SWINE-CATION

What is a SWINE-CATION....that is what I am officially on! You see here in FWISD they have closed school until MAY 8!! That's right, no school for over a week. WHY? Well at the middle school that my elementary school feeds into there has been a confirmed Swine Flu case. The child who has the flu is a cousin to a 5th grade student at my school. That is problem one! Also at 3 other schools with in about 2 miles from mine, there are probable cases. Problem 2. Many of you know that I teach at a very Hispanic area. Most of my student's parents are from MEXICO...thus the reason why the Swine Flu is in the area. In order to keep all students safe and from others FWISD has closed us down. Well I guess I should do something productive with my week and a half off.

I know on Friday I have plans to take Winston in for his neutering. I guess after that he and I may make a trip to my sisters. Heck we have a whole week who knows what kind of trouble Winston and I can get into!

TOOTH FAIRY??

Happy 5 month Birthday Winston! Little Winston is growing up so much, everyone agrees. He has come a long way from that little puppy.

Putting his coat to good use!

Well tonight like most Tuesday nights we took Winston for a walk. Then after his nice long walk Chris and I headed out for dinner. Where?? Hum lets see, Tuesdays=Rosa's!!! After Rosa's Chris was nice enough to do a quick little run through Old Navy. While I was shopping I found Winston the cutest rain coat...and it was on sale. Not sure why the rain coats would be on sale since we have had a large amount of it, but I was happy. Chris told me it would be okay to buy it. He reasoning is that then when he took Winston out while it was raining; he (Winston) may not wonder why things keep hitting him in the head. You see Winston is deathly afraid of the umbrella, so we can only wear rain coats. Needless to say he of course would need on too! After trying on his rain coat (which he is not to sure of) we headed back inside.

Chris and I had planned to catch up on our TIVO, we always do our Monday shows on Tuesday! Winston being the 5 month he is was running around like a wild man. He wanted to play ball, then with the bone, then with the turkey...it was non stop. Chris had the tv up very loud over all the squeaky toys. Then I noted he had something and it was not a toy? He kept picking it up and kind of tossing it. I thought for a moment Chris had given him some ice, but he said no. Chris of course being the man he is said, "I don't care what it is, he is quiet and busy!"

I of course could not settle with that. The investigation began. After having a 5 month old puppy, I am now a pro at retrieving things from mouths. In I go with my tilt of the head down and finger swiping affect. What would it be but A TOOTH!! Winston has lost his first tooth!!! Chris was so jazzed. To him the 1st tooth lose means less biting of sharp teeth. I bet that is really not the case but we will see. Now it is official our once little puppy is growing up!

After he lost his tooth!

His first tooth!

Of course with this big news we (I) had to call our families. First on the list someone who could really appreciate a lost tooth, Little Bear! She is very close to losing teeth herself...so for Little Bear we will leave the tooth under his bed with hopes of the Tooth Fairy!

I HEART TENNIS!

Doug and I playing our match

I know I have said it many times before, but I LOVE my tennis family. I have been so busy lately I didn't have time to post on our last little tennis event. I am on the board of Arlington Tennis Association (which is a wonderful organization!) We are a non profit association trying to keep tennis alive! We do many different things as far as holding tournament, teaching under privileged youth, inter league, and a scholarship. I love being apart of such a outstanding program. ATA is hosted out of Arlington Tennis Center, which is a very key component to our success. Arlington Tennis Center is probably one of the nicest public tennis facilities around!

DUE TO THE RAIN, many of our tennis matches and events have had to be rescheduled lately. Therefore 2 Sundays ago we hosted our spring inter league. This is my favorite event, not because I have won 3 times....but because of all the fun we have. Basically we form teams of 6 (mixed doubles)...then each team will play 4 rounds of 8 games. What makes it so fun, is that we have good food, drinks, and music. (This year my dear friend Jay helped us lower our cost and DJ-ed our event. Everyone loved the good jams.) You can see how this event could be a blast. Any time you get a large group of friends together with food and music it is bound to be a great time. I am sure many of you have been a part of a sport over time, but tennis is like a family. Over the years of playing you began to meet such amazing people. We had such a blast....Although this year we did not win 1st (we came in 3rd), it was still fun!

Carrie and I enjoying the day

Chris supporting our team! What an amazing boyfriend really....

Jay pumping out the jams!

Here we are handing out all the great door prizes.

The first place team!

The 2nd place team...can't you tell they were a little bummed!

Bobby's 5th Annual Crawfish Boil

Saturday afternoon was the annual Crawfish boil!!! I of course was very excited about this (sarcasm), but Chris was super jazzed. (I dislike crawfish) Bobby who works with Chris at AXA has always done an amazing job with his little crawfish boil. He goes to a lot of effort to make it fun for all.

Tons of Chris' work friends were there, as well as other friends too. They had a whole feeding trough set up with tons of crawfish! It was actually funny because as they poured out fresh crawfish the table would get packed with people...then die down again til the next batch. Bobby also had the beer and margaritas flowing!

The feeding trough!

Winston really wanted to see what it was all about!!!

A fresh batch = people chowing down!

I also got to enjoy many wonderful games of beer pong! Beer pong is slightly new to me, due to the fact that I don't ever remember it in college. I think it is a newer college game (but could be wrong!). When beer pong started to fade, they pulled in another drinking game called baseball. I think that was the best to watch, since you could still bases and had to race to flip your cup to get the base. Really the whole thing was a mess and very entertaining!

Ryan and Chris game planning....

Down to the last cup..he has to sink it!

How to win....make the other team drink all their cups before you!

Chris making a mess when trying to re-stack cups!

Game 2...they won so now the must take on the girls! Funny thing is the girls beat them.

A high five after a home run in baseball.

Chad (aka Chachi) steeling home. He made it because he flipped his cup first.
The boys won 7-5, great game!
Ryan and Winston watching the game.
Oh poor Ryan....5 beer pongs, 1 baseball game, and 4 jello shots later.

All in all the whole day was wonderful. We had such a great time hanging out with our friends. Oh and did I mention that Winston loved it...he loved the attention and freedom to just roam around! The weather couldn't have been more perfect too. We had an amazing weekend, now back to the work. Thankfully I only have 6 more weeks...then SUMMER!!! I can't wait to lay by the pool everyday!!!

Here are a few cute pics once we got home!

sweet Winston....

What a happy little family

Winston and I chill'n...note my shirt from Bobby's!

Chris and Winston...too cute

FORT WOOF!

On Saturday Chris and I thought our little graduate would enjoy a special trip. Therefore, we took him out to Fort WOOF! This is a nice little dog park not to far from the house. Of course we had our normal concern about how Winston would do in the car. However, he did pretty good. Chris thinks that Winston will feel better about the car if he realizes he gets to go somewhere fun! You know I just go along with his crazy thoughts.

For those of you not familiar with a "dog park" I will explain. Basically it is a large gated area where your dog can run free off the leash around other dogs. Fort Woof is really nice, they have 2 sides; one for the large dogs and another for the small dogs. They have benches for us to sit on. Then water areas for the dogs to chill. They have even added an agility course on both sides. Maybe we can work on that with Winston! While at the doggy park I took some pics. I mean after all what kind of a puppy mommy would I be if I didn't take a billion. Here are a few of the best ones.

My sweet boys!

Winston taking a break.

Meeting new friends.

Enjoying the nice grass with NO ANTS!!!


Chris trying to get Winston to leave...like any small child he did not want too!

A Lead.....

Scott, Casey (Chris' cousin), Chris

Last night Chris' cousin had a great birthday party. It was in Lewisville at this sushi restaurant, lots of fun. If you live in the area and love that type of food (I don't really, but they had good non sushi too) you should really go. Around 10 pm it turns into a 21 and up club. We had a blast and the music was great too.

Carrie and I

Scott feeding Chris...these boys are a mess!

While at the party some of our friends were asking about the weeks events....aka the break in!!! We were all discussing this when one of the friends (we will call him Cooper) informed us about some other events in the neighborhood. You see Cooper owns a store on the corner of his neighborhood. They too have been seeing more attempted break ins, and graffiti. Well on Thursday....Cooper was at work when his brother called. Cooper's bother lives only 4 blocks from our place!!! He called to get Cooper's help because some people had just busted into his back door.

Yes let me set this up for you! Cooper's brother just sitting at home watching some TV. He was just chill'n doing what he normally does, when BAM!!! His back door gets kicked in and 3 people (1 male, 2 female) come running into his living room. His brother immediately said "WHAT are you doing?" That kind of freaked them out...they expected no one to be home.... (Cooper doesn't have a car so it probably looked that way from the outside) So from here Cooper called his brother and told him to haul ass over. The 3 intruders took off out the back door, so did Cooper. They ran to a green Z71 camero....Cooper and his brother tried to chase after them, but lost them somewhere.

They informed the police of what had happened but since the intruders did not take anything they kind of blew it off. Then they tried to help them see the similarities between our two case, however didn't want to listen. Chris is going to call the police he spoke with on Monday and see if that will help with anything. GLAD to hear that we may be on the right track here....Will keep ya posted!!!

Our little grad!

CONGRATULATIONS WINSTON!!!

He is so proud!

Today was another big day for our little guy, but this time a POSITIVE one. We had puppy class number 8----Graduation Day! This class was not like the others. Normally as you have found from my puppy school blogs, we learn a new trick and practice it. Not today! Instead we all sat and waited for our turn to prove we (the dog) could do it.

Here we go, heading to our BIG class!

Winston and I just before!

Sus went first each time then Winston, Spike and Archie. We began with the basics...sit, down, look at me. Everyone did a great job with these! Then the hard one!!! STAY for 30 seconds. All the pups did a great job. I of course made Chris do this one because Winston really listens to him a bit more. I think it is the male bonding thing! Spike had a few problems, and it doesn't help that Chris dropped our treats in the middle of his turn...but he got it at the end.

Next was leave it----Winston really didn't do it like she wanted him to. You see we take a large yummy treat and put it under our shoe. We have to show it to the dog, cover it up and if the dog goes for it say leave it. You are suppose to do this until the dog looks at you and shows they are not going for it. Well Winston would leave it, but not look at me. Instead he would just sit there and look around. Finally after many tires he gave me a side look and she counted it. However, as Chris will state,"He was leaving the treat and not going for it, what does it matter if he looks up at us!"

Winston waiting his turn....such a good boy.

Look how happy he is to get his diploma from Ms. Angie!



Look at our sweet boy, posing for his graduation picture for the wall. Ms. Angie places each puppy up on the wall!

From leave it we did come and sit; then a walking leave it. Winston rocks at the walking leave it, since we do it on our walks. He walks by the treat pile you say leave it and they have to keep going....Well our little friend likes to pick up sticks and rocks when walking so we have leave it down! Finally we had the lose leash walk with no pulling and 2 sits; and then the greet! He did amazing at it all. Actually EVERYONE did amazing. Winston got a 100 on his report card! Honestly I think we must have been in the GT class, because everyone aced the test and could have probably learned more.

Look at our little grad...holding his ball and posing for a pic!

Here he is with his report card and diploma.

I took a few pics of Winston with his classmates. They loved to play in class and after sitting so long today they needed some play time. We are so proud of our little guy, he has grown up so much!

Winston and Spike...the men of the group!

Winston and Sus

Winston and Archie