house full of estrogen

So, we haven't talked about her much, but our puppy Nacho is 8 months old now and she has suffered with separation anxiety ever since we first took her home. This has been pretty hard to deal with sometimes, especially when her anxiety has caused her to:

* cry non-stop for no apparent reason for hours on end

* cry so much during the night that she ended up sleeping in our bedroom

* get so upset when we'd leave for work it sounded like she was being stabbed

* rip up the newspaper we'd left down for her 'mess' while we were at work resulting in 'mess' all over the laundry

* scratch a huge hole in our couch

After talking with every semi-expert friend we could, the feedback we kept getting was, "she's a companion dog, she needs a companion". We really didn't want another dog, thinking it could end up being double the trouble, but after trying everything else we figured we needed to give it a go. After doing our research we decided to adopt an adult Golden Retriever. We figured Nacho needed guidance on how to be a big girl and a bigger dog would offer her a sense of protection.

On Saturday we picked up the new addition to our family, the lovely Bailey. She's 7 years old and is a purebred Goldie whose owner died 6 months ago leaving her with her daughter, who could no longer take care of her. They were really lovely people and we've committed to keeping them informed of how Bailey is doing in our home.

Bailey is just gorgeous! She's beautiful looking and has a really awesome, relaxed personality. We're both in love with her and so far she and Nacho are getting along well. Nacho is still a bit nuts but we're hoping time and Bailey will help her settle down.

Shan and Bailey on the day she came home with us.

Chillin in the backyard

Nap time

And, just cos she's so damn cute - our little Nacho trying to eat a bone that's bigger than she is.

they call her 'the painted woman'

A few months ago, my lovely wife decided she wanted to get her half sleeve tattoo extended to a 3/4 or full sleeve. She got in contact with her cool tattooist, Tim, and yesterday we went in for the first session.

Seriously, Shan is wayyyyy tougher than she looks!! She sat for 3.5 hours and had all of the outline and some of the shading on her forearm done, including the inside and outside of her ELBOW - the most painful spots to get a tattoo. She'll need another 1 or 2 sessions to complete it but it looks incredible so far. Tim is a genuis. Oh, and when we mentioned we'd seen him at the Tegan & Sara concert, he said he was there at their request and was asked backstage by them because they want him to tattoo them next time they're in town. Yuh, as if we didn't already think he was super cool.

blood...