sleeping arrangements

dave and i decided that puppy has shown he can be trusted....when he's asleep. :)
pretty much every night of the week dave falls asleep on the couch downstairs and puppy on his bed. he would put foster in his crate around 1-2am only for me to get him out again at 6am. so we thought why not just let him sleep in our room for those 4-5 hrs?
we started last week and so far so good! at first he would pop up when the alarm went off and start licking one of our faces but he has quickly learned we like to hit the snooze button a few times and he now waits patiently on his bed for 1-2 snoozes before coming to retrieve us. such a good boy!
after a few nights of dragging foster's dog bed from the living room up to our bedroom at 2am dave agreed that a second doggie bed was in order. yippee! i get to go shopping! off to target i went and i came back with several fun items but lets just stick to the bed for now. i was instructed not to get one that's too big and for some reason dave wanted a round one. so i came back with this....nice but clearly too small so back to target i went to grab the one i would have bought first if DH hadn't had those bright ideas. much better!! now if i could just get him to stop snoring so loudly!

bye-bye canoe

my BIL and nephew stopped by last sunday for a quick visit. their purpose: staking claim to the marz canoe. now that we have 2 boats, a canoe and a kayak i decided something had to go. and although we love the canoe and have had many a fun paddle in it, it was time to pass it on to another generation of outdoor lovers. and since my 3 nephews live near a marsh, the ocean and all sorts of other fun bodies of water they were ECSTATIC to inherit the ol' girl.
while dave and cory got the boat rigged up to the minivan C and i played a little fetch with puppy, who is always happy to comply. :)hope the canoe gets lots of love in it's new home! have fun guys!

harry potter

sorry i've been away this week. i started reading the harry potter series this summer and i'm reading the 7th and final book right now so my evenings have been engrossed by that. i highly recommend the books. they have been really enjoyable and fast reads. i've been watching the movies too as i finish the books. as is usually the case, the movies aren't quite as good as the books but they are cute. good for kids.

anyhoo, i have a few pics and stories about the bestest chocolate lab ever that i will hopefully write tonight. stay tuned for some puppy fun!

fetching again!

foster has had kind of a boring late summer. first he got neutered. just as he finished healing from his surgery he ran into a moving car. maybe that doesn't sound boring to you but both of these events in succession have resulted in a puppy that hasn't done hardly any fetching, running, swimming or playing with other dogs.
the limping is just about completely gone so we've extended our walks and begun training again with daddy. it's not enough tho. when you look at this dog you can see he is dying to do some real running around! even tho it's strictly against daddy's training policy i've been letting foster play with one of his favorite toys once in a while. only a few tosses now and then. he's overjoyed to have ball-in-a-ball back out of retirement! yay!
have a good weekend y'all!

a fun visit with auntie laura & uncle tri

we had wedding #5 last weekend and my SIL laura and soon-to-be BIL tri volunteered to watch puppy. foster had quite a lot of fun sniffing out his surroundings and trying as hard as possible to win over (a maybe dog-person) tri.

lucky for puppies foster the blog laura snapped some pics and sent them along to me!

thanks for being such great puppy-sitters laura & tri!

a sign of fall

i can't deny it much longer....fall is just about here. football season has started, the red sox are limping into the post-season, i'm closing the windows at night, the quilt is back on the bed and it's review time at work.
so instead of fighting it, i'm embracing it. after all i love autumn in new england! so to celebrate i planted some mums yesterday. i love these plants and DH finally gave the OK this year to get some. for some reason he protested last yr...maybe b/c they're annuals and don't last too long.
it was a beautiful day and i took the afternoon off so i had to do something that kept me outdoors. there's a nice spot at the end of the driveway that used to have japanese yews, which dave removed this spring. since then weeds have taken over the spot. i pulled and dug until they were all gone then ran out to my favorite local farm stand and picked out 4 beautiful plants. 4 quick holes later and waahlaa! aren't they beautiful? puppy seems to like them too. he was a very good model for these pics. :) so break out your sweaters and put away your sunscreen-fall is here!

happy birthday blog!

puppies foster the blog turned 1 on saturday! i can't believe it's already been one year!
puppy is doing well. still limping a little but his leg is healing nicely. he had a very fun visit with auntie laura & uncle tri over the weekend! i'll have more on that later this week!

the good & the bad

i'm taking the good and the bad in my first year of gardening. all my fellow new englanders will remember the 4-6 weeks straight of rain we had in june and early july. well all that rain resulted in a serious plague of late blight in many, many gardens up here this year. i've already heard quite a few sad stories from friends of mine who have gardened for years having to throw away all their tomato crop b/c of blight. i thought i had escaped the plague of late blight b/c i did not see any of the tell tale signs in my tomato leaves and stems. then all of a sudden yesterday i discovered 8 tomatoes on one roma plant that looked like this: if you've never seen late blight this is exactly what the fungus looks like once it's infected tomatoes. i now only have 3 tomatoes left on this one plant. my other roma is toast too but not from blight. so i'm left with my 3 heirloom varieties which i'm happy to say still appear to be happy and blight free (knocking on wood...).
i've also managed to acquire my first cuke(!) and a whole slew of beans, pineapple tomatillos and other tomatoes (pre-blight) over the last few weeks. so it's been a good first season i think.
it's friday and i won't leave you without a puppy pic! fern came over to visit last weekend with sarah & josh and she and foster had quite a fun visit playing & snuggling. somehow i only managed to get one semi-good pic...we're off to cohasset, ma this weekend for the wedding of ethan & amanda! wedding #5 for the year! have a nice weekend everyone!

dave's new toy

well after months and months of nagging....oops i mean searching.......dave has found us a boat! we got it last week and he has been feverishly working to clean, wax and register it. i think he is just about finished but of course it's going to rain this weekend. so alas no trip out quite yet. maybe next weekend when tracy & jeff are visiting.
here's a few more pics of the new addition to our family.....

we are still in the process of figuring out a name. any suggestions??

leg update

sorry we've been MIA! foster is doing well. he got his bandages off on friday and the vet said everything was healing as it should. so we were asked to leave the cuts open to air dry and scab over. and minus one minor licking incident on sunday it's looking good. i'm not gonna put pics up here since it's not really all that pleasant to see so you'll just have to take my word for it.
we're heading back to the vet this evening for another check up so hopefully that goes well too!
more to come this week on daddy's new toy!! stay tuned.......

who cares about flowers and cabinets? we want more puppy!!

ok, ok sorry puppy lovers! i will immediately supply you with more foster right now!
i present you with: foster's favorite things
foster's new favorite thing to do outside is roll around in the grass on his back. we're not sure if he's got an itch or maybe he's trying to dry off but he appears to simply LOVE doing it.another one of foster's favorite things to do is practice his training outside with daddy. such a good boy!but of course, more than anything else foster loves getting loves. especially from his daddy.happy labor day weekend y'all! we'll be back with more adventures of foster and the s family next week!

we're having a bad week.....

puppy decided to attack a moving car yesterday. luckily he was in a parking lot and the car was moving very slowly. one of his hind legs got pinned under a tire. no broken bones thank god but he's pretty banged up.

he's taking pain meds and he's still able to hobble around on 3 legs. in fact, he saw a squirrel this morning and went bounding down the stairs out back for it on 3 legs! so he's still the same old foster. :)

in other foster medical news, his reaction to the stitches is getting much better very quickly. much less swollen & irritated.

what a week! we go back to the vet tomorrow for a check up on everything.

fun new flowers

since we've only had our house for a little over a year i'm still discovering all of the fun new flowers that are popping up this summer!
we have 4 or 5 yellow rose plants, which we almost lost to a major infestation of aphids this spring but thanks to our local garden store's organic rose spray those suckers are gone and the plants are thriving!we have TONS of black-eyed susans, purple cone flowers & orange day lilies. i don't have any pics at the moment so you'll just have to take my word for it.
and just the other day i discovered these new flowering plants....close-up of aboveanother newbie i have no idea what they are but they're very pretty as well! anyone out there know the names of these two?

another trip to the vet

my poor sweet boy.......foster had to make a quick trip to the vet yesterday.
dave and i noticed yesterday morning that foster had a large swollen and bloody area around where his stitches had been for his neutering 6 weeks ago. vet's diagnosis: allergic reaction to the stitches which dissolved in that spot. rare but happens. everything is still stitched up and secure but now he's having a bit of an immune reaction to perhaps whatever coats the stitches.
meanwhile he's taking amoxicilin and getting a warm compress on the spot 2X a day. he will head back to the vet in one week. :((
seriously, is there anything this dog doesn't get?! he's worse than my mother!!

last weekend's checklist

'member how ambitious i was last friday to get some stuff done around the house during the tropical rainstorm? well i'm happy to report i got 1 major thing done!
i managed to: measure the cabinet space under the kitchen sink, find the correct shelving online at the container store, use my g.c. to order them and then pick them up at the store and install!!
i put in a 2 shelf basket thing that has moveable drawers to reorganize all our cleaning products and allow easy access. thank you BH&G again for another easy and practical idea!
p.s.-i also made a lasagna & read harry potter so really i got 3 out of 5 things done off my list!

blankets

the evenings have been cooling down quite a bit around here and a couple of blankets have made their way out of hiding for another year.
even puppy likes to use them! although he doesn't like it when they cover up daddy and he can't find his face to lick!
daddy where are you? i know his face is around here somewhere..... jackpot! i don't know about puppy but i'm certainly not ready for blanket weather!
c'mon summer....keep going for another few weeks please!!