Michael & Liz are Bloggable

Being a small dog, Daisy has trouble getting on the couch, but we're doing our best to help her out. Tonight while Liz was making dinner, I built a ramp in the garage out of a piece of wood we bought and the rest out of the loft that I owned in college. That loft is coming in pretty handy. She usually just puts her feet up on us and we lift her up. Well we decided to make it easier for her with the ramp and we will no longer be picking her up and no longer be letting her jump off. It just looks like it's hard on her legs and body so we'll encourage the ramp as opposed to jumping. Check out this video of her accomplishments:



Last weekend we had a party for her so she could meet all of our friends and also so she could make new friends. We invited a bunch of dogs over and Dewey came of course, and also our friends dog named Pepper came as well. Dewey is big boy and Pepper is hyper so Daisy was definitely intimidated but after a while they all got along great. Here are a few pictures:

We also have a few more pictures in our web album. The link is on the right under "Clickability". Do it.

Future videos will consist of her burying things in the corner and also her going crazy whenever we sing. The other day I started singing randomly and she was practically sleeping on the couch and all of a sudden jumped up wagging her tail like I was singing to her or about her. So I kept singing and she attacked my face with kisses. So last night Liz and I were talking and I go "OH!! Check this out" and started singing and Daisy again went nuts... So you'll have to see what we mean with a video at some point.

That's all for now... folks!

ps - it says posted by Liz, but blogspot is a filthy liar.

OK OK OK, We know we know. We should have blogged long ago, when we first got the pup pup. But we're lazy and enjoying her far too much. So as you can see from the title of the blog, we decided to keep her name Daisy. But we like to come up with cool ways of saying it, like Daisers. We will probably post a lot more pictures soon to show off her cuteness but we only have a couple good ones for now.

This little doggy is just the sweetest thing. She loves to play with her stuffed animals and her favorite game is to bring us one of them and try to wrestle it from us. She's so nice about it too because she'll be holding on and growl and snarl like she's trying really hard, but then if we lean down and try and give her kisses, she pauses her snarling and just holds very very still as if to say "I'm not falling for that". And if we start to wrestle again she starts back up with the tough talk. She even holds on tight enough so that if we hold the animal high enough, her feet will leave the ground and she'll just hang there by her teeth. But she loves to run around and throwing her toys.

She would also make really good friends with squirrels because for some reason she has a habit of "saving" her food. Whenever we give her a treat or a bone or anything awesome, she takes it and maybe nibbles it a bit, but then she'll run around the house trying to find anywhere to hide it. So when she finds a spot, she'll scratch and paw like she's digging, but really doing nothing at all, and then she'll put the item down, poke it with her nose to push it into place, then she'll take her snout and shove imaginary dirt into place. We'll be walking around the house and just laugh at all the things she's "hidden". We find half eaten rawhides on the stairs. The other day I put my shirt on the couch so she folded my shirt around a treat I gave her. And just yesterday Liz was sitting on the ground and Daisy tried to hide a bone under her leg. Liz said "well that isnt going to work at all!" and the second she stood up it was right in the middle of the floor.

She loves to give kisses. If you sit on the ground, eventually she'll very slow and timidly climb your legs and up your belly and raise her head up and start licking your face. She's cute about it too, it's not like we dont see it coming. We know exactly what she's gonna do but she goes slow and is very careful about letting us know she's gonna do it.

One thing she does that we don't like is when she gets too playful and doesn't have anything in her mouth, she tries to bite at us... we were lying on the ground the other day and Daisy bit Liz's nose. We think it's cuz she is only 4 months old and she's teething so she really is biting on things to test her teeth out. It's totally not a vicious bite but more of a misdirected playful act. She also likes to bite pant legs and we're trying to break her of that as well. I don't think it'll take very long because she's already recognizing our command: "NO BITE!".

Speaking of commands, we're still working on "Sit" and "Stay" and also are taking a page from Jon and Julies book by doing that before she eats. We'll say sit and stay so she doesn't attack the food bowl before we put it down, but then when we say "OK" and she just looks at us thinking that she still has to wait... so maybe we need to work more on the "OK" command, to teach her she's free to do as she pleases. The problem with the training is that Daisy really loves the sitting position... so when training her we have to catch her off guard with the "sit" command otherwise, she's always sitting anyway. I'd pull out a treat and she'd run up and plop, sit on the ground... so maybe she doesn't need any training? The other problem is that she doesn't really value food like most dogs... If she hasn't eaten in a while, she'll be excited about her newly filled bowl, but if we get her a treat, she takes it and hides it away. The funny part is when she randomly comes running into the room because she retrieved a hidden treat from earlier in the day. She'll run in and throw it in the air and then pounce on it, and pick it up and throw it again in the air and pounce again... and Liz and I look at each other, like "where did she get that??". She's very smart in that way.

The one thing I love to do (because I did this to Lucy when I was little) is anytime you want tons of kisses, you lie on the ground like your hurt and you whine like a dog, really loud and squeaky. Anytime I do that with Daisy she sprints over to me with tons of kisses. She'll then get really low and push herself as hard as she can to get under me all the while still kissing. It's too cute.

As far as potty training goes, she started out having a lot of trouble, we realized this is mainly because we don't pay attention to her signs. Anytime she is just walking around and whining, that's why, it has absolutely nothing to do food... before we would say "What do you want Daisy?" and just question her needs, that was dumb. We also let her run loose around the house, big mistake. We have now got a baby gate and keep her in our sights at all times. She used to go to a secluded area of the house and poop there but now that she has nowhere to go, she is a lot better at telling us to go out and she hasn't pooped anywhere but outside since then. Even her accidents don't really bother us though because her bladder is the size of a mini-squirt gun... anytime she goes it only takes one paper towel to clean it up. And the best part is that, if she does have an accident, she knows it. She'll look very depressed and sometimes will go and sit in the corner as if to say, I know that was wrong but I can't help it. Liz and I have been great in the respect of scolding though, they say never scold a dog because it doesn't know what you're scolding for, and so far the only time we've scolded her is with a "NO BITE" if she bites our hands too hard and she knows immediately that she did wrong, so that's good.

I hate to end the blog on a negative note because we love her to pieces and feel so lucky that we got her seeing as so many people applied. We can't wait to take her to see our family and go on trips with her, she's just so much fun.

Anyway, I gotta get goin but we promise to post more info and pictures. We're just loving her so much and couldn't be happier.

Here's the picture of our family:


This, by the way, is Daisy's best friend Cousin Dewey. They got to play at the dog park together. Daisy was a little shy at first but after a while she warmed up and before you know it they were wrestling around. Daisy's gotta watch out for Dewey, he's sneaky with the steamroller.

The countdown is now on... we got a call from Mickey, who has been our contact person at the Carolina Animal Protection Society, and she told us we will have our home visit on Wednesday afternoon. Which means after that, she will have her appointment to get spayed on Thursday and we will pick her up on Saturday!! We have already been reading a doggy training book and have bought all her toys and crate and doggy beds and everything. It will be a really long week but the next blog you see will be about us bringing her home to our house! Until then we will just be admiring her pictures and thinking of a new name for her. Feel free to send suggestions... she's small but thinks she's a big, tough daredevil and is also very adventurous. These are our favorite pictures:

So yesterday we went to see Daisy. We couldn't possibly want her any more (that's two words, not one =P ), so we are hoping that the process of adopting her isn't stopped by something stupid at this point. After this visit the only 2 things that need to happen before we can adopt her is a home visit to see our house by someone in their organization and then she is getting spayed on September 6th. We hope to have the visit done this week and then we'll go pick her up next weekend.

But she is just as small as advertised. She is just about 4 pounds and they don't think she will get very much bigger so it'll be like we have a puppy forever. When we walked in she came right up to us tail wagging and was very playful. She immediately gave us tiny kisses and was very into playing. She had this little pink stuffed animal she loved to wrestle around with and it was funny to watch her struggle to get any grip on the hardwood floors of the house. As you can see from the pictures below, she looks like a 4 lb. version of a golden retriever, she must have gotten the looks of one breed but the size of a chihuahua. She doesn't shed at all but we are told that her "baby coat" will be shed and once she gets her adult hairs she wont shed much after that. Either way it won't bother us because she is so small and any shedding she does won't be seen because it's so light colored. She was definitely all about being held and carried around. She seemed so content. And when we were sitting on the couch she enjoyed sitting there on our laps with us. After a while she became fidgety but that's expected with all the excitement. I think we got the biggest kick out of her tackling normal dog tasks but because of her size she struggles. Like getting up on her padded bed, she had to hop and bounce in order to get into it. When she jumped off the couch she was as clumsy as possible, just 4 paws out like she was trying to fly and then she would just bounce right onto the ground.

Being just under 6 months old, she doesnt listen very well. We will be uploading videos soon and it's obvious in the videos that when we say her name over and over and she just looks at us. We'll have to work on that. She does seem potty-trained which is nice but I think the crate we get her will help as well.

Well here are all the pictures of her that we took while we were there:

No we didn't have a baby! But let me update you on what has happened since the last post:

• We didn't talk to the lady from the organization until Sunday when we went through a brief interview and the conversation was a little odd. She started to divert from talking about Daisy and I had to bring the conversation back to her because that's all I wanted to talk about... I think she was trying to give us a different dog. At the end of the conversation she gave us the phone # of the woman named Jane who is fostering Daisy and taking care of her.
• Just talked to Jane and the only concern she had was that we weren't home 24/7... I tried to let her know that we come home a lot and it's not a big deal. And by the end of the conversation, Jane said she is going to give her recommendation to the Carolina Animal Protection Society to let us adopt Daisy... WOO HOO!
  

So all that needs to happen now is the following:

• A home visit from someone in their organization to see the environment that Daisy will be living in. I'm guessing that will go well because we are not liars.
  
• We also will be driving down on Friday to visit her in Jacksonville, NC. Gotta get our playtime in!
  
• Daisy will be getting spayed on September 6th along with getting some rabies shots. Ouchy, snip snip.
  
• Then we will go pick her up ASAP! (Maybe September 7th or 8th?)
  

We also found out that the foster mom thinks Daisy is a mix of Chihuahua and Dachshund. Soooo without further ado... let me show you the two pictures of Daisy:



We are both ecstatic at this point, hopefully nothing changes! ... it's just a waiting game now...

Boy has this been a long week... it sure has tested both Liz and my patience. Some of you may know that we are looking to adopt a dog soon. Well we found one but that doesn't mean we get to have it. This past Tuesday we found a dog online named "Daisy". She is a little Chihuahua mixed with something (we don't know). I would post a picture of her but we don't want your hopes to be as high as ours are once you see a picture of her. She basically looks like a terrier in a chihuahua's body. So adorable. They say she loves to "romp" and "roam" when she isn't sitting on someone's lap, which tells us that she is a lovable thing and would be a good family pet. She is a smaller dog than what we were looking for but just too adorable to not want.... Let me outline the timeline of events:

• So after finding her on Tuesday we applied for her that night.
  
• Wednesday night we got a call that I unfortunately missed. The lady who called left a message asking if we were still interested and to call her back.
• I immediately called back to say "YES, YES WE ARE!! PEEZ GIVE US DOG!"
  
• On Thursday morning we went to look at her on the petfinder site again and she had disappeared! No longer posted there. I called back and left another message saying "umm... is she gone? what is up?"
  
• Friday morning I got a call from a different person at the rescue center that said Daisy was still available but they were getting bombarded by so many calls and emails that they had to take her off the site, and are fairly confident they can find a good applicant in the bunch. She also told me that we were the first to send in an application even though it's not a first-come-first-serve process. She then gave me a phone number to call after work to reach the person that will be going through the applications and deciding on the best applicant.
  
• This afternoon I called that woman and she hasn't answered yet. Will be continuing to call.
  

Just thought I would give an update on the excruciating waiting period we have been going through to hear about this adorable doggy. We have been getting far too attached seeing as we have only read a description of her and seen a few pictures... but that's all we have to go on...

What will be will be so we will see... and we'll let you know.

Cross your fingers for Daisy.

So I realize that the only thing we posted about since we got married was the fact that our plumbing exploded. To rap up that story, the pipe going from the house to the street was clogged so it was just a matter of unclogging it with a snake.

Married life is wonderful. I always thought Liz and I would get along as husband and wife but I didn't think it would be this easy! With one month under our belt, I thought I'd review the highlights.

Wedding: It probably couldn't have gone any better than it did. We had our food, we had our cake, we talked to everyone, and it was as drama free as it could have been. The place was decorated exactly how we wanted it. The dance floor was a little small but that ended up being perfect but it was basically packed during the dancing times. I think what Liz and I were most impressed with is the dancing skills of our families. It was just so fun to see the kids out there and all our sisters and brothers. The food was amazing and tasted exactly how it did during our tasting. The schedule went according to plan and Rob just rocked the house with DJing and MCing. The whole night was amazing. A lot of people say that your wedding day just flies by and it's like it never happened. Well we are certainly feeling that way. I remember every bit about our wedding but it already feels like it was so long ago and just disappeared in a flash. Like everything in our life right now, it was bittersweet. We enjoyed it while it was here but it's sad to see the days just flitting by.

Honeymoon: We had such a great time. I think despite a few disappointing times it was overall a relaxing yet packed with plans to see many different places. For anyone who doesn't know, we went on a cruise through the Hawaiian Islands seeing the Big Island for 2 days, Maui for 2 days, and Kauai for 2 days and then we spent an extra 4 days on Oahu when we got back off the boat. I'll first say that all the islands were exactly what they were advertised to be. Tropical and lush and full of sun. Each island was also different so it was cool to see what each island offered the state. We also learned so much about the state. Did you know there is an island that is uninhabited by people because the U.S. used it as a target for missiles and mines and military operations? Groups are working on restoring it but it's a slow process due to the extensive damage. And this island is one of the main ones named Kahoolawe. Did you also know that there is another main island that is designated and set aside only for Hawaiian natives? A family bought the island a long time ago and told the natives, if you want to live the way your ancestors did and live off the land with no interference to the outside world, you are welcome to live there. So there is a population of about 250 hawaiians who live no technological advances of any kind and live like hawaiians did centuries ago. This island is called Niihau. It's fascinating.



Now of course there are things that went wrong on the trip. The cruise ship DID NOT live up to our expectations. We will probably never be cruising with Norwegian Cruise Lines again due to the disappointing experience. The offer "free-style cruising" which they advertise as a "no schedule" type situation where you are "free to do what you like". Well it's garbage first off because most cruises only have one thing that they schedule, and that is dinner. So really it should be advertised as a "free-style dining" cruise, not free-style cruising. So as for dinner, the boat has 10 dining rooms, and 4 of which are "free", in other words included in the price of the cruise, the other 6 you pay for your food (bogus). So we get on the boat and they say you don't need to make reservations for dinner if you are in a group under 8 because the dining rooms are normally pretty free. Awesome. First night, every free dining room is a 1.5 hour wait. So we quickly figured out that you are forced to make reservations in order to have dinner at a normal/reasonable hour. (FYI, making reservations is the exact opposite of free-style).

So OK, we make reservations every night and at times the 2 cooler restaurants are already completely booked so we sometimes get stuck in the normal regular "not-cool" restaurants. So on most cruises since you are on a schedule you get the same staff every night, so they invest personal attention to you. Free-style cruising makes it almost impossible to have the same staff even 2 nights out of the 7. They don't have any investment in who you are or how much you care about their service. 5 out of the 7 nights the waiter then comes up to us and greets us with "I'm here for your order". So we spit out our appetizer, main meal and dessert and from then on it's just a here's-your-food, may-i-take-your-plate dance between us and the staff until we are gone. The 2 exceptions were a waiter and waitress who were genuinely caring and jovial with us and we certainly let them know how much we appreciated it. All the other nights were the impersonal waiters.

We are unhappy with the staff and the reservation making but to make it even worse is the fact that when we get to every restaurant there are empty tables everywhere, which is only for 1 reason, they are short staffed. Why are they short-staffed? Because they don't have to seat more than the number of people they make reservations for. Where are all the other staff? Up in the non-free restaurants earning more money for the cruise ship. Where are all the other people who are either rich or didn't make reservations? Up in the non-free restaurants paying for their food. It was such a money making scheme it made us sick, and not once was it even considered to go to a restaurant on our very expensive cruise to once again pay for our food.

I have so many more gripes with Norwegian Cruise Lines that it has provided me with enough of a motive to let everyone I know to not go on a NCL cruise. We wouldn't cruise with them again, and neither should you. It doesn't even touch the all around quality of Princess, Royal Caribbean, and Carnival. The food and restaurant situation was just a drop in the bucket but the one that was always in our face and the most annoying.



I just had to blog about how bad NCL was but the cruise was basically the only thing we had to complain about on the trip. Everything else was amazing. When we got off the boat we stayed in the Hyatt Regency Waikiki Resort and Spa and boy was that a treat. There weren't a lot of other hotels in Waikiki I would have rather stayed in. The staff was so helpful and the building was gorgeous and was basically a mall on the first few floors. The elevators were faster than anything I've ever been on and it took about 15 seconds to get to our 28th floor room. We probably won't stay there if we go back to Hawaii though because the next trip would be more of a relaxation type trip since we've seen most of everything. They Hyatt Regency is in downtown Honolulu and relaxing is the last thing a downtown atmosphere is. But it was a treat for sure.

Dewey: Once we got back, we spent two weeks with Mr. Dewey Chase. Jon and Julie (Liz's Cousin) went on a trip through the Baltic Sea (reference: http://bobcatjulie.blogspot.com/ ) and Dewey came over and stayed at our house for the time being. For anyone who doesn't know Dewey, he is a 9 month old Lab/Golden Retriever mix. It certainly took some adjustment as any dog would but by the time they came back we realized that we were really going to miss having him around. It was a joy coming home from work and hanging out with him. We learned all about the customs of the Durham Dog Park and it was a blast taking him there and watching him interact with all the other dogs. Today was the first day that I had to get up for work without him and it's no wonder I was a half an hour later to work than I was any day last week. While we will be going over and visiting him, it made us realize just how much we would like to have a dog and it won't be too long before we have one of our own. The only thing stopping us is our own slight anxiety... once we make the leap into doggy parenthood, there is no turning back. There's no question we want one, it's just a matter of getting up the courage and going.

Well that's all for now. Look for more posts in the near future on our dog hunting (that sounds terrible btw).

ps - for those of you who heard about my '1000 miles in one year' goal, I am now at 606 miles on the year. only 394 to go!