day 371

 

This is our other house guest, Buba. Clearly she'd rather be playing than sitting patiently, waiting for me to snap a photo of her.

day 369

I'm dogsitting for my good friend Arijana. This is Johnson (who you've seen before) and he is VERY suspicious of my camera. He tolerated a couple of shots before erupting into a barking frenzy.

day 361

Paul had to leave today to head back to base. He's in the Reserves and has been called up to go to Kuwait for a second time. Currently, he's training in Virginia Beach and will ship out on January 7th for eight months. Since we grew up in a military family, it's something we have dealt with our whole lives but the saying goodbye never seems to get easier.

day 354

I don't let the dogs up on the sofas. I like to keep them as hair free as possible. A few weeks ago, Hershey kept bugging me and when I asked her, "what?!" she jumped on the couch with me. She snuggled right up to my neck and, I must admit, it was pretty cute. She just came at me with that same look again so I spread out the blanket and let her come up. She sat her butt right in my lap and laid down. What a piece of work.

day 327

I'm sitting on the couch with my feet up on the coffee table and Charlie wants some attention...

day 326

Arijana and I took the dogs out to Otay Valley again today. This is Buba, standing atop the boulders, looking back at us.

day 325

This is Hobbes, my friend Tammy's dog. He's got so much energy and is a total sweetheart.

day 322

Our little mouse, Snowflake, isn't looking so good. I think she may have had several seizures today - at least that's what it looked like - and she's just not being herself. The kids are very worried about her and kept a close eye on her all day. Ugh. This is the part of having pets that I just never get used to and it's even harder when you have a classroom full of little ones...

day 319

The Browns and I joined Arijana and the Black & Whites for a walk out in Otay Valley today. It is so dry out there right now but it was a beautiful, warm afternoon. The dogs love the opportunity to get out and run off the leash and we enjoyed the time to catch up with each other. That's Johnson's silhouette in the second shot.

Thanks for inviting us friend! We love you guys! :)

day 318

I've been trying to take some photos of the Browns together lately. It's tough to catch them sitting together because every time I get up to grab the camera, one of them gets up to see where I'm going. It seems like they are getting older by the minute these days. It's hard to see them hurting when they get up from the floor and to not know if the meds they are on are helping.

day 317

I let the kids hold our pet toads this afternoon. They were so funny about touching them and were worried that they'd bite. These are the classroom moments that are so much fun to capture.

day 313

Charlie is the cutest. I love when he lays like this.

day 308

I discovered that it is really difficult to photograph fish today. I just couldn't get the coloring/lighting right. This is Mr. D - he is so pretty and could make a terrific photo if I could just figure out the best way to capture him.

day 291

 Mr. Alert - watching over the neighborhood. :)

day 290

We were a bit nervous at the vet this morning. Hershey wanted to hide but there wasn't much room with Charlie in the way so she ended up with her nose to the wall, sitting on him. Too funny!

day 287

Charlie had a seizure at about 4:00 this morning. It's an awful thing to witness. He seems to be doing fine now and we have an appointment with the vet on Saturday to figure out what's going on.

day 275

We finally had some time today for the kids to have some one-on-one time with Seymour. Their reactions to him are always so funny. They kept asking me to take more photos. Cute!

day 272

One of my LdV families got us some fire bellied toads for our classroom. There are four of them and they were all so dark for the first couple of weeks we had them. I went to the pet store over the weekend to ask for some advice and they told me about a few changes I could make. The toads seem much happier and are now showing their colors! I love how they hover in the water with just their eyes showing. I'm including a second photo so you can see what a whole toad looks like too. Thank you so much Tacher family! The kids are really enjoying watching these little guys!

day 262

day 252

This afternoon as I was cleaning up the room after the kids left, I noticed Seymour resting his head on top of the driftwood in his enclosure. The rest of his body was coiled inside the pot that's become his favorite new bed. I've never seen him do that before and though I know snakes aren't usually described this way - it was so darn cute! I ran over to my desk to grab the camera, thinking he'd be back in his pot before I got back. He didn't move at all. Instead, he sat there very patiently while I snapped photo after photo of him from all different angles. I wonder what he was thinking...