the goose loves wednesday's ten

Okay so I don't really love Wednesday's Ten. I love Tuesday's Ten. But Tuesday was crazy, so we'll work on our Flexibility and post ten things on Wednesday. To make up for the delay, I've got twenty beautiful mostly focused photos for your enjoyment. Let's get going then.

1. It's been rainy here - no sign of the Spring that's showing up around the rest of the country. I'm more than ready for Spring, but the dog isn't. He's perfectly happy going exploring (in the backyard) in the rain, getting his shiny coat wet and getting his cute little paws muddy. Some days, the paws aren't enough. He decides he has to get his beak muddy too, so he goes digging for treasure. In the mud. But then we get cute photos like these.

2. When he's not playing in the mud, he's playing neck-warmer-slash-ice-cream-guardian with Carolyn. Check out their matching eyes - they both look guilty, but for very differnt reasons. Haha. It's all fun and games until Bentley's tongue gets close to the spoon...

3. How's Moose, you ask? Doing just fine. Slightly less fluff-ful, but that's never hurt a moose. These days, Bentley  has been going moose-diving through the head, where there's currently a big gap (where the eyes used to be). We may or may not be encouraging him by putting peanut-butter covered treats in the moose's belly...

After a few days hours, when the floor is covered with fluff again, we pick it up play with it. Bentley especially likes the extra warmth of his fluff-scarf. Looks like a Lion!

Then Bentley gets tired of de-fluffing Moose and goes to sleep under his giant moose arm.

4. I promise we do things besides playing with Moose. Like on Saturday, when we took a stroll down Hawthorne and stopped by this retro thrift store. You probably had to be there to appreciate this awesomely ugly shiny green couch. And yes, that's Billy cradling the bag of yukon gold potatoes we got at the farm stand a block away for $1. Yes, 5 lbs for $1. What a steal.

5. After all the excitement at the retro store, we were planning a quiet night at home when we got a call from Billy's coworker. UP was taking a group of donors to go see the musical Wicked, and they had three extra tickets! Would we like to go? Of course! Those are my polka-dot-covered-knees in the bottom of the picture there. (Those tights are awesome, and remind me of the white tights with the blue velvet bears I used to have when I was 3 - right Mom? You still have those for future granddaughters, right?)

Yeah, I dragged Billy out in the cold for a photo at halftime. Or intermission.

And we brought our good buddy Carolyn! This was only her fourth time seeing Wicked...

6. Sunday afternoon was spent celebrating our friend Caryn's birthday! We went over to her house for some eating, drinking, and fun. She's the one in the purple, dead center.

Carolyn and I got her a mug that says "Bobby Newport, 2012" - get it, you Parks & Recreation fans?? All you others, start watching that show now. On NBC. Go.

We also spent some time hanging with Caryn's adorable baby boy, Brennan. The baby's practicing his boob-grab in this photo. (Sorry for being so graphic, Mom!)

I even changed a diaper. Or two. Three actually, because he decided to pee in #2 while we were mid-change. That's okay, better in the diaper than on me.

7. Billy won his work's March Madness basketball bracket! The picture is a little hard to read, but Billy's name is there at the top, with the team name of "Winning." At least the boy doesn't lie. He brought home $52, which we agreed he could spend on anything he wants, regardless of our budget. Sounds like $52 worth of beer will be joining our home soon.

8. And now, three things from yesterday - the REAL Tuesday, to make up for posting on Wednesday instead.

I woke up to some double-rainbow action on Tuesday morning! Can you spy both? Followed almost immediately by 12 hours of rain.

9. And in the evening, instead of posting my Tuesday post, I spent about 25 minutes emptying all of our plastic bags of bulk grains (etc) and putting them into the appropriate tupperwares. Let's go through them, class-picture style. Starting on the top row, we have arborio (??) rice (for risotto), dry garbanzo beans, dry white beans. Middle row - cous cous, unsalted- unroasted almonds, and basmati rice. Bottom row - whole flax seeds, unsalted-unroasted peanuts, and pumpkin seeds.

And to make Billy mad for fun, all stacked up in one tall stack. As you can see, very productive things kept me from posting yesterday.

10. Finally, I also spent Tuesday night making 40 chocolate chip cookies for a work meeting on Wednesday (today). Except somehow (BILLY!) only 36 cookies made it onto the plate. Hmm.

 

That's all for Wednesday, folks. Next week, we'll include a photo or two on the excitement of Easter. Mostly how I'll be drinking a 64 oz latte on Sunday, with FULL-FAT milk, to make up for all the lattes I've given up during Lent. What will you be gorging on Sunday to make up for lost time during Lent?

bentley loves his friend moose

Yeah, I guess we're bad dog parents. Our 30-pound big-eared furry pup is spoiled.

Generally, we do a good job. We buy him treats in bulk at Costco, not those fancy little cookies at pet "boutiques", we don't take him to daycare very often, and we don't buy him all the latest toys at Petsmart.

But then his big black eyes look into our souls and he gives us his best puppy dog face (yeah, that's where that comes from) and it's hard to say no. So we say, "sure, Bentley, you're so cute, why don't you hop up onto the couch and sit with us and look longingly at our dinner."

Our major weakness is large stuffed animals, though. He loves a good toy, and when they're as big as he is, it's even more fun. Our first weak moment was in Vancouver Canada, when we bought the elephant. That elephant is now stuffing-less, eye-less, trunk-less, and tail-less. But well loved.

Our most recent moment of stuffed animal generosity was care of Costco, who, for whatever reason, decided to sell giant moose stuffed animals. For super cheap. And who can say no to the thought of a 13-inch-tall furry beagle pulling around a 60-inch tall (if not taller) furry moose? Well not us. I plopped that into our cart along with the chicken breasts and artichoke dip and brought that sucker home.

No joke, this thing is huge.

We sat Moose down on the couch and snapped a few photos before fetching the pooch from his crate upstairs.

And then we videoed said pooch's reaction. Heck yes.

These links will take you to three terrific videos I posted on YouTube. Just wait. These will go viral.

Bentley Meets Moose

Bentley Howls at Moose

Bentley Loves Moose

Please note Mr. Elephant's pelt being squished by Moose's foot.

Billy and I didn't agree on how the introduction would go. He thought Bentley would be afraid, but I wasn't so sure... I thought he'd be more like "ho hum, a giant new toy."

In case you didn't watch the awesome videos above, Billy wins. (Go to link #2 - "Bentley Howls at Moose" for that action). It probably didn't help that Billy pretended Moose was alive, by waving his arms around and talking like a moose might. Not sure how accurate he was.

As you'll see, by the last video, Bentley was calming down about Moose's new presence in our house. Treats helped, for sure. By the end, they were the two best friends that anyone could have...

Since Moose's first day, Bentley's gotten much more familiar with the large toy. The eyes were the first to go.

Now Moose serves as chew toy and pillow.

Surprisingly enough, it's still got a decent amount of stuffing. No eyes, but stuffing. Moose did lose most of an antler yesterday, though... sad day. But how many puppies get to say they got a moose? At least, how many city puppies get to say that? How many puppies talk in general? Not ours, but he sure tells us how much he loves us. And with those eyes, we'd buy him 5 more Meece (Mooses?) in an instant.