Evergreen State Fair

Sarah and I managed to make it out to the fair yesterday and although the weather report called for rain, we had nothing but sunshine.

The boys had a blast. While little Miss Grace slept away the afternoon, Sam and Eli played with goats, chowed down on fair food and rode around on mini tractors.

Best in Show

Have you seen that movie? Its one of the BEST.

You know how it makes fun of dog show people in all of their craziness?

Yeah, you remember?

Well, on Sunday I tried my hand at being one of those crazies.

And luckily, I failed.

As I have mentioned before, Matt's mom Jan shows Brussles Griffons. She has 2 males that are showing right now, and because she wanted to enter both of them into the Sammamish Kennel Club dog show, she needed another handler. I was ecstatic to volunteer.

On Sunday we loaded up the suv with all the gear, and headed into Marymoor park to groom and ready Murphy and Beckett. Then we received our numbers and waited for our names to be called. The arm band made me feel pretty official.

I was prepared to watch Jan and then repeat her steps at my turn in the ring. I missed out on about 1/2 of her routine when the lady calling out the numbers started asking me a bunch of questions. So, when it was my turn to walk Murphy through the ring, I was unprepared. My hope was that the judge would give me a little more instruction since he knew it was my first time, but he didn't have a heart.

So I did my best. My parents stood on the side lines with Sam and watched me make a fool out of myself. When he said "walk him again" I thought he meant around the circle again. When I returned to the judges side he said "Dont ever do that again. Now walk him to the fence and then back to me."
Sorry dude. Im not one of your kind.

When it came time for results, the judge awarded Beckett and Jan with "Best in Breed" and told me he "wanted to see Murphys tail up. Excitement to show is something we look for in a dog." Murph just wasnt happy to be with me. As a matter of fact he kept turning around in the ring to look for Jan and Beckett.Oh well. He did recieve a point and a ribbon because the judge recognized what a good looking Brussles he is. So we didnt FAIL, we just didn't win.All in all I had fun. It was the best people watching I have done in a long time, and I did love seeing all the pretty show dogs.

But, I don't think Im nutty enough to do it again. Plus, any activity that requires you to wear panty hose is not my cup of tea.

5th Season

Special Olympics Bowling has started again. Courtney and I were very excited to see our "Lane Buddies" again after a short, but busy summer.

Courtney's best game on Saturday was a 99 and everyone is excited to see how much better she gets this year. Her record is 146 and we all believe she will bowl over that number very early in the season.

Although our lane couch Leela hasn't been seen yet this year, we were happy to see our friends Barb, Kathy, Lee, Briauna and Michelle.

Here's to another great year!

Back to school

Matt, who has already graduated from UW once before, has started school there once again. I'll be honest, I'm not all that excited.

Let me start off by admitting how spoiled I am:

Matt runs the family business. He staffs hospitals around the Puget Sound with RNs and Surgical techs. He works in an office all by himself controlling almost everything from his iPhone. So when I need (ehem, or want) him, all I have to do is call and ask him to come home and he usually grants my wish. Its the perfect life for a needy wife such as myself.

So when I was informed at the UW hosted "Student & Spouse" dinner on Friday that my husband was going to be tacking on 30+ hours of homework a week to his busy, never-closing-because-hospitals-are-open-24-hours-a-day work schedule, I will admit my life as a spoiled rotten princess started to get a little blurry.

Selfish much?

I know. I am. But when things like "be prepared to live like a single parent" and "school comes first for 2 years" are muttered by last years graduates, I am going to probably freak out a little.

But, I trust Matthew. He has our family in mind when he makes big decisions like this and he worked so hard to get into this program.

Not to mention he is going to be great and learn so much. This is such an amazing opportunity and I know that both of us are going to grow a ton over these next years.

Although 2 years sounds like FOREVER right now, its going to go by so fast and in no time he will be tossing his purple and gold hat into the air at another college graduation.

Good luck Matty! We'll miss you ;)