Tomatoes!

We didn't have our act together enough to get much of a garden going this year, but fortunately our neighbors did. Across the street, our neighbors are sports writers and they travel during peak harvest season. Next door we have neighbors that are very committed to their organic garden. All of that means tomatoes for us.

We ended up with a beautiful allotment of red, green, orange, and yellow tomatoes, and it was caprese, alla checca, and tomato tart all week.

Here's the recipe for the tomato tart. It was delicious:

http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1634806

Many of you know I'm a foodie, I love to cook, eat with friends and try new recipes. I've become a dedicated vegetarian, and it goes to show you that with beautiful food like this, you don't miss the meat!

Sadie and Cujo

We've started taking Sadie to the park, and there's another little puppy about her age that also seems to be a shepherd mix. His name is Cujo, and Tom's gotten to know his owner Heather. She's been dropping Cujo off every once in awhile, and Cujo and Sadie have been having lots of fun. Tom's enjoying watching their antics, and Sadie's knocked out for the next two days.


Cujo





















Sadie

Girls Weekend!

My college roommates have ended up geographically in two areas, the glorious pacific northwest and the Midwest. Usually we see each other at weddings, but we got together to celebrate Kimberly's wedding and Courtney's impending addition to her family. Hopefully this is the first of a regular tradition. It was great to relax with old friends, tour a new town, and get caught up.

See you in March ladies!

Satchel

There's a good chance that if you're reading this, you knew our dog Satchel or at least heard the stories about him. Tom had Satchel since he was about 6 months old. For many years, it was the 2 of them, and then since Tom and I got together 6 years ago, it's always been the three of us.

He was definitely a special needs dog. His circle of trust was small, problematically so as he always wanted to be leading the action. For those lucky to be in the circle, he was affectionate and always wanted to be close. He knew a lot of words so much so that we spelled most of the ones he knew to avoid a burst of unwanted excitement.

Tom and I had been slowly realizing that Satchel was becoming an old dog. His snoring had gotten loud at night, his coat greying, and he was having a hard time getting up. Still his energy and spirit always seemed puppy like. He'd had cancer right before we moved to Oregon 3 years ago, but we lived close to a veterinary oncologist (only in CA can such a situation occur), and they thought they'd gotten what they needed to.

In short, he starting showing active signs of illness quickly and Tom and I had to make decisions quickly regarding his care. An ultrasound showed he was full of cancer, and he was bleeding out a from a large tumor in his spleen. It was a question of when not whether things would end. We'd had to put down to sleep on July 3rd.

Here are some of my favorite pictures. Enjoy.

Miscellaneous and Sundry

A few notable events:

Most of you know that I've been working on an acquisition for the last 14 months, and we're finally getting the systems into production this weekend! I've been responsible for managing the testing for both the business and IT teams and 60+ hour weeks were a regular occurrence. I'm finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Could that be the glimmer of a normal life?

It was a good experience, but a lot of responsibility, sometimes more then I felt that I should have or wanted.

I'm on my way to Seattle this weekend to celebrate some life events with friends, a wedding, and a soon to be addition to anothers family.

Finally, Tom and I are going to be celebrating our 4 year anniversary. I'm actually fleeing so the coup to head up to Seattle on our anniversary, so Tom's on the hook to plan something to celebrate when I get back. Pressure on!

Pictures from the park

We've been trying to be better about taking Sadie to the park then we were about Satchel. We've been going to Laurelhurst lately and they've got a cool off leash area. It helps her burn off her endless energy, keeps her socialized with other dogs, keeps introducing her to strangers.

We had a late summer, but a very dry one. I'm guessing 5 days of rain in the last 3 months. We need to take advantage of it before it's gone. For those of y'all not from Portland it doesn't actually rain here all the time.

Sleepy, toothless puppy

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Sadie seems to be going through a growth spurt and wants to sleep a lot. Apparently growing is exhausting! She's also losing her baby teeth. It's pretty gross, but also pretty funny. We're finding them around the house, and I keep mistaking them for popcorn.

We had a nice weekend between summer BBQs and some lovely weather. Hope it lasts for a couple more weeks!

Sadie's growing!

We had Sadie in for her next vet visit, and they confirmed what we thought. She's growing! She's gained 5 pounds in the last 3 weeks or 30% of her total body weight. She no longer fits on my lap, much to my dismay, but is still very much a lap dog. She loves being pet or snuggled.

She seems to be doing well with socialization to the point where folks are scared by her. She's so excited to see them.

Sadie's got a friend

Friends of ours have a pretty energetic Beagle, George. Since Sadie doesn't have all of her vaccinations, we've been limited her exposure to animals at the parks. George is about her size, and we thought he'd be a good socialization exercise for Sadie. She had a great time playing with him, and they made fast friends. It was a little crazy having two pups in the house.

Mt. Hood

We've been getting out and hiking a lot more since we've gotten Sadie. She's got a pretty healthy amount of energy. We went up to Mount Tabor a week or so ago and discovered that when it's clear, there's a pretty good view of Mt. Hood.