So Compelling Sunday

Ha roo and woo, everypuppy and kit-cat. It's all of us in the Ao4 coming at you today. As many of you know, on Sundays we try to bring you an inspiring Salute or a thing of beauty or serenity - and today is no exception. Look at us in this picture!

Storm, Dave, Zim and Ams

You may be wondering just what thing of beauty has all of us so intrigued. So glued to the spot. So focused! Wait no longer! Here is that stunning sight:

The line up!

Seriously! Have you ever seen anything more captivating?!!? We haven't!

Yum!
I'm sittin' like a good boy, Mom!
Whatever.
Yea! Supper-Dupper Time!

No one divvies up the Eukanuba quite like our mom or dad! Let's eat!

Tail wags, luv, play bows and love!
Stormy, Dave, Zimmie and Ammy

What's Up?

Tail wags to all, it's me - Stormy!

What's up?

Get it? "What's up?" and I'm looking up in the picture. Ammy assured me this would be funny. I just might have to go have a talk with that silly redhead!

Yeah... I'm not feeling it. Oh, AMMY!

Tail wags,
Storms

No Pups On The Furniture... ?

Woo, everypuppy, it's me - Dave. As many of you know, we have an insane rule around here about "no pups on the furniture". Except for the bed. Which is ours anyway. Pretty much. OK, we share.

So... since our computer crash, Mom and Dad have been trying to find any photos they may have actually backed up - on those things that look like Frisbees or to web sites. The other day, Dad found some old pictures on his computer and put them on a Frisbee thing for Mom. I was going through them .... and I saw this one!

I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! It's Dad... great brother Booter & Stormy on the floor beside him ... and AMMY is on DAD'S LAP on the FURNITURE!!! AMMY!!! On the FURNITURE! Can you believe it!?!?

This is an outrage. I can't believe Ammy was allowed to do that!!! It can't be a size thing - at 58 pounds, I'm small enough. REALLY! Here I am, trying to convince Dad to let me up.

Dad? Can't I just come on up and snuggle with you?

I won't take up much room, really! Please, Dad?

He didn't seem to go for it. I think after seeing that picture, he owes me! And Ammy owes me, too! Woo!

I tried it on Mom later that night. She wouldn't let me up, but at least she came down and sat on the floor.

Mom? I was born to be a lap dog, really!

I still think Ammy owes me. I don't care if she was just a cute little sweet potato pup. Woo!

Luv,
Dave

Happy Thanksgiving!

All of us here at Ao4 Headquarters would like to wish each and everyone of you a very blessed and happy Thanksgiving!

Tail wags, love, play bows and love,
Stormy, Ams, Zim and Dave

What's Cooking?

Woo, everypup and everycat! It's me - Dave. Mom's doing all kinds of cooking for tomorrow -- turkey in a crock-pot, cranberries, veggies, stuffing, other stuff I don't know about yet ... and sweet potato pie! That means there's going to be some good eating coming up! I'm not on KP Duty, that seems to always fall to Zim and sometimes Stormy, but I'm up here where I've got a good view of the action.

Oh... and I will see it if something hits the floor and Mom lets Zim or Storm have it... so I'll be sure to get something, too! Woo! And yes, Ammy will sense it and come in, too. As they say, "One for all and all for one!" Or as Stormy tries to get us to say, "Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno!" Stormy's so smart!

Happy cooking and helping!

Luv,
Dave

Sharing the Love

Tail wags, pups and kit-cats, it's me - Stormy. On behalf of the Ao4, I would like to thank our dear friends Sunny & Scooter and Jazz & Dixie for presenting us with this lovely award:

This lovely award is created by Crystal at Memoirs of a Mommy in honor of Noah and the donor of his sweet little heart who ENCOURAGES us to SHARE THE LOVE! Thanks Crystal! The rules for this award are to pass it along to some people whose blogs you love. They make you laugh, smile, leave encouraging comments on your blog. You would like to share some love with them because they have uplifted, inspired, encouraged or prayed for you. Please include this paragraph with the link to Memoirs of a Mommy so that everyone knows from where this award originated.

Thank you so much, pups. This is very special and we feel most honored. We'd like to award it to all of our readers, because you mean so much to us! You're the BEST! We love your blogs, we love that you stop by here, and we love YOU!

Tail wags,

Storms

PS: Is Parker out there, by chance? Zim asked me to mention - he tried leaving a comment on your blog six times this morning, but Blogger keeps eating his words. He wanted you to know he's thinking about you, though.

What I've Been Up To

Ha roo, pups and cool cats! It's me, Zim! You might be wondering what I've been up to, since the computer's been down for a few days. I've been doing all kinds of fun stuff and one of those things is called "catalogue shopping".

At first, I thought it meant shopping for catalogues, but then Stormy told me that before computers came around, people shopped through the mail. I thought I'd give it a whirl!

Dave and Mom have been working on something for my best friend Huffle Mawson, Explorer Cat and Honorary Husky, so I thought it would be nice for ME to find something special to tuck into the package they send her. I started going through the 10,000 catalogues the mailman has brought lately when I hit pay-dirt!

BINGO!

A catalogue full of HAM! What could be more perfect? It's Huffle's most FAVORITE thing! They had smoked ham and spiral-sliced ham and maple-glazed ham and Virginia ham and honey-glazed ham and ... oh, more ham than you could imagine!

This one's even got the bone in it, so she could have something to enjoy later!

I thought it would be perfect. But then I thought about the customs guys. You know, since I'm in the US and Huffs is in Australia!

I wonder if those agents know Charlie the Big Dog? Anyway, I don't think I could get a ham past them. Then Ammy came up with a brilliant idea! Remember when she found the football tree? What if I sent Huffle a Ham Tree!!!!! Brilliant, Ammy! She found one for me at this link!

Now I just have to find a nursery that carries them... then Huffle can plant it in her garden and have ALL the ham she wants, whenever she wants it! Cool, huh?

That's what I've been up to!

Play bows,
Zim

Serendipitous Sunday!

Just when we were going to put a post about missing our friend Marvin, we got a message from him letting us know he's re-joined the blogosphere! That's right - the Hollow Hound is BACK!

Marvin, we took this picture a couple days ago ...

How serendipitous! Welcome back, pal!

The Army of Four

Almost Back To Normal

Woo, everypuppy and everycat! It's me, Dave. I'm just checking in to let you know we've been working hard to restore our computer and get everything back up and running after the crash. Here I am, hard at it.

It's been a lot of work, but we're just about "there". Thanks for being patient!

Luv,
Dave

Crashed!

Yep. Crashed! No ... not me. This is a pretty normal pose for me. Our computer crashed yesterday. We're in the process of re-loading everything, but much was lost. We'll be taking a short break from our blog, but hope to get back up and running soon.

In the meantime, if you normally hear from us via email and haven't since yesterday ... please send an email! We are re-constructing the address book. Thanks!

Play bows,
Zim

Monday Morning Walk

Woo, everypup and everycat. It's me - Dave. There we were, having our normal Monday morning routine - Dad was out walking the redheads and Mom said, "Who wants to go find them?" Storm and I jumped at the chance, of course, and headed down the road.

I wonder if we'll find 'em, Storm!

We always do, Dave. Stick with me!

We found them on the far side of the undeveloped area, then we all turned and headed home together. We were coming back into our housing area, when our typical walk turned into an incredible one! Look! Look over there on the left!!!

Meow?

I couldn't believe my eyes!!! Ammy and I got all excited ...like REAL Siberians should, I might add...

WOO!

Storm did slow tail wags at him ... and Zim started schmoozing him!

Hey, little cat! Wow, you're a cute little guy. Is that a tuxedo you're wearing?

Hey, my name's Zim. You're not cold and lonely out here, are you?

Follow our scent to our house if you need anything. 'K?

Meow?

Zim's like that. I fully expect to see Tuxedo cat show up at the house later on today. He seemed sad to see us go. Well... sad to see Zim and Stormy go, anyway. Woo.

What a Monday morning walk!

Luv,
Dave

A Day of Rest

It's Sunday.

Go read Beau's sermon, then put your feet up and get that needed rest. It's been a full week!

Play bows,
Zim

Educational Walks

Hi everypuppy and everycat! It's me - Amber! I hope each and every one of you is having a very happy day!

You know, I just love reading all the blogs! I love to learn new things and see new places and everything! I especially like the posts where you show us where you go walking and I learn really, really interesting things! Like Ari always goes on such interesting hikes and teaches us about things! And the Thundering Herd shows us such bee-roo-tiful things! And Thor and Marco Polo always make interesting discoveries! And who could forget Khyra's walks!?! And... really, the list goes on and on!

I made an interesting discovery out on our morning walk the other day and thought I should share it with you. Look! Up there! It's a football!

Apparently they grow on trees! Who knew!??!

Hee hee hee!

Have a happy weekend, everypuppy! And keep your eyes peeled on your walks; you never know WHAT you'll see!

Love,
Amber

...Brought To You By The Letter "P"

Ha roo, pups and cool cats, it's me - Zim!

Before I get started, did you see the wonderful award Prince of Team Husky gave us the other day? The Butterfly Award for the Coolest Blog I Know. Our little Southern buddy Biloxi presented it to us, too! He's so cool - and very kind! Thanks, Biloxi! We'll put it up in our sidebar; it's like a bunch of hugs and neck grabs from our blogging pals! Ha roooo!

OK... speaking of Prince, his gorgeous sister Sesuk (not to be confused with his gorgeous sister Summer!) gave us a letter for the Letter Game! Cool! We did the letter "N" a bit ago and had fun with it. Ammy posted about "N", so Stormy let me handle this one. I gave it a lot of thought.

Well, OK, actually I took a nap and did quite the cute pose up on the cat walk... but whatever. Here are 10 things we love that start with the letter "P"!

1. Playing. We're Sibes. It's in our job description.

2. Puppies. Stormy especially loves puppies, but we all do, too.

3. The Park. We love to walk to our park. It's full of great smells and all kinds of cool stuff to see!

4. Patriots. There are some great ones here.

5. People. We love to meet and greet everyone we see. And Dave likes to melt into a pool of Sibe fluff at their feet - his version of a hug.

6. Pepcid. I get some every night before bedtime CLEVERLY hidden in cheese. Sure, the Pepcid helps me not have to horka in the morning, but let's face it - I like it because it's hidden in cheese!

7. Packages! It's always fun to get packages! Even if it's not for us, we love to go through everything with Mom or Dad!

8. Popcorn. Ammy only likes it if it's cheese corn, but that doesn't start with a "P" and the rest of us are fine with it being plain. Which DOES start with a "P". Ha roo roo roo!

9. Posing for photos. Or not. As the case warrants.

10. The Prairie! We love our wide-open spaces here. Here's an old picture of me, enjoying the prairie view on a walk:

Ah! The open prairie!

Isn't it cool?

Thanks for the letter "P", Sesuk! That was great fun! If anyone out there would like to play, let me know and I'll give you a letter!

Play bows,
Zim

What Do You Call...

Hi everypuppy and kitty! It's me, Amber! I saw something the other day when we were all out on a serious road march that made me think of something really funny. I thought we could all use a good laugh, so I made a little joke. It went something like this:

Me: Hey, Stormy! What do you call Mom when she makes one of those bags named after you?

Storms: When she's making a Storm Bag?

Me: That's right. What do you call her?

Storm: I don't know, Ammy. What do you call Mom when she's making a Storm bag?

Me: A Storm Sewer.

Hee hee hee!

I think Stormy liked it. She started clowing around, too.

Hey, Mom. Are you down there? Ha roo roo roo!

Have a happy day, everypuppy and kitty!

Love,

Ammy

Puppies and Thank You!

Ha roo, pups and kit-cats! It's me - Stormy! Have you seen my very handsome boyfriend Prince's blog lately? He and his sisters (Team Husky) have been keeping us p-updated on a beeeee-roo-tiful litter of puppies. I love puppies! I mean I REALLY love puppies! I asked Prince to send the "Amazon girls" to me - or at the very least, the one named ... Storm! Her name is STORM! How perfect is that?!?

He thought it would help if I could give him the numbers off our mom's plastic card. That makes sense. Prince and the puppies are in New Zealand, so they'd probably have to buy plane tickets to get here to the States. Fine. Only for some reason, our mom doesn't give us access to her plastic card. It's ... it's almost like she doesn't trust us or something! Can you imagine!?! How much damage could a few plane tickets from NZ do?

Well, so anyway, Prince, I can't get the numbers. But maybe if you have your mom look at this picture of me, I can do a cyber-space Siber-mind-meld on her.

Look into my eyes....! Send... me... the... puppies.

Is she looking, Prince? Do you think it's working?

Prince DID send us a very cool award - check it out! It's the Butterfly Award, for the "Coolest Blog I Know"!

Thank you so much! We feel very honored that you chose to share it with us!

We were also recently honored by our fluffy-tailed friend Khyra! It's the Perfect Blend of Friendship Award!

Thanks, Khyra! Zim really likes all the cups of coffee and tea. The cups read, "Trust, kindness, honesty and caring". Those are some truly wonderful things, and you're quite wonderful to share them with us!

Many thanks to Prince & Team Husky and to Khyra for the lovely awards. We'd like to pass them along to all of our readers! And to Princey's mom... Look into my eyes... feel the power of the Siberian mind-meld... good, very good. Send... me... the... puppies!...

Tail wags,
Storms

Veterans Day 2008

On Veterans Day in the US, we honor our combat veterans.

Here is our favorite combat veteran:

Our dad, with great brother Booter, 1991

And though we never met him, Mom's dad:

Mom's dad, c. 1963, with his counterpart, a Captain in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN)

To all who have served our nation in combat, thank you and may God bless you.
The Army of Four

Huffle!?!?

Ha roo, pups and kit-cats! It's me - Zim! There I was yesterday, doodling around the front yard with Mom, when something back behind the Burning Bush caught my attention!

Hey...

I couldn't believe my eyes and snooter! I had to slip in a little closer...

And there she was! My bestest kit-cat pal, Huffle Mawson!

Huffs! I thought you lived in Australia! Whatcha doing here?!?!

Then it hit me - Mom just named a bag honoring her, so she's probably here to pick out some fabrics for a Huffle Duffel of her own. I did see a lot of purple fabs in the Studio ... COOL!

Play bows,
Zim

Snooter Sunday

Play bows,
Zim

Me and the Non-Moat Monster

Sigh. Ha roo, everypup and everycat. It's me, Zim. Stormy showed you what has become of our now non-moat. Can you believe it? They filled the whole thing in with concrete. Sigh. I'm pretty bummed out about it, as you can imagine.

Sigh.

But if you think I'm sad, imagine how my potential moat monster feels about it!

The good people at Nuts Online sent him to me and I thought he'd be the perfect guy for the job. He was really psyched about it ... I had to go break the news to him.

Yeah... that's right, Moat Monster. Some bipeds filled it in with concrete!

He went a little nuts (perhaps because of where he came from)...

...but was cheered up a bit when Ammy came in and told us she saw a horse in the driveway.

Hee hee hee!

Saw (a) horse ... I should have known it was another one of her silly jokes! Sigh.

Oh, and do you see that, in the picture with Ams and the saw horse? The bipeds came back and put nice, warm blankies all over the non-moat so the concrete won't catch a cold or anything. Hrmph!

Moat Monster and I are going to go blow off some steam together.

Play bows,
Zim

CSI Siberia

Well... isn't this just a fine how-do-you-do?

At least they put crime scene tape up.

It must mean the police showed up while we were on our walk and saw what those bipeds did to our moat.

Because filling that up, dear pups and kit-cats, is a crime! And an outrage.

I've got to go console Zimmie; he's going to be really upset about not getting a moat monster.

Tail wags,

Storms

All That Work...

Ha roo, pups! It's me again - Zim! Wowzers, have we been working hard! Picking up from where I left off yesterday - here is a great look at our digging efforts!

OUTstanding!

Of course, all work and no play makes for a very boring, hard day. The joking around started with Ammy (of course!) and the old rebar we ripped out:

Hey, youSibes! Look! It's sneaky-snakes! Hee hee hee!

I started giggling, too, and couldn't resist a little silliness of my own.

Hey, a hammer! Do you know what I'd do if I had one of these... Ha roo roo roo!

(Please run your cursor on the caption on the picture above; there's a hyperlink for you. It just didn't show up.) We all had a good laugh, then Ammy said we needed to put everything away and get in the house FAST! We thought she was joking again, but then she said, "Look toward the west, everysibe!" This is what we saw:

R'uh r'oh!

Needless to say, we high-tailed it inside. I took a few pictures early this morning, so you could see how much work we got done. Here's a look at part of Ao4 Headquarters:

Can you see what all we did? Here's a close-up:

I sure hope the UPS man doesn't try to come to the door. Ha roo roo roo! Oh! We busted up part of the brick path, too ~

Cool, huh? We even destroyed some of Oswald's condos. Ha roo roo roo! See... we thought it would be cool to dig a moat all around the place - but only got as far as the front. I want to get a cool moat monster to put in it, too. Wouldn't that be cool?

Anyroo, after I shot those pictures, I came in to see if I could grab some of Dad's cappuccino before we got to work. I took a quick look out the door and couldn't believe my eyes.

Dave! Come check this out! Ammy, you better go get Stormy!

There was a big truck with some weird-looking cocoon-shaped thing on it. It was spinning all around and stuff. Look!

THEN I saw this guy standing right outside the door with a shovel ...

What's he doing in our moat!?!? Then it got worse. That's right - worse!

I can't believe this!!! What are these bipeds doing to our moat?!?!

That's right ... check this out:

A whole pack of bipeds filled it up! Our moat is gone! History! All that hard work we did ...

Sigh. I'll show you what happened tomorrow.

Play bows,
Zim