one of my favorite peeps and her daughter.

On the Princess' very birthday, I received an email that informed me of the JoBros canceling 20 venues, including Nashville (so they could add tour dates in South America????). Insert Sad Trombone Needless to say, I was waiting on a call from Team Jonas to inform my sweet girl of their poor decision making skills. We are still waiting on that phone call.

After receiving the bad news, the Princess settled on a birthday bike....complete with a pouch for her Mp3 player to blare on a speaker. Because the 9 year old needs ONE more distraction while riding her bike.



On another bad note, Lego-Man's summer hairdo strongly resembles Justin Bieber's. Oh baby, puhhleeze.

(FYI, the hairdo situation has since been rectified by the nice lady at Sports Clips.)

UGLY

My little sister and I had an encounter with aliens the Mac Photo Booth:

(Who knew my sister was Janice the Muppet)

We've had a really great summer here at the GRITS house. How about you??

Raising Arizona......GRITS Style

I don't mind taking my kids shopping. Now that they are older, I don't have to look for them inside the clothes racks and they typically behave well for a longer period of time.

Take last Saturday, for example. We had to finish up some pre-Easter shopping and found ourselves at a local shoe store. The hubby was in the man shoe area and I had the kids with me.

As we walked around, I heard the kids talking and laughing. However, at some point I became completely oblivious to my kid's behavior, until I noticed one of the sales girls looking behind me and giggling.

How, ummm, marvelous is it to turn around and find your children looking like this:


Seriously. I can't make this stuff up.

How fortunate for me, I lived in the 80's and the first thing that popped into my head was this from Raising Arizona, a favorite movie of mine.

Son, you got a panty on your head. sound bite Raising Arizona sound bites

Just in case you wondered (because I DID), they took the socks fresh out of the box, so no nasty foot germs were transferred to their sweet faces in the making of their fun.

We Can Haz Mud?

Hello, humans.....it's Sophie and Allie, the Alpha-Dog may have mentioned us.

We've had a great two weeks here with our new family. We love our new fenced in back yard filled with sticks and rocks to chew on. We go on walks almost every day around the neighborhood. Down the street is a cute little dog named Buster. We love to chase him in circles until he pants like he's about to pass out.

Squirrels!! They are all over the place. The word on the street is our neighbors have noticed more squirrels in their yards since our arrival. The Alpha-Dog doesn't have to worry about those pesky chipmunks either, we did them all a favor by digging up their little hole. We haven't seen Chip or Dale since. It didn't take us long to figure out the best place to get a mid-day snack is right under the bird feeders. The seed is so tasty and very crunchy; however, it sure can mess with your bowels!

THIS PLACE IS GREAT!!


Our family has two humans that are just about our size. One of them talks to us in a squeaky high-pitched voice and repeats her commands over and over .....but she's pretty cute so we can over look it. The boy is very tall and loves for us to chase him around our yard. His Legos and socks are delicious!

Today was our most fun day ever! As usual, our family left us in the backyard while they went to church. They put these dog house things in the yard, but who wants to get in there when you can stand out in the open during a passing rain storm?! Not us....no way.

Guess what?! When the rain falls and it mixes with the dirt in our hole, it makes this super fun brown stuff. We had a ball......until the humans got home.

The Alpha-Dog began speaking incoherently and the boy was laughing at us. Suddenly we saw the hose being rolled out and our shampoo made an appearance! *gasp* We.Had.To.Get.A.Bath.

The water was FREEZING?! We whined, cried, and tried to get away, but the humans are pretty smart and quick.

You tell us, is there anything wrong with looking like this????




We don't think so either! Don't tell the Alpha-Dog, but next time we get the chance, we're picking back up where we left off.

Wordless Wednesday-- Double Bubble

For more Wordless Wednesday posts, visit 5 Minutes for Mom HERE.

Double Blessings

Last month we said goodbye to our dear 14 year old Lab, Bailey. I had many people advise me to go ahead and get another dog, but I said, "no". We planned on waiting until this summer to welcome a new pet.

I didn't want my kids to think that one life is replaceable with another. I wanted us to go through the grief process for Bailey......and we have.

This past week something happened, unexpectedly. God literally dropped these two right into our lap:

Meet Sophie and Allie!

Who could say no to those two faces??? I couldn't.

They are 5 month old Lab sisters who are house trained and have passed Puppy Kindergarten. They came to us from a friend who could not keep them. It was a blessing for us to take them and a blessing for her to know they were going to someone who would take such good care of them.

It's been a LONG four weeks at our house. We've certainly missed having furry friends around and we look forward to bonding with our newest family members.


We are smitten:





I think the "girls" are getting settled in their new home:





How fortunate for us, we have an in house Dog Whisperer:

I'm bringing IT back!

Some of you may have been here long enough to remember all of my Sincerely 'Fro Me to You posts. If not, click HERE and you will see what I am talking about.


Those retro picture posts originated with Kristen of We Are THAT Family and, eventually, was passed on to Marcy of The Glamorous Life. I cannot tell you how sad I was the day this particular blog "party" ended. I am almost certain I went through the grief process for several weeks afterward.

I love retro pictures dearly and want to do a weekly blog post called "Throw Back Thursday", or maybe "Flashback Friday". Perhaps, I can come up with something a little more creative...then again, maybe not. I have missed throwing myself and whomever else under the retro-picture bus.

With all that said.......I'm bringing RETRO BACK!!

This week's photo is from my college days. Just for a point of reference, I will be celebrating my 20th college reunion in April of this year.

I went to a Baptist women's college in a small Southern town. Thirty minutes away was a slightly larger town, and an hour away was the city in which I live now. Needless to say, there was no Internet or Facebook back in the day and we lacked a little in the entertainment department. Unless you call cruising the square or hanging out at the local Hardee's over-the-top fun. And, seriously, one can only watch "Top Gun" and "Dirty Dancing" so many times.

Have no fear, "girls" that attend a small women's college are VERY creative and didn't have to leave the dorm for a good time. As evidenced by this photo of yours truly:






Dear blog readers, I present to you what we called the "Tide Slide". Tide meaning the soap we put on the floor, and Slide meaning, well, how we got from one end of the dorm hallway to the other.

At the nursing home, we shall call this "instant trip to the hospital", the "hip breaker" or maybe we will just call it, "maw-maw's last slide".

Looking at this photo brings back so many great memories of a day gone by. And also thankful, that my body still looks that great after 20 years, two children and the death of my thyroid.....*cough* *cough*






(BLOGGERS, if you'd like to join me in a weekly retro-picture post, let me know in the comments section and I might add a Mister Linky feature. If not, I'll be the flashback queen of the Internet.)

Wordless Wednesday-- Minnie and Mini-Me

For more Wordless Wednesday posts visit 5 Minutes for Mom HERE

Papparazzi-- Disney Style

We've all seen the pictures of those crazy photographers who pull out all the stops, risking life and limb to get the perfect shot of celebrities.


While at Disney World two weeks ago, the tables were turned. Instead of the GRITS family being stalked by a mob of photographers, we were the stalkers.

Or something like that.


While we were eating lunch in the Magic Kingdom, we noticed several people standing in the grass near Cinderella's Castle being interviewed. Naturally, my nosy self HAD to go find out who was being interviewed. As we got closer, this is who we saw:



At first, I said to myself....."Ummmm, is that Prince Charming?" Then there was a long pause....."no, wait, he's that guy....you know he builds stuff". Thank you fellow stalker for reminding me of the name Carter Oosterhouse. OH YEA!



Unlike everyone else standing around us, I had NO trouble figuring out who was also being interviewed with Mr. Eye Candy Oosterhouse.



It was Chef Aaron McCargo, Jr. from the Food Network's "Big Daddy's House." I cheered for him on "The Next Food Network Star." I may or may not have been shouting "we are your fans" at the exact moment this photo was snapped. Ahem.


Our next big day of celebrity sightings coincided with Disney's "Give a Day, Get a Day" celebration. While wandering around Epcot, look who we, literally, almost ran in to:



Yep, it's Chef Robert Irvine from Food Network's "Dinner Impossible".....one of the hubby's favorites. He was in the middle of shooting a show on location in Epcot. The chef actually stopped and talked with folks. If it hadn't been for the family in front of us taking forever to get pictures with the wife, the baby in the stroller and the whole family together, I would have taken his picture with the hubby. Instead I got a picture of this:




The big find of the day resulted from my love of the Twitter. I already knew that Joe Jonas and Demi Lovato were going to be at Epcot that day singing for Disney's celebration. While checking on my Twitter peeps, which includes both Joe and Demi, I saw they were tweeting pictures from a couple of different countries in Epcot.

When I informed the Princess of my discovery, it was game on to find them. We started our walk around Epcot.....in the opposite direction the tweets were showing. I suspected at some point we would hopefully "run" into Joe and Demi.

All I needed was a few tweets and the sounds of a gaggle of giggly girls.

*DING* *DING* *DING*



What? You can't see them?? How about now:



I'm afraid that's as good as our paparazzi skillz and the mob of girls would allow us. But the Princess was beyond THRILLED that we saw them.

As Joe and Demi left the area of their interview, the pack of pre-teens started running towards them.....guess who followed right behind, yes, the Princess. I seriously had to save her from being broadsided by a grown man with a camera.

Her goal was to get one final picture of this moment, and she did:


It's the perfect shot of Daddy Jonas and the back of Joe's head! Notice how close she had worked her way into the crowd.

Unbelievably, when we caught back up with Lego-Man and the hubby, they were watching a taping for America's Funniest Videos. AFV just happens to be Lego-Man's most favorite show. Imagine his excitement when he saw Tom Bergeron!





Despite all of the famous appearances, I must admit my favorite celebrities were these three and they even let me get my picture taken with them: