17 weeks now

Today I'm 17 weeks along (well by our guesstimate)...can't wait for my ultrasound on the 30th to see how good our guess is of due date, and what not.

The bloat has kind of gone down, and now I mostly feel chubby and am looking forward to having a noticeable bump and be asked, when I am due hahaa. Emi and I did the BC SPCA Paws for a Cause walkathon today, and it was great lots of fun and our Shiba Team raised enough money to be within the top 10 groups! Yay!!

Mama these are what one pair of my mat pants look like hahaa...sooo sexy!

And my official 17 week baby picture from Sunday September 14, 2008

Future Goals

So James and I have been discussing lots (nearly every day) for the past couple months where we want to "settle", or I guess I should say start our roots, our foundation, family, and what not. We have our family started with our furbabies, and little monkey now on the way. But the hardest part about it all has been living so far from my parents and sister, with my dad being in the military we were always away from family, and became a very close small family...at least in my eyes. The 3 of them are my support, my back bone, and now James has joined them (my 4 favorite people ;)

Anyhoo...I want more than anything for my children to know how amazing their grandparents are and Aunty, and grow up building a friendship with them. James is very much on board with this, he is the one always suggesting to move closer to them, or to buy a big home here to accommadate them hehee...he loves you guys just as much (who wouldn't!) After our trek out to New Brunswick this past May, we have really started to fall in love with the idea of moving to the east coast, so long as I have an ocean I'm happy....anyways nothing is set yet and it won't be for a couple years, but we are hoping to move to some part of the East Coast.

The main part of this post is to share my personal goal...I have been trying to figure out some sort of business I can do from home, to be with my kids (fur and flesh) to be working with animals and people. I originally wanted to start an in home boarding service for dogs and cats. Now I am more focused on cats and wanting to not only have a cat hotel...but take it further and start my own no kill shelter, it breaks my heart whenever I see the homeless kitties at the SPCA, the older ones hardly ever get homes, and the superstition rules there and the black cats are always the last color picked! Personally my fav are the orange, black, greys, the calicos....oh heck all of them ;) I came across this video which is incredibly inspiring and heart warming and just wanted to share it...I am the crazy cat lady...thank god James is as equally the crazy cat man hahaaa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwM6f0liHpo

Hope you enjoy! Lots of love to you all xoxo

Overdue...

Not me, not quite yet ha as pretty much all of you know now We are EXPECTING. Just overdue in updating this blog...huge apologies to not posting in so long. I have been crazy busy the past 2 months, with summer, work, dog sitting on the side, and trying to do some baby research.

Our estimated due date as of now is Feb 23, 2009 (we will get a better idea at our ultrasound in a few weeks), so that makes 15 weeks and 1 day along. I am planning to take a belly picture every other week, hopefully it will pop to to a cute round belly soon, mostly right now I just feel like I hit the buffet one to many times...so to anyone who does not know I am expectng they probably think I just had lots of icecream this summer hahahaa.


Dianna gaves us our first baby gift, and it's absolutely adorable and perfect, just love it! If anyone wants to get us something wink wink, I love silly onsie like this, and we are likely not finding out the sex so gender neutral is perfect.

And here is the growing baby belly, and Enzo with his perfect timing..."I'm the baby mama!"

Ambleside Beach

On sunday I met with my friend Jen and her sheebs Koshi, and Alissa and her family with Pan Pan. We went to Ambleside dog beach in West Vancouver, Emi had a great 3.5 hours of running and chasing anyone who was willing to join her :D

Emi loves to play with big dogs, the bigger the better, she was trying to get in on the fun with this leonberger and yellow lab
One of these things is not like the other...Cotton, Koshi and Pan Pan
The 3 amigo's Koshi, Panny and Emi
Doing what shibas do best....digging, at least its here and not my backyard...this is why she is supervised outside ha!Koshi.....Emi is that you in Giant size??? I though Shiba's hated water....apparently only bath water :D

More of Monday

These are more pictures from Spanish Banks!

Emi yet again, eating Cotton! Ha Bugs View!

Fred Flinstone...twinkle toes of frisbee Sun tastes good, after a long day of work!
My husbands words not mine....You know in the rice fields the hats they wear. cutey clueless cotton.

Ball of Fire!

Hanging out at Kits Dog Beach last night The 3 pups we had in tow, Emi, Farley and Cotton
Man the views on the west coast are just amazing! I love when the mountains look like a painting sort of water colored or shadows like below (this is at Spanish Banks)
Sun setting on the ocean
Emi eating Cotton's arm....she says it tastes like chicken!

It seems that summer has finally shown her beautiful face in Vancouver BC, June was ugly and cold, and making me contemplate whether I should move back to Ontario for the summer ha. I spent Saturday afternoon, to early evening at the beach with my awesome landlords, and another couple (I was the fifth wheel...pretty sure they only invited me for my bocce ball set and coleman grill just kidding) Either way who cares, I HAVE A TAN!!! James is horrified with my tanlines, and does not seem to remember me having any in past summers, or when were in Dominican! Sunday I packed Cotton Emi and some snacks into the car, picked up James from work, and we spent the afternoon at Spanish Banks, a dog friendly beach, with gorgeous views and lots of grassy areas, the downside the bathrooms are so far away in the non friendly/offleash area...why do dog owners get the crap end of the stick! Hehee Last night was another beautiful evening so we ate an early dinner and headed to Kits Dog Beach, brought a 3rd dog, Farley with us, and let the beasts have fun before we headed over to Spanish banks to meet our friend Trevor, to play bocce ball, when we realized we had forgotten Bocce at home ha. So they improvised with a game of cruddy frisbee (very cheap beat up dog frisbee) and I enjoyed the amazing sunset and snapped away some pictures. It has been a very long time since I have used an SLR, well at least the manual option, so I am slowly trying to relearn techniques I think I need to pick up an idiots guide to Digital Photography. It's so hard to not post 100 pictures since I can never pick which are the best and feel they all are part of story. I need to find an online photo storing program so I can share our albums that way...I know there are lots out there, but I am trying to find which one I prefer.

Puppy Sitting

Dogs dogs every where. James and I have been housing Cotton, our friends pug for a few weeks now. I spent thursday night and friday day at the General Manager of James' golf courses, watching his 2 dogs (we have housesat for them before) it's always a nice little vacation to go to Steveston, and his dogs are both sweet and Emi loves the play buddies. People look at a little funny when they see us walking 3-4 very different dogs (1 yellow lab, a black lab border collie cross, a pug and a shiba)

And as of July 16th we will be housing James' parents dog Murphy (a 9year old Yorkie) for possibly up to 3 months. They are moving back to Singapore and Murph has to go into 1 month quarintine, but the facility is booked up for about 3 months. Should be interesting, we told his parents she will come to Singapore a changed dog hahaa. She is quite spoiled and terrified of everything that is not on mom's lap, and barks at everything when on mom's lap. She lived with Enzo for a year and they got to the point of chasing of each other in a friendly-ish way...so fingers crossed we are all a big happy family soon.

Ooooh very exciting news James bought me the Canon Rebel DSLR, I have not had a chance to go clicker crazy....but I am majorly in love with the sport function for taking action shots, the only downside is I can take pictures so fast that I have a ton from his baseball game the other night and can't decide which ones are the ones worth keep, its also been great for getting SHIBA ACTION shots, and tons of pictures where Emi looks like a killer attacking another dog, but its all in fun...she is quite mouthy but never mean. She has changed so much in how she plays with other dogs, she still does the annoying bark while chasing a dog that is more interested in playing fetch with their owner, than playing with her...she can't fathom why in the world they do not want to play!? Heheeheee But I noticed at our shiba meetup a few weekends ago, that when another dog is being grumpy towards her she will bark back telling them to "shut the heck up who are you barking at!" but she will back away while doing it, sort of saying "I;ll let it slide this time, but trust me you don't want to mess with me" hahahaa. Whereas a few months ago she would be way more feisty and bark back but go forward, ready for the fight that dog is asking for. I am probably making her sound super mean, but she is a very sweet dog, and likes to play with all dogs, she just prefers to be the one in charge of the situation....SHE IS A FEMALE, and let's face it guys...we rule!

Well she is ringing her bell, which means pee time and I need to get out and walk them before it gets to hot, we are finally having real summer weather wahooo.

Here are a few pictures from this week.

Enzo looking cute as ever!

Colby's new favorite spot to hang out, and lay on....weirdo this does not look comfortable!

She was using Cotton as a step-stool, but just as I went to take the picture she moved her front paws to the windowJames up to batRunning from third base, and yes those are his golf shoes....his reasoning "they have grip!"

I will post more later of the furkids :) and our weekend fun!