Puggy Parade

Our friends, the Thibodeaus invited Mikey and I -and the pugs- over for an awesome fall barbeque on Saturday. We packed our little flea circus in to the Element and headed off to visit Kelly, Michael, Sophie, Max and Koda (the Cockapoo) for the evening. Okay, with the two crazy pugs, it was more like we descended on their house in whirlwind fashion.
Sophie and Max are two awesome kids! Not only are they fun to visit and hang out with, but they spent pretty much the entire evening playing with the pugs and keeping them from driving the rest of us (including Koda) insane. THANK YOU!!!!!

Michael and Kelly made us a to-die-for dinner and fed me way too much wine! OH! The most amazing part - Caramel Tarts. Yes, I said it, CARAMEL TARTS!!!!! Michael made us a batch of wonderfully delicious little tarts that were filled with a creamy bit of heaven. They tasted like those little square Kraft caramels wrapped in the clear plastic that you always got in your Trick-or-Treat loot at Halloween! Mmmmmmmm....... I think I could have eaten the entire batch!

Good food, good company, good wine and one great visit! THANK YOU guys!

Some pictures of the always growing Guinness and Stella.

Painting The Pug

Just a quick post. I started a painting the other day. I like to paint things I love or things that inspire me, calm me or make me smile, so what better subject than The Pug. 12x12 acrylic on canvas. No special brushes and cheap acrylics - some of them are just craft acrylics I had left over from the fern wall.

I am just getting started and nowhere near being happy with it yet, but it's coming along. He just has sooooooo many wrinkles, spots, and folds. It's going to take me forever.... I'm going to wait until she's a bit older to paint the Princess Stella Pug, but that's probably how long it will take me to finish this one anyway!!!

Hockey and the Sleeping Pugs

No, this is not a story about two sleepy pugs, with tiny helmets and jerseys, who try out for the NHL and end up winning MVP for the 2007-2008 season. And it's definitely not a story about a heard of wild sleepy pugs who decide that hockey isn't just a sport for those of us with opposable thumbs and start a farm team called the Calgary Stampeding Pugs. This is a two part post....


Last night was Mikey's first game as the new Head Coach for the Manitoba Major Junior Hockey team, the Stonewall Jets. Kim, Carson and I thought we should go out and cheer them on as they battled the Charleswood Hawks. I am not sure who was more nervous, Mikey or me. After three periods of bodies being nailed in to the boards, lots of yelling and a few penalties, the Jets emerged victorious by a score of 6 - 3! YAY! I am pretty proud of Mikey. Even though he isn't home a lot, he is busting his butt for something he dreamed of doing!


As for the Sleeping Pugs, I am posting a few photos of them doing what they do best (besides messing up my carpet and having wrestling matches on the bed). They sleep all the time. They sleep in their beds, on the couch, in the middle of the floor, cuddled like babies or pretty much wherever they pass out. We joke that they are our narcoleptic Pugs...one minute running full bore down the hallway and the next dead asleep in some weird twisted position. Week two has gone good so far for Stella. She's a little bigger, a little stronger and still has the appetite of a tiny pony. They make me laugh so much and at the same time make me soooo tired!

Ya don't say?!

What's with the dogs and beer logos you ask? Well, Mikey and I both like Guinness and Stella Artois. Mmmm....quite good imports if you ask me. What else can I tell you about the beer? Stella Artois is brewed in Leuven, Belgium where Mikey played pro hockey...hmmm, let's see, what else? OH YEAH! They are the names of our doggies!

Silly I know, but when we were deciding what to name Guinness, there were a few names...Reggie Dunlop, Gretz - I liked Popcorn or Pickle - but we finally landed on Guinness. We joked then that any other dogs we adopted would have to be named after an imported beer - if it was a girl, Stella and if a boy, Boddington. Stella she is. Thank God it was a girl as I can't yell Boddington really fast without getting tongue tied.

Just to clear things up, if and when we do have children, they will have normal names, and not one of them will be named Kokane, Labatt, Coors or Lucky.

End of week 1 and Stella is doing super duper. I have got her pretty close to being completely paper trained, Guinness is realizing he can't put her whole tiny head in his mouth and not have her squeal and I caved after two days and we are all sleeping in the bed. Yes, it's a bit crowded and noisy (with the snoring competition between the other three as I definitely don't snore) but we all sleep through the night (at least 5 or 6 hours) without the whimpering/whining sessions and a few trips to the puppy crate.

All in all good week. Very tired, but good week.

You know what else? You can love a second thing as much as you loved the first – even if you want to choke them both for incessant barking, whining, growling and living room wrestling matches every half hour!