Thursday, February 14, 2008

Is there such a thing as too much chocolate?

Tomorrow is Phil D's (Joia' husband) and my Oom Ed's birthday. Since I won't be here tomorrow to put up a blog, I thought I would say a quick happy birthday now. So, happy birthday.

Last night, JB and I were in charge of bringing dessert to our Care Group. I brought my triple chocolate chunk brownies and asked JB to pick up some stuff to make brownie sundaes. John picked up a bag of M&M's, Reeses Pieces, moose tracks ice cream, vanilla ice cream, and two different kinds of topping: chocolate and caramel.

I also learned some important things last night:
  • First of all, I found someone else who appreciates chocolate as much as Joia and I do. Shannon!!!! Shannon loves chocolate as much as we do Joia. Isn't it great to know we aren't alone with our problem?
  • Secondly, I actually made a brownie sundae that was just too much chocolate for even me. A brownie with moose tracks, chocolate fudge, and the reeses pieces to boot left me struggling with the last few bites. Shannon joined JB in the ranks of, "What does 'too rich' mean exactly?" They would hear nothing of it.

After Care Group, I also learned something else. Okay, I didn't learn it, but it was emphasized.

My dog is a stinker.

Let me paint the scene.

As soon as we get home after being gone awhile, we let Scrubs out of his kennel and he and I run outside together. The reason is two-fold. One is, Scrubs can be a happy-pee-er. The other is, he won't follow JB outside. He will only follow me outside.

We never leash him for this activity. He is so excited to see us, he usually won't get into mischief. Instead we have to convince him to finish his peeing. Normally he pees for a second and then runs up to me, wanting to play. I tell him to finish. He goes back, pees a bit more, and then runs back up to me. This goes on until I feel he has successfully emptied his bladder.

Last night, the little guy decided to track down that piece of cardboard I had thrown into the empty flowerbed last week. He grabbed it and began running laps around the house. I tried everything to entice him back in the house. "Where's John?" "Wanna treat?" etc. Each time, he would run up to the front of the porch, cock his head, look at me, and then tell me with his eyes that my offer was just not worth it while he lapped the house again.

JB finally told me to ask him if he, "Wanted to play?" Of course! So I yelled that out the side door. Low and behold, Scrubs immediately jogs up to the porch again and cocks his head. I repeated the request. "Do you want to play?" This means that I will turn on the flashlight in the hallway while he chases it and throws himself into the front door and the guest room over and over again. I have no idea why this is fun, but to Scrubs, this is truly the only reason he currently exists. He wants to do it all day everyday. That and tug on his rings. It's his love language. For sure.

Anyways, he runs up, cocks his head, waits for me to repeat the request and then proceeds to come into the house. On the way, I asked him to leave the cardboard. He promptly drops the item he wasn't supposed to have and comes trotting into the house, right into the hallway, and sits, waiting for me to play with him. A perfect angel!

That stinker knew EXACTLY what I wanted him to do the ENTIRE time. How stubborn can you be?! STINKER! Is he related to JB. Okay, I'm just kidding. Seriously JB. Just kidding. Really.

When he (Scrubs not John) finally settled down, we gave him a little rawhide to chew on while we watched the episode of American Idol we had taped. We wanted to see who the final 24 were. Can you believe we stayed up until 11:00 watching this. Yes, it's true. JB and I stayed up past 9:30pm on a weeknight.

Rawhides make Scrubs very thirsty so midway through chewing, we watched as he started pacing around the living room with his rawhide in his mouth. We figured out later that he was thirsty and wanted to get a drink but didn't want us to take his rawhide while he went to get water. We only let him chew on it for a few minutes so he was worry that his need for water would end his chewing session. Poor guy.

Anyways, he downed the water. That meant that this morning, when the alarm went off, Scrubs went dashing out of our room and immediately began ringing his bell over and over and over again. Needless to say he had to go to the bathroom badddd so there was no lounging around this morning.

Okay, enough dog. We are, in fact leaving for Jacksonville around 3pm today. We'll stop in Crestview to drop Scrubby off at RPO Kennels and then head out. It should be a productive Valentine's weekend. We'll get fingerprinted, let Scrubs bug someone else, spend time together, and get to see Bay and Nicole.

Look for a post (with photos!) on Saturday!

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