September...a wedding, Colts and a Hot Air Balloon Ride!

It is way past time for an update on the blog! Everyone keeps reminding me that I haven't put up new pictures to let you know what is going on in our lives!

Our September kept us pretty busy, starting with my brother's wedding in the middle of the month. I made the wedding cake. Below is the top of the cake:

And here is a picture of the entire cake. A lot of time people ask me how long it takes to make these? This was about 18 hours of baking, 2 hours of making frosting, and about 14 hours of assembly. *sigh* It makes me tired just thinking about it!



I always love capturing the groom's face when he catches the first glimpse of his bride on the wedding day. Here is Bruce:
Here is the happy couple during the ceremony.

On Sunday after the wedding, we ended up watching the Colts game with our neighbors, Tim, Brook and Colby. Brooke js a huge Sanders fan....yep....she loves our dog! She loves him so much that she earned herself a job that day. She is coming to our house on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school and letting Sanders out and playing with him. She is really good at working with him on his obedience commands.
Colby decided it would be funny to get in Sanders' crate during the game. I had to laugh when we put Sanders in the crate with Colby. What is it with kids wanting to get in Sanders' crate? Sanders is much happier having them in there than himself!

On September 25th, we finally redeemed the one raffle prize we've ever won! 2 years ago, we were at the Second Helpings' fundraiser and ended up winning a hot air balloon ride with Bill Oliver, the owner of Oliver Winery in Bloomington. We had a gorgeous afternoon for the ride.

I never realized just how BIG these balloons were until we were helping get it out and inflating it. First we unrolled the entire balloon. It was probably 100 feet long!

Then we used a generator powered fan to inflate the balloon from one end, while Bill and his buddy made sure the balloon was stretched out properly at the end. You can see Bill's silhouette at the end of the balloon:
I stepped inside of the balloon to take this picture. I thought it was kind of cool!

Here, Tony is posing with the balloon before we get in it. Bill is inside the basket using the burner to continue to fill the balloon.

Here, I'm getting into the basket...ready for take off! Luckily I didn't fall.
And, here we are shortly after takeoff. You can see our balloon shadow. Off to the right of the shadow is the truck/trailer we came in. If you look closely you can see the people who came over from across the street to watch us take off!
Looking up at the inside of the inflated balloon.
We gained elevation rapidly! We eventually got up over 1 mile in the air! Below is Tony's favorite picture from our trip. Assembly Hall at IU. It is off to the left of the football stadium.
I loved how our shadow looked as we traveled along!
Looking down from the basket to the trees which were just a few inches below:
Another shadow. The leaves were just starting to change in Bloomington! I bet this was an amazing ride for someone 2 weeks later!
This is the house where we rolled up the balloon. We actually landed in the middle of the street (stopping traffic only for a brief minute on this subdivision road). As we were coming down, the guy mowing his lawn at this house stopped immediately, ran inside and got his family, and came back out to watch the show. It was so funny!
After we landed, we had to start deflating the balloon. The top of the balloon had a little vent to allow the hot air to escape.
It didn't take long for the balloon to begin collapsing
Here, Tony helps Bill bring the sides of the balloon to the center.
And afterwards, I had to take pictures of the grapes that were growing in the Oliver Vineyards!

Colts games, sheep herding and Gigantic Monuments!

Sanders is loving to stick his head out of the window more and more as we take trips places. We think it is because it is the one time his vision is not impaired. See our not-so-aerodynamic pooch:




Our friends, Kim and Andy, invited us to attend the Colts last preseason game at Lucas Oil Field in Indianapolis. WOW! The stadium is AMAZING! We were still about 4 blocks away when we snapped this picture:
Tony and his friends bought a brick outside of the stadium this year.


We didn't think we'd get to see too many of the main Colts team playing..but they were there and down on the field. Here is our hero...Bob Sanders:

And here is Peyton just warming up:

Here is Tony enjoying the breeze from the open window at the North end of the stadium:Kim and Andy during the game:

The lights as we were leaving the stadium:

This past week, I was on the road a lot. I traveled to St. Louis and en route, saw the LARGEST crucifix I've ever seen. It was easily 3 times the height of a semi truck! I had to laugh when I saw this thing! It is just outside of Effingham, Illinois on I-70.

Then in St. Louis, I drove by the St. Louis Arch...another huge monument! I had to laugh again! The I headed to Louisville, but unfortunately do not have the third in the trifecta of gigantic monumants photographed. There, I saw the HUGE bat sitting outside of the Louisville Slugger Museum. The bat is like 5 stories tall. I think more people in the world need to make these huge monuments. Who doesn't like unneccessary over the top super sized stuff?

This week we have been teaching Sanders a new command for the Colts first regular season game. The command is HIGH FIVE. See how cool he looks when he does it on game day :


We watched our first regular Season Colts game together cheering on Bob Sanders. This was in the first quarter, when we could still think there was hope:


I think I have decided what I'll be for Halloween. Little Bo Peep. Seriously, I think this was #2024 on my list of "things I never imagined I'd end up doing". Herding sheep....Really? As a shepherdess? Get Real...yet I did it (Herding stick and all), and plan to do it some more. It is so funny to watch a dog, who has been genetically bread since like 900AD, do what he was designed to do! It kind of plays to my interest in genetics...but as our loyal subscribers know, there is no way we can pass along his genes...so if he ends up being the best herder dog ever..it will end with him. And he will live in infamy....*smack* OK wait, back to reality. Like I mentioned before, Sanders loved the first sheep herding class. We went to Stockdog University in Muncie. Ferreh (who runs the place) is so good!! We decided to go back the next day so that Tony could see him run around. He was so excited to do it, but after getting a little too close to the sheep, we whacked him on the nose...so he decided to go off and pout for a few minutes. He was trying to figure out what he had done wrong...and he did figure it out. He now knows not to run the sheep INTO the fence, just around inside of it.

Here is Sanders getting ready to go into the sheep pen:

Sanders running after sheep:

Sheep Herding!

I don't have any pictures right now....but we just got back from our FIRST attempt at sheep herding ever. It was sooo fun and exciting! Sanders LOVES SHEEP!

Do we have any loyal subscribers out there?

Yes, it has been WAAAYYYY too long since we have posted anything on our blog. Things were so busy during the month of July. It is a relief to have August here...even though it is really really hot (which Sanders does not like).

Let's catch you up on the happenings in Sanders' life!

First, we gave Sanders a bath around July 1st. Thought it was about time to do it...then on July 2nd, he went and found some other smelly substance (dead animal? Rotten vegetation? who knows....) and decided he preferred that odor to the nice perfumey smelling shampoo we'd washed him in. So he proceeded to bask in that not-so-delicious-to-humans smelly thing right before we left for the July 4th weekend, where we were staying at Tony's brother's house. So, my nieces and I got to give Sanders ANOTHER bath (which, he loves....not so much). This time, we had 8 hands involved instead of 2. (Yes, there are only 6 below. 2 of them are taking the picture).


I think the entire time we were sudsing up Sanders, he was thinking "Please help me....if anyone from PETA out there gets ahold of these pictures....Please help me. They are removing that wonderful scent from me that I worked so hard to find and roll in"

After washing/rinsing Sanders in the bath (where we didn't have a special hose to rinse quickly), somehow, someone (or 3 someones) made him look very L.A.

After stepping out of the bath, he gives another pleaful look to anyone out there who can help:
Yes, I think in this picture, he is thinking "Why didn't they name me MATT?" After this bath, his ENTIRE coat/hair turned into one enormous mat. It was HORRIBLE. They say some Pulis get their cords/dreadlocks in over the course of a few months....Because of the 2 baths in a week and the way the planets were aligned, Sanders got his overnight. He was sooo matted after this. We have been spending about an hour a night just pulling apart the mat little by little into some sort of ordered dread locks. They are starting to look a lot better now.

So.....with Sanders clean, we were able to head to Louisville for the long weekend with a good smelling dog. Sanders quickly realized that Rob has a bird named Buddy. He wanted to play with Buddy so badly. We decided it probably wasn't a good idea, because one chomp, the bird would be gone, and one peck and the dogs eye would be bloody. So we let Buddy play the role of Tweetey and Sanders played the role of Sylvester. Looks just like a scene out of your latest Looney Toons, doesn't it?



We went to the Old Fashioned Celebration just down the road from Rob's house. We took Sanders and he loved all the smells and people. He also loved the attention. These two cute girls wanted to hug him. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to snap this shot!
And what great fair, isn't complete without a snow cone? Certainly not this one! We got a snow cone for Sanders to enjoy:

Look at how properly he eats the snow cone:


We started getting rained on just before the fireworks! So we took a trolley back to the intersection close to Rob's apartment. They even let Sanders ride!

The next weekend, we went to the annual Hancock County 4-H fair. With my nieces back from Texas, they were able to have all their baked goods judged again this year, and then auctioned off in the food auction. Unfortunately, I didn't get to buy too much of their stuff...I did get a Cherry pie that Jess made. It was delicious (made from the cherries from the tree in front of her house). I also got to bid on a cake that Tony pointed out to me. Doesn't it look like this cake has a black and orange Puli dog on it? Weird, huh? I wonder what the little kid intended for these to be...caterpillars? Surely, not Pulis....

We've been going through obedience classes with Sanders. He is getting pretty good! On Tuesday of this week, he got his diploma for the Novice class. On Saturday, we are starting with Agility classes. And on Wednesdays we'll be doing the Advanced Obedience classes. I decided I want to try to start training him so I can take him to Nursing Homes or to the Children's hospital. He is such a nice dog, I'm sure people will enjoy looking and petting this strange little guy...as long as he hasn't went out and found his favorite scent!

Below is a picture of Tony and Sanders getting ready to heel.
Below, Sanders is in a 5 minute down stay with many other dogs
Here, Sanders is coming to Tony and finishing up with a By-heel. Sanders was picked as one of the fastest dogs in the class! Yep, he's little, but really fast...just like Bob Sanders!!!

The other thing we've been busy with has been getting ready for my mom and dad's anniversary party. We were cutting up boat loads of veggies last Friday. Sanders even got into the fun of it all and was helping. He carried some of each vegetable into the living room and put them in piles. See the onion, cauliflower, broccoli, and cucumber peel?

My mom and dad looked so beautiful for their 50th wedding anniversary!


Here is the cake I made...there was none left!!!!!
We also got Sanders a bed earlier in July....he doesn't really sleep in it much, but he knows when we say "bed" that he is supposed to go lay in it. I think it makes him hot.

I've been really busy with my garden. Sometimes Sanders comes out and helps me with things. Here he is standing around, smelling the wind in front of my Tomatoes!
I've also got quite the orchard going. My trees are absolutely loaded this year! Look at all these peaches that were on just one of my trees! I picked 3 bushels from this tree! It made a great filling in mom and dad's cake.

My pear trees are also loaded....only 3 more weeks until I get to eat those!!! YUMMY!!

Here is a close up of some of the peaches.

I also have some grape vines. This is the best they've ever done! I've managed to keep the bugs/japanese beetles away for quite some time now. Pretty, aren't they?

I thought this was funny. I came in from picking peaches one day, and I found Sanders laying at the front door...not sleeping, just keeping one eye open to see what was going on. He had no desire to get up and say hi. What a lazy dog! :) In case you can't tell....he is on his back, and nose is facing the camera with one eye open. His legs are in the air and one is against the wall. It's getting harder and harder to tell which end is which!

Oh yes, and Sunday after everything was finished for the anniversary party, Sanders joined me in the backyard to check on the fruit trees. He managed to pick up an apple and chew on it. Guess my dog is a healthy eater. He likes his fruit!

And here we are just glad to be finished with the chaos that July had for us. We finally got to spend some time together!

And with that, the Colts' first preseason game was Sunday. Sanders had to put on the uniform!!