Life with the Rogers
My life in the tundra with 3 dogs and a manSnow follows us wherever we go
Josh and I visited family and friends in Atlanta last week and guess what. It snowed. Now, granted it was GA snow which means that it doesn’t last for long and only causes some mild concern over ice. Well, mild concern for the northern states but for the south this means that people stock up on milk and bread and head indoors to wait it out. Oh, and they also cancel church the next morning. Needless to say, there were more than a few white little snowmen standing as a lone testament to the prior days snowfall. If the kids hadn’t built them no one would believe us that there was snow in GA. Unfortunately I forgot to get a picture.
Here Josh and I are squinting into the sun.
So it was cold in GA. A couple weeks prior to us getting there they had some unusual 70 degree weather days and the day after we left the weather channel showed a bunch of people out jogging in shorts because it had warmed to 50 degrees. We, however, arrived back in Minot to an Alberta Clipper which brought with it mighty cold weather. Let me explain:
Now, I grew up in PA. I know what it means to actually have a winter and actually get snow (ahem, unlike most of GA). HOWEVER, I was in no way prepared for waking up to the guy on the radio announcing that it was 25 degrees BELOW 0 with a 40 degrees BELOW 0 windchill.
Yes, you heard me right. 40 degrees BELOW. That means that you put a negative sign in front of the DOUBLE DIGIT temperature. That means that I don’t go out to the store to get something just in case the car dies and I’m out there by myself. No thanks. I’ll let someone else do that. That means that your dog pees in the living room because he won’t go outside because it is -40 below!!!!
Welcome to the North.
By the way, today we are having a heat wave. The temp is 13 degrees.
Diet, anyone?
Christmas Eve Trauma
The night before Christmas Eve we had a dog fight at our house. Jack, who is lowest on the totem pole, decided that it’s time for him to move up in life and saw his chance by attacking Bo over some pizza. Not that we were even giving any dog pizza, but Jack didn’t know that. He assumed that everyone else was getting some and he wasn’t so he decided to do something about it. That something involved ripping through poor Bo’s belly causing some emergency stitches the next morning at the vet.
5 stitches! Bo doesn’t look too happy. And, may i say, i can’t even blame him for whizzing in Jack’s food dish or growling when Jack comes into a room.
Snow!
I guess we’re going to have a White Thanksgiving…that’s a little off.
Jack loves the snow:
Harper and Bo just want a cookie:
Wine Country, USA
I just got back from my trip out west with my two sisters on Tuesday. It was my first trip to the Pacific ocean (which i didn’t actually get to set foot in). Both of my sisters went to San Fran which was a surprise since i was only expecting one of them to be there. Deb and I walked into the rental car office and i turn and see Kristin standing there…very weird feeling…i saw her and it didn’t phase me at first. I actually thought to myself- oh look, there’s Kristin - until it hit me that she’s not supposed to be in CA but in GA! Very cool surprise.
We drove along the coast by Monterrey and Big Sur on Saturday, visited with my aunt and uncle in Los Gatos Saturday night, went to wine country Sunday, and San Francisco Monday. So much fun! We also hung out with Deb’s friend, Nancy, whom we stayed with on Friday night (and our whole stay in CA). Very very fun night with the girls, some bottles of vino, and a dog named Atticus. 
Some pics of our trip:
Along the coast near Monterrey Bay
Unti Vineyard in the Dry Creek Valley (Sonoma County, CA)
Who needs to go to Italy to get wine?!
One of the little sea lions from Pier 39 in San Fran
the 3 chicks
Conehead Jack
Jack went to the vet yesterday and had his dew claws removed and got “snipped” as we call it here at home. Because of that he has to wear the cone around his neck and as you can imagine from the pictures it is hilarious. True comedy is watching your dog try to walk through a doorway when he thinks his head is only half as wide as it is when he’s a conehead.
Check out the leg warmers!
Harper thinks that this is very odd, as he periodically goes up and sniffs the cone to make sure that it really is Jack and not some alien being. Bo, on the other hand, is terrified of Jack. He isn’t fond of Jack anyway but add the weird cone head thing that bumps into everything and Bo won’t even go in the room if he sees Jack.
THis is a picture of Jack eating his food. Of course, you can’t see the food bowl but it is there, i promise. Harper is ignoring him as usual. Bo is the background (at the top right you can see him). He’s eating his food in the living room since he’s scared of Jack.
Update
I really haven’t posted in a while. I have 2 excuses…1) I’ve been busy. i know, i know, haven’t we all? and 2) my camera battery died. Posts without pictures are just boring, don’t you think?
As far as updates go:
The dogs:
Well we have 3 now and have had 3 for the past 3 months. My has time flown. Let me just say that perhaps adding a 2nd dog to a first dog may be easier than getting 1 dog for the first time but adding a 3rd dog to the mix is in no way easier. At all. Especially a puppy! During the housebreaking weeks (which actually didn’t take that long since Jack had 2 adult dogs to learn from) my nerves at the steady occurence of little wet spots and little stinky presents were stretched to their absolute limit. However, that period, as all periods do, ended and now we have a lovely little routine that they all follow. Of course, the new floors Josh installed to get rid of the nasty carpet definitely helped improve my disposition.
The house:
As I just mentioned, we now have new (ahem…laminate) floors!! YAH!! At first i was REALLY hesitant on installing laminate floors in a 83 year old vintage house but as we went through the process and researched the quality (and the price) I finally came around. The result? I am very happy with them. They hold up to dogs and people and chairs and ladders. However, they do chip and dent when chisels fall from a 5 foot ladder. Ahem. At least that isn’t a constant battle but only a rare occasion.
At last, pictures of the little guy (as we call him) as I have so many of Harper and Bo i thought I’d update everyone on what Jack looks like now.
Here he is looking all cute:
On his first hunting day with dad…he got 4 birds!
and asleep on the new Orvis bed that is guaranteed against Harper chewing through it:
(Bo likes to sleep a lot, too)
And a pre-finished look at Jack and the “Laying of the Laminate Floor” that took about a week.
My Guardian
Harper is not a big dog by any means. He also doesn’t have the small dog complex where they think that they are big dogs. He simply is a medium-sized dog and behaves as a medium-sized dog — that is, most of the time. Sometimes he branches out and behaves as my personal protector and guardian.
For example, whenever I run the vacuum Harper finds it necessary to bark at the vacuum. I don’t think of this as protecting me, seeing as I’m the one pushing the vacuum around the floor, but now picture Jack joining in on the barking fest. Jack is scared (a little) of the vacuum so he also chases it and barks at it. However, once Jack started barking Harper decided that he needed to assert his authority and consequently barked not at the vacuum but at Jack to make Jack back down.
Harper also always sits down right next to me whenever I’m upset or emotional. His place is always at my feet either licking them or simply just lying down on them.
He’s my buddy.
Church tag lines
It seems Minot ND is not exempt from the need to advertise and market to cars driving by a church. Have you ever read a church’s sign and thought, Now That’s Clever! No? How about, Now That’s Cheesy! Yeah, thought that might be the case.
Wherever we go in this country we see these signs and it’s gotten to the point that Josh will call me at work just to tell me one as he passes by. We’ve gotten to the point where the church with the best tag line actually gets some kudos from us for it’s originality. Because you know that some guy is sitting in the church thinking how catchy his one liner was this week. He probably saves them up just to spread them out over a 52 week period.
I just have one question, who actually stops their car and goes into the church because a catchy tag line caught their eye and heart? Who are these people? I want to meet them!
Anyway, here’s the one that Josh saw today…coincidently the same church that has graced us with tag lines many times since we’ve moved here.
Come Worship in the SON-Shine (on the front)
Our Church is PRAYER-Conditioned (on the back)
