Duke's First Snow

It's so good to be reunited with my family again!!! I met them in Massachusetts for an extended family Christmas. Have to say, he didn't forget me! As soon as he saw me he ran over to me and peed all over the place (lucky we were outside because it was my Uncle's house). He didn't take his eyes off me the whole time we were visiting.

Anyhow, we stayed with my Uncle Ray who lives in the middle of NOWHERE, Massachusetts (Western Mass to be exact). He was a huge backyard which overlooks mountains, yadda yadda yadda. It's really cool because we can let Duke run around with no fear of cars or whatever.

There was about a foot of hard crunchy snow on the ground and though Duke is weary of ice, he LOVED the snow. Love love love. He couldn't get enough of it. He played outside until he started to shiver uncontrollably and STILL refused to come in. He decided his favorite game was chasing snowballs up a very very steep bank. I didn't get any photos of that game, but here are some of him just playing in the snow in general. It's a shame Pennsylvania doesn't get BIG snows! (okay, so I say that now as I sit inside with my k-cup coffee maker... I really am not a huge fan of snow, which is fine because I got my share, I grew up in Maine).

He would run as fast as he could until he'd get caught in the snow.

Steep hill! (It was actually steeper than this, but you get the idea)

Duke loved the snow, pink ball did not. Usually it is very squishy and squeaks, but the snow prevented it from doing that, it would eventually freeze in a shape and stay like that until we brought it inside.

Caught him with his tongue out!

Duke, the snow bunny?

Christmas Wishes

You know what Christmas means in my family?

Pie. Lots and lots of pie. Interesting day. I miss Fiance and Duke, but I spent the day with my parents and my extended family. My Grandmother cooked Christmas lunch/dinner which was amazing. So Christmas means pie in my family.

Mmmmmm Pie. Pecan, Squash, Lemon, Strawberry rhubarb, Chocolate, Boston Cream, Apple, oh yum yum yum (and yes, we really did have at least one of each on the table!)

Here is the Dukemister after his long hard day. He and the other dogs were left to play outside while fiancé and his family exchanged gifts. My gifts have been placed in a plastic bag and put up high so they don't get marked.

Duke's big gift! An L.L. Bean doggie bed! Cuteness and awesomeness. If you don't have one of these, you are totally missing out. It also totally has his name on it.

Aw, family. Clearly Duke is distracted.

Merry Christmas!

My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of the Santa Claus massacres that happened in Southern California last night. What a horrible, horrible, tragedy.

Twas the Night Before Christmas!

So, it's the night before Christmas and I'm still like 600 miles from my hunny and Duke. The countdown is... Thursday, Friday, DUKE & HUNNY day! So excited. They've forgotten ALL about me I swear!

More cell pictures to easy my worries.

"Is mommy EVER coming home?"

I think they are using the computer. Duke has alot of wrinkles. It means he's really super worried.

So worried all he does is sleep! He's spending so much time with Triton and Dinoco that he sleeps in all of his spare time.

Duke got a smart new collar while I was away. It looks pretty sharp from the pictures.

Last one isn't Duke at all, it's my hunny telling me he loves me and misses me! How did I get so lucky to have such a nice family? I hope Santa brings everyone something good whether they were naughty or nice!

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810022085/video/11129352

Here is a trailer for a movie that has a puggle in it! No sound here at work on the computer, so not 100% sure what the movie is about... just that if you watch the trailer there is a puggle!

After being away for 10+ days

Here is the view of another plane (like the one I was on) that took me away from my family for Christmas! I left my fiancé and the Dukemister in Philadelphia to fend for themselves.

Here's some picks that fiance sent me using his cell phone camera.

"Mommy, when are you coming home?"

"Well, if you're not going to be here I'll take your spot"

"It's so much work missing you!"

"Have you seen my mommy?" Apparently when he gets home from visiting Tritan and Dinoco he still runs around the apartment and looks for me in all the rooms. I feel horrible knowing he can't find me and he's still looking!

He's spent alot of time sleeping

And sleeping some more.

Sad puppy!!!

The countdown is 8 days until I see them again! Fiance says Duke is now climbing under the covers in the bed. Hmmm. He is just like a little person. For real real.

Away from my Duke! (and hunny)

So the very sad news is my desktop's (aka ZEUS) hard dive crashed at the beginning of the week. Like complete utter failure, completely gonezoed. It was a 500 gig drive, and it was about 430 gigs full. All my pictures were backed up, which is good, and some other stuff, but I lost a ton of documents and who knows what else. *sigh* Warranties are nice (brand spankin' new hard drive for free) and holiday sales are also nice because I've now purchased a terabyte and a half of backup space so this will never happen again, or when it does happen again I don't lost ANYTHING.

So that being the first tragedy, the second is I will not see my puppy again until after December 27th! Because it is the holidays, I have flown home to Maine until after Christmas. The problem with that is my fiancee and my Duke are left in Philadelphia without me! Duke will be spending alot of time with his Uncles, Triton and Dinoco. When he goes over to their house, he does much running and not much sleeping so he is very very tired when he finally makes it back to the apartment.

Originally they were going to come up and visit me while I'm in Maine, but work things happen and it is undetermined if they will be making the trip up here. That is A TON of days without my family!!!

So unless my fiancee sends me mucho photos of my puppy, the updates will be somewhat limited or dedicated to photos and memories of before Duke's blog (and before the hard drive crash, hrmph).

I picture my boys doing a lot of this together while I'm gone.

(if you could see my finacee's face, he'd be asleep too)