Monster (AKA Crelo)

Monster. That is his nickname. He is our kitty, or cat, or more truly our Monster. I miss Monster. He is a crazy little dude, but I miss him none the less. Just look at how cute and innocent he looks (key word looks):



This is more like it:


Glowing crazy looking eyes, looking ready for action, that is him!!! He likes to chase and bite. I know you all think I'm nuts for missing that, but there was never a dull moment with both him and Tobey around!! I wonder what it will be like when they see each other again. I bet they miss sitting in the window together, just look at the view:



And what a view it is!!! Silly animals!!!

Lions and Tigers and Bears...Oh my!!!!

First I have to let you all know that today is Tobey's 7th birthday, so happy birthday doggie!!! This is pretty much how he spent his birthday:
Sleepy dog!!!
He spent the day with our friend Dre, who was nice enough to come and doggie-sit so we could go to the Out of Africa park today. Talk about up close and personal. You get to ride in "bush buses" through the park with some of the animals in free range. We fed a giraffe from the bus, and here he is licking Scooter's hand:


Then we have zebras:



and bears:


And a tiger:


This is the "tiger splash" show that we watched. This white tiger's name is Chalet. The lions and tigers are not trained. There were a few moments when the other handlers had to come running to help.

And this lioness is Kumba. Both Kumba and Chalet are 22 months old. They are young enough to play, but also know how to hunt, so the handlers have to be careful. The male lions are all at least 5 years old, so they do not get human interaction anymore because they are too territorial and predatory.

The toys are to play with the animals ans also to distract them in case they forget that the people in there are "friends", not meals.

Then there is Boom Boom, the 38 year old Rhino. He did not move all day, he just slept, and he snores rather loudly.


Then it was off to the birds. One of them talked a little, but they mostly made a lot of noise.


I have never seen animals so close. There were other animals and more lions and tigers, but I can not put them all on here. It was a very good day. This park is amazing and I would highly recommend going there if you ever find yourself in AZ. It was a beautiful day, about 80 degrees. I brought a sunburn home with me today, of course! But otherwise it was wonderful.

Road trip

So, yesterday we went on a road trip. We went to the Hoover Dam. It is huge and an awesome sight to see.




This is the Arizona side. About half way over it you enter Nevada, so then we decided to go to Las Vegas. Yep, we went to Vegas. It was really kind of disappointing, but we did see some pretty neat stuff. This was the highlight of it for Scooter:



Otherwise we did not get to see a lot because we had Tobey with and you can not carry a dog in Vegas at all, so we just drove through. That was fine though because it wasn't all that we had hoped for. Then we decided what the heck and we went to Laughlin.



This is the Tropicana. We tried to stay at a hotel in Laughlin, and we did get a room, but it was not at all clean and smelled like pee, so we got our money back and left. We got home at about 3:30 this morning. It was a lot of fun and now we can say that we have been to Vegas and Laughlin. We even left with $10 more than we went with. Hopefully we can go back before we come home!!

We also went through a Joshua tree forest. Yep, that's right little brother, there are Joshua trees and boy are they weird.


I am definitely going back to this forest to get more pictures before we come home.

I'm back....

Sorry it has been so long, but someone thought it was fun to hack my blog. I'm back now, so we shall see how it goes now. Things have not changed much since last I blogged, Tobey is doing much better, and we have moved to our new location.



As you can see we have a fenced in yard, and we bought an enclosed trailer. Our new yard is much bigger, and we do not have to pay extra to have the trailer and it fits inside the fence. Tobey enjoys the fenced in yard too, because during the day he can be outside without a chain. Here he is sunbathing:

It's a dog's life!!!

In other news, Scooter has passed with a 99%!! He has now started the Harley only part of class. This means that we are down to 8 months left!

Poor Doggie

We took Tobey to the Vet yesterday because his back feet have been swollen and he has a hard time walking and he can't jump. I have to say that the Vet here was nothing at all like my Vet at home. The Vet at home is caring and gentle and explains what is going on and how to treat the problem. The Vet here is supposedly a world renowned Vet and is supposed to be so good, but I was not impressed. He did not give any explanation as to what is going on, and prescribed a bunch of medication without any real instructions. I called my Vet at home today, adn he had some explanations and gave me instructions as to how to administer treatment. He believes, as do I, that Tobey has an allergy, but the medication that this Vet gave me is not for allergies. I guess I will be getting my money back and finding a new Vet here. My poor little doggie, he is just not himself.

I have an aunt and uncle here in AZ, so we are making plans to get together on Sunday. I am excited. We moved last Saturday, so there are a lot of things going on here. I will get some pictures of the new place as soon as I can.

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We witnessed the worst thing we have ever seen today. Scooter picked me up from work tonight and on the way home we saw an explosion right in front of us on the other side of the road. There was a van stopped engulfed in flames and a jeep careening out of control, also on fire. We could not see if there were more vehicles involved, but the thought kept going through my mind that if I had chosen to work late when asked today that could have been Scooter. It was the most horrifying thing I have ever seen. The explosion was huge. I called 911 and just as I hit send there was an officer coming up to the scene. Amazing timing for the officer to be driving up at that time. I told the dispatcher that there was an officer on scene. I just can not get that image out of my head. Scooter is shaken up too, I think it take a while to get over. It just keeps playing over and over in my mind. My heart goes out to the families of those people.

Anyway, we still do not have water. We thought it was fixed, but when Scooter got home from school yesterday he came home to another flood. Luckily someone came by and shut the water off while we were gone. The lights in here seem to be going out systematically, so we do not have much light right now. We are going to do as much home "fixing" as possible this weekend after I get off work. Then my glasses broke, and, well, you know, it's me, so......it never ends. Oh well, it could be a lot worse! I am just thankful for the good things in life. I can't tell you how much I miss being home.

Enough

Ok, enough is enough. Last night we were awakened by Tobey barking hysterically. At first I was annoyed, but then he had that tone-the one that says "somebody is here." He was right. It was 12:42 am, and someone was knocking. I jumped up to see what was going on, and I no more than reached the bathroom floor when i was rudely greeted by cold water on the floor. Yes, our water pipes burst once again. Someone was walking by when they heard the water rushing out of our camper. I am so grateful that they decided to stop and knock, or we would have slept until 5:30 without ever knowing. The bathroom, kitchen and living areas were completely soaked. The carpet may be ruined at this point. We will be spending our weekend working on this once again. Yay.
On a better note, a friend is on her way down here right now, and I can't wait to see her. She will be 3 hours away, but after work Saturday we are going to make the drive to visit. At least I have something to look forward to.