Finally!

 We FINALLY got some snow in the valley. 50 degrees and sunny for days at a time in January just feels so wrong. There is no more snow in the foreseeable forecast, but at least the temperatures are supposed to stay closer to the mid 30's.

Aven finally got to try out the snow shovel that Santa brought her. Up until now she's just been sitting on the shovel part, rocking back and forth and saying "yee haw!".

Grace is always a special sort of happy when she's laying in the snow. 

We even made our first snowman of the year!

The Warrior

Grace and the squirrel who lives in our neighbor's walnut tree have been at war since we moved in. Grace patrols the backyard and the squirrel jumps from tree to tree and occasionally stops to chirp loudly at the big, lumbering, interloper that is now occupying HIS territory. So, while painting with Aven this morning I decided to give Grace some war paint to make her feel more powerful in her war with the creature who refuses to be caught. I thought she looked tough. When we went to my mom's for dinner, my mom ran from the room yelling "Grace! Grace! . . . Cara, get in here! . . . oh my god!" thinking that Grace had blood smeared all over her face. The paint didn't intimidate the squirrel, but at least it worked on someone.

Videos of Aven

I finally got around to editing the video we took of Aven and Grace meeting for the first time. I thought it would be a good thing to use to test posting videos to the blog. Lucy is also seen in the background meeting Aven for the first time.

Cara is Dances with Grace

I was just testing out a service that would post my photos from Iphoto to the Blog here quickly and easily so I needed to post a photo I had on the laptop. I picked this photo cause it's cute. This was taken last summer I think. Grace likes giving people hugs.

Posted via Pixelpipe.

Grace Likes Peanut Butter

We like giving the old peanut butter jar to Grace when we finish it. She'll spend an hour licking out every last morsel. It's adorable.

MillCreek in Winter an Artistic Interpretation

Now that I posted the photos we took of us at MillCreek, I wanted to post a couple more artistic photos I took while enjoying our hike.

This one focuses on Grace but I was really enjoying the look of the blurry background with other hikers to add to the scene. I also like the curved lines of the cross country ski tracks. I think it really adds a nice visual line that leads to the hikers in the background.

This one is from Grace's point of view.

I liked these little dead seed pods as well. This one shows a blurry hiker traped between the twigs of the branch.

This one includes a blurry Grace and Cara walking away from the camera.

MillCreek in the Winter

These photos are from a hike we took up Millcreek canyon at the end of January. I posted some photos back then of our previous hike in the Fall, and figured I should finally get around to posting the photos we took of our January Hike.

Here's me and Grace, chilling by the creek.

Here's Cara and Grace. Grace wouldn't look at the camera, she was too interested in the other hikers.

And here's a shot of Cara and her belly back then.

Vacant Lot

Here are some photos I took while I was out looking over a vacant lot for a class project. I took Grace with me since I thought she would enjoy the walk. I also managed to find a few little quirky things to take photos of.


Here's a cute dog wondering why we are stopping to take a photo when there are many more places with interesting smells that need smelling.

These are a couple of photos that I took of the crushed mailbox that you can see in the background of the photo with Grace. The little orange thing on the mailbox just begging to have it's photo taken.

Here are some quick photos from christmas at my parents.


Here's Grace fresh from her trip to the motherland. She looks cute in the rusian style hat my Mom gave me.

Here's me in the same hat, with pedophile santa in the background. Seriously doesn't that santa just have a creepy look in his eye. It's really kinda creepy in person.

Our Yard Panoramics

Here's the Panoramic photo I took of our back yard as promised in the earlier post. I told you it's not that good. I did it really quickly. Maybe someday I'll find time to make a better one. It does a decent job of showing how small it is back there.

Here's the original of composite of the photos before I cropped it. I like this one because it shows the neighbors giant tree that dominates the backyard, and it shows the porch off to the right. It also shows our cute dog who thinks I'm out there to play with her. Lucy's in this photo as well, You have click the photo to enlarge and look close, she's a small dog.

Here's the panoramic of our front yard. as you can see it's better quality but I missed a couple of spots for the bottom corners. But we still got a cute dog in there. I think she's trying to figure out if she can make a break for it.

This is from the same photo set It was later that day when we took Grace for a walk. I did this series for a project about my home and neighborhood. Taking Grace for walks in the nearby park is part of my neighborhood so I included it.

Grace the begining

Cara and I went to see "Marley and Me" tonight. It was a great movie and got me thinking about Grace. I decided to post some old photos of her when we first got her.

Grace and me in the back yard.













She loved that soccer ball to death, literally. It's gone now, it disappeared in a haze of white stuffing.















Grace sleeping on her bed.
I like to imagine that she's happy to finally have a new home.












Look how skinny she was. When we got her she had a worms that we needed to get her some pills for. She looked a lot better a few months later.

Caught it

Snowball

Grace

Here's our Dog Grace
This is her head she's in the park enjoying the snowy day.