Tuesday, June 27, 2006

He Whispers

He is Cesar Millan and he is The Dog Whisperer! Have you watched his show on the National Geographic Channel? I've only seen 2 one hour episodes and I'm hooked. I even bought
his book
at Sam's Club last week.



Now don't worry, I don't buy into the new age stuff he talks about, like 'energy' and 'Mother Nature' but I do believe almost every thing else he suggests. Everything was ok when I heard him say "this dog is not a human, he is a dog". My bil used to tell our dogs when I was growing up "you're nothing but a dog!"

He doesn't train dogs. He rehabilitates dogs and trains humans.

I think that is very funny and very necessary in our home. Two days before Christmas our 135 lb Rhodesian Ridgeback/Lab mix (Dillon) bit my son. Here's what happened....my son and the dog were laying on the floor happily. J. reached over to the dog's lip and pulled on a mole/tag and attempted to pull it off. This hurt and scared the dog and he bit J. on the chest and stood over him (pinned him, actually) and growled ferociously at J. We saw the whole thing and we were screaming hysterically at the dog. The dog stopped, backed away and we promptly kicked him outside. To make a long story short, we decided not to put him down for two reasons (maybe two stupid reasons to you). The first reason was it was two days before Christmas and I felt sorry for the children and the second reason was that this was provoked. It's not like this dog did this sort of thing on a daily basis.




The thing our dog does on a daily basis, however, is act grumpy. If he is not in the mood for attention and love he growls at us. We have learned to avoid him during his grumpy time but it really irritates us. Plus we are afraid of this 135 lb. piece of muscle. Not good.

We are going to start implementing a few things we have learned from Cesar.

* We already bought a choke collar but the dog will wear it high on his neck now, not low.
* The leash will become very short and he will walk behind us a step or two.
* I have been pushing his bum down after commanding him to sit.
* We will slowly take control and he will become submissive. I hope.
* He will get more exercise, more disipline and less affection.
* I practice saying "pst"

I was hoping to invite Cesar to my home but he is not going to be in my area any time soon. He will be in Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago, New York to name a few. I think he should take a little pit stop in Phoenix on his way to Dallas, don't you think?

I am hopeful that some of these techniques will help our grumpy dog and he will be happy being a dog and know he is not in charge of this family!

PS Don't you just love Cesar's salt and pepper hair color? Reminds me of my Greek uncles.

Friday, June 23, 2006

He's on a roll!

Now this is the good stuff of the internet!

I hope you'll read what Mr. Challies says today.

I'll only add one thing.....a hearty AMEN!

These two posts will be required reading for my older children.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Great post.

From Disneyland to theology. Here we go!

Yes! What Tim Challies said.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Disneyland

We spent one long day at Disneyland. It was extremely crowded and hot. Oh well. The kids still had fun. Here are my little girls with a few of their friends.












We saw them at Disneyland too. Not my picture.

















(Blogger irritates me!!)

Oceanside, California

Donna requested pictures of our recent trip to Oceanside CA. I didn't take very many unfortunately.

This is the beach house we rented. I'm standing at the edge of the houses private beach. Pardon the mess!









I stayed in the same spot and turned around 180 degrees. This part is the public beach. The kids just couldn't understand why strangers would plop themselves on "our" beach. Silly.









Amazing sunset, isn't it?

Monday, June 19, 2006

"SCORPAND!!"


Ya know. I've just about had it with creepy crawly things. We had a few issues in CA with nasty roaches and just now my 2 little girls were in their bathroom looking for some finger nail polish and came across, thankfully not stung by, a scorpion ("scorpand" in our house). It looked just like the one in the picture. It was small and actually, small scorpands are more dangerous than large ones. Did you know that their sting is extremely painful and their venom is a neurotoxin?

My son was stung a few years ago and within an hour he reported to me that his throat was tight and numb like when he goes to the dentist! Poison Control people are saints. I love them. They call you back to check-in.

Anyway, all is well. Except now I have the heebie jeebies.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Nuts!

We're home safe and sound. Oceanside was wonderful and fun and sunny and sandy.

I'm very tired tonight but I wanted to say hello and share a couple funnies.

We had been on the road for 5 hours and the children were beginning to get a little slap happy, so we did what most parents do when traveling with 5 children .....EAT. The mixed nuts began to make their way around the suburban. Lauren (3) picked out a cashew and proclaimed:

"This banana has peanut butter on the inside"

just as we got over that James (12) announced:

"Dad, did you know if you suck on an almond long enough it begins to taste like Iced Tea?!"

WHAT?

I love my life. :-)

Friday, June 09, 2006

A Recipe Today

Monster Cookies

1/2 lb butter
2 C. sugar
2 1/3 C. brown sugar
6 eggs
2 T. karo syrup
4 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
3 C. peanut butter
9 C. oatmeal
2 C. M & M's
1 C. chocolate chips

Bake @ 350 for about 10 minutes.
I use a large cookie scoop, my girlfriend uses her icecream scoop.
This recipe fills my Bosch bowl, if you're hand mixing I would halve the recipe.
I think I made around 75 large cookies (I didn't count).
We have not eaten all the cookies I made yesterday. I quickly popped 45 in the freezer for our roadtrip.




Enjoy!! They are delicious.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Phew! It's 6/7/06

Carmon had me laughing out loud with this post. I think you'll enjoy it. Warning: put your coffee down, do not take a sip while reading these, your monitor may never be the same.




Isn't it good to know our Savior is sovereign over the entire universe?! We need not worry about the date on the calendar. Our lives are in His very capable and loving hands and we can find rest there.


Are you resting?

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Great Tunes!



My friend turned me on to Jack Johnson and I just bought the CD.

It is mellow, happy music.

It makes you smile and want to dance.

You won't be disappointed.

I want to go back to Hawaii. Ahhh, that place is magical.

Buy it here or here