Drunk Man At Bar = Super Annoying

Friday night we got out of the house and headed to Zipp’s bar to watch the Packer game with Tom and a group of people. After a couple hours of having a good time at the bar, this older man walked over to strike up a conversation with Tom and Andy. I would guess this guy was approximately 55 years of age. Within a few short minutes he smoothly made his way to me to make conversation. I was immediately annoyed by this guy because he was extremely drunk and he started telling me how he is rich and I should be with him. I just started laughing because this is ridiculous. Tom and Andy are noticing this fiasco and of course decide to join in on the fun and games. The guy realized that Andy and I are together so he then proceeds to tell Andy how we are a great couple and then Andy responded with “her father doesn’t think so” and then he points to Tom. Without missing a beat Tom jumped on playing the father role as he started to tell this guy how awful of a guy Andy is. The guy was disagreeing, but then leaned over to me and started telling me otherwise while discussing his money status and then tops it off with telling me he moved here because of his two girlfriends. Really? Was that supposed to get me to want to go home with him? At this point I was getting really annoyed with this drunk older man and just wanted him to leave, but Andy and Tom weren’t done with our table entertainment and Tom kept egging on this guy. Finally, after about 20 minutes of the fun and games this guy wandered back to the bar and left us alone for a little while before he came back to check on me. Soon after we left and headed home.

The Girls Past The First Test

Normally when we go out of town the girls stay at the PetSmart Hotel, which has been great. Since our girls are very outgoing and need to run and play a lot the PetSmart isn’t ideal for long weekends because two 15 minute play sessions just isn’t enough for our very hyper active four legged friends. So, our friends suggested a place called Born to Run which is basically like a dog park with a dog sitter round the clock. The dogs are outside in the very large backyard from 9am until 11:30am when they are put in their kennels for nap time. They are then let out again from 1:30pm until 5pm when it’s dinner time. If they are staying overnight then they get to go back out to play from 7pm until 10:30pm when it’s bed time. This sounded great for when we head to Madison in September and then again in October; however, it’s not just as simple as making a phone call. The girls have to go through two separate tests to make sure they can stay overnight at Born to Run. The first test was this past Thursday when we took them in and filled out paperwork while they tested the girls. They gave Madison and Izzy a tour of the place and then let them out back while they let one dog out at a time to make sure Madison and Izzy could handle it. On Thursday they had about 20 dogs there, but only let out 17 to meet and greet Madison and Izzy. This was because the others are more “in your face” dogs and more aggressive and the owners believe this is too much for a dog on their first test. Only if this place knew our dogs they would know that it would not be too much for them, but they can learn that later. While the workers were doing this Andy and I sat in the lobby waiting to hear how the evaluation was going. We were sitting there feeling like parents trying to get their young children into a very privileged school. It felt kind of weird. Well, we got the good news that Madison and Izzy got along very well with others and were having a great time with the other dogs and we were invited back to get a view of this. Yup, looking out the window Madison was having a blast with the other dogs. She just looked so happy. Izzy was sitting in the shade panting really hard because it was 108 degrees out. Since she is a boxer she can’t handle the heat very well. We assumed that Izzy probably went nuts right away in the backyard and burned all her energy in that first half an hour. The workers said they would normally have kiddie pools back there so the dogs don’t get too hot and they spray them down with the hose. They didn’t do that while we were there because they didn’t want to send us home with wet dogs. That made me feel better for the AZ hot days when the girls could be there. Once the full hour was up we got the good news that they past their evaluation and we got to take them home. The next step is to take them to a full day of puppy daycare to make sure they behave themselves in a full day. I booked that day for Friday, September 11th. Once they complete that evaluation then they are all ready for their weekend stays while we head back to Wisconsin.

Keeping Things Interesting In The Kitchen

Well, I must admit that I haven’t blogged because we have been extremely boring lately. We haven’t done anything but work, float in the pool, make margaritas and just relax. There isn’t much to write so that is why I haven’t, but tonight gave me something to write about. Tonight for dinner we were having a frozen pizza and a side salad. This is one of our more favorite meals because it’s very quick and easy. Andy was looking forward to this frozen pizza because it’s the first frozen non-organic pizza we have eaten in many, many months. I figure I would get dinner together since Andy always does it. I was pretty proud of myself because I have made dinner for three nights in a row now and anyone that knows us understands how much of an achievement that is. So, the salads are made and our pizza was just finishing up rotating on the Pizzazz machine when I took it off to put it on the cutting board. I asked Andy to cut it since he was standing right there and I was finishing up putting the veggies away from the salad. Next thing I hear “Jaimi, blah, blah, aaaah, blah, blah, aaaah, what’s wrong with you?” Something to that affect. Apparently, when I put the pizza on the pizzazz machine that I have used a thousand times I did not remove the cardboard from the bottom of the frozen pizza. Ooops! At least that explained the light smoke that was coming from below the pizza when I removed it. I thought that was a little weird, but of course I ignored it. Anyway, the way Andy reacted to my ooops you would have thought I burned the house down or killed Andy’s dog. Geez, did he overreact! After he was done whining I was able to remind him that this was just pizza and not something that was life or death…he apparently didn’t agree with me. I got out the metal spatula so he could peal the pizza away from the card board and save our dinner. Once the pizza was scraped away and rotating safely back on the Pizzazz machine Andy only started to calm down once he realized it was just food. Of course I had to hear about how hungry he was while we waited another 10 minutes for the bottom of the pizza to cook. Here, I thought our lives were boring and there was nothing to write about. Leave it to me to keep things interesting.

The Girls First Party

We started this past weekend off with having Tom over for some drinks and salsa making on Friday night. Tom makes the best homemade salsa I have ever eaten. Andy and I have tried to duplicate his salsa recipe before but it just didn’t turn out right, so we asked Tom to come over and show us how to make it. We had a pool party on Saturday to go to and we wanted to bring his homemade salsa, but we wanted it to taste like Tom makes it. We learned what we did wrong and now we are hoping the next time we make the salsa it turns out great.

Since we were going to be gone most of the day on Saturday for the pool party we got up and took the dogs for a nice walk to help tire them out. Then we let them play in the backyard for a while to help tire them out even more so they wouldn’t do any damage in the kitchen while we were gone. To ensure no damage we went to PetSmart to get some chew bones. When we got back our friend Amber, who was hosting the pool party, called and told us we could bring the dogs so we wouldn’t have to leave at a certain time to get home to take them out. Initial reaction…bad idea, I mean, didn’t she read last week’s blog about the naughty girls? When I asked her about how naughty our dogs are, she said it still wasn’t a big deal as they would be outside all afternoon with everyone else. Still, this wasn’t making me feel any better. I told her I had to talk to Andy about this one. Andy’s first reaction was definitely a “No.” After much discussion we agreed to give the girls one shot to prove to us they can be well behaved around other people. So, we packed up an arsenal of supplies in case if they were very naughty. We needed treats, bones, their favorite toys and of course a busy bone. Got the bag of supplies and the dogs in the car and as we were pulling out of the driveway we were still second guessing ourselves and Andy said “Here goes the number one bad idea for the day.” I agreed with him.

We got to our friends house and of course the girls were pretty excited to be around the people and the newness. Izzy trampled over Amber’s freshly planted flowers and there was no stopping her. I apologized to Amber and let her know she probably would not have any flowers by the end of the day. Amber is so good because she said it was no big deal and she didn’t care. Man, she is better than I am because I think I wouldn’t have been so calm about somebody’s dog destroying flowers that I just planted that morning. By the end of the day most of the flowers survived Madison and Izzy. It was pretty impressive. Izzy only be-headed two of the flowers and they trampled over them numerous times and the flowers for the most part survived all of this chaos. Madison found a target on this cute five year old boy who was carrying pita chips in his hand out of the house. Madison obviously is smart enough to know that she can get the pita chips from this defenseless little boy. It was cute to watch because the little boy didn’t even care that Madison just stole the chips from his hand. Every time the little boy had food Madison was right there trying to take advantage of him. It was too funny! There was so much going on that the girls didn’t even get into trouble or destroy anything, which by the way was very impressive. They did jump quite a bit on people, mainly the two women holding the babies that were there. For some reason Madison and Izzy were fascinated by the two babies. I don’t know if it’s the smell of babies or their diapers, but they were very interested. All-in-all it was a good day. We didn’t leave until just after midnight so Madison and Izzy were up all day long with no naps and plenty of activity. These two dogs crashed as soon as we got home and they slept until 7:30pm on Sunday night. We couldn’t get them up for anything. Andy even vacuumed and they didn’t even move. It was great! We didn’t have to deal with their shenanigans at all on Sunday. Taking them to the pool party was the best idea ever! I think we need to take them to Camp Campbell more often so we can have more quiet Sunday’s. These two have proven they can behave themselves at other people’s homes so bring on the party invites as these two girls are ready for more parties.

“Those Two Are Quite The Pair”

So, last weekend when we got back from Vegas we went to the PetSmart hotel to pick up the girls. We approached the front desk and told the guy we were there to pick up Madison and Izzy and his response was “Those two are quite the pair.” Andy and I giggle, but in more of a concerned or embarrassed way because we were wondering what they did. Then he said “Well, you two probably already know that” and he was saying this with yet another giggle. He didn’t stop giggling as he radioed to the back room that Madison and Izzy are ready to go home. That was a little weird or unnerving that this guy couldn’t stop giggling so we asked him what they did. His response was “Whatever we gave them, they destroyed.” At that moment I felt like a parent picking up her naughty child from the principal’s office and felt a little odd that we were there to pick up the naughty dogs. He then told us they were housed in the front two rows and we could see them through the giant window. Of course I had to go see the baby girls and as soon as they saw me standing at the window they went nuts in their cage. The first thing I noticed is how empty their caged area was. Normally each cage area has a dog bed that is raised off the ground with another soft cushiony dog bed on top of that. They also get toys too, but it seemed as if our dogs were so naughty they got all privileges taken away. We were not shocked by this at all. I mean this is Izzy and Madison after all and this weekend definitely is another testament to their typical behavior.

Friday Night: Andy and I were watching a movie in the living room while the dogs wrestled in the bedroom on our bed like they always do so there was no need to watch them. This is typical behavior for them. We were well into the movie when Madison came out of the bedroom and down the hallway with a white puff coming out of her mouth. Andy grabbed it to see what it was and to check out the bedroom to see where it came from. Needless to say they tore up the bedspread and there was white stuffing all over the floor. While Andy took the girls outside I was cleaning up all the stuffing just laughing. I mean, you get to a point where that is all you can do is laugh at their antics. So, this bed spread ended up in the garbage as it is now useless because these two did a number on it. Andy took the white down comforter from the second bedroom to replace the one the girls annihilated.

Saturday Night: The girls are back in the bedroom wrestling, but this time we were checking on them more frequently. We thought we were good until it was time to go to bed. Obviously the girls got a little out of control with their playing and wrestling as now there was blood on our nice white down comforter. I checked the dogs and Izzy got beat up by Madison because she was the one with a small cut on her lip. I am starting to wonder how much more these dogs can ruin in this house. I thought for sure we were not going to get this blood out, but after spraying with stain remover and a good wash almost all of it came out.

Sunday Night: It’s starting to become quite the weekend with the girls as they strike again. Sunday night we are making potatoes and chicken on the grill and green beans for a vegetable. The potatoes were on the grill and Andy got the two over sized chicken breasts all seasoned up and ready to go while the dogs were outside playing. Once Madison went on one of her barking fits at the neighbor Andy went out to call the dogs inside and check on the potatoes. He stepped away from the counter for 30 seconds and when he returned there was only one over sized raw chicken breast on the counter and two dogs mid-swallow. Of course Andy started yelling at them and I couldn’t stop laughing. Again, what can you do but laugh? I did say to Andy that I think it might be his fault for putting the chicken close to the edge of the counter because we have been down this road before with them. His response “Now is not the time.” My first thought is worry because they just ate raw chicken and I was wondering what that would do to them, so we watched them closely. Andy said that Izzy got rid of her portion of the raw chicken today in the backyard so that’s a plus.

So, needless to say to the PetSmart guy…we do know that Madison and Izzy are quite the pair!

Happy Birthday Girls

Today is Izzy’s first birthday and last Saturday was Madison’s second birthday. I can’t believe they are two and one year old already. Boy, time flies fast. I did not throw a puppy birthday party, nor did I give them a cake, but I did sing Happy Birthday to Izzy today. Here are some pictures of the girls over the past couple years to celebrate their birthdays.


Izzy and Madison this past spring

Madison was only a few months old here

Izzy when we brought her home...she is two months here

Madison the first night we brought her home

Madison with her first toy and her first night in her new house