Pure joy

Is there anything better than a child expressing pure joy? I think not! Alexis was beyond thrilled with her new stuffed dog. We all laughed and laughed along with her. Mom put it on the coffee table in front of her cautiously, in case it was going to scare her. She stared at it for a second, and then grabbed it in a giant bear hug and started squealing and laughing and smiling! She spent the next hour rolling around on the floor with it and loving it up and down and all over. It was the BEST! My brother was taking some photos and I've just emailed him to see if any turned out to share. Nancy tells me that I need more photos on the blog!

I just ordered a dog training dvd and book online so we can try training Winston on our own. He's so high spirited and obviously intelligent. I think he'll be easily trainable - we just need to be smarter than him! He's gotten into the habit of jumping up on Mom a lot and giving playful doggie bites - unfortunately, he's not a puppy any longer and he's actually bruising her. So we certainly need to get that stopped. One of the students in my class (I'm sorry - I don't remember who!) suggested I check out Tamar Geller, which is the trainer Oprah has had on her show. I looked over her website and watched some of the video of her training on her site as well as Oprah's, and I liked what I saw. Keep your fingers crossed for me! It's time to train the humans.

On the beading front, more progress is being made daily. Slugging along, working from one thing to the next. I'm really ready for a bit of a break, but I can't indulge yet. I've got my eye on the deadlines, and when I'm finally caught up, I'm totally planning a few days off. Anne will be coming to visit me in early Sept and I'm really looking forward to just having fun and seeing friends and movies and showing Anne how wonderful Austin is.