Tag -- We're It!

Tail wags, all! It's me, Stormy. We've been tagged by our Aunt Janet! Well, actually she tagged our mom but at the Ao4 Digest! Hey, hey! It's our blog! Mom's got her own. But that's OK, you gave us cookies when you were here and say nice things about us, and it's all working out eerily well. You'll see why!

In this tag game, we're supposed to:

Open a document or file folder,

click on the fifth folder
and then the fifth photo.
Post the photo and describe it.

Then tag 5 other bloggers.

As fate would have it, in our photo folder, the fifth photo in the fifth sub-folder is .... a photo of a quilt! Like I said, sort of eery, isn't it?  It's not one Mom made, but it's one she posted over  on Bags by KZK.

Photo has now been reduced in size; in some browsers, it made the rest of the post look "wonky".  Not that wonky.

Gorgeous, don't you think?  Again, this is not a quilt our mom made - her friend Nancy in Colorado made it!  Isn't it fun and bright and scrappy?!?  She makes a lot of quilts for charities - and this is one of them.  She calls it a Frenzy Quilt.  You can read more about it at this link, and see more of Nancy's quilts at this link.  What a talented, generous woman!

So... that worked out well.  Our tag, but a photo over on Mom's blog.  Crazy!  Now... I'm going to tag... 

Hmm... let's see...

• Huffle Mawson, Explorer Cat and Honorary Husky (her mum takes incredible photos and Huffle is Zimmie's best friend)
  
• Angus Mhor (Angus can always make us smile; I love his big swappers!)
  
• The Dughallmor Beagles (Beagles, the Scottish coast, gorgeous photos... need I say more?)
  
• Bren (because we love her blog and photos, not just because she has snow!)
  
• Moxie and Izzie over at the Corgi Lounge (again, it's not just because they have snow... we always feel happy after we visit their blog and their bipeds do an incredible job with the camera!)
  

We hope you all have fun with the Tag!

Tail wags,

Storms

SUN-Day

Anypup or kit-cat want to come share my sunbeam?

Play bows and purrzzzzzzzzzzzz,

The Z-man

How Do You Tell...

Ha roo, pups and kit-cats.  It's me, Zim.  Do you know how to tell if Mom's going to bake some fish?  Check the audience!

Left to right:  Dave, me (Zim) and Am in the background...

Oh, it's not just Dave, Am and me.  Really.  Let's peek around the corner.

...and Storm, a bit further to the right.

It was Tilapia.  Can you blame us?

In other news, the snow you saw on yesterday's post didn't amount to much - only about half an inch - so I couldn't build a cool snow fort.  Dave and I did do a bit of this, though:

It was great, as you can imagine.

I hope all of you are enjoying the weekend!

Play bows,

Zim

Photo Finish Friday

This has the makings of a great day, Zim.

Roger that, Dave!

Luv and tail wags,

Dave & Zim

Honorary Birthday!

Woo, everypuppy and everycat.  It's me - Dave.  As Ammy told you, today is another big day here at Ao4 HQs.  Monday was my Adopt-a-Dave Day, and now... do you know what today is!?!  That's right, it's my honorary birthday!  Woo!  Today I am sort of 11!

I wanted to share some of my celebration with you.  Some of the things were actually sent before, but since I plan to spend time with them today, Storm said I should go ahead and post about them!

First up is this cool award we received from the OP Pack!  It's for all of us!

It's a Good Friends Award and we consider ourselves very privileged to receive it!  Thank woo, kind friends!

Next, my very good friend Marvin left me an extremely thoughtful poem on my post about my Me-aversary.  He gave me permission to share it with you here today.

"Dave is handsome, Dave is sweet,
Dave writes Haik-Woo, oh so neat.

Dave - Guide Dog for the Colour blind,
Always a leader, he's never behind.

Dave has the most handsome freckles,
Proper ones, not just speckles."

He's so profound, isn't he?  Maybe instead of being the "Hollow Hound", he should be the "Profound Hound".  Woo.  Thank you for such a great poem, Marvin!

Also in the poetry department... do any of you remember my dear Wonky?  Sadly, my Wonky is gone (Stormy says he 'sleeps with the fishes'), though I thought I saw him once.  But I didn't.  Equally sadly, we lost the videos of me and Wonky playing - the computer crash plus Video Egg taking everything down!  Woo!  I loved my Wonky so much... and my dear friend Tubey remembered.  On my Dave-a-versary, he emailed me the most beautiful, profound Haik-Woo I have ever had the pleasure to read.  (To fill new readers in on Haik-Woo... please see this link.)  I teamed it up with a picture of Sitka and little Cornelia Marie's Wonky, and Tubey gave me permission to share it all today.  

If that doesn't bring tears to your eyes... I don't know what will.

I'm not normally allowed access to plushie, squishie toys anymore (something about eating part of Wonky and a couple octopus legs and swallowing them and getting sick...) - BUT our friend Addie sent us a really cool toy a while ago that Mom knew I'd like.  She and I snuck off to the Studio the other day and she let me play with it!  She sat with me so I wouldn't accidentally eat it; I did so well, she said I could play with it again today!  Here it is:

Isn't this cool?  It makes a crackle sound!

Wait!  What's that!?!?  It SQUEAKS, too!

Oh, Addie, I just love this toy!  Thank you so much!

I worked so hard playing with it, that I had to stop.  Mom rubbed my freckles for me to help me get some energy back.

I love having my freckles rubbed!

Any other bipeds out there wanna snuzzle my muzzle?

To cap off a great play session, I got to do something else I love to do.  Dad calls this picture "Bliss".

Me and Mom

Oh, how I love to snuggle!  (Pay no attention to the holes you might think you see in the toy!)

I also plan to do some of this later today:

I wonder why Mom says she loses feeling in her feety-feet?  Woo!

If any of you are in the AO, please stop by and help us celebrate!  If you can't be here, please ask your bipeds for extra cookies and snuggle time!

Luv,

Dave

The Rest of Our Adventure

Hi everypuppy!  It's me - Amber!  I'm here to tell you about the rest of the big, long walk Zim and I took with Mom!  The whole thing was just SO exciting and we had a wonderful time and wish all of you could have been there.  The next best thing is showing you pictures AND we have a video today, too!

Zim was a bit disappointed that what we found wasn't the ocean, but I was able to reassure him that we'd find more really interesting things on the loop home.  Here's the first thing we found:

I'm not sure, but I think it's where Elbow Macaroni comes from.

We crossed a big road, then went over the bridge on Little Kitten Creek.  After a while, we came onto a big group of pine trees.  We were just walking along minding our own, when we heard this really LOUD chatter!  Zim stopped to look.

Hey!  Hey, who's up there!?!

It was a SQUIRREL!  We've seen them in that area before and it's always very exciting!  We don't have any by our house, so it's a big deal when we see one!

Zim was just captivated by him and stared and stared!  Then he told me even better news!

Am!  There are TWO of them!

I couldn't believe it, but it was true!  Take a look:

Can you see them!?!  Zim froze in place and wouldn't move.

Fascinating!

Seriously fascinating!

Mom shot this video for us:

Like Mom said, they were looking right AT us!  She took this picture of Zim, then did a little PhotoShop work on it:

I'll bet Sitka will think he looks dreamy!  :)

Then Zim did what comes naturally to him when he sees something that fascinates him.  He sat.

And he sat.

He would have sat there all day, but Mom said it was time to head home, so she could take Storm and Dave on a walk, too. 

I told you we'd see something else exciting, Zim!

You did, Am... and you were right!  Ha roo!

I hope you enjoyed our adventure!  Thanks for coming along with us!

Love,

Amber

PS:  Another big day tomorrow!  Be sure to join us!!!

Where Was I?

Ha roo, pups and cool-cats, it's me - Zimmie!  Before I get started today, Dave asked me to give a great big "thank woo" from him to all of you for the wonderful Dave-a-versary wishes!  He had a mighty fun day and will tell you all about it on Thursday.  That's another big day around here!  Ha roo!

Now where was I?  Oh, yeah!  Discovering the ocean!

Wowzers!

As I said, Ammy and I had hooked Mom up and we walked and walked and walked.

Me and Ams

Before I knew it, we had stumbled onto the most incredible thing - the ocean!  I just knew that's what it had to be!  I've read about it on so many of your blogs and thought oceans just sounded like the coolest, most fun things ever!  I've been wanting one of our own here in Kansas (along with some mountains - wouldn't that be great?) and HAROO!  There it was!

Ammy and I couldn't believe our eyes!

Look, Am!  The ocean!

Oh, Zimmie!  It's beautiful!  Our very own ocean!

She thought we should let Stormy and Dave know.  Fortunately, Mom had her iPhone, so we zipped them off an email.  I sent this picture and gave them the news!

Message to Storm and Dave:  Hey roo guys!  Am and I discovered the Kansas Ocean.

Unfortunately, being the Road Scholar that she is, Storm had some news of her own.  She said if we can actually see across it, as it appears in the photo, it's probably not reeeeeeeeally an ocean.

Oh.

Storm thought it was a cool discovery anyway, though, and commended us for finding it.

It could have been the ocean, though... don't you think, Ammy?

Oh, yes, Zim.  And it IS pretty!

I figured we should head on out of there; I was kind of disappointed.

Let's go, Yams.

Ammy's always real positive about things and said that it WAS a cool discovery and that maybe we'd see something else really cool as we looped on around toward the house.

Zimmie, I just know we'll find something else really exciting!

She's a real cool sister, you know?  And you know what else?  We did find something that totally captivated my interest on the way home!  Tune back in tomorrow to hear about that part of our adventure!

Play bows,

Zim

Dave-a-Versary 2009!

Woo, everypup and everycat!  It's me - Dave!  Did you see what Zimmie said about today being a big day here?  Well, if you scrolled back in the Ao4 Digest archives to this post and this post, you could figure it out - today is my Dave-a-versary!  That's right - my homecoming, my Gotcha Day, the day Mom and Dad brought me HOME!  Wooo!

Back at those posts, you can read the story of how I got here (oh, and at this one, too) but the short version of the story is that I was in our local shelter for over a month screaming the Siberian Death Scream, hoping my Mom would hear me.  Oh, she may not have known she was my mom at the time, but I did!  I knew the right mom was out there somewhere!  And oh, she thought I was just a "foster" for a while... but seeing as how my Homecoming was in 2002, I don't think I'm going anywhere!  (Not that I ever did think I was going anywhere!)

As some of you know, our old PC died and we lost most of our photos.  Fortunately, Mom had burned some of them to a CD, and the very first pictures she took of me are on it!  So now... never seen before on this blog... I give you my puppy pictures!

Quite the cute little guy, wasn't I?  I think I was about 4 years old, but I can't really remember. 

 

The pix were taken in an exercise yard at the shelter.  The nice people there let my mom take me out there.  We played and she gave me cookies.  Mostly I wanted to hug her.

Here's a good shot of my lovely freckles:

I think I was crunching a cookie there.  

My friends Rubi and Denali sent me a Haik-woo they wrote to commemorate my special day!

Remember the day 

Dave found his forever home: 

Army of Four. Woo.

Wow!  Thank woo, you pups.  That is so special!  I just love it!

I hope you'll help me celebrate today!  I see some special walks, naps, time with Mom, zoomies with Zim, Happy Hearts cookies.... come to think of it.... how about one of those right now!?!?

Mmmm!  Happy Me-a-versary!

Luv,

Dave

Sunday Surprise!

Ha roo, pups and cool-cats!  It's me, Zim!  The weather was just horrible on Friday:  sunny and almost 60 -- can you believe that?  Not a snow cloud in sight!  "Horrible" if you're a Siberian in January, that is.  Anyroo... we all went on a long morning walk, then Dad went out golfing in the afternoon and Mom was going to hop on the treadmill.  I gave her "the look", letting her know,  "Hey, we might not have sub-zero temps and a bunch of snow out there, but apparently it's a nice day for bipeds..... so why not hook me and Ammy up and let us take you for a walk instead of doing the treadmill?!"  (My looks can say a lot!)  She caved, naturally. 

We were just going to go to the corner or so, but one thing led to another and we ended up walking her for over an hour and a half.  It was great!  I'll fill you in on everything we saw come Tuesday (tomorrow is a special day here!!!) but for now ... here's the Sunday Surprise!

The OCEAN!  I've finally found it!

That's right!  After years of searching for it, of dreaming of it, of wanting one for us so badly here in Kansas I could almost taste it ..... I found it!  Our very own ocean!!!!!!!!!!!

Please join us for a special celebration tomorrow, then hear more about the Kansas Ocean Tuesday!

Play bows,

Zim

Prince!

Tail wags, pups and kits.  It's me, Stormy.  Did you see my very handsome boyfriend Prince's blog the other day?  He posted a secret message to me.  It was very special!  The redheads here are chomping at the bit to post about their cool adventure they had yesterday, but I'm going to let them start tomorrow.  I need to send this message out to my Prince!

I'm pretty sure Prince knows what I mean.  And thanks, Ammy, for coming in for moral support.

Tail wags,

Storms

Fun With Photos Friday

Mom played around with a photo of us from a few weeks ago.

That's what I'm talking about!  Ha roo!

Tail wags,

Storms

Can I Buy You A Drink?

Woo, everypup and everycat.  It's me - Dave.  We just got the word that our friend Khyra gave us the "5-Star Blog Award".  

I think this calls for a celebration, don't you?  I offered to buy Zim a drink.

Belly on up to the bar, Zim!  I'm buyin'!

What?  It's water!  What did you think it was!??!

Thanks, Khyra!  We are honored you've shared this with us!

Luv,

Dave

Grazin' in the Grass is a Gas....

...baby, can you dig it?!?  

Ha roo, it's me, everypup and kit-cat - Zim!  This post really isn't about grazing in the grass or digging, but click on that hyperlink under "can you dig it" anyway for some great background music while you read!  This post is about grass - the decorative grasses in our landscaping.

We've shown you a lot of pictures of our gardens in the "growing" months, but the grasses also add great touches now - like movement, screening, and warm colors.  Aunt Janet posted cool pix of some of her grasses on her blog, so we thought we'd show her (and you!) some of ours!  Let's go!

This is a Feather Reed Grass. 

It's a tall, slender grass.

Further down the brick path are some Dwarf Fountain Grasses.

They stay small and are like puffy, little mounds.  They get a poufy seed head that looks soft - almost like Sibe fluff!

Moving along the path, here's a gorgeous Maiden Grass by the entrance to Mom's favorite part of the garden.

It sort of announces that you're at the special entrance or something.  Here's a close-up!

Mom (and Dave, Guide Dog for the Color Blind) love the rich, warm colors in there!

Here's a look at that special part of the garden:

There is another, smaller Maiden Grass, a couple Dwarf Fountain Grasses, and a couple Zebra Grasses!  Here's another look at one of the Zebra Grasses:

It's on the "tall, thin" side, like the Feather Reed Grass.  Here's a close-up of the "flower":

Let's keep moving!  Down at the bottom of the yard is this huge Pampas Grass:

Or as Ammy likes to call it, the Pompous Grass.  Ha roo roo roo!  It's probably about 7 or 8 feet tall.  

Also down at the bottom is another line up of Maiden Grasses:

And sort of in-between them and the Pampas Grass and up a tier is a line-up of more Feather Reed Grasses.

There are some other ornamental grasses in the backyard, but they look really bad and Mom is thinking of pulling them up, come Spring.  They're little blue things that have really never taken off.  Speaking of taking off, let's go out front!

Here are some Japanese Silver Grasses:

They're a little beat up from the snow and ice and wind, but still provide a good screen from the neighbor's house and driveway.  Here's a close-up:

Hey, Aunt Janet!  Do you know what else the grasses are used for?  Bunny hide-outs!

I know you're in there, Oswald!

Hey, are you sending this picture to Aunt Janet?  Tell her "hi" for me.  And to send more poppy seeds!

That guy is really getting bold, isn't he?

Anyroo, I hope you enjoyed my Winter Garden Tour!  We'd love to see what you all have growing!

Play bows,

Zim