Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I keep trying to get Mom to type in the blog for me, but she's always doing something else or Schultz thinks he's going to get food and he gets in my way – I have such a tough life! I wish I had opposable thumbs.

Anyway, it's been a pretty quiet fall. Mom and Dad say the colors were really nice this year – no early cold snap – and we've gotten quite a bit of snow already, although we haven't gone cross country skiing yet. Mom went downhill skiing (for the first time in 2 years) with a friend from Church last week – 9” of fresh powder – at Lost Trail Powder Mountain. It's a nice little hill, has great snow and is very reasonably priced.

Dad left me with Mom and Blockhead to visit his Dad in Missouri earlier this month. He saw his Dad's new house, met his brother's kid and played bingo – nope, I can't see Dad playing bingo either!

The fire department has been pretty quiet, although there was one 24 hour period with four car wrecks. None were particularly difficult, just a lot of directing traffic, which is actually a pretty dangerous thing to do – everyone's on their cell phone instead of paying attention to where they are going. Dad and Mom have both had to move pretty quickly to avoid being run over – which is not the easiest thing to do in the clown boots that are part of a firefighter's gear.

Mom also got herself elected to be a fire department training officer – she's a glutton for punishment – and Dad has elected himself to write up an initial training plan for new firefighters – I guess they're both gluttons for punishment! But they both have a lot of experience with training and training plans, so they're the right folks for the job.

Mom is still singing with several choirs at Church – the Christmas Vigil Mass was a rousing success – and has been asked to join the Pastoral Council. Just before we moved here, her parish had just finished building a big parish center, so they're looking for some folks to help refocus parish planning to more “normal” ministries rather than capital campaigns. Mom's background in strategic planning should come in handy.

We also added another member to our family – a new pony! No, not a real pony thank goodness, a 1965 Mustang coupe. I guess when Dad started working at O'Reilly's Auto Parts, he started remembering how much fun it was to have a classic car, 'cause all the other guys working there have project cars. So, a relative of one of his coworkers was selling their low-mileage, no-rust, two-owner '65 Mustang, so Dad HAD to take a look. Well, he liked what he saw, so now it's in our garage up on blocks. Dad's already replaced the front suspension, converted the brakes to disc brakes, and has an engine in a crate ready to put in. He's also remembering how much he hates working on cars! Especially since our garage isn't heated, so working out there this time of year isn't the most fun thing to do, for Dad anyway – I have plenty of fur to keep me warm, and Dad put a dog bed out there just for me.

While Dad's been working on the car, Mom has been attempting to implement some of the techniques you see on those 30 minute home improvement shows – without a lot of success, I'm afraid. She tried to sponge paint the loft wall so it would have a nice forest green look, and it turned out more like a swimming pool! Unfortunately, it's just paint, so she's going to try again – more things to make me sneeze, and more chances for Schultz to track paint around the house!

Speaking of sneezing, Dad and Mom were getting worried because I started coughing a lot – kind of a gagging cough. So we went to the vet (I hate going to the vet, even if she is a really nice lady) and they took an x-ray and put me on more drugs. The drugs didn't work, so up to the Internal Medicine vet in Missoula we went. Right after he came in, he stuck his hand way down my throat – I really don't like him! But, it turns out I'm pretty much OK – I just have this weird thing that only happens to larger-framed dogs – the nerves in my esophagus have gone dead, so when I'm lying down, there's nothing to tell my swallowing reflex to work to clear the saliva that normally occurs. Then, when I get up, all that saliva goes down my windpipe instead, causing me to hack and cough – it really makes it difficult to run outside fast and protect the house! Fortunately, the doc said it's just a nuisance kind of thing, not anything horribly serious – and that I'm just going to drool and cough a lot now. Like there wasn't enough drool around this house already with Blockhead around!

So, that's all the news for now – we hope you have a Very Happy New Year!