Ouchies

So I'm alive! Which is good, i'm guessing. It went pretty well...the nurse was really nice and we talked about Alaska and stuff, and then the IV hurt like hell going in and then was a pain in the...arm. (Thought you were going to say ass, right? haha!) I was out almost as soon as I felt the meds go in, and I can't even remember leaving, just being in the car. Weird. Maybe I was abducted by aliens in between.

Not in too much pain as I jsut took an Advil, but my mouth is really sore and I can't open my mouth. Which means I can't talk, which must be a lovely break for those around me. If you've met me in person, you probably know I never stop talking.

Once, my best friend's parents dared me to not talk for five minutes and I couldn't do it. Though it really wasn't my fault! Because we were on the way home from camping, and they said if you see anything we could do on the way home, then say it, and I saw a minigolf place!!! So I still win! Because it's my blog and all.

Anyways, I better stop typing as the place where they put the IV in is starting to hurt.

Toodles! hahahaha

The pulling of the wisdom teeth

Hey guys,

I'm going in to have all four wisdom teeth pulled out tomorrow, so I don't know how long I'll be gone for- hopefully I will only need the drugs that knock you out for a day or two....and then maybe I will post pictures of how swollen and bruised I am!

(NOT)

See ya soon!

Dog Sledding!!

Wow, am I in a creative mood tonight or what...

I've decided to go ahead with the dogsledding post and just continue on with the Alaska pics post later. And Amber- I will try as hard as I can to convince my parents it is a good idea to take 10+ dog crazy puppy raisers with us on our next vacation- they had a hard enough time tearing just me away from the dogs I had spotted and were obsessively hugging.

And now for the dogsledding:

Sadly, we had just disembarked from the beautiful Diamond Princess, and I was still reeling from the shock of no more nightly shows and 24/7 available food. Thank goodness we had an exciting day ahead of us, including touring downtown Anchorage (which was just like a normal city, plus the gorgeous mountains dotting the background), and dinner before boarding our flight to Seattle and then to Toronto at midnight. The handsdown BEST part of the entire day, of the entire TRIP even, was the dogsledding.

The amazing thing, was we went sledding on a glacier. Punchbowl Glacier, to be exact. We had a ten minute helicopter ride up to the mountain, and back down after the sledding.










Oh come on! You totally would've taken pics of the controls too!!

It was my first helicopter ride ever, and it was so much fun! Definitely prefer it to plane rides. I sat in the front seat beside the pilot both times (it was a small four seater), and the view was incredible!

And, finally- the one thing I'd been waiting for- getting out of the helicopter without getting my head chopped off! Nah, just kidding. It was seeing lots and lots of dogs. Finally back in my comfort zone- 37 dogs, and soon to be covered with fur and kisses. Honestly, I felt so normal after leaving the glacier and finding myself covered in fur.

The dogs were having a rest because they had just finished a run, so one of the guys told everyone to stay in his tent to keep warm while we waited. There, he told us lots of interesting things, such as the guys that stay up there live there 5 days a week, then go to downtown Anchorage for 2 days I guess to stock up and stuff. There are 37 dogs there, and one of the teams were in training for the upcoming Yukon Quest, which is a smaller version of the Iditarod. (speaking of the Iditarod, while we were in Anchorage, we passed by the starting point of it! Way cool!) Also, how lots of people think they use Siberian huskies and malamutes for racing, while in actuality they use husky mixes- in order to better the animal for a racing body type and temperament, they mixed in new breeds, such as border collies, greyhounds, etc. The dogs use up a whopping 10,000 calories a day (compared to our humans' paltry 3,000), so they need to eat that many calories a day in order to maintain their health. They get fed a half pound of beef for breakfast, a half pound of salmon flakes at lunch, and a half pound of chicken for dinner. (In all meals, a certain amount of top quality dog food is mixed in).

And then after the dogs ahd finished resting, we got our rides! We went two at a time, with twelve dogs pulling us and the musher. Ours was so nice. My mom was like to him "She loves dogs" (about me), and he turned towards me with a big smile and said "So we have something in common!" And our ride was awesome. It was about 15 minutes long, with a break for the dogs to cool down, and one quick photo point.

View from the sled-sitting down- after the photo point, my mom and I switched, and I stood while she sat

And then I got to play with the rest of the dogs as the rest of the group went for their turn (my mom and I had gone first). It was unbelievably fun, although my fingers were FREEZING by the time we went back down. I supposed I could've gone into the tent to warm up, but why do that when there are 25 dogs to play with??

L- This dog was the first I played with and definitely the most playful-when I stood up to go see the other dogs, he took hold of my jacket and tugged, and when I finally got it out of his mouth, he nipped me on the butt! haha-- R- This dog had the funny habit of biting that one paw...the guy told us that the vet had seen her and said nothing was physically wrong with her, it was just a bad habit

L- This dog was the most lab-like one out there-most of them looked like they were crossed wtih shepherds or collies, etc. Had all you lab owners/fosterers in mind when I took this picture- look at poor me and Erin, sticking out with our Jack Russell/Golden! --R- This dog was a real sweetie-shy at first, but once he got used to me, he loved being petted and would run out to me everytime I came back to him

Well, Blogger has decided to stop working agian, but since it's already uploaded this many pictures in this post, I can't be too mad- I only have about 3 pics left to show you, and I'll try again tomorrow. See ya!

Okay, Okay, Picture Time

I considered titleing (how on earth do you spell that??) this post "Could you BE more pushy, Aims?" ;) jks (Ooohh, points to whoever can guess which Friends character I was being there!)

But anyways,
Joanna- I think I need to send some of those hot boys down my way first- I go to an ALL GIRLS school, a bit worse off than you! =P And yes, next time I will take all you puppy/bloggy people with me and it will be SO much funner.

Amy- We missed you and Poley too- it is now 12:10 a.m. and where are you? You say you're a midnight typist but you really aren't. Liar!! And your postcard will take a few more days to arrive- I sent it from the ship, but they had to wait til we got to Anchorage to mail it.

And finally, the pictures- forgive me if this gets to be a long post, I'll try to keep it to my faouvirte pics but I took literally hundreds (which was hard, as I'm the type to never erase pics from my camera, so I had to continually erase them throughout the trip to make room for the Alaska ones) ..and also, I'd like to explain the pics so it's not just random pictures for you, and sinceI have bad memory, I have some sort of memory of these as well when I look back =P












View from a part of Mt. Robert, the mountain we hiked up in Juneau, and Spirit, the bald eagle I mentioned in my previous post











A random husky (I REALLY missed Petey, so I basically petted every single dog I saw to try to help make up for it), and a mountain lion that scared the crap out of me when I saw it, even though I knew it was not alive (one of the stops on our Yukon tour was a place where we got lunch, and then visited a "petting zoo" of sorts, and a museum with works by a famous taxidermist)

I cannot belive stupid Blogger has stopped working ALREADY!!!!! I will try again in a little bit..

Alaska, Check!

I'm back again! Did y'all miss me? (haha, I never really liked the word y'all, but I felt like using that today).

So we went on a 7 day cruise to Alaska, departing from Vancouver with Princess, on the Diamond Princess. My mom really likes to travel so we tend to take a trip to a different place every year, and this year was Alaska. We got hooked on the cruise thing last summer, when we went to the West Caribbeans, departing from Miami (The day of the MMVA's; we were on tv! woot woot) with Royal Caribbean on the Explorer of the Seas.

We headed over to Vancouver a day early, and here is where I would like to share with all of you my victory of the vacation: I did NOT throw up on the plane! Woohoo! (Sorry, Sam, I know you're throwing up right now). The weird thing is, I've been fine on planes all my life until 3 summers ago when we went to the East Coast. On every plane ride since then, I've been barfing at least once, with last years flight to Miami being the worst. I threw up like a zillion times in the airport and then once on the plane- but this trip, it miraculously stopped, even without the aid of Gravol! -Ok Sam, you can start reading again-

Anyways, Vancouver? Lots of hot guys. Alaska? Surprisingly, still lots of hot guys. Seattle airport? You guessed it- lots of hot guys. The ship? I will tell you what the ship had lots of, and it was not hot guys. No, it was old people. Not that the crusie wasn't fun, it totally was, just in a very different way than last year, especially as last year we had gone with my three best friends and their families. Last year was more on the go, things to do, places to be, whereas this year was more relax in your stateroom, catch a movie in the theatre sort of thing. Both are very nice though, and I'd definitely recommend both for a good vacation time. (Disclaimer: Not that I base a vacation's worth on quantity of guys, but when I was bored on the plane I was thinking of ways to write my blog post, and that seemed like a good segue. Wow, I'm a loser!)

The ports were cool- we had two days of sailing, and then we hit Ketchikan, then Juneau, then Skagway (where we took a tour back into Canada-we went to Yukon!), then the next two days were "scenic cruising" through Glacier Bay, where we saw..umm.....glaciers..and College Fjord, where we also saw glaciers. (And harbour seals and two brown bears).

Honestly, Alaska has some of the most stunning scenery I have ever seen, what with all the mountains, and open sea and glaciers. One of my favourite things that we did in port was in Juneau, where we hiked up Mt. Roberts nearly 2000 ft. Hiking is one of my favourite things to do, and it was so much fun- almost like an obstacle course, and the view was fantastic. At the top, we had a snack, and took a look at a bald eagle this organization had rescued named Spirit, that was blind in one eye, had some brain trauma and wasn't able to fly. Poor thing....but her keeper was really nice and it really did seem like she was getting the best care possible. We took the tram back down, and headed to the Juneau Public Library so us kids could catch up on our Internet for 15 minutes. I tried to make a quick blog post, but was being too slow, so I caught up on some blogs instead.

The two things I enjoy most about cruises are the food (how typical!) and the shows. Most of you probably know I eat basically 24/7 (Shut up Amy and Crystal!), so the buffet being open 24/7, plus all the free pizza and grills were actually pretty close to heaven for me. I would like to believe that I controlled myself better on this cruise than the last one, but still- way more than in a normal day. Though, in a way, it balances itself out, cause on a normal day I'd be sitting around, just laying with Petey, while on the ship, we're constantly moving, navigating the 14 decks, walking around....so it kinda balances out....right? But still, even the tour guides and the performers at shows would make fun of the fact- something like "Well, We better get to lunch soon, cause I know you guys are cruise passengers, and if you don't get some food in you every twenty minutes, you get angry". My second favourite part was the shows, my two favourites being the ventriloquist Dan Horn and the juggler Jeff Civillico...I know it sounds kinda boring written down, but they were actually two of the funniest people ever. I got a pic with Jeff after his show, but it was kinda awkward looking, plus he's a foot taller than me...literally. Sometimes, just "sometimes", I REALLY hate being short!!!!

Moving on....my definite, hands down favourite activity of the entire vacation was when we went dogsledding on a glacier. We went up via helicopter (my first time in one!!) and when it wasn't your turn you could either hang out in the tent with the heaters, or play with the dogs that weren't working. Hmmmm, let's see if you guys can guess which one I chose. To the point of nearly getting hypothermic fingers.

Well it's getting late, so I will hopefully post pictures from our trip and a post about the dogsledding on its own tomorrow. See ya later! =D

Petey's 5 Weird Things

Petey is not here right now, but thankfully he has his faithful secretary (i.e., me) to do his typing for him.

(1) Out of all my toenails, I have exactly ONE black one (Nat says she hates clipping that one, cause she's scared of cutting through the quick)

(2) No matter how many times or how hard she tried, Nat can never comb the fur on the top of my head to stay down- it just always sticks up...which is VERY cute, if I do say so myself

(3) When Nat puts me in a down position, and tells me to wait for the treat on the ground, I shift sideways slightly, turn my head and avert my eyes. Nat says she thinks I do that to not tempt myself, but I know better. I keep a close watch out of the very corner of my eyes to make sure the treat doesn't run away!!!

(4) When Nat opens the backdoor for me to go to the backyard, I hop out like a bunny, and continue to leap around all bunnylike until the end of the yard, and then race around for a few minutes before settling down to "hurry up" or chew on some sticks

(5) When I go down the stairs, my bum wiggles back and forth- Nat calls it my "Trying to be seductive" run

Wanna know the weirdest thing of all? When we were at the mall today, a lady told me "Wow! He (Petey) is SO calm!" I think I nearly peed my pants with joy...I thought I would NEVER hear that about Petey. Of course, I still think she's a bit delusional, but you know what? Who cares? MY DOG IS CALM!!!!!

Well, I am off! Tomorrow my family and I are leaving for a little vacation- a cruise to Alaska, and I get to go dogsledding on our last day in Anchorage!! We'll be gone for a week and a half, and you guys better miss me! ;) I'll really miss reading all your blogs (yes, that's how obsessed I am), but I can't wait to catch up when I get back!!

p.s. I'm just talking to Crystal right now, and I told her I was scared of dying in the helicopter, and she goes "Only the good die young....we'll live forever!" HAHA...So true!

p.p.s. Come on, more names people! Won't you all just kill me if I phone the foundation when I get back and they tell me the litter isn't an F litter? haha! And Jenny...you've really started something with the puppies you left out! Funny though- Foom is my favourite so far! =P

Update

So my piano exam bombed, but I kind of expected that- I got really nervous and stuff, but whatever. I guess I'll just try again later.

As for the happier news- I couldn't call the foundation today cause I didn't have time. I practised like crazy all day and then went for the exam, and then our car broke down on the way home. We had to wait half an hour for CAA to come, but the guy who came was really nice and funny. Also, while he was replacing our very dead battery, my mom and I were discussing our new mini poodle. The guy overheard and was like "Are you getting a mini poodle?", so we said yes and he goes "Aww they're so cute! My aunt raises them!".

Anyways, I actually don't have an official letter, but Sam told me they could quite possibly be F's, so I'm challenging everyone to come up with at least 3 names! Bring it on!!!!

*Jenny, thanks for tagging me! Petey's 5 weird things to come tomorrow!

Joanna- Petey was 9 months old yesterday....I'll have about a one to two month overlap but don't tell my parents- they think it's a one week overlap! Screwed, aren't I.

The Good and the Bad

Let's see...bad news first?

The Bad- My grade 8 piano exam is tomorrow and I'm having a meltdown. I'm so sure I won't pass, I know I'm not ready. I've seemed to have hit a mental block with the songs, they're all just falling apart. Not to mention the scales that I haven't fully memorized yet. I've already practised for literally hours today and it doesn't seem to help at all, and it's all just really nervewracking and everything =(

But for the good news....

The Good- I called the foundation today because I had called last week to get on the puppy list for when Petey is recalled. The thing is, I thought I had forgotten whether or not I had mentioned I wanted a poodle puppy, so I called back today to clarify. It turns out, I am on the poodle puppy list and my next puppy WAS BORN LAST THURSDAY!!!!!!!!! He is a black male mini poodle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And will be ready to go home mid-October. YAY!!!!!

Happy almost week old birthday little boy! I loveeeee you already =D

The Promised Pictures

Petey's jacket sure fits Amigo perfectly

Awwww! Cuteness!!

Okay, Sam's going to kill me now

Petey on Amy's infamous floor- everyone has seen the pics of Amy's previous foster pups Ice and Winter start their puppy adventures on this floor

Petey and Polaris in their crates for the night

Okay, it just decided to stop working for now, but I'll get the rest on as soon as I can. Hope you enjoy these ones!

I'm Baccckkkkk!

What's that? You didn't know I was gone in the first place?

Sorry about that, meant to write a quick post telling you I was leaving, but I didn't have any time. I've been away camping for the past three days at Bass Lake Provincial Park. It's an annual thing we do with three of my best friends and their families. It was superawesome except that Petey couldn't come along cause one of the people we went with is scared of dogs. I missed him sooooooo much, and it didn't help that some kids kept walking their ADORABLE JRT puppy by our site. It was smooth haired and had different colouring, but still. Though obviously Petey is the cutest puppy. Ever.

But he had so much fun staying with my friend Dee, another foster family and herLab-Golden X Fortune. I was told they barely rested all weekend, and he definitely didn't want to leave when I came to pick him up. One of the stories I was told was that last night, Petey was in his crate and Fortune wasn't in hers. Their crates were set up side by side, and Petey had dragged Fortune's towel through the bars and he now had her towel in his crate. Well Fortune decided to take her towel back, and she ended up dragging him around the room by the crate!

In the end though, I ended up being glad that I didn't bring him because it was literally freezing at night-he definitely would've gotten sick if he were there. By the second night, i was wearing seven layers to bed, and was still a bit chilly.

It's been a fun three days, but I'm glad to be back (minus the sunburned thing) and with my baby (well, not so baby-he's 9 months in two days!!) again. The promised pictures from my last post are to come tomorrow.

Bobcaygeon Here We Come!

What a tiring-but fun- two days Petey and I have had!

I woke up very excited on Monday morning. Petey and I would be spending the next day and a half with Sam, Patience and Amigo and AmyG and Zoom up at AmyB and Polaris's cottage! Before that though, I would have to travel to Oakville by myself, which I had never done before. Luckily, we made it there alive! (And without accidents, thank goodness, because as soon as I left the house, I realized I had forgotten to pack bags and paper towels in case Petey had any acidents). Here is Petey waiting for our GO train to arrive:

When we got to Oakville, Sam and the pups were there waiting for us, and we commenced the three hour drive up to Bobcaygeon. What would have been an otherwise beyond boring trip was really fun- Sam driving and me navigating- I am proud to say we did not get lost once! Apparently, separately we are both crappy navigators, but together we make one good one! The time was spent just randomly talking and making a game out of finding puppy names from shops, trucks that passed by, road names, that sort of thing. And I must say, Waverley, Oasis and Bennett are now some of my favourite puppy names. The only mishap that occured during the entire three hours was Amigo sticking his head between me and Sam, gagging, and then throwing up bubbly bile on my seat, two inches from my leg. Sam, who HATES vomit, yelled at me for describing it to her while she was pulling over to clean it up. =D

It was so exciting to finally get to Amy's cottage! As we drove through Bobcaygeon, we listened to the song "Bobcaygeon" by the Tragically Hip. (For the record Sam and Amys, it does too have the word constipation in it). I believe we screamed a little bit when we saw the balloons! Amy arrived a bit later, and it was very exciting to meet Zoom for the first time. He is soooooooooo cute and still all fluffy and chubby! It started rounds of "Oh my God I need a puppy!" among us three with the eight/nine month old puppies.

That night we talked until five in the morning, and woke up at like 11:30, but I actually woke up at 9 to let Petey out for a pee. Lynn with Zephyr and Naveed, Joanne with Maggie and Brooke and Huib with Cessna and Aspen came over for a BBQ lunch, and it was lots of fun. Petey had a lot of fun getting very dirty, since he liked eating mud. The first day his recall was kinda bad, but the second day I was pretty proud of him, he came quickly most of the time.

Unfortunately, I had to leave early because my parents didn't want me to miss a day of practising piano since my exam is on Tuesday. The ride back was fun though, because Sam drove me home since she had to leave early too, for work. The dogs passed out in the back right away from the two days of non-stop play we had.

It was so much fun, lots of laughing, talking, joking, and just chilling. A VERY big thanks to AmyB for having us over for an awesome trip, Sam for going way out of your way to save me subway time, and umm...AmyG for your...Silent Rhino Alarm that kept us safe at night.

*Argh, Blogger is really making me mad, I can't post any more pictures, but I'll do another post soon with lots of pics*

Petey + Heartguard = <3

August 4-Heartguard Day!

How long do I have to WAIT???

Yum Yum! I love me some Heartguard!

Random Things About Animals

I actually went somewhere today for something other than driving lessons or math tutorials! Yay! Some friends and I went to go see John Tucker Must Die, which was hilarious and also featured a LOT of superyummy Jesse Metcalfe (of Desperate Housewives and Passions)! =D The ending wasn't too great, but who cares, Jesse Metcalfe! Oh Jesse Metcalfe....the posts I could write about you...WAIT!!! I just found out that he's dating Nadine Coyle?? Okay, this sucks. But someday, we'll meet. Even if I have to sneak onto the set of Desperate Housewives. (just kidding..sorta) ;)

Anyways, the point of this little paragraph is that during the previews, they showed a clip of the movie Flicka, which is coming out October 20 (In the States...they don't mention Canada, so I'm assuming it'll be out the same time). I don't really know how to explain it, but it's based on the book, so if you read that you'll know what it's kinda like. It's basically about a young girl (played by Alison Lohman) who captures a wild horse, and really believes she can tame and ride her, but her father(played by Tim McGraw) is opposed to it, and wnats her to focus more on her education, and sends Flicka away. Even the preview was really moving and nearly made me cry, so I'm definitely going to watch it when it comes out...it looks awesome!!! I would definitely recommend any animal lover to go watch this movie. I can already tell it will be a tearjerker, so don't forget the tissues!

In other news, this month's issue of Dogs in Canada has an interesting article on a working team from our school, the Lions Foundation.

It's about a black lab HED Jury and his handler, Brian Davie, with quotes from Jury's foster family and trainer (who incidentally is my fifth grade teacher's daughter!). This article particularly struck me because this is what Petey will hopefully become. Someone's ears and "Their link to the world of sound".

Petey really enjoyed reading the article as well.

Update!

Thanks for the comments everyone!

Sam- I only wish we could have a Grey's marathon under different circumstances. Also? I didn't fall over dead! Yay! I may have to learn your skills for vomitting/passing out to "get out" of unwanted situations though *cough*piano exam*cough*
Gwiz- Sorry, but I hate KD =P (Uh oh, i'm preparing for an onslaught of angry commenters who love KD)
Joanna- haha, you're the same as Sam! Chandler, thanks for the kisses and nibbles!

So today I had to wake up at the ungodly hour of 7:30...yes, I do this normally, but this time i couldn't go back to sleep after letting Petey out. I went with my mom to the dental surgeon's office- which, coincidentally is right under her office, so instead of being driven home I take public transit back.

Anyways, the consult was very quick. Just the surgeon explaining the stuff to us, and my mom asking questions. The surgeon is pretty nice so I think that takes the edge off a little bit. Still scared to death though. He asked me where I went to school, and it turns out he lives near there, and he was complaining to me about the traffic congestion at 3:30...and he's thinking of sending his daughter there when she reaches grade 9.

We booked the surgery for August 31, only SIX DAYS before school begins!!!! This has me very worried, as I don't want to miss the first few days of my grade twelve year, and I also don't want to go to school looking like a chipmunk. (The seniors are supposed to be COOL and intimidating! Though I don't know how intimidating my 5' frame is under normal circumstances anyways). Most people I've talked to say they took four or five days to recover, but it would be just my luck to have complications and take a month. (Though hopefully not, as the surgeon said for my age and general health, there's only like a 1% chance of complications)

My mom said if I hung around the area for 2 hours, she could drive me home on her lunchtime, but I decided to take the bus. I'd practise being supercool by reading my "Wisdom Teeth Removal- Your Condition and Treatment" while everyone else read their boring Metro or 24. A little freaked out now, after reading sections such as "Risks and Complications", "Preparing for Surgery", "Anasthesia Options" and "Call Your Doctor If..." Also a bit nauseous from travelling an hour and a half on two jerky busses.

The upside of today is, this superhot guy that I usually never talk to on msn messaged me saying my display pic of Petey was cute! Score! And I asked him about his wisdom teeth experience, and he said when he was getting the surgery done, they gave him an IV, morphine shots, and a gas mask. Double score! I'm so asking for that! (As of now, I think I'm only getting the IV). He was also sent home with lotssss of Tylenol 3, so yay! Painkillers, here i come! (My mom actually told me today, before thinking of what it sounded like, to "Start practising swallowing pills" since I suck at that. So I told her to give me a bottle, and I'd start right now).

Here's me practising for being swollen (with cherry tomatoes inside my cheeks). I thought painting on some purple and yellow on my jawbone might be a bit much.
(will post when Blogger un-stupidizes) I promise it won't traumatize you for life, though Sam said it scared her and when she visits I have to wear a paper bag over my head =(