earth hour

i wanted to write a quick note about earth hour. earth hour is an initiative to encourage people to simply turn off the lights in their home for one hour, this saturday march 28th at 8:30pm local time, wherever you live on planet earth. it is designed to raise awareness regarding global warming and alert the powers that be that we care about our planet!

to quote the earthhour.com website:

"Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming. WWF are urging the world to VOTE EARTH and reach the target of 1 billion votes, which will be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009.

This meeting will determine official government policies to take action against global warming, which will replace the Kyoto Protocol. It is the chance for the people of the world to make their voice heard."

the website also explains how earth hour began 2 years ago just in sydney, australia and last year spread to places like the golden gate bridge, rome's coliseum, the giant coke sign in times square NYC and beyond. PLEASE support our earth and shut your lights off on saturday night from 8:30-9:30pm!! we all need to help save our planet!

ok, PSA done. no major updates to speak of in fosterland. puppy's done taking his meds for kennel cough and seems to be all better. uconn just moved on to the elite eight in the mens bball tournament-go huskies!! and i'm off to atlanta tomorrow for my BFs southern bridal shower. it's supposed to rain all weekend down there tho-boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
have a good weekend y'all! (gotta get used to saying the southern slang!)

i love swimming!

well in the last week or so foster has discovered that he likes, no LOVES, swimming! we used to try and get him to swim when he was a puppy last summer but he was def not interested. now that the spring thaw is in full swing here in massachusetts dave has started throwing sticks into one of the ponds at the WMA at his work and foster has been bounding in after them to fetch them up! well at first,when the water was too deep, he would pace back and forth in the shallow water looking at the stick. after some very enthusiastic encouraging by daddy he eventually starting swimming out to get it! after doing that a few times he then just started swimming out on his own! such a good boy! as you can imagine daddy is very excited to have his retriever actually retrieving in the water!

rest in peace kaya

a couple of years ago DH signed me up for emails from a website called the daily puppy. as you probably guessed that means i get puppy pics emailed to me daily. it's a genius idea really. shortly after i started getting these emails i met kaya the great dane. she was (obviously) a great dane puppy and was one of the cutest puppies i had ever seen! i began telling dave i wanted to get one. lucky for me her mom had started a photoblog chronicling her adventures. naturally i started reading it everyday. eventually kaya got a great dane sister luna and the blog was upgraded to include both their adventures!
then of course about 7 months ago we got foster and i decided to start a blog of my own. kaya, luna and their mum charlotte were part of my inspiration for starting my own puppy blog. eventually i emailed charlotte to tell her i loved her blog and that i had started my own.

i was devastated this evening when i opened my google reader to discover kaya had passed away over the weekend. she was only 2 years old. she had mouth cancer and was having difficulty breathing. it all happened so fast.

i wanted to dedicate a post to kaya and send luna and their mum and dad my condolences. she was a brilliant puppy model (mum is an amazing photographer) and you could tell she had a love of life. she lived a great puppy life with her sis luna and her parents who were always taking her on fun adventures to the beach in the beautiful gold coast of australia where they live. kaya touched so many peoples lives all over the world with her big smile! i am all the way on the other side of the globe in Massachusetts writing this!

rest in peace kaya. you will be missed.....all of these pics are from kaya's blogs, courtesy of her mom-charlotte reeves photography. please check out her blog for more pics and adventures of great danes in australia:
http://www.greatdanesaustralia.net/
there's also a link over on the right in my blogroll.

Ras na hEireann USA

last sunday we ran our annual st. pattys day 5k road race with our good friends catie & steve. the race is called the Ras na hEireann USA, or race of ireland and USA. this is our 3rd year running the race and it's always alot of fun! it takes place in davis square in sommerville, ma. after completing the race runners are welcomed in several different local pubs for free pints of harpoon ipa for 1 hr. our perennial favorite is olde magouns saloon up in ball square.

it's about a 10 min walk from the finish and we always manage to get there in time to get in and grab a few cups of beer before the crowd. this year almost 5000 people signed up for the race so we had to put our game faces on and run hard and fast so we could enjoy our prize! DH (that's darling hubby for you non-bloggers) gave me a little pep talk in the car and i ran a personal best of 30 mins (right on the nose)!! i think he inspired himself too as he also ran a Ras PB of 25:47! catie & steve kicked butt too running somewhere in the 26 min range! to make things even better the weather was sunny and in the 50's! a big change from the snow we had at the start of the race 2 yrs ago!

while we were out running and boozing foster spent the day playing with timber and zeke at ken & beth's place! he must have had a super fun day b/c he crashed when we got home and slept all night! he was diagnosed with kennel cough a few days later and so far i haven't heard that timber or zeke are sick so hopefully ken & beth will still hang out with us and our sickly puppy again sometime! thanks again guys for watching the brown bear!!

foster is doing just fine these days. he's hardly coughing at all anymore now and his eyes seem to be gook-free. he's on the road to recovery!

i will be celebrating the bridal shower and bachelorette of my BF brooke this weekend so hopefully foster & daddy will be up to their own adventures!

have a great weekend everybody!

mommy time

foster and i spent some quality time together one night last week, just hangin' out. i tried snapping a few pics of us together. you may remember i've tried doing this before. foster is quite a bit bigger this time! i don't care how crazy i look-i love this puppy!!you're biting your own leg! that's not a toy puppy!hey, what is that thing? as you can see we always have a good time hangin' out!

sick....again

my poor little brown bear cub is sick again! daddy brought him to the vet today to get a check-up on his pink eye, which is all better (yay!). we noticed he's been kind of coughing for the past few days....come to find out today at the vet that he has kennel cough!! my poor sweet boy!! it just breaks my heart every time a little cough comes out! i can barely stand it!!!
he started taking antibiotics tonight and should be all better in a week or so but due to it's highly contagious nature he can't hang out with any of his doggie friends for 2 weeks! puppy!!
:((

old duck, new duck

another one of foster's toys is nearing the end of it's days. foster's beloved mallard is loosing his webbed feet! so far one is missing and the other is on it's way. we can't find mallard's foot in the house. not sure if foster ingested it. lucky for this puppy auntie laura came to visit last weekend and brought a new duck! this one is much bigger and has a squeaker! foster has enjoyed playing with it already! thanks auntie laura!!

**UPDATE** as of last night mallard has lost both his feet!! so now we have an earless rabbit and a footless duck in our house! the horror, the horror!!

have a good weekend everyone!

weekend visitors!

some of my old friends from uconn came to visit over the weekend with their hubbies. we had a great time catching up and looking at old pics. we all survived majoring in genetics and despite all hailing from different states in the northeast we all live in MA now! not only were there several humans visiting foster but the E's brought their dog elvis with them too! elvis is a little terrier mix who is referred to as "king pup" by his owners. he seemed a bit indifferent about foster but also would occasionally bark and snap at him. despite being quite a bit bigger foster seemed a bit scared! LE snapped a few cute pics of them together. in honor of our visitors kate & steve i updated our built-in china cabinet. actually i was inspired by their blog pics of theirs and tried to do something similar. i used to just have glasses in there. instead i decided to showcase some of our C&B place settings that we love. what do you think? thanks for fun visit ladies!

61lb puppy!!

foster took a trip to the vet yesterday. he has puppy pink eye. :(( he got weighed while he was there and he's a whopping 61lbs!! can you believe it!?

the little guy also got a cut on one of the pads of his feet on monday. :(( he's having a bad week i guess. don't worry tho, he's doing fine!

foster's work buddies

as you know foster goes with daddy to work everyday. he spends some time sleepin' in daddy's truck but he also gets to run around and play with a couple of other doggies! foster's closest friend is willey, which is short for wilma, a female blue tick hound.
dave refers to willey as foster's girlfriend b/c he LOVES running around with her everyday. apparently willey is quite fast and foster cannot always catch her. here's a few recent pics of fos and willey playin' in the WMA at dave's work.

to add to the fun a new addition just arrived to the doggie work crew! this is finn, a 12 week old german shorthaired pointer.

he has quickly learned he is the little guy and will get beat up on a bit until he grows some more.

the 3 of them seem to have quite alot of fun together everyday!

it sure beats sitting in a crate all day! have a good weekend!

foster's first winter hiking adventure!

we took foster up to NH on saturday to hike mt. chocorua. it was a beautiful winter day up in the mountains-sunny and clear. our friends catie & steve came along too. i ended up with some huge blisters on my heels which was very uncool but it was nice to get out and snowshoe in the whites. here's a few of mine and catie's pics.
foster approaching the summit steve & fos me, dave & steve me & puppy near the summit with a snowy mt. washington way off in the distance heading down we finished up the day with a little get together at our place with catie & steve and ethan & amanda and their doggie angie! here she is enjoying a bone on foster's bed i don't mind sharing my bedfoster and i both were totally exhausted after such a fun and exciting day!

ball-in-a-ball

you may remember back in october auntie k gave us this super fun toy! well, foster absolutely LOVES this thing! it has become part of his morning routine to fetch his ball-in-a-ball a few times in the yard. i'll shake it and tell him to heel. he gets so excited to retrieve he starts barking at me to throw it! i snapped a few pics of this exchange one morning last week...there's usually some growling and barking at the ball while wrestling with it on the ice sheet in our backyard too! foster does this almost every day and he never seems to grow tired of it! thanks auntie k for the never-ending fun!!