28 lbs and growing

Hazey is a-growin'. Every tuesday we go to puppy school at the shelter. When we arrive there is a scale we can use to weigh her, it's become a game for the two of us, who will guess her weight the closest. She's up to 28.2 lbs as of this past tuesday. Based on vet predictions she will be about 50-60 lbs when she is full grown.

Here are some photos from the last two weeks.




Hazey still has her wrinkles, which we are stoked about and hope she keeps them, but everytime we try to capture them she moves, so this is as close to it as we could get!



She loves to hang on Ryan's leg and take a nap




Every morning she runs to the window to watch whoever leaves the house first in the morning. As we turn the corner away from the house, she strains her neck to get the last moment in, hence let us say, it's tough going to work in the morning



Her cubby hole she made for herself on our room

Meet Hazie!

Now that we finished the fence, we got a dog! We didn't post our news right away (we've had her for three weeks) because we wanted to finish getting our trip photos up, since that is why we started the blog. We got her at the Boulder Humane Society. She had two siblings in her liter and they were found stray in kansas. Who knows what she really is, heinz 57, but we suspect that she is black mouth cur (old yeller), boxer and/or mastiff, and perhaps some shephard and lab.
She's a great pup and is a total love bug. She's not super food motivated but she will do nearly anything for love, let the training begin!


the short version...





the long version...
Here are photos from the last three weeks!

Last Day: Zurich

From Gstaad we took the Golden Pass Panorama (train) from Gstaad to Zurich, where we would depart back home the next day. Eight years prior, while passing through Zurich, Ryan discovered a now favorite restaurant, serving swiss fondue. The meal left such a mark on his taste buds, that we sought the restaurant out, literally by nose, and a treat it was! We wandered through the old town, taking photos of the evening light, enjoyed our dinner and headed back to our hotel (which is a story in and of itself, but that is for the next time we are all at the dinner table together!)

Enjoy!

Week 2: Glacier 3000

While in Gstaad, Michel recommended heading up to what is known as Glacier 3000, about a 40 minute bus ride from Gstaad to the base. We had no idea what was in store for us, but let us say that if you are ever in Gstaad, you must go to Glacier 3000 (Col du Pillon) and see for yourself!

Enjoy the adventure, it was a blast!

Week 2: Gstaad

We were excited to visit the Swiss Alps on our trip and headed to the village of Gstaad in the Berner Oberland region of Switzerland (nearly dead center in the Swiss Alps). We had a wonderful three days in the mountains, with the chance to wander around town and hike around as you will see later on a glacier. The town was stereotypical swiss, beautiful buildings and homes, with flowers hanging from every window. We didn't get pictures of it, but a volleyball tournament, the equivalent of the AVP was going on in town, which was neat to see all the festivities surrounding the tournament. We enjoyed some good chocolate, Ryan his coffee, and beautiful scenery.

Enjoy the photos.

Week 2: Switzerland

On Monday of our second week in Europe, we headed from Hyeres to Geneva. A five hour road trip later we showed up in Crans pres-Celigny, Switzerland (just north of Geneva). We will back up and share here that Ryan, while a sophomore in high school, had the opportunity to move with his family and live in a town right on the french-swiss border (Divonne les Bains) and attend school in Switzerland for one year. Ryan kept in good contact with a number of friends, one of them Mekhela, who we were able to visit and stay with during our five day sejour in Switzerland. We had the opportunity while in and around Geneva to visit Divonne France, Nyon Switzerland (for those water lovers, this pool rivals Franny's home pool in Irvine), and Crans pres-Celigny Switzerland.

A dream of making cheese...

Will have to wait a lot longer, the farm I wanted to volunteer at to learn to make goat cheese here in Boulder, is closing. Not totally, but the farm that was open to visitors and accepted volunteers during kidding season, is no longer at the end of the summer. We took a trip up to the farm to enjoy it one more time. Enjoy the photos, especially the kid goats, and the lady goats eyeing/chasing after Ryan and Gary!

Millau: An Engineer's Dream

Ryan, when we knew we were going to France, investigated where the Millau bridge was in relation to where we would be traveling. Much to his excitement, the bridge would be on our way down to the south of france! If you could see the photos of this engineering feat being built you would understand how AMAZING this bridge is. A huge gorge that used to require a two hour detour down the valley and back up to continue along the main autoroute from Paris to Montpellier is now a 10 minute drive across! It is a beautiful bridge, and we would recommend anyone who is driving through France to stop and enjoy it. We somehow missed the exit to visit the town below the bridge to see what it looked like from below, so the pictures are only from the exit nearby.

Enjoy!

DAY 6: Orchid Hunting!

My mom, true to her passion, discovered before leaving that there would be orchids in the region. So through a few emails she meet Madame Glaudon, a fellow french orchidist. After some beautiful, off the beaten path, winding road, we showed up to this little area where Madame Glaudon was waiting to take us "hunting for les orchidees sauvages!"

Enjoy the photos!


My mom wrote an article for her orchid society (Newport Harbor Orchid Society: NHOS (No, this is not a plug!). But the article describes the day exactly!

Here is a link to a newsletter (Adobe Acrobat PDF format)

Hyeres and Switzerland soon to come.....

Picture uploading is being interrupted by fence building! We've used some new tools on this project, the auger which beats digging 28 inch holes, the concrete mixer, which beats mixing concrete in a wheelbarrow! We will try to post the rest of our pictures over the long weekend from hyeres and switzerland... The good news about our interruption is that it soon comes with ......a dog!!!......more on that to come later!