My Baby turned 13 today it's so crazy, I can't believe how fast time goes by. We took him to The Gun Store to shoot a bunch of different guns, it was a total surprise. When we got there, he picked out his guns and targets, Zombies of course. Happy Birthday Buddy, we love you!

This is a short story of the furry love of my life Griffen. Grif was born Nov. 9th 2001 in Draper Utah in a litter of seven, he was the fattest of the bunch and had green eyes, I'm pretty sure that's why I picked him. We got him for Ty for Christmas and picked him up on Christmas Eve. To this day, he is still the best Christmas gift I have given Ty. Grif was a smarty pants, he was a house dog, I know Lab's usually live outside, but I couldn't do that to my Prince. I don't think he ever had an accident in the house. He went everywhere with us. When he was old enough to run on a leash, he would run with Ty and the kids in the baby jogger. When he got tired, he would climb in the basket in the bottom of the jogger until one day he was getting to big and it would drag, after that, he had to run the whole time. He would not leave the side of that jogger, Ty wouldn't ever have to put him on a leash. I don't think Grif thought he was a dog, he thought he was one of the kids and loved going to the park, he loved to climb up the latter and would go down the slide with them . Tyler's dad, John, told me I was babying him and he would never be a hunting dog, he said "dogs that live in the house are house dogs, not hunters". One cold duck hunting day, Tyler and my house dog went out for his big debut, I will say I was a little nervous but guess what, My Prince was Amazing and John congratulated me on a job well done. Griff loved Tyler's hunting clothes, every time he saw them he would get so excited..... We moved to Vegas in 2004 and he could tell I was nervous of our new surroundings and he became very protective of all of us. He would bark and growl on command. Grif and I had some weird connection, if you have ever read the book or seen the movie "The Golden Compass", the people had animals that could not be more than two feet away from their human, they were called their Demons. Grif was my little demon, he was by my side constantly, some times I would hide just to watch him panic. I think when we truly new we had such a bond is when we had a guest staying at our house and everything started out just fine, but as the night went on and the guest in our home started to piss me off more and more Griffen decided it was time for him to go! All the hair stood up on the back of his neck and he got down really low like he was stalking his prey with his teeth showing. I looked over at him thinking what the hell is he doing? Quickly realizing what was happening, I yelled Tyler and Ty grabbed him just in time. We took him in the bedroom, shut the door and had to laugh about it, I told Tyler I am being as nice as I can to this dude but no kidding in my head I was thinking I want this dude the F out of my house, and Grif was like ok Mom. He got this vibe from me a few times and he tried to take care of it the best way he knew how, silent and deadly...... I have so many amazing stories about our Grif, like in spring when I would plant flowers and he would wait for the empty container, grab them and run around like a crazy man then come back for the next one. Or when I watched him out the window as he ate all the neighbor's roses, I couldn't figure out what he was doing 'til it was to late. Then I had to lie to the guy and say I had no clue what happened to his roses, its not like he would have believed my dog ate them. We always would say that if i died before Grif, you're going to have to put him in the ground with me......... This last year he really started to show his age and slow down, he started to do things that he never did before but he would still love to run with Tyler. Eight weeks ago he got an infection in his feet and after three weeks on antibiotics and treatment he just couldn't kick it. He could barely walk and he couldn't follow me around anymore, he was so sad. After a few more tests we learned he had Cushing's Disease and was in the last stages. So on March 18th we had to put Griffen to sleep, this was the hardest thing Tyler and I have ever had to do, I had to be so brave because he trusted me when I walked him in there, I didn't want him to hate me..... We love you Grif and there will not be a day that I don't think about you my handsome prince......

First Day of school.....

I'm trying to get my photo's in order and came across these pics. This is right before Olive hid from us.....I wonder Why?????

Olive, our Desert Tortoise, woke up about a month ago, she is very slow and she stays out of her burrow to sleep in her favorite corner of the yard. Well a couple of weekends ago it got really cold and I thought she should sleep in her burrow, so I took her over and basically made her go down it. Two weeks, no sign of her and I'm freaking out cause I just got the weekly update from the Tortoise Group saying they don't like their burrow this time of year because it is colder down there.... SO great, for sure I've kill our little baby. So Tyler, Phenix & Gage duct taped three broom handles together and rigged a camera and light to it and stretched it down the burrow. Well this took three tries. The first one not long enough, the second one kept hitting the top and turning off the camera, the third made it and Phenix kept saying I can't see her. We have been looking every day in the yard and if you have seen our yard it is a Vegas yard, small and lots of rocks. But if you know how I plant flowers, shrubs and trees, you know I over plant. I don't want to see any dirt, or in our case, rocks. So to end the story, if you listen in the back ground of the video you can hear that I find her hiding in the yard in a spot we've all checked before in a huge pile of flowers........

Gage started training with a Soccer team this winter to condition for football, well he ending up being great at it and really liking it. I think thats what the coach had in mind. So its official I'm a Soccer Mom.

We took Phenix to get her ear pierced on the top of her ear for her birthday..... We didn't want some random teenager in the mall to do it, so we did it Vegas Style! He looks like a real professional doesn't he???? Richard wouldn't even get out of the car. We're always up for an adventure!