You know me by now. When they start predicting heavy amounts of snowfall I get excited. Yesterday it snowed some. It didn’t really stick until last night (about two inches of heavy wet snow) but it came down in what looked like snowballs and not snowflakes. Not many birds were out and that’s a good thing. Those flakes were big enough to knock a bird out of the air!

You can see the size of the flakes here on the dogs’ backs. Each blob of snow is one flake!

Today is our “quiet” weather day of the week but I understand we may be in for a somewhat wild ride tomorrow and Friday. Here is what Accu Weather online was predicting yesterday. The first one was their predication as of yesterday morning, then last night’s monumental forecast, and last what they are thinking is going to happen as of this morning.

It would seem that they don’t know what the weather is going to do! Is this my dream coming true of getting snowed in??

Today I am thankful that there is a lull in all the commotion as we are going into NYC to watch CHOPPED being filmed. We picked a good day this time!

Seeing Bode Miller take the Gold makes me sad. I’m glad for Bode, but he brings back bittersweet memories of what once was.

In 2002 I sat watching the Winter Olympics next to a whelping box. We had just had a litter of two puppies; one male, one female. I was pretty much a captive audience. Bode Miller made quite a splash that year. I liked his back story about how he was born to kind of “hippie” parents and had lived a pretty bohemian lifestyle. A real laid-back kind of guy. The male pup had kind of the same laid-back attitude and had been born more or less of “hippie” parents (a mistake breeding of Millenia and Sailor due to us thinking Millie was out of season when she really wasn’t), so I named him Bode after Bode Miller.

Bode was a beautiful dog. A good soul. The name fit him as he was very laid-back. And very sweet. My Jo-Jo-Bean, as I liked to call him. Follow this link to Bode’s page on our Bernese Mountain Dog web site which is woefully out of date. Be sure to look at all three of Bode’s photo pages. See what a cute puppy he was? He had certain faults that kept him from the show ring, but in my eyes he was perfect. He had a big plume of tail that he carried over his back (his one major cosmetic flaw) which was always wagging. He was always smiling. I miss that dog.

He had his own mind. Several times at the cabin he wandered off and Rick would find him heading off across the prairie on his own. Where was he going? we asked ourselves. The wrong direction, Bode!

He loved to sit up and gently put his big old paws on you, like this photo taken just one week before we lost him.

He gave us lots of love in his short life. We miss you JoJo! We miss Bode’s sister Daisy too, who passed over the Rainbow Bridge just seven months after Bode. Maybe she missed him too.

While talking to my sister yesterday, she remarked that I hadn’t been doing much blogging lately. She’s right; I guess it’s been a while. It’s not that life has been boring, quite the opposite, but I just haven’t felt the need to write things down. So, this entry will be all about catching up with lots of things.

The dogs enjoyed the big snow last week. Here is Hailey being silly, tunneling in and eating snow.

Alex thinks snow is tasty too.

Of course, Bella and Hailey have to play.

We had a long weekend with Rick being home for four straight days in a row, as Monday was a work holiday for him. Over the weekend we really didn’t do much. We walked the dogs, played many hours of Super Mario Brothers on the Wii (a multiple player game), caught up on all our TiVo’d programs, and had a wonderful Valentine’s Day dinner out with some friends.

On Tuesday he took a personal day off and we went into New York City to the Westminster dog show. Since moving here we’ve wanted to go in to watch our breed, Bernese Mountain Dogs, show and possibly see some old dog show friends. We took the train in (which was a good thing because it was snowing) which is so convenient since Penn Station is right there at Madison Square Garden. Get off the train, walk up some stairs and you’re there!

Did you know that Rick and I used to be into showing dogs? Well, we were. We had a dog, Indy, that was ranked in the top ten Bernese Mountain dogs in the country in 1996 and 1997. In fact, we brought him to the Westminster show in 1997. He didn’t win anything but it was an experience we’ll never forget. We did have a handler but not a big name one, just someone local. Rick did show Indy himself quite a lot though. Here they are:

Showing dogs is kind of an addiction, especially when you have a dog that wins. I think it must be like having a child that is a football or soccer star. It’s an ego rush and very competitive. I do miss the whole dog show thing from time to time but what I don’t miss is the political side of the sport.

Anyway here are a few photos I took at Westminster. This is the benching area where you can view all the dogs. It’s a very packed and crowded place! Thankfully there aren’t too many benched shows anymore. I much prefer to go to a dog show, show my dog at the appointed time, and go home instead of sitting around all day!

We walked down the Mastiff aisle because we think they are cute. Look at the size of those heads!

This one was trying to stay cool, calm and collected in the midst of chaos.

I liked this sign.

And this was the view from where we were sitting looking down on to the rings.

We did manage to meet up with some dog show folks we hadn’t seen in a long while, so that was good too.

It hadn’t really snowed that much in the city, but on the train ride home it was obvious it had been snowing all day further north. A virtual Winter Wonderland passed before our eyes! Here is what we were greeted with on our drive home from the train station.

A wet, sticky snow that clung to all the branches. We could barely get into our driveway because the plow had gone by a few times and really stacked up the snow. So the expected 1-3 inches turned into 5-7 inches!

Other things that are on my mind include deciding which country to move to if Sarah Palin ever becomes President. Mexico or Canada? I need to write all the pros and cons of each country on my hand ...

And the Olympics. I live for the figure skating events, and this year the men’s is on fire! I can’t wait until tonight to see the battle play out for the medals. Will Plushenko get the Gold after his comeback? Or will one of the other two men hot on his heels take it? Then there is the ice dancing to come in three different nights ... can’t wait!

See? Lots of nothing about somethings. I’ll try to do better next time ...

These were taken in the thick of things yesterday. The snow was just beautiful and we were glad to be safe, snug, and warm inside. The snow wrapped up around 8:00 p.m. or so, but the winds kicked up in the middle of the night and did some drifting. Not too bad though. The front steps were buried! My dream of being snowed in didn’t quite come true, but it was a good snow so I am not complaining!

This morning dawned bright and beautiful. Rick cleared the snow that had fallen since he cleared the drive just before dark last night and I shoveled the steps and behind the gate in case it doesn’t melt before we have a fuel oil delivery. I learned the hard way the first year we lived here and the fuel oil delivery man had to scramble over our fence with his hose because the snow behind the gate was frozen solid!

I took just a few photos of it piled up on some of the railings around the yard before the sun started to melt it away.

Believe it or not, I put on my boots and went down into the yard with my camera hoping to get some fun dog photos but I could not entice the dogs down into the yard! Only Bella came and she got bored with me pretty quickly. Lazy mutts.

Ideas for blog entries radiate out from my mind like the spokes of a wheel. Which way to go? Which one to choose? I think about them all: Bella wants computer time; Pookie would like to be talked about; the Paul Revere curtains are all photographed and waiting for their moment; I finished my slippers; I started my rug (hooking); and probably more, but these are the ones foremost in my mind right now. I sit down to write and nothing comes out.

I hope that one of those will find their way into a slot so I can move forward. Soon.