New Coat

When we were visiting my grandparents for Thanksgiving I mentioned

to my grandma that Mulan needed a coat. This was something she had not

needed in Texas being that is rarely rained and was not nearly as cold as Ohio.

A couple of days later we headed out to the store and bought her a brand new dog

coat. It is really nice and good quality. It is like a mini horse coat. Here is a picture of her

in it. . .

P.S. Hello Rose and Tjodie and Eddie:) Thanks for reading my blog. I miss you all! Mulan says "Hi" and says that she misses playing with Taco and Chico (If you can call it that:)

Extreme Makeover Home Edition!

Guess what? In Whitehall one of the nearby towns, they had Extreme Makeover Home Edition building a house for a family of nine. The reason they were redoing the house for them was that the father had been one of the firefighters at the Trade Towers on Sept 11th.

We went to visit the site on Tuesday and we got to meet two of the designers! First Tanya came up and we got to meet her and then Ed came up and we talked to him for a while. We also saw Tye (though only from a distance). It was a very unique experience:)

Do you remember when I said I was teaching Mulan how to turn? I was just telling my mom the other day that I couldn't really think of a place that we would be able to actually use the command.

But when we got our picture taking with Ed, Mulan had gotten turned around and was backwards and I had really wanted her face to be in the picture so I quicky commanded her to "turn" and she turned right around and plopped down! I was so happy that one of her commands actually paid off:) If you notice in the picture she is facing a little to the side that is a result of her turning at the last minute.

Today we went back to visit and see how the house had turned out. It was beautiful! Unluckily we were unable to stay and see the family arrive because it started sleeting! It was freezing! Welcome to Ohio. . . .

P.S. Go OSU!!!!!!!

The first picture is the day that they demoed the house and the second pic is of the house all finished. The last two pictures are of Cara, Mulan, and I with Ed and Tanya. The last pic is of Tye standing on top of one of the trucks they used for hauling the junk away. He is like a big kid! He crawled around all the wreckage when they were demoing the house and he loved it.

At Least Mulan Liked It:)

Yesterday I stayed home by myself all day while my family went
to church because I wasn't feeling well. It is probably just working to
hard and the cold weather. Sometimes I just feel stretched thin. Like
Bilbo says on "Lord of the Rings" he says, "like butter spread over too much bread."
Luckily I have Mulan and my family around me to keep me going:)
We took Mulan over to a new doggy park. She loved it! It was a huge fenced in area with
toys, water bowls, and even a small pond for the dogs to explore. We spent over 45 minutes
there just letting her run around. I think she liked just being a dog for once.

Turn-in

Mulan now has a official turn-in date. It will be in March. We were leaning toward
that but we haven't been sure until yesterday. When we were talking to Sarah at
the kennel we were saying we would like to know if it was going to be in Feburary or
March and she said that all her paperwork says March. So we will continue to
raise her for another five months or so. It seems long now but I know it will fly by.
We don't yet know how much we are going to miss her:(

New Commands

CCI has sent out a e-mail saying that there are two new commands we need to teach the dogs. We are working with Mulan on "turn" right now. This will help in grocery stores. I didn't realize how big she had gotten until I tried to move her out of the grocery store aisle. So this will be a nifty little command. I put her into the bath tub and used a piece of food to guide her into a turn. I said turn as she did it. We have been working on it for almost a week and she is getting pretty good at it. I wanted to show you how much she has grown compared to her old puppy pictures. . . .

First Snow!

My sister and I think that it is a minor miracle for it to be snowing
this early but it did! It flurried for over a hour. I could not concentrate
on my classes and I spent most of the time watching snow outside. It didn't
build up and finally it stopped all together but it was neat anyways.
I took Mulan out in it and she spent the whole time trying to figure
out how to catch it in her mouth. I can't wait until she sees real snow!

100th Pumpkin Festival

We picked Mulan up from the puppy raisers house Monday. She had a great time
playing with the ladies two dogs. Unfortunately I think she got into something
while she was there that she was not suppose to have and she has had a upset
stomach for a day or so. Don't worry if it goes any longer then three days I will take
her to a vet:) We went to the 100th Pumpkin Festival in Circleville yesterday.
We had the most delicious hot pumpkin donuts. They were so good. The whole festival was
based mainly around food. We tried pumpkin fudge, pumpkin cornbread, pumpkin chili, pumpkin waffles, pumpkin donuts, and pumpkin pizza(which happened to be delicious). We all enjoyed it and it was a welcome break from all the traveling.

left picture: A huge stack of pumpkins at the pumpkin festival

right picture: The "world's biggest pumpkin pie."

Another Trip

We are leaving again. This time we are going to Maryland to stay up in the
mountains for a week. It is suppose to be really pretty up there this time
of year. I hate leaving Mulan but she is going to stay with a puppy raiser
that is raising a young puppy at the m0ment. Mulan is not the smallest any
more:( I will update when I get back and if I have access to a computer hopefully
before that.

Apple Picking

We went apple picking for the first time! It was very pleasant.
The air feels like fall here. I have not felt fall air like this before. The
trees were dripping with apples and we all filled our bags to the brim in
ten minutes. They were Liberty apples which are very tart and sweet.
Mulan loved it! She loved just holding the apple in her mouth because it
felt like she owned it and it was hers alone. We also attended a Puppy Class
at the Polaris mall Wednesday night. We practiced walking up and down stairs
and various socialization skills. Mulan did wonderful(I am such a doggy mom).
One of her only problems was staying by my side towards the end of the stairs because she would get excited and want to get off really fast. It was a good refresher course for both of us.
Here are a few pictures. . . .

LPCCI Booth

Mulan and I got to help work the CCI booth Thursday at the Lions
convention. Mulan loved all the attention and behaved very
well. It was a very neat experience. I answered a lot of questions
about CCI and my personal stories of life as a puppy raiser.
One lady I talked to at the booth was getting her ninth puppy
the following week! Nine puppies is a lot. Mulan is now on four
cups of food a day. This is to fill her out a little bit. And the next bag
of food we buy will be adult food(we have been feeding her puppy food).
Here is a picture of us at the CCI booth.

September 11

I can't believe tommorrow it will have been five years since September 11. I remember
that morning very clearly. I feel for everyone who lost someone.
Today we took Mulan to a little outdoor tomato festival. It only had three tents!
I tried my first fried green tomatos and tomato fudge (don't try either of them).
My mom and I were discussing how Mulan has changed while we were gone. There
is a definant difference. Before she was unable to just lay and relax , but now she will lay
around for up to two hours doing nothing. It is kind of enjoyable. It makes life much easier
for all of us.

Eleven Months

Wow! Mulan is officially eleven months old. Where did time go?
It seems like we just got her. We were just told that her
official turn in date will probably be somewhere in May. That means
that we are about half way there:(
On a different note I heard about Steve Irwin. That is so sad and he was only
44! Well I have to go. . .

Another Puppy Class

When we picked up Mulan she was so excited! That made me feel pretty good.
She is sooo big she looks like a adult. I will post pictures as soon as I can but my camera
is full from vacation right now so I have to wait until I empty it.
We took her to one of the monthly puppy classes at the CCI center last night. It was really
enjoyable we did relays with our dogs where we had to carry a spoonful of dogfood while
handling our dogs in the correct manner. Whichever team filled up the dog bowl at the other
end of the room first would win. There was also a added distraction of dog food on the ground.
So it was a good way to reconnect for both Mulan and I.

Home

Finally! I am really glad to be home. We have been busily collecting our pets
one by one. First was our hamsters and fish and Monday we will be picking
up Mulan. I wonder what she looks like now? I am kind of nervous it is like picking
her up for the first time all over again. Thanks to everyone who has been so patient
while I have been out wandering around:)

NYC!

We are at our grandparents house for a few days so I have access to a computer.
We just returned from visiting New York it was fabulous! We had been before
but we have done the usual tourists things and visited Ellis Island and The Statue of Liberty.
This time we got to really know the city. We got to picnic in Central Park, visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, walk the Brooklyn Bridge, see the play "Stomp", visit Little Italy, eat every type of food imaginable(one of my favorites:), see the "Today" show live with Anne Curry, go to Ground Zero, and the list goes on. I really enjoyed it. I think my two favorites were visiting Chinatown and running to a little diner as the rain poured down! I am blessed with parents who are willing to try anything and be adventerous.

Camp and Vacation

Today we are dropping off Mulan at the CCI center for four weeks
while we go to a church camp and then on vacation. So starting at the beginning
of September start checking back for the further adventures of Mulan:)

Nine Months!

Mulan is now well over nine months old so here is her nine month picture
and a picture of her with her new "baby."
She loves this little doggy that she picked out herself at a garage sale. The lady
was so impressed that she let Mulan have her for free.

Michigan

We got to spend a few days in Battle Creek, Michigan last weekend.
Mulan stayed at the CCI kennel so you don't have to worry:)
It is a really nice little town they have a very nice zoo and even the Kellogs
Cereal Factory.
Mulan came back bathed and with her nail clipped! I was impressed.
Can you believe she is over nine months now. I don't think she is going
to be huge but she is not tiny either.
I just finished reading a article about a new kennel that specializes in "teacup" dogs.
Meaning dogs that are not over five lbs. In my opinion those dogs are more like "arm candy"
then a real pet. Why don't you just by a hamster?

Potluck Pics

I finally have got around to downloading the pics. So here they are, Mulan is the one
in the brown collar. It is was very hard to get a good picture with the dogs running
around like crazy. She had a blast and was very well behaved considering she
hasn't seen any other dogs in a while. The center is only about forty minutes away
so they said they would take Mulan while we go to Michigan this weekend.

North Central Pot Luck

We have been invited to attend a class and pot luck with other puppy raisers
at the North Central Center tonight. I am looking forward to meeting other
puppy raisers in our area. I hope Mulan behaves herself for me. She usually is
very good but she gets very excited around other dogs. Which is understandable.
I will try to get some good pictures and post them tommorrow.