Blang!

Yep, it's pretty freakin cool. When the tall one proposed he had already talked to Kevin Lindsey (the jeweler) and his dad (the man with the diamonds) and planned to have a custom ring created. The diamond was Jason's Grandmothers and the metal is recycled Paladium (similar to Platinum). There are a few smaller stones which will be added but have not been finished yet. The tall one also has a super cool custom ring. It's made of gold and has a very unique design similar to the one on this ring. His says "Maite Zitut Betiko" on the inside which the short one told him means "I love you fart face" but because I speak Basque I figured out that it really means "I'll love you forever". Her ring says "Betiko Batasuna" which, despite what the short one will tell you means "together forever".

So, there you have it! Here's the video that Kevin Lindsey put together of the process of making the short one's bling.

The girl people just keep getting weirder.

Yeah, so as you'd probably guess, the short one sucks at shopping. She is impatient, she can't stand crowds and doesn't enjoy sales people cooing over her so trying to find a dress for a wedding is a bit of a task... But, when the two shorties and their slightly taller friend headed out on their dress procuring adventure yesterday we had no idea they'd find such a find! Check out these hottays! Who doesn't want to look like a hot pink prom queen with a sassy 80s wing lady on their wedding day? Note the sign in the background too. The one you can't read says "no trying dresses on for fun". Entirely too many rules for these three gals.

I really hope they bought these dresses because I think that black dog hair and hot pink goes super well together AND, that dress would make a sweet Moxy bed after she's done with it. I also love short dresses because I always get a reaction when I lift them up with my nose. I learned to do that after a year of working at the bike shop on summer days in Hood River. An important skill if you're a dog who wants some attention. Sometimes not the most positive attention...

Missing Dill (Bryan McCullah)

Lunch breaks at Cold Stream, perfecting the term "Me Gusta Beber Cervesa" in Spanish after said lunch breaks, 4 wheeling cars that were not made for such shenanigans, Using a universal remote to drive Mrs. --- to insanity, chillin at the docks, listening to music, hanging with your amazing family, running around in the mountains and causing harmless trouble all over Truckee. These are only a few of the things that I'll always remember you for. I'd always figured we'd reconnect one of these days, that we'd become close again, that our partners would be great friends and that what we had as kids wouldn't be lost. And now I just wish I'd made more of an effort because we'll never have that opportunity now. You're missed Dill but you'll never be forgotten.

Yeah!

So, after running around Portland all day the tall one returned with a bag of stuff and a hankerin to head to the river (no complaints here!). We headed on over to our favorite secret swimming hole under a purple sunset. He brought the short one's favorite Sushi, a bottle of Sake and a whole lot of sticks along. It was sweet. The highlight for me was when wading across the 2+ foot deep creek that gets you to the secret spot the short one fell in the river. Her jeans got soaked so she spent the evening rocking Jason's sweatshirt worn upside down with her legs through the arms. Very MC Hammer. There are benefits to being incredibly short and wearing sweatshirts upside down is one of them.

Oh! I forgot, the whole reason I started writing this. While we were down by the water they threw a ton of sticks for me. It was awesome. Wait, there was something else... right, the tall one popped out this little box, got short, and asked the short one if she'd marry him. She said something along the lines of "hell yeah!", put something shiny on her finger and then they proceeded with the stick throwing. I don't know what the big deal was or what marry means... I think I have an aunt named Mary. Maybe it had something to do with her. Eh, either way, they seem quite pleased with themselves so I'll go along with it. I hope they do it again tomorrow because the swimming was RAD! So, here's a photo of the two of them back in the day. It's been 7+ years since they met and this was taken sometime around the beginning!

Sssshhhhh!

Check it out. I'm a cat.

Tails and Tales

Wow, so much has happened and I'm way behind on telling you stories... Let's start with the important stuff... I got to go hang out with my grandogrents for a whole week while the small one was out galavanting around Northern California and the tall one was working in the Kings Range on the coast (southern Humboldt). It was awesome until they chopped off my tail. Yep, take a moment to collect yourself. Chopped. Off. My. Tail. Well, not all of it but about an inch and a half which, in dog inches is 17 feet. You see, between being a generally wiggly dog and doing my crazy "dinner dance" 2-3 times a day I had apparently knocked my tail on walls, doors, furniture, kid's faces and people's legs hard enough to get a big cut right on top of a small mole. Said cut was not healing because nobody has every successfully stopped me from wiggling so the Doc said he could either try to remove the mole and it would likely never heal or chop off a chunk of my precious tail and take it easy for a few weeks while it heals. So, my grandogma consulted with the peeps and suddenly there I was, in the "recovery room", as high as a professor from Humboldt State University and missing 17 feet (1.5") of my tail! The recovery has been tough. No swimming, no mountain bike rides, no fun. I did get into a sweet wrestling match with the short one but she accidentally stepped on my stump which set me back a few days in the healing process (but I received a ton of treats, rawhide and pity snuggles). I'm still sitting here with a colorful bandage on my tail. It's healing but I keep trying to chew on it so it's bandaged up until the process is finished. Hopefully I can get back in the water by the end of the week but it's all up to Dr. short person.

We went to Canada last week so the peeps could ride at Whistler for the short one's birthday. It was awesome! They had a great time on the mountain and I had a great time kickin it with my long lost (though slightly shorter and rounder) twin Lily and her ferocious and terrifying miniature pincher friend Lincoln. Now we're home, back to being hermits and working on our sweet new pump track in the backyard. For those of you who don't know what that is... it's a bunch of dirt, piled in a specific way so that people can ride it on bikes and have a lot of fun.

The artful landscaping was all the short one (with some help moving the big rocks from the tall one).

I've got to get back to laying in the middle of the driveway soaking up the sun. It's an important job and nobody else seems willing to do it so it's back to work for me!

Creeksploring

The Small one and our buddy Miles took me on a super rad creeksploringventure on a glacial creek that comes right off the north side of Mount Hood. Had the weather been better you'd be able to see the mountain straight ahead in all of these shots but you just get a glimpse of the bottom of it in a few of them. This area was apparently quite hammered by a huge flood about 4 years ago leaving it riddled with debris and very impressive giant rocks with huge cracks and scrapes from glacial movement. We spent the day boulder hopping and checking out what was around the next corner and the next one and the next one and... I think you get it. We saw a lot of cool stuff and I have a lot of sticks to remove from this flood plain so I'm going to get back to work on that now.

I REALLY wanted to get up there but it was quite a leap.

The peeps found this rad columnar piece of rock, stood it on end and climbed it.

Karate Kid.

Big Foot.

Here's Miles chillin on a giant log above the creek.

There wasn't a whole lot of color in the flooded area but once in a while we'd find blobs of green and orange.

Miles likes to balance.

And now I begin working very hard to rid this place of sticks. It's a difficult job but I don't see anyone else volunteering to take care of this very serious problem.