Dogs in my life.

This is the oldest dog I know. His name is TAZ and belongs to my Nephew. He has been such a good dog and as far as I can tell, I think He is about 18 years old. He walks slower and you can tell he has some pain. He doesn't play much anymore although he has had many years of playing with my Nephew as he was growing up. He is still a good faithful companion. I took this picture last summer when we were visiting at ND.



This is our dog. He is smiling in this picture because he just loves to run around in tall grass and open areas. He also is getting older. He will be 11 very soon. One of our neighbors just told me yesterday that she was surprised he was that old. She said he still had a bark of a two year old.

Our dog Baxter isn't so sure about other dogs. This was a couple years ago when our good friends young Boxer "Cooper" was visiting. Poor puppy, he desperately wanted to play with Baxter.

Here he is giving a questioning, disgusted look to our grand puppy Rosco.

He is a very good dog and wants to be with us wherever we go. He knows if he looks at us with those big eyes that we melt and if possible will let him come along. We take him in our camper, fishing and for rides in the Black Hills. He just can't understand why he can't come to work with us, after all, there would be plenty of room on those big school buses for him!

He LOVES his treats. His favorite is the t-bone treats. He dose several tricks for his treats. But the trick he dose the most is sneeze on command.

He is a good rester. He loves laying next to his master, my husband on the reclining love seat.

When we purchased the love seat several years ago, I wanted leather but the men, my husband and Baxter dog won out, they didn't think it would be as comfortable as this one.

MAYBE THEY WERE RIGHT!

Baxter really hates to have his picture taken. I think he feels he is being punished. You can see that (I HATE THIS) look on his face. You can also see he is getting a few grey hair on his face.
I guess we all have to deal with the grey hair dilemma.

This is our grand puppy, our youngest daughters dog Rosco. He is a tiny thing but can be very active. It is hard to get him to sit still for a picture. Also with him being completely black, its hard to get his eyes to show up. Sorry this picture is blurred.

He is very good with children and now he and our dog get along just fine. They even share each others toys.

I love this picture, this is a few years ago when Rosco was younger and him and my grandson were both tired and taking a nap. SWEET isn't it?

This picture was just taken at New Years. It is our other Grand puppy. He is a springer spaniel and so cute and what a special personality. My oldest daughter always tells me how much trouble he gets into but he always seems so Innocent and sweet to me! Look at those eyes, could he be mischievous? ? ?

This is a picture my grandson took of their dog Toby. They are best of friends. Every boy needs a dog to grow up with!

Another picture of Toby, you can see his pretty Springer Spaniel markings. He is such a smart dog.

Toby says, "Who me? I don't have anything in my mouth. I wouldn't chew up anything. Nope, not me! You must be seeing things. " Actually, this is his late Christmas gift, a rawhide bone all wrapped up. He really thought he had something. Acording to my daughter, he has been known to chew up a few things!

Here is that boy with his puppy last Christmas. I love that picture. Toby was by his side for every trip he made carrying in fire wood. What a faithful friend!

These are my neighbors dogs. They are beautiful Standard poodles. They are about 1 year old on this picture and very active.

This is Simon

This is Sadie

Here is My parents (mostly my dad's ) dog SPOT.

She is a Blue Healer and is my dad's best friend. She loves to go for rides in his pickup

and also on his four wheeler with him. I think Spot is about 10 years old but I'm not positive.

She is a very good dog and a great companion.

She loves my dad and watches and waits for him to come out side.

He even lets her in their house from time to time for a small dish of left overs.

She gets so happy and wiggles all over.

I hope you have a special dog in your life. They are always there for you and always ready and willing to forgive and stand at your side forever.

When God created dogs, He certainly knew how much we

would need their love and companionship.

CATS

As most of you know, I was brought up and raised on a farm. That meant always having lots of pets. My favorite of course was cats. I spent hours and hours with my dozens of cats and kittens. We still have cats. Not because we go out and choose and purchase them but because we somehow acquire them. Above is our old cat of 15 years, Sammy Sylas who we adopted when our youngest daughter brought him home as a kitten. A very cute kitten I must admit. She said if we didn't adopt him he would have to be killed. So we have had him for quite some time. Actually he will be 16 this spring. He spends a lot of time outdoors hunting and such. He is inside when it gets very cold outside and today is 6 degrees with 3 inch's fresh white snow.
A friend of mine brought over a can of Fancy Feast (the expensive gourmet cat food) that had been left behind by her brother who had been visiting for Christmas and had their cats along. WOW! how is that for a long sentence. I decided to treat our elderly cat like a king and serve him the Fancy Feast in a glass dish like on the TV commercial. I think he loved it!

He ate every bit of it and licked the dish clean. He is looking old but is still very big and has a loud voice.

Now this little creature we call Midnight! She came to our door the last week in Nov. and wanted in. She sure is sweet. She is declawed, jealous, gets along well with our dog Baxter but is very scared of our Grand puppy . She is a good jumper and never knocks anything down. Yesterday she thought this would be a good spot to rest and watch what was happening from this high spot in our living room.

You can see how comfortable she is and close to the ceiling.

Here she is, watching as I'm in the kitchen making a meal. I guess she can see better what I am making from this high advantage point compared to being on the floor. She is almost always in the house and we enjoy her a lot. There is one more cat who hangs around our yard, He is very big, muscle bound, black long haired and declawed. He has never been brave enough to come in our house but lets me pet him when I feed him on our patio table. I call him Blacky. He has been around for 1 1/2 years.
Soon I will blog about the dogs in my life.

FUN FRIDAY

It certainly was a Fun Friday January 4th, 2008. The weather was beautiful, calm, and sunny. We along with our oldest daughter and family spent the day at a favorite spot of mine, Spearfish Canyon. This is up in the Northern Hills and it was white and glittering with the 7 to 8 inch's fresh snow. This is the gorgeous Log Restaurant where we enjoyed a quiet, relaxing meal.

The fire place to our right was crackling with warm fire, the food was great and the company superb. The 4 children were as well behaved a they could be. The scenery out the big windows was gorgeous with a nice view of the canyon.

This is Pa pa and our Grandson enjoying the scenery from the inside of the restaurant.

Another picture of the snow covered Canyon against the clear blue sky.

After the meal, we followed the snow covered trail around and below to a good size waterfall.
The waterfall was still running strong but had a lot of frozen ice around it. It is so amazing how different things look in winter and how the beauty is still there, only changes.

I especially loved the big snow covered areas at the bottom that resembled big hills of ice cream. Those are words from my grandchildren.

My daughter, son-in-law and their 4 children.

I must say our handsome tall son-in-law sweeps our Daughter off her feet!

Very cute, loving and playful! They are just too cute!

This our beautiful 10 year old granddaughter posing in front of the waterfall.

Our youngest granddaughter at 5yrs old posing along the trail.

And this is our youngest grandson, He absolutely thought it a blast to keep falling in the soft white snow. He was about soaked when we finished our hike.

He also took part in some of the snow ball fights. Father and older son really got into this snow ball/chase game. It was fun to watch them. Even mom got hit by a few snow balls.
She may have even thrown a few!

You can see how still it was and how the freshly fallen snow just lay about 7 inch's deep.

On the trail. Deep in the canyon and in the pine forest. We all enjoyed the quarter mile hike.

More beautiful scenery.

This was toward the end of the trail as we came up toward the west out of the canyon.

On the way home we stopped at some very close friends for a short visit.

Our 8 yr old grandson coached by his dad got to shoot his new Bow. (one of his Christmas gifts.)

LOOKS GOOD!

JUST ONE MORE TRY!

A heart for giving!

The first grade class where my youngest daughter teaches, led the Lutheran school in a special project for the Porcupine Mission children. The above photo shows some of the items that were collected and carefully placed in their hand decorated bags. These are mostly items that are very much needed and appreciated. Each of the 30 bags has either a child's or student Bible in it, to help spread the word of God. What a huge project.

One of the little girls from the first grade class, who had a certain amount of money to tithe to any charity or organization she wanted, chose to purchase most of the towels and wash cloths for this project. This is a picture of the contribution. This really helped out a lot and I know it was the love of God that overflows and helps them all to contribute and share.

This is my youngest granddaughter. She was visiting us when she heard of the project. She had carefully collected many ribbons and bows from opened Christmas gifts and a baby shower we had attended. She was very proud of her beautiful ribbons.

She came carrying this biggest brightest golden bow and told me she was giving this to the Mission children. I graciously accepted the bow and told her how happy this would make some one and how much this would trim up a bag. She looked at me with those big loving eyes, smiled and ran off.

A few minutes she was back with the whole collection of ribbons that she had so much treasured. She said she would like to give them all for this special project, to the children from our Porcupine Mission. Any gift that is given from the heart as hers was, is worth more then even a $1000 check that's not given out of love. 2 Corinthians 9: 7 Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

She looks cheerful to me!

Below is a picture of just a few of the hand decorated bags full of good stuff! You can see how nicely the children colored and wrote on the bags. Also you can see how beautiful those ribbons look on the bags.

This close up shows that first gold bow my granddaughter brought to me out of love and compassion for someone less fortunate. These children who gave of their time, talent and treasures have been taught the true love of Christ. They are letting their light so shine.

A special prayer goes out for Gods blessing to every one who will receive one of these bags.

THANKS BE TO GOD FOR HIS INDESCRIBABLE GIFT!

2 COR. 9, VERSE 15