"Our" Best Friend!

Not "Man's" but "Our Best Friend! Chase is a funny puppy! He makes us really happy and he LOVES us! He really can't be away from us...he is always in the same room, he tries to sit on our laps, he pees quick so that he can come back inside and hang out! He truly is our little best friend! Oh, and he thinks he is totally human and feels entitled to everything we eat and have...especially our socks! We find socks outside and all over the house. He doesn't chew them he just carries them around and lays on them. When we leave we put up a baby gate so that he can't get to the family room (he has been known to chew up the couch cushions more than once!) but, one day we forgot and when Ry got home he found Chase in the front room sitting in a pile of about 15 socks he had gathered up. And his new favorite place is the love sack. We have bought him doggie beds galore buy he wants nothing to do with them but he loves that darn love sack! He is also the best swimmer ever! I could watch him all day swimming. He just loves it and where ever there is water you can know he will make his way there, it is like he is drawn to it! :) He is also FEARLESS! He is the best hiking companion ever, he tries to run up and down everything! Sometimes it freaks me out! And he has so much energy I am sure he is eating crack for breakfast...I am just not sure where he is getting it!His nose totally changes colors with the seasons (pink in the winter-black in the summer)

My FAVORITE picture! He is such a pretty dog!

This is my first video, YEA! This is him swimming at our camping trip. (This is one of the lakes the bear hangs out at)

The last thing about Chase is that he has about 100 names. I am surprised he does not have Multiple Personality Disorder!

Chase Arizona Jones, Chaserbug, The bug, bug, pupperoni, bug a lug, puppers, roni...and the list goes on! :)

Tis the Season for...lights and Chase's birthday!

The 8th was Chase's birthday, 2 years old! He loves popcorn so we let him have his own bowl. It was hilarious to watch. At first he just watched it and didn't really know what to do but then he dug in...it was really funny! And he loved it. He also got a doggy bed...we were hoping that this would mean that we could have our bed back but...nope!

Then today we put up more Christmas lights outside and we had to climb trees. Ryan was laughing because he said he has never seen me climb a tree. He said, "you're my little climber"...I said, "You say "climber", Edward says "Spider Monkey"" Potato/Patato! :) Anyway, good times! Getting down was really touch and go for a while but no one lost an eye and we are both expected to make a full recovery! Wow, climbing trees is not as easy as Edward makes it. :)

Oh, and I am almost (notice I said "almost") embarrassed to say:
Twlight number 5: check!

Ryan and Chase go for a Hike

The coolest thing about being in school right now is that I only have to work until 12:00. I don't have classes everyday, so this Thrusday I decided to take Chase on a hike. Let me tell you how much this dog loves to be outdoors. Well I can't really cause I don't really know, he can't talk, but seems like he really likes it. Whenever I get out the Camelbak without even asking if he wants to "Go Bye Bye" (and believe me he knows what that means) he starts to follow me around the house. When I start to fill it up he starts to whine and keeps going to the front door. By the time I get my boots on he really knows it's for real that we are going somewhere cool. It's funny how a dog can link things like this to fun and he knows what's going on.

I decided on going to Battle Creek Canyon in PG. For those of you in Utah, its the canyon directly north of the G on the bench. It was really awesome outside that day. Sunny, low 60's, I think, and the trees were awesome. Scenery was great. I was on the lookout for deer, but nothing. Last time I was out there with my bro Garside, a huge gobbler shot out from no where making the noise that turkeys make and needless to say I thought I peed my pants, but I didn't. But now I hate turkeys. Three reasons, they are ugly, they can scare you, and they have no respect for the right-of-way on roads. I almost hit one today on my bike on South Fork Rd. Once again it just darted out in from of me. If anyone ever wants a cool hike, go there cause there is everything: cool river, waterfalls (if you get back there far enough), sheer cliffs it's pretty cool. Anyways no one is going to read this so on with the pics.

This is the trailhead. It starts off being a gravel path, but the farther you get up there the better the trail gets and it turns into a good footpath. The bug is checking out another dog's terd in the bottom right of the pic. I don't know why he has to do that, it's gross.

Chase likes to stand in the water until I get so far that he can't see me and then he comes running up.

See he looks happy?????

There was still ice up there. It's been cold here and the ice in the shade doesn't melt.

Here are two waterfalls. They were pretty awesome. They were really flowing probably cause of all the snow melting higher up.

This picture isn't a total cliff where it drops off, but is very steep and covered in flat smooth pieces of broken shale. It's a couple hundred feet down at least 100ft. Needless to say if I were to fall down it I would not be able to get back up it. but not my dog. I was thinking of how cool it would be to throw a rock down there and see how far it would go. So I got one and threw it. As soon as I heard it hit, I hear a ton of rocks just go slidding down this drop off. First instinct was sweet a deer!!!, but duh, my dog decided to live up to his breed's name sake "retriever". I know he didn't see where it hit, cause I couldn't. But he took it upon himself to chase (now you know why he is named Chase) the rock down there. I FREAKED out. All I thought was how am I going to go get him? I won't be able to go back up let alone drag him up. At that point I almost started to swear. Mind you this all happened in 2 seconds. At this point Chase has created an avalance of sharp little jagged pieces of rocks coming at him and I start yelling "Chase stop no!!!!" He either had one of two thoughts 1. "oh my, this is steep and these rocks hurt, I had better stop." or 2. "Oh my, Master Ryan is freaking out, I better go back and help him get down this so we can go get whatever it is that he threw down there." Because as soon as I freaked out he hit the breaks with all four. But what happens when you do that in gravel? You slid. now he is slidding and turned back around looking at me with eyes that are now scared because his ears are flat against his head and his eys are bugging out to the point where I can see white all round his eyes. He has only gone down about 20ft right now. He finally got the rocks around him to stop slidding down, and found solid ground to grab hold of. Now for what amazed me. I was about to try to go grab him another, way, but to my amazment he just starts to jump up the rocks. He doesn't run, but he just calmly jumps about three times, gets to the trail, turns around to look back down and lays down for a few seconds while I just stare at him angry for doing such a stupid thing. He just looked at it for a few seconds realizing that it hadn't been a good idea to follow that rock. On our way back I was pretty confident he could make it back up that area, I threw another rock down and he watched turned his head and trotted off down the trail ignoring my calls to come back. I think he really did get himself in a pickle and got scared. No that I look back at it it was really funny. At the time I was freaking.

And finally this is a pretty cool campsite we found about an hour up the trail. We will be staying there some day.

And that was our hike. It was really fun. If anyone wants to do some fall hiking let me know, it's awesome out right now.

Zion National Park

Ryan's little (in age) brother, Nick, came to visit for two weeks in July. The last week he was here we went to Zion with my parents on a camping trip. We had a great time. We were there for 5 days. One night Ryan, Nick and me all went on an over night hike. We actually had reservations to hike the narrows but due to storms in Bryce Canyon the risk was too high. So we did the East Rim Trail instead. We hiked in about 8 miles and then camped under the stars. Then in the morning we hiked back out 5 miles. It was so much fun! I loved it. Earlier this year I got a pack and haven't used it until now. In fact this was my first overnight back packing experience. And I loved it!

My parents walked the first mile with is...my mom wanted to try my pack. They want to go on an overnight with us next year when we go to the Grand Tetons and Yellow stone.

We were told that when we hiked in our 8 miles there would be a "spring" to get more water to purify for the rest of the trip...when we reached it this was our spring:

We camped close to the spring to have water in the morning. We ate dinner as you can see Ryan is a very good cook with his little camp stove...mac & cheese and chicken & rice:

Here are just some pictures from the awesome surroundings:

Here are some of the trails: This is the side of the mountain. After we hiked the side of the mountain I turned around and took a picture. Also the others are to show the steepness of the last couple hours...It was rough

looking down looking back from where we came.

And then of course our favorite camping game...which my dad refuses to play...BOGGLE

Chaserbug

Since we have moved to Utah we don't have too much to blog about...I feel we are boring. We wake up super early and go to work and get back late, I could think of other things I would rather be doing like biking in AZ instead of worrying about crazy snow drivers, but we made our bed and now we are sleeping in it :). I just have a couple cute pictures of Chase that I think are really cute. Yes, he is a complete menis around here, chewing up Christmas ornaments, making all the other dogs hyper, knocking little kids over, taking whole sandwiches off peoples plates when they are not looking... he has turned crazy here. He goes non-stop all day so when we get home we take him in our room and he just crashes. It is the cutest thing, we can call his name and he doesn't budge! We have to physically move him off our bed so that we can get in. But since it is really cold in the basement where we sleep he likes to jump on our bed and sleep under the covers (until he is kicked off--we down sized beds moving here and there is just not room for a third being). He is really funny:

And Chase loves the snow. We like it because he has stopped shedding for the time being and is holding on to all that extra hair for warmth. He loves to run in the snow and go crazy! The other day we took him on a walk and I think he thought he was swimming because he would dive into the snow and burrow his face all the way tot he grass and run the whole length of the yard (I hope the neighbors didn't mind). We were laughing so hard, he did it over and over and over again.

Saturday was his birthday! He is officially 1 years old! He all hung out all day and he got two new toys :).

I know all this talk about our dog... we need a hobby! :)

Graduation Day!

Last Friday was a special day for our little puppy. He graduated from his pet smart training class. He was top in his class (doesn't every parent think that?) We are very proud of him. He now knows sit, down, wait, stay, leave it, no, and puppy pus-ups. We also realized that he is completely motivated by food. This little puppy will do anything as long as a treat is involved. We also found out that he loves to watch the mice and Ginni pigs before and after class. He would just sit and watch them forever. He wouldn't bark or do anything he would just sit and watch. Sometimes people would stop to watch him watching them because it was just that funny.

Chase has a little girl that comes over everyday and takes him on a walk and she reads books on how to train him so we invited her to come to his last class and see him graduate. She brought him a couple of presents and this card we thought it was so cute and nice. Chase loved the presents too...he played with them non-stop until it was destroyed...so for about a day :)

We Love Him, We Love Him Not.........We Love Him!

Anyone want a dog? Very Cute, 10 month old Golden Retriever...any takers? We have been trying to give Chase more responsibility lately and letting him stay out of his kennel more when we are not home. We started out with just a few minutes and then have moved up to a few hours. Well, Ryan came home this week for lunch to find this:


Yes, this is the carpet in our apartment and that is all the padding. Needless to say he can not handle the level of responsibility that has been bestowed upon him and his days of being in the kennel all day have returned. Believe me that when I had to tell the apartment complex it was very embarrassing and they may need to replace all the carpet. Do you think Chase has to pay for it? No, it is all us! Bad Puppy! But, it is hard for us to be mad when he is so darn cute! How can you be mad at this cute little face?

Plus he is wearing the Halloween handkerchief that I made him....I know I am obsessed with Halloween but he is catching the spirit. :) So, all in all we can't hate him and in fact we are crazy about him!

Cricket Killer

So, we have a killer dog!! He stocks things like flies and crickets. Living in AZ we have crickets in our house all the time...it drives me crazy! But, Chase has found a new hobby. When he sees a cricket he watches it very carefully and then when the time is right he pounces! He likes to play with the live cricket by tossing it up in the air repeatedly and then when the time is right...and the cricket is on his last leg Chase does what we like to call 'The Finisher!'. This is when a 60 lb dog rolls all over a poor helpless cricket until it is no longer moving. When this happens he chooses to just walk away and no longer finds it fun to play with the dead cricket.

Oh little cricket you entered the wrong house! :)

This little cricket never had a chance!

The Funny World of Chase

Our little Chaser-bug is hilarious! and spoiled! Ryan thinks that Chase needs the biggest bone that Pet Smart has to offer. It looks like a little more than he can handle but, don't underestimate him... he pretty much ate the entire thing in one night. The bone to us is like a bottle to a newborn for parents. If finally gives us a minute to sit down and rest for a minute. :)

Chase loves to chew on our clothes. So, as Ryan was doing laundry he put a tee shirt on Chase and ran around the apartment eating it and running around in circles. He is often times our entrainment.

We love our little puppy!

Letter to My Pets

If you have pets...you get it! If not you can't help but laugh...

Letter to My Pets:

When I say to move, it means to go someplace else, not to switch positions with each other so there are still two of you in my way.

The dishes with the paw print are yours and contain your food. The other dishes are mine and contain my food. Please note that placing your paw print in the middle of MY plate and food does not stake a claim making it YOUR plate of food.

The stairway was not designed by NASCAR and is not a racetrack. Beating me to the bottom is not the object. Tripping me doesn't help your quest to reach the bottom first, because I fall faster than you can run.

I cannot buy anything bigger than a king sized bed. I am very sorry about this. Do not think that I will continue sleeping on the couch to ensure your comfort. Dogs and cats actually curl up in when they sleep. It is not necessary to sleep perpendicular to one another stretched out to the fullest extent possible. I also know that sticking tails straight out and having tongues hanging out the other end to maximize space is nothing but sarcasm.

For the last time, there is not a secret exit from the bathroom. If by some miracle I beat you there and manage to get the door shut, it is not necessary to claw, whine, meow, and try to turn the knob, or get your paw under the edge of the door and try to pull it open. I must exit though the same door I entered. Honest.

Also, I have been using the bathroom by myself for quite sometime -- canine or feline attendance is not mandatory!

I can't stress this enough -- kiss me, THEN go smell the other dog's/cat's behind.

To pacify you, my dear companions, I have posted the following notice on our front door:

Rules for Non-Pet Owners Who Visit and then Complain About Our Pets---

1. The pets live here. You don't!

2. If you don't want their hair on your clothes, stay off the furniture (that's why it is called "fur"niture).

3. To you, our pets are just animals. To us, they are an adopted son/daughter who happens to be hairy, walks on all fours and doesn't speak clearly.

4. Dogs and cats are better than kids because:

-They don't ask for money all the time.

-They are easier to train.

-They usually come when called.

-They don't hang out with drug-using friends.

-They don't need a gazillion dollars for a college education, and if they get pregnant you can sell their children.

(Author unknown)