Dinner Time

Zeldie has always liked to play with her food bowl. She will often tip it over and push it around. Tonight she did something new with it. We happened to catch it on video. It amused us so we thought we would share it.

October is a busy month

We've been working very hard this month, and it's been a bit difficult to keep up for the past few weeks. We enjoyed our time time in San Francisco, but when you go away for a few days, everything from laundry to work emails to grocery shopping seem to take a long time to get back on schedule, especially when you add in parent information nights and classes and swim practices. Poor Zeldie was in her crate quite a bit this past week as we were both out of the house Monday night and Tuesday night, I was out of the house Wednesday night with practice and then met Anne at the condo association meeting after that, and then Thursday we needed to get some shopping done.

However, yesterday, on Halloween, we got up and took her to Rock Creek Park to the "Mutt Masquarade" Parade. It was a whole lot of fun to see a couple of hundred dogs dressed up in costumes. There was probably a two mile walk with all of these dogs, and also some booths set up for various dog products. We had bought a pirate costume for Zeldie at Petsmart, but it is too small and she was very much tugging on the dangly parts. So, we just put her ND jersey on her, but that might be too small now too. Shiloh came along as well, and is growing quite a bit. Those two get along well, which is great if we ever need to dogsit for one another. There was a man and woman there who had three Irish Terriers, which is the first time we've seen another Irish Terrier. They were very cute and friendly and calm, so hopefully Zeldie at some point will be as calm as them.

Zeldie is showing pretty good progress towards being a fully adult dog. First of all, she's figured out how to show she needs to go out. For a while she would just sit by the door and wait for us to realize she was there. Now, she's doing two or three very audible whines while walking near the door and then sitting with body touching the door when we see her. We haven't had an accident in the house in quite a while, so hopefully we're out of the peeing in the house stage. She also has a fun little trick where we'll have something in our hands. We tell her to sit and stay, and then walk down the hall and throw it in a room. We'll say "go find it," and she'll run and put her mouth on the object.

We're getting ready for Anne to leave for a few days to go to a conference, so it'll just be Daddy and Zeldie for Thursday through Sunday. But, I'm going to be coaching both Saturday and Sunday mornings, so we'll have a good time hanging out each afternoon and evening. Maybe we'll even have a campout on the floor in the living room...

Celebrating Two Years

This past weekend we went to San Francisco to celebrate the wedding of Mike McCarvel and Jennie Hoffman. Since it was our second anniversary, we decided to take a few extra days off of work and make a vacation of it. Because our work and school schedules don't align, we hadn't taken vacation together since last Thanksgiving when we went to Honduras. The wedding was beautiful, the weather was fantastic and the city was amazing. Take a look at the slideshow to see a few of the things that we did. We spent a lot of time walking all over the city and covered many of the neighborhoods. Another highlight of the trip was Alcatraz which neither of us had seen before. We would recommend the night tour to anyone who plans to visit the city in the future. But, be sure to buy your tickets well before you arrive in the city, they sell out fast. We enjoyed spending time with each other and couldn't believe how quickly the past two years have passed. We are so happy for Jennie and Mike and wish them much happiness in the years to come as they begin their married life together. As we head into our third year, we continue to be surprised by how much we still enjoy learning about each other and how much it means to us as we watch and help each other grow.

Young Scholars iTouch Summer Program Video

This past summer, I helped implement a program at one of our middle schools that I had designed to develop potential in students from underrepresented populations in advanced academics. The curriculum for the program centered around students being hired as consultants for the DC Board of Tourism to act as consultants to develop a virtual tour of DC. I worked with Destination DC, the official tourist organization for the city, to partner with the schools. The students' final podcasts were linked to their sites so their products were very authentic. To learn more about the project, you can view the video that aired when the program was presented to the school board on September 24, 2009 and is currently being run on Channel 21, FCPS's cable station.
To see the video click on the link below:
http://www.fcps.edu/DIT/streaming/is02_ipod.asx

To see the students' podcasts, go to:
http://www.fcps.edu/SandburgMS/YoungScholars/index.htm

Mac Daddy

We got our MacBook Pro this week. We decided earlier this year, after some doing some extensive research on the macs as a gift for our nephew, Justin, that we wanted one for us. We are really impressed. We have only had it four days, but it is amazing how as soon as it came out of the box it made an almost brand new PC look like a piece of junk to us. We initially decided on the Mac because of its capability for desktop publishing and its seamless integration of applications with web 2.0 tools, but once we started playing around with it, we were impressed with the sheer functionality of it. When you turn it on, it comes on instantly, no more waiting as the machine whirs and boots up. And it works, no freezing and shutting down. Not only all of that but the connection to the wireless is reliable. We were both a little bit worried about transitioning to the Mac system, but above you will see our first attempt at using the iPhoto program. We created a slideshow with our photos from our vacation to Roatan last November. We were both happy to find out how user-friendly the program. Our photos looked so nice in the slideshow, we might just decide we need to take another vacation!

The couch is a losing battle

David and I made a lot of decisions before Zeldie arrived in our household. We had a plan and we were confident and we were sticking to it. Part of that plan was a dog-free couch. We started losing ground when she finally got big enough to jump up onto the couch. David and I were so stunned we both just stood there in shock. Our momentary hesitation before we pulled her off might as well have been permission as far as Zeldie was concerned.

Then, one day, I was trying to take a nap on the couch and she jumped up there with me and cuddled right into the crook of my arm. She just settled herself right in. I didn't even resist or restrain her. David did, however, and he started to call me a softie. I didn't mind being a softie. Then Zeldie got smart, she started to jump up on the couch when we were sitting down to dinner. Even David didn't want to get up from dinner to pull her off the couch. Needless to say, the couch is a losing battle.

But, while perhaps we have been more lenient than we planned on this, she is coming along in other ways. Tonight, she was picked to model a skill at puppy training class. David and I were very proud. She has never been picked before and we never thought she would get picked. Terriers kind of do their own thing. They are not people pleasers like the labs and golden doodles so they can be somewhat unpredictable. Not good material for demonstrations. She also was the only puppy to charge towards her handler on the recall. David said the rest of the puppies kind of hopped or walked. But she came running in her flappy way that gives her name the meaning of happiness.

So the couch may be a losing battle, but I suppose, that may be one I am willing to let her win.

Katie Rako...um Schaffner

Two weekends ago I went out to Indianapolis for my former Biloxi roommate (Coach Rakowski)'s wedding. I apologize to Katie for not including her very wonderful husband Josh in the picture at the right. He is definitely a Miss-Ace-Ippian now. Josh--I hope you and Katie have shared lots of late nights with John Denver (Ohhhh lay me down in Forest Lawn...)



I think this is the first wedding I have been to since Anne and I got married, and it brought back a whole lot of good memories of our own wedding. We had so much fun for the whirlwind that that weekend was, and we've only heard positive comments on it the past two years. About the only disappointment from the wedding was that the cake didn't quite come out how we thought it would, although it did taste really good. For the limited amount of people that we could invite and could attend, we do love hearing about it and reminiscing.

The wedding also reminded me just why I married Anne. For among thousands of reasons, the one thing that kept coming to my mind was that Anne is special because she makes all of the things that I thought were weaknesses she actually sees as my strengths. We complement each other in so many ways that make us both better and happier. We hope and trust that Katie and Josh are like that as well and wish them a lifetime of happiness.