Moon Landing

I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like the Moon is ours. I don't mean ours as in belonging to man kind. I mean ours as in America's. I am use to the idea that other countries send people to space, space is filling up with satellites from many countries, and the space station is a joint venture. I don't have any problem with that. But I had to pause today while listening to NPR. They were talking about the Chinese or Japanese trying to get a mission ready to go to the moon...and it just felt weird thinking about other people on the moon. Feels very imperialistic, but our flag is there...it's ours. I don't want all sorts of countries up there messing up our foot prints. I don't want someone else to decide to start trying to colonize the moon...that's our plan...

THE MOON IS BELONG TO US!

A Storm

There is no sun right now. It is 9:00 AM and the sky is an inky black. On my way to work, I was surrounded by huge lightning strikes as the storm rolled in. It was raining a little bit as I walked from my car into the building, but shortly there after I could tell it was poring because I could hear it through the roof.

I LOVE storms like this and I would give my (something good) for an office with a window right now. This also means it probably won't be 100 degrees this afternoon.

Auto Pilot

The other day after work I got in my car and decided which route I was going to take home. I have MANY options, some faster, some avoid traffic, some go by places I need to stop...So I made my decision and started driving. Suddenly (5 minutes into the drive), I realized that I had made a different turn than I had intended. I was using my most used route, but it was not the route I had intended to use. My brain had put itself into auto pilot and had taken me where it thought we should go...unfortunately, my brain seemed to forget why I had chosen an alternate route to begin with...CONSTRUCTION. Stupid Brain.

Royals Game Weekend

This weekend Michael and I boarded the dogs, took the cat to the Nott's, and headed up to KC MO for a Royals game. Cousin Jessica and husband Derrik met us up there for the game. Cousin Jennifer also decided to come down for a visit...So it was a nice little family game. The new and improved Royal's Stadium is NICE NICE! New and clean and plenty of room...lots of concessions that made it less crowded. We also sat in club seating (special escalator entrance), which was very nice.

Even though the Royals lost the game, it was a wonderful evening. We couldn't have asked for better weather. It was 78 degrees at 4pm, so by the time the sun went down it was ALMOST chilly. Fabulous weather for July. Frankly, I don't think we could have had better weather in early May!

Michael and I also spent a little time at the Oak Park Mall in Overland Park. Quite a nice mall. We went to our favorite DB Mongolian Grill...yum. We had Einstein Brother's bagels for breakfast, then came home. Sleeping in without being woken up by doggies and a kitty was wonderful.

Lucy

This was my Lucy when she was 8 weeks old. This was the 1st or 2nd day that we had her. We decided to get a dog after we moved into our house. I started looking to adopt. I wanted to adopt a dog from an organization that fostered dogs so that I could have some idea of the dog's personality before we got it. I applied to adopt a few dogs from a certain rescue group...that will remain nameless...and was whole heartedly DENIED DENIED DENIED. I didn't have a personal vet reference for a dog (because my parents had owned all of the dogs we had). I didn't even get to the part where MY DAD IS A VET. Needless to say I was pissed that they assumed I couldn't handle owning a dog. So in retaliation...I bought a puppy. Looking back, I suppose it was shameless, and not necessarily the way I would recommend others going...but we got lucky...very lucky.

I wanted a dog...like yesterday. Michael wasn't so sure. So we compromised. We got a dog, but he got to pick the breed. He wanted a border collie...I talked him down to a Rough Coat Collie. The border collie would have been too active for us. I found a breeder 2 hours away from Wichita and picked out the sable puppy. We went to get her on June 1st 2007. She was much smaller than I thought she would be...and my heart melted instantly. Our house isn't well designed for house training a puppy...so that took a little longer than it should. But other than that, we have had such an easy time with her. She doesn't chew stuff...she never had really. She has such a sweet disposition, she just loves everyone. She is even excited to see the vet. The long hair is something I could live without, but it is pretty.

Lucy, Lucifer, Lucy Loo, Fuzzy Bunny

the Noranator

This...is Nora. She is my 5th foster dog with Kansas K-9 Resq. She is a purebred German Shepherd who came to us from a breeder who was having "economic trouble". We are pretty sure that the trouble was that Nora wouldn't have puppies. Nora took some time to settle into our household. For the first week she always had a look on her face that said "I'm sure you're very nice people...but I would like to go home now". It took her a VERY long time to get comfortable with Michael...and just about as much time to learn to tolerate Lucy.

Lucy's story will come next.

Nora is completely obsessed with her KONG ball. She is so obsessed that we had to run out to the store to get a replacement the moment we lost the 1st one because she wouldn't stop looking for it. As luck would have it, a few days after losing the 1st one, it magically appeared back in our yard. So now we have two...and play with two at a time to maximize the amount of running time and minimize the amount of trying to get the ball away from Nora time.

Our recent most favorite thing to do is pack up the dogs and take them down the road to a Middle School that is surrounded by open fields. As it is summer, the school is deserted most of the time. This allows us to let the dogs out, off leash, to run around in the fields. We throw the red balls as far as we can and Nora and Lucy run to get them and bring them back. Lucy is actually chasing Nora, not the ball, because Nora never lets Lucy get to the ball first. Even if there are two balls. Nora is very good at returning to us when called. Lucy sometimes stops and thinks about it...asking "where's my motivation" before she decides to come back to us.

We like the open fields better than the backyard for ball play because Nora doesn't stop running until she catches the ball. Sometimes, in the back yard, she doesn't stop until she hits the fence. I don't always think that is very good for her.

Nora is not suppose to be a member of our family, but we have had her for 8 months now and it is hard to not think of her as ours. She has a little bit of separation anxiety and is pretty needy. She "needs" to play ball more often than we think she needs to. She also can't be crated (she breaks out of them by prying the bars with her teeth). These issues are daunting to many perspective adopters...so we've had trouble placing her.

4th of July

Our 4th of July weekend was pretty tame. I took off early on Thursday (very early), and we both had Friday and Saturday off. We bought steak and fish to grill at different times over the weekend. We made sure we had corn to eat (the local stands are selling it like crazy right now). It "Kansas Gold" is not as good as Iowa/S. Wisconsin corn. The Peaches and Cream that I use to get from Cuba City (WI) on my way to visit Grandma and Grandpa Breese was such good corn. And Grandma and Grandpa Wilcke won't eat corn that isn't PERFECT...so I've had really good corn.

On Friday I went to the YMCA Outdoor Pool for the first time. I mostly sat around in the sun and then went in the water to cool off. On Saturday both Michael and I went to the pool. It was take a guest for free week, so Michael got in for free. We were afraid that the pool would be packed on the holiday, but we were only the 3rd or 4th family there. We stayed for about 2 hours and it really didn't fill up too much more than than. It was great. The YMCA that I go to has a wave pool outside. Not good for laps, but great for floating around on an inner tube. They also have a pretty good slide and a very nice kiddie area.

We grilled some of our food on Friday and some of it on Saturday. The fireworks started in earnest on Friday night. The dogs weren't too happy with the situation. Nora was scared for my safety and Lucy kept trying to bark at the noises. Saturday's fireworks started early with a very loud boom. I happened to be napping at the time and there was a loud boom in my dream (napping very hard). Next thing I know there is a German Shepherd in my bed whining. After dark we decided we wanted to go out into the park and watch the fireworks. I didn't want to leave Nora in the house alone freaking out about the fireworks. So I decided that we would take the dogs with us out to the park. I walked them across the street and sat down to wait for Michael and the chairs. Lucy would not stop shaking. She was terrified of the rockets red glare and bombs bursting in air. So we took her back inside and locked her up (she was truly grateful). We kept Nora with us. We planted the chairs on the sidewalk in the park and sat down to watch. Nora got as close as she possibly could to me and as long as I was petting her, she was fine. I don't think she particularly liked being out there, but she did very well.

Then on Sunday I had to go to work and the fun of the weekend was over. But it was a nice long weekend, so that made going back to work a little easier. I very rarely think that any weekend is long enough!