Thanksgiving

We had a full weekend of activities over our long weekend in St. Louis.  First up, we had Thanksgiving dinner with a good portion of my mom's family at my aunt's house.  Nadin got to meet a lot of people and entertain them with information about her home and her thoughts about life in the U.S.  And of course her first official Thanksgiving dinner.

And here she is learning about the difference between American currency and monopoly money.

Friday we went to the local AKC agility trial to visit some friends, see Trip, and watch some dogs.  Then off for a little Black Friday shopping.  Saturday we headed to my high school for the Joe Haug Give Thanks 5K.  I won my age group, got to visit with Mr. Haug and see a few old friends.  Nadin was frozen but bettered her time by a few minutes. Then we spent an afternoon at the Science Center-crossing one STL landmark off our list!

Saturday evening we had a family dinner and sunday we had a family lunch.  Then a long drive home but I think it was a success!

And Nadin made a new friend.

Sneak Peek

We have a new foster dog! He's spending the holiday with Aunt Cheri while we are out of town.  But when we get home he will be officially joining us.  He will be Nadin's project to take care of and help train.  She also got to name him.  So everyone, meet....Muse!

More info to come!

Double Digits

This month nine years ago I adopted a little dog from Nebraska Border Collie Rescue. In the time since then she has earned 49 titles over three different sports and four different venues. She has earned two championships and been to four national events. She has hiked in the forest, the mountains, and the snow, run on the beach and swam in the ocean. She has traveled as far as South Dakota, California, Texas, and South Carolina. She has been my running buddy, racing partner, office assistant, snuggle buddy and best friend. Happy 10th birthday Legend! Wishing you many, many, more!

 ❤
❤❤

Critter cuteness

Sundae, enjoying a blanket that was a gift from a friend for ME, but I am letting her share. 

 One of the girls at work spent the better part of an afternoon braiding and putting bows in Lyric's tail, which actually looks pretty cute.

Crushin' it

Legend and I decided to dabble in UKC nosework this weekend.  It's not so much that we needed yet another thing to get involved in, but we both love competing and this was local so we decided to go for it.  Today they had two container trials.

 Legend crushed it as usual.  In round one she hit it in 3.58 seconds earning her a first place and high in trial!  In round two she again took first place with a time of 8.4 seconds.  So yeah, that's a whole day invested for less than 12 seconds of work.  But that's kind of the way it goes for the winners.  Anyway, those two legs gave her her UKC Novice Container title.  We had a good time and will probably attend more of the local UKC trials.  But first she is entered in the NW2 trial in Columbia next month!

My super sniffer!

NW1-a pictorial

Finally got my CD of our NW1 trial in the mail.  No pics of the interior search area, but got everything else.

First up was exteriors.

 It was on the chair.

 Celebrating success on search number one!

 Heading out of the search area.

 Interior was next, but no pics there.  It was also on a chair. Then on to containers.  Just checking out the boxes here before moving along to the odor box.

From containers we went directly to vehicles.

 She searched the van first.

But, didn't find anything.

 So on the the trailer.

 When you hear the judge say "yes" for the fourth time in the day!

 Happy NW1 dance!

Team Legend!

Fall

Took this in the yard as I was leaving for work the other day.  Then played with it a little.

Kids at work

Tuesday, Ozark was off school.  So Nadin joined Legend, Lyric and I for a day at the office.  She got to see some surgeries and of course snuggle a few cats as they recovered from anesthesia.

Tour of the Globe

Tonight we attended Missouri State University's Tour of the Globe event.  They offered informational displays, activities and of course foods from various countries around the world.  We tried a lot of things, a few were really good, some we didn't like and most were ok to try once.  But best of all it was a free event so we all stuffed ourselves and had a good time.

Writing in their native languages.

 Making German themed Christmas ornaments.

 "Tattoos" from Pakistan.

My favorite food was the chocolate balls from Brazil.  Shocker, I know.

Foods and presentations from around the world

In preparation for International Education week all the exchange students had to put together a presentation on their home country. Yesterday we all gathered as a group to hear them.  Many of them also dressed in native costume.

Some of the students will be presenting again at their school as part of the IEW.  I'm not sure Ozark has this planned so Nadin may luck out and not need to give hers again.  But, it was very good!

The presentations were all interesting, but it was a long afternoon and evening when you combined 15 kids talking along with some technical difficulties.

The other part of the day was foods from around the world.  Nadin prepared Kushari with some help from Jerry.

Each student spoke briefly about their food and then we all got to try them!

The lighting in the room was terrible, so these are as good as I could get the pictures.