Saturday, December 13, 2008

Brothers


It's a Winter Wonderland...



Above: Must be safe at all times so the reflex vest had to come on before heading out in the city traffic.


Above: 2 brothers kicking it...


Above: More brotherly love... playing & sleeping together. :)










Bye Bye from the Brothers :)

An Angel

.We are currently baby-sitting James' half-brother Ior, and he's just like an angel. Seriously. I'm wondering though - what happened to our son??? Why has he never been like an angel? He's always been like a monster instead. :) But due to having a baby to care for, Jay has been forced to grow up. It was somewhat of a rough start though, Jay could not relax at all.. had to keep an eye on Ior the whole time. However, it's getting better and better. :)

We had WP training this morning and both Mr. L and Ior came along. I always try to get there early, to walk James before everybody else show up, and James and Ior had a blast running around chasing each other in the snow this morning. When the training started, Mr. L and Ior got in the car... James was hard at work, he actually got a chance to pull several heavy chains for a short while. The baby is strong and he needs more of a challenge. The 8,5 kg chain (approx. 19lbs) he pulls on our walks, is nothing for him anymore. However, I'm laying a little low until we have the results back from his X-rays.

Alih is in the country, he left Thursday evening so he has not met Ior yet. But he will, and considering how calm Ior is, I'm sure Alih will like him. As a matter of fact, we are considering driving to the country tomorrow, for the day only, so Alih can say hi to Ior... and so my grandparents get to meet Ior too. And my mom fell for Ior completely so she wants us to come up, even though she'll be back in the city by Monday.. hihi..

Friday, December 12, 2008

The Swedish Idol

The Swedish Idol has a winner - Kevin Borg. He's an amazing singer and performer... he's already a pro as far as I am concerned. He is, and has always been, in a whole different league than the other contestants.

Here he is, singing the song written specifically for the winner (in other words, the song written for him) - With every bit of me...



He did an excellent job singing Nelly's song "It's getting hot in here". Not a song one would expect him to do well with, but he has continued to prove he can do just about anything.

Kevin singing - It's getting hot in here.




Oh and one of my favorites - Leona Lewis. She was a guest on the Idol show last week. She's awesome.. She sang Forgive Me.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

X-rays

My young son got his hips and elbows X-rayed today. It went well, all we have to do now is await the results. Let's cross our fingers!

We are gonna pick up Jay's half brother tomorrow, we'll be baby-sitting him for awhile.... very exciting. ;)

Also, CONGRATULATIONS to kennel Stand Strong!! Puppies have arrived - 7 boys and 1 girl. Visit their website and you can see pics of the very adorable puppies. :)


Below is a more recent pic of Jay's half brother. Adorable or what????!!!!

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

A stolen car

The fact that my stolen passport resurfaced got me thinking of when we had one of our cars stolen. We lived in a pretty nice neighborhood which doesn’t mean a whole lot when living in a city like LA. Crime happens everywhere. Considering Mr. L worked as a cop we always had guns in our house. Our beloved Carlos was an excellent guard dog and would always let us know if something was happening outside the house. It was not too uncommon for him to get up in the middle of the night and bark if something was taking place outside our house or in the vicinity. Mr. L would then always grab one of his guns, tell me to stay put in the bedroom and keep my mouth shut, while he would get up and check things out.. sometimes he would even go outside and check around the house and the cars.

The night when the Mustang was stolen, Carlos got up and walked over to the front door. He never barked, only growled. Mr. L asked him “what’s up Carlos?”… but Carlos came straight back in to the bedroom and went back to bed. This night Mr. L was so damn tired that he never got up, and since Carlos had came straight back to bed he figured it must not have been anything.

Unknowing he got up the next morning like always to leave for work around 6 A.M. (the dogs and I would not get up until 6:30 A.M.). He left, but after only a few minutes someone was knocking on the door. I was like “now what?!”… I crawled my tired ass out of bed, put on my robe, and opened the door. It was Mr. L and he said “they stole the car”… I couldn’t believe it!!! So Hot Shot (that would be me) got out, walked down to the road, looked in both directions, turned around and said… “yup, they took the car”… hahaha.. Now, it sounds so damn funny, what was I thinking… that the car was hiding somewhere??!… lol… Oh man…

Only a few days later, I believe it was, the car was found. It seems the bastards only wanted it for a joyride… a sports car with a V8 engine.. I’m sure they had a blast. ;)

The weird thing is, Carlos' actions that night was different compared to how he used to be. But maybe things happened for a reason, ‘cause I have a hard time believing that the car thieves would have been unarmed. You never know how it would have ended had Mr. L gone out and confronted them with a gun… I’m sure they would have fired right back at his ass.

Maybe Carlos knew… maybe he sensed it was better to come back to bed ‘cause normally nothing would have stopped him - he was a true guard dog. It was some sort of higher power stepping in. And I believe the same thing happened when my passport was stolen in Brussels. It could have gone really bad…. but due to “the circumstances” we walked out of there with only a lost passport. Amen ;)

My passport

My Swedish passport was stolen in Brussels, Belgium in the summer of 2007 when on vacation there. Today, they called from the Swedish Embassy in Brussels letting me know they had received my passport. Better now than never..;) On a more serious note, it does feels good it came back so no one was flying around the world using it.. if at all possible, considering I reported it stolen both with the police in Belgium as well as with the police in Sweden right after it happened. Little did the bastards (=thieves) know though I have an American passport too... hahahahahaha...

Sunday, December 07, 2008

HUND 2008

The Stockholm Dog Show was held today. We decided in the last minute to leave 30 min earlier than originally planned (so we left at 6 A.M.)... which meant that at 4:50 A.M. my alarm clock went off. Wakey, wakey - Rise and Shine...:)

I never finished my school paper yesterday (what a surprise!!!) so I had to finish it tonight once we got home. I sent it in about 20 min ago, with about 40 min to spare before the deadline. hihi.. Typical!

Anyhow, so the show today was a disappointment for reasons I don't care to discuss on the blog. However, Gabbi and Vilma did great. They won their group and received an HP prize. CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

James received a red ribbon (quality 1) but he came 5th in the competition (the reserve spot). James was not completely focused in the ring, but that's not why I am unhappy ... but oh well. Shit happens!

I still had fun though, I met my "old" friend Jennie and her daughter at the show. They were there showing their Golden Retriever Bamse - and Bamse did great. Congratulations!!! I also met the owner of Jay's brother Lucas. Lucas should have been shown today but ended up getting sick in the last minute... too bad! We also got to meet Atlas (Jay's other bro) and his family .. and we obviously got to spend some quality time with Gabbi too. Oh and we met Jenny, Ewa and Dundra ... Dundra did great (1kv, 3kk with CK I think). Congrats!!!!
So we met lots of nice people!!!!!

Several people came up to James while we were waiting to enter the ring, they thought he was so pretty, they wanted to say hi to him and take pics of him. So even though the judge didn't particularly care for him, other people did. My Blue Thunder ... hihi...

Here's James critic (in Swedish):
Maskulin hanhund, huvud med bra proportioner. Något knapp underkäke, välformade ögon, välansatta men något stora öron. Stark hals, (tror det står) kort överlinje, bra ansatt svans, goda vinklar bak, knappa fram, goda rörelser från sidan.

In English:
Masculine male dog, head/skull with good proportions. Somewhat short under jaw, Well-shaped eyes, Well-placed but somewhat big ears, strong neck, (I think it says) short top line, Well-carried tail, Good angles back, narrow in the front, good movements from the side.

The judge was Patrik Cederlöf.


Above: Here's James and I.



Above: The first pic is of Atlas (Jay's bro) and the 2nd pic is of Jennie's dog Bamse. Sooo cute!


Above: Gabbi and Vilma at the "Winner's Podium" on pic one. :)