Snooooooow!

It finally snowed yesterday! We just got a few inches, but it was more than enough to play in for a bit. Nandi and I headed out for an hour, and when we got home Jeff was home from work. Apparently, everyone else at work bailed because the whole 2 inches of snow at that point were enough to shut down the city. So, we went out again and played more!

Uh . . . Mom? Why are you making me sit in this cold stuff? I want to play!

Hellloooooo! Do you see the SNOW?!?! Let's get moving woman!

Ugh! Fine, just one picture and then we're moving!

Pink Cupcakes

I have a friend who makes collars. She has a ton of fun ones, and until we got Nan I couldn't get one for my own pet. Summit and Mitzie get out of all collar except Beastie Bands. So I've been amusing myself by sending collars to random friends and family whenever she did a fundraiser. But I've wanted the pink cupcake collar forever since I saw it. And now Nandi has her adorable pink cupcake collar, courtesy of my awesome friend B. Check out teenytinycollars.com and see if there's one that would be a great match for your pup!

Frozen Waterfalls

So it was cold here last week. Not like Minnesota or Iowa or Massachusetts cold, but colder than it's been in our lifetimes in Portland. In fact, it was cold enough to freeze waterfalls! : ) So Jeff, Nandi and I took a trip to Multnomah Falls to see the frozen falls. Multnomah wasn't entirely frozen, but it was moving much slower than normal.

Here's Multnomah from the parking lot. : )


And Jeff and I. Nan is there too, but she's not in the shot.


Here are the lower falls, from where we were standing in the previous picture. Doesn't it look snowy? Notice how everything else is brown and ugly and now snowy? Yeah, the weathermen here lie and make me sad when they promise me snow that doesn't show.


Here are the upper falls:


Check out the blue green color that showed up in the upper falls!


On our walk back down from the upper falls (on the bridge) we noticed that there was nobody on the bridge. That never happens, so I made Jeff whip out the camera super fast and get some pictures. I don't mind people in pictures, but only when I know them. ; )


Then we hiked over to Wakheena Falls. We saw this little wall of icicles on the way.


And here is my favorite wall that normally has water trickling down it. Obviously, there's a good bit of water there when it freezes; people were climbing it when we walked by.


Here's Jeff and Nandi near the bottom of Wahkeena.


And me and Nan; you've gotta watch out for this one! She's got sneak attack kiss issues that I was just recovering from. : )


Here's Wahkeena from the bridge that was crazy icy and scary to walk on, so I made Jeff do it.


The same spot with a slow exposure.


And more Wahkeena with some cool ice.


There was this cool log with a ton of horizontal icicles on it.


And here's Jeff, Nandi and I at Wahkeena (don't mind Jeff, he has balance-while-on-ice-with-a-dog-issues).

It's Official!

We have a new family member!



We have a new family member!

We picked her up the weekend before Halloween for a trial run. She did the costume thing (OK, so it was just a little witch hat and not that big a deal) pretty well, don't you think?



She did a nice job of chasing away the squirrels on our deck.



She poses nicely for pictures in fall leaves . . .



She gets along with the cats . . .




And even butt cuddles with them! : )




Her name is Mandarin, but we call her Nandi for short. She's a 65ish pound American Staffordshire Terrier. She was picked up in August as a stray in Vancouver, WA and was dropped off at a shelter by animal control. Her owners never claimed her, even though she was clearly well taken care of - she'd been spayed, had a collar, trained, housebroken, and overweight.

One of the volunteers at the shelter is involved with the rescue we adopted Nan from and knew we were looking for a dog just like her. She called us up after she got to know Nandi a bit and knew she was good with cats (she hid from the cats when they tested her). We met her and fell in love, so the rescue pulled her from the shelter and put her in a foster home (with cats!) just to make sure she was a good fit. She was, so we picked her up for a trial run. We got the paperwork from the rescue, signed it, and mailed in her adoption fee so now she's all ours!