Unexplained hatred of the medicine ball

We have had this medicine ball since before we got Ruby and Dora, and both of them have always hated it. It's impossible to try to use it in their presence! You might want to turn down the volume before viewing these videos... Ruby's barking is really shrill!

Fort Worth Stockyards

This post is a week late, but last Saturday we went to the stockyards with Mom, Dad, Brittany, Trey, and Trey's parents, Rick and Debbie. Even though we've lived here 2.5 years, Phil and I had never been to the stockyards before. It was so much fun!

We got there at 4:00 just in time to see "the herd". Actually, only Mom and I got a chance to see it. What cute, sweet longhorns... as I was taking these pictures, I started feeling uneasy about eating dinner at a steakhouse later that night! 

Later we wandered around through some stores. I decided against buying a $1400 pair of cowgirl boots... ha! Then we had dinner at Cattlemen's. It was pretty good, albeit no Nick & Sam's! ;)

Finally we got to the best part of the evening, the rodeo! I had been to one other rodeo before an Alan Jackson concert at the AA center. I didn't really pay much attention to it because our seats were kind of far away from the action. 

THIS rodeo was so fun! Our seats were really close and I could see all the action. I felt a little bit like an ancient Roman watching the gladiators. During the bull riding, one guy got his arm stuck and was being flopped all over the place by a crazy bull. And there was another guy who got bucked off and then trampled a little bit. I kept covering my eyes during those parts, but then I'd peek a little out of fascination! 

I felt really sorry for the little calves who had to get roped. That looks painful to get lassoed around your neck, flipped on your back, and have three legs tied together. I'm sure they just want their mommies... so I cheered whenever a calf got away!  :)

The other fun thing that happened at the rodeo was that we met some people from Dusseldorf - what a small world! I was sitting next to Phil, and on Phil's other side was a little boy maybe 7 or 8 years old. Phil tried to make small talk but the boy never responded, and finally his mother leaned over with a smile and explained that he only spoke German. After a little conversation Phil learned that they were from Dusseldorf, so I made Phil pull out his iPhone so that I could bring up Kristen and David's blog. I told her I'd been there and showed her the pictures of the apartment they were living in when I visited last fall. She didn't recognize the area (it's not exactly a small town, I guess...) but it was still a very fun connection to make, particularly at a rodeo in Fort Worth, Texas! 

By the way, speaking of Kristen and David, I have added a link to their blog on the left. Kristen is my cousin; she and her husband David are serving in Germany as missionaries. In case you have not been reading my blog for very long, I had a chance to visit them last fall on my way home from India and there are pictures if you navigate back to November 2007 in the blog archives. Please keep them in your prayers!

Roscoe strikes again

Today he destroyed - and ate some of - the dog toy basket!!! Arggggghhh! It was the cutest basket that my friend Kristin made for me a long time ago right after Phil and I got married (it even had the letters "M - O - S - E - R" painted across the handle). That darn dog. At least we found a new foster family for him. He was evicted from our house TONIGHT!

My Angels

I am my father's daughter

This is what happens when I try to "trim" the bushes in the front yard. Oops.

Bad Dog!

Yeah... Roscoe's gotta go.


He has some good points. He is very energetic and enjoys going for walks, runs, and playing at the dog park. He is good with verbal commands and obeys "sit" better than Ruby and Dora. Whenever he gets too playful in the house, he can be easily controlled with a squirt gun.

When we're NOT home, however, he turns into a very bad dog. Here are just some of the things he's "worked on":

• Ate two pairs of my flip flops and "tasted" two other pairs.


• Pulled the cushion off our hand-me-down rocking chair and ate a bunch of foam out of it.


• Chewed a couple areas of woodwork before I was able to spray everything with bitter apple.


• Chewed/broke the baby gate we purchased to keep him out of the upstairs.


• Ate my lap desk (pictured below).


• Quickly destroyed the tug-of-war toy I bought to distract him (pictured below when it was new... 15 minutes later he had pulled all the stuffing out of it!)

I emailed the pug rescue and let them know that this just isn't working. Unfortunately, he is going through "separation anxiety" according to the rescue folks. Sorry, I don't like the fancy terminology, I think he's just a bad dog who can't stay here anymore!!!

Meet Roscoe

This is our first experience fostering a rescue pug. Roscoe is actually a pug-terrier mix. He's adorable and (almost too) full of energy. We picked him up last Friday and we'll be keeping him until he is adopted.

http://www.dfwpugrescue.org/