Dealing with Dogs

Some times dogs can be a pain to live with. After years of struggling with naughty dogs jumping over the broken down old fence, we finally got a new 6 foot chain link fence put in the back yard. That was just before Thanksgiving. The dogs immediately figured out how to squeeze under the fence to escape. With each new hole I would try to block their exit with boards but they would always find another spot to escape. Finally this weekend I had enough so I got some stakes and went all around the fence with boards hammering in the stakes to hold them in place.

With the fence all secure ( I hope) we decide to put in a doggy door so Emma and Sadie could let themselves out. Hopefully this would end Emma's peeing in the house. Kevin put it in the bathroom door that leads to the back patio.

They quickly learned how to use it, going in and out when ever they felt like it.

I believe that the dogs also need daily walks but they are to difficult to walk on the lease because they pull so hard. So I decided to get a training collar. This is me putting it on an suspicious Emma. It works great but she keeps flipping her head around trying to get it off. I have a spikey collar for Sadie. Now I can walk them both with ease.

When Jimmy was here last week Sadie let him know how she likes to relax and watch TV.

As big a pain as these two can be, they are also very cute puppies, sometimes.

Visit to France

Last week I went to France for work. I spent the first weekend in Toulouse before I had to go to Pamier to visit a paint vendor. Toulouse was an interesting place with narrow brick streets and lots of people. I visited a castle in an old 12th century Medieval town called Carcassonne. I told Tory that I saw where Donkey met Dragon.

This is one of the streets inside the castle walls. There were lots of shops.

Here I am outside the castle.

This is the train I took to go to Carcassonne. I was surprised how much graffiti there is in France.

I stayed in a 13th or 14th century hotel in Mirepoix for the week I was working. I told Tory that this is where Shrek and Fiona went on their honeymoon. The hotel was very old world but had modern comforts (except English speaking TV).

My room was on the 3rd floor up these windy stairs.

Every morning we had fresh bread and coffee. That is Alex. I was traveling with him for work.

I ate so many different foods. This is cassolet. Or bean stew with a duck wing and pork sausage in it. They love to eat duck and cassoulet in the Toulouse region.

They have the most ornate desserts. This is a chocolate something. Yummy.

On my way home I stopped in Paris but only got to see the Eiffel tower before I got sick and spent the rest of my visit in my room. I will have to go back to check it out more.

A Night at the O'Keefe's

Last night there was a gathering of some of the O'Keefe siblings at Davey's house. We were missing Janis Ann but managed to have a fun time any way. Davey and Paula put on a lovely party with yummy food and wine. It happened to be Susan's and Kelly's birthday just the day before so we lit candles and sang to them.

This is Quinn and Kelly with Lee in the background.

Jimmy opening a gift from Frank.

Irish Dirt. Nice.

Me and Davey.

David and Kelly and Kevin.

Maggi Movie Star

Paula and Kelly.

Yo! Sup? Brennan and David

Christmas at the Malone's

This year we celebrated a nice relaxing Christmas in Renton. Last year we were rushing off to Edward's Airforce base for work. This year we are happy to just hang out here and do nothing. Kevin and I spent a quite Christmas Eve in preparation for a fun filled Christmas day with the little girls. On Christmas Nathaniel picked up Kevin's mom and brought her over. Kimberly and the girls came in the afternoon all charged up from a morning spent opening presents from Santa.

This is Emma trying out her new couch blanket.

Here is Sadie worried that she is going to get in trouble for being on the couch.

Kimberly was thrilled with the fur lined gloved ice scraper.

Jordan and Torrin in their pretty dresses.

This is Kimberly quite pleased with her gifts to me. In addition to a very nice set of jammies, she gave me a collection of "As Seen on TV" items. Topsy Turvy, Ped Egg, Smooth Away, Green Bags, EZ Combs, Wonder Hanger, Bumpits, Snuggie, Stick and Click, and last but not least...

...the Neckline Slimmer.

Crystal gave us a hard bound book called Jacob Dale~Life in Photos~2009. It contain pictures of him taken throughout the year. Very cool. I love it.

Nathaniel showing of the spnork he got.

Thanksgiving

I realized that I had not put up any pictures from Thanksgiving. When I downloaded them from my camera to the computer I discovered that I had not taken very many pictures. I guess I just got too busy with cooking. Dang because it was a great bunch that showed up. We had Susan, Kelly, Frank, Brennan, and Michael Tavenner, Kevin's dad Nat and son Nathaniel, and Jimmy all for dinner. Then for dessert Maggi, Colleen, David, and Tom came over as did my good friends Angelita, Jerry, Joshua, and Ashley. Kimberly and Jordan and Torrin came after dinner and Davey and Quinn arrived just as Maggi and company were leaving. It was a great group. I wish I could have visited more with every one.

Here are the few pictures I managed to take.

Kimberly, Jordan, Torrin and Kelly

Kelly and Brennan

Joshua and his girl friend Ally

Ashley

This is my center piece that I created from plants I found in the yard. (except the 2 plastic fruits) The large red item with spots item is a mushroom I found. It was very cool but very poisonous.

Saturday Fun with the Girls

Saturday the girls and I spent the day together. When Jordan woke up in the morning she was excited because we had so many fun things planned. We started the day with French toast breakfast followed by a very long arts and crafts session. The girls wanted to make Jacob birthday presents so they worked on collages. The cut out pictures from magazines and created lovely cards for Jake.

Jordan is very focused on her work.

Torrin is also working hard to create the perfect picture.

This is Jordan's creation

This is Torrin's work of art.

Here I am doing my homework while the girls work on their collages. I am supposed to be creating a surrealist painting.

Here is my finished work.

After our art session we had lunch and then went for a walk to see the llamas. Then we came home and made cookies.

They were supposed to be Thanksgiving cookies but a couple of christmas trees snuck in.

At the end of the day the girls played Mario Cart on the Wii. The are very funny drivers. Torrin gets very animated.


Here is a picture of my little lap dog Sadie.

Figure Drawing Class

I have been in a figure drawing class for a few weeks now. I wanted to share some of my work with my friends and family. In this posting I will be showing 2 projects that were focused on cubism. One assignment was to create a collage from a still life. First we drew the still life from 3 different perspectives. Then we combined them into one picture to create the collage.

This is the pen and ink drawing of one view of the still life. There were 2 other views.

This is the resulting collage in which I combined features from each of the drawings.

In the next project we drew a figure from 3 different perspectives.

Below I am showing 2 points of view. (Don't want to bore you with repetition)

From the three figure drawing we were to combine them into one picture and create a cubist painting. We were also supposed to make it monochromatic. I choose blue.

My next assignment is on surrealism. I am not to excited about this one but hope to learn as much as I did with the cubist study.