it seems that people have been asking christi (not me =P) why we aren’t updating the blog.  so it seems that the reason is because i haven’t been writing.  =P  so to finish the blog off with a bang, let me catch you up with everything that’s been going on.

our year anniversary is rapidly approaching.  we are going to be going on our honeymoon.  christi keeps calling it our one year trip, but it’s really our honeymoon.  the destination?  italy.  i’m looking forward to it.  we’ve never been there, and i think it’s going to be a lot of fun.

we have been fostering puppies again.  we’ve had this litter since they were about a week old and they are soon off to their new homes.  we’re going to be keeping one from this litter!  it’s another week away and then the pups will all be away.  from what i understand, henry, a friend of ours, will be adopting one of the puppies from this litter!  this means that koda will always have a sister nearby that we will see regularly and that he can play with.

it’s been a year of many changes.  marriage, a house, a dog, a projector…i’m looking forward to seeing what the future holds for us.

i’m going to let you in on a little bit of a secret.  for our anniversary this year, i decided to try to make something for christi.  i have been trying to make this something forever now.  i even internet-researched it, watched you-tube videos describing step by step how to make the perfect thing.

the end result?

well, let’s just say that i better not quit my day job.  i think a 2nd grader could do better than i did.  =P

all in all, it’s been a great year.  i can’t wait to see what the following years will bring!

we managed to do all that while i was traveling 50% time (some months), and fostering puppies. we’ve had… (lemme count em…) pepper (1), hockey litter (3), mountain litter (11), britney + lovebug (2), veggie litter (2), henessey littter (2), lion king litter (4)… that’s 25 dogs we’ve had in our house this year. haha. koda, however, is here to stay!

so, do you wanna hear how we celebrated our first anniversary? well, mike was sick. bummer. so we cancelled our dinner plans, and mike slept on the couch while i made him soup. romantic, huh?

we did, however, untie and read all the omikuji wishes that were written for us at our wedding! that’s was fun. there were some unsigned notes, but here are some thoughts about those that were signed!

most perfectly tied knot: mimi. of course.

most creatively tied knot: nelson. it wasn’t a knot, but it sure was creative =P

most prolific writer: li’l sis alice. i think she wrote 6 messages for us. haha!

nicest penmanship: angus and grace.

most inaccurate predictions: john h. and will. john drew a picture of us with 10 kids and 2 dogs. he should’ve drawn 10 dogs instead — that would have been closer =P will said to always pick cincy over whoever they’re playing. cincy is 0-3.

thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate our wedding day and for being a part of our life together for the past year =)

we’re starting off year 2 with a new puppy and a trip to italy!!! so, lots more adventure in store for us. i think this is going to be our last post. so, thanks for reading. it’s been fun!

*the end* -the doors

the car is fun to drive, you have to be a little heavy on the pedal and the car sounds throaty.  loud and a bit of a gas guzzler, it was a fun car to drive.  there were a few times on the freeway where i looked down and realized that i was going a little faster than i probably should have.

the car is a fun one to drive, it may not be something that i would buy on my own, but it was fun for a weekend.

i dug up my traffic school paperwork at about 11:30pm, and registered with the only online traffic school approved by santa clara county. i’ve taken these courses before. you fast forward through all the pages, answer some common sense questions, and maybe you even have to google an answer or two. but all in all, it’s not more than an hour worth of work, right? not so.

the wonders of flash technology made me wait for some period of time before allowing me to advance each screen. on average, it was probably about 30 seconds that i had to spend on each page, but it felt like 10 minutes. in addition to that, there were questions interspersed in the materials designed to confirm my identity. between learning about how to drive out of a mud pit and how to maintain control on icy roads, i had to enter my weight, as printed on my driver’s license. uhhh, lemme check. i got my license when i was 16 (that was a long time ago), and i probably lied about it then =P i don’t remember what i reported my weight to be! i wonder if the DMV employees who process paperwork for drivers licenses often look at the person, look at the weight they claim to be, and then go and have a good laugh.

while waiting to advance through the pages of the online course, i was playing texas hold’em online and IM’ing with friends. that was really helpful in passing the time. when i finally got to screen 119 of 119, i was sooo happy to be finished with my traffic school course. it was 2am and i was getting sleepy, but i couldn’t complain too much — the experience wasn’t horrible. but to my dismay, i quickly realized that i had merely completed module 1. there were 5 more modules to go. ugh.

*****

today is a new day. i hit the online course as soon as the puppies were done with their 6am feeding. i am happy to say that i am finally D-O-N-E done with traffic school, and i also doubled my money in facebook’s weekly poker tourney =P

*i can’t drive 55* -sammy hagar

puppies at this age (15 days old) are so fragile.

when we got the puppies, they were probably about 1.5 weeks old. all they did was eat, sleep, pee, and poo. their eyes and ears had not yet opened so they were blind and deaf. so to eat, they wander toward the nearest heat source and feel around for something that feels like a nipple and produces warm fluids. unfortunately, the thing that most closely resembled mama’s teets was the little boy’s penis! poor guy — his three sisters latched onto him like a hoover and sucked on him until his little weiner was chafed raw. poor little boy =(

so for the past few of days, i separated him from the bunch anytime they were unsupervised. he is healing nicely. yay.

then two days ago, i thought the little boy was dying. he wouldn’t eat at 11pm. when i held him, he just laid limp in my hand. at 2am, he still wouldn’t eat, so i force-fed him a tiny tiny bit. i was really worried, but i was hoping that he was just really sleepy. at 5am he still wouldn’t eat. unfortunately, i was headed to LA for a quick meeting, leaving mike to do the 9am feeding and grace to do the 12pm.

when i landed in LA at 8:30am, i called mike to check in on the babies. he told me that when he checked on them, the little boy was vomiting! oh no! but the great thing is that he regained his strength and his appetite and he ate well the rest of the day. whew!

so this afternoon, i thought we were finally outta the woods. but then, i got a call from one of the other fosters who has pups from the same litter as ours. 2 of her pups were put down this morning, and the 2 others are headed in the same direction. she was calling to give me a heads up because whatever killed them will probably kill our puppies, too. but the crazy thing is our guys were all looking great, all eating like piggies!

the vets thinks that the puppies had canine herpesvirus. apparently, it’s a respiratory infection that is almost always fatal to pups less than 3 weeks old. it acts swiftly, usually causing death within 24-48 hours of the first symptoms. it has a 6-10 day incubation period. there is no cure.

our tan pup has been crying for the past 2 hours non-stop. i don’t want to give up on him, but i don’t want him suffer if he’s not going to make it through the weekend anyway. i don’t know what to do =(

*stressed out* -tribe called quest

i started to feed them and after eating, they all started to get more whiny.  i helped them all go to the bathroom and let me tell you, some of those puppies had more pee in them than i thought was physically possible.

there was news about some other littermates that had fallen ill and passed away from some disease.  it was not unlikely that our pups had whatever the other pups had as well.  christi was freaking out with these chain of events and our puppies started to cry hysterically.

the puppies are fine, they are still eating and peeing like mad, so rest assured, all is well on the puppy front.

guess which one is my favorite! =)

while i’m partial to rottie coloring and half-prick or short/small ears, at 1.5 weeks, we have no idea what these guys are going to turn out to look like. will they have long floppy ears or short ones that stick straight up into the sky? will they have big square heads or a little pin heads? (who would have guessed that the 70+ rottweiler we fostered would give birth to reddish-tan little puppies who would grow to be only 20lbs!)

greg asked me if i would be disappointed if the puppy we pick ends up growing up to be a little dog. i don’t think so. i guess dogs are like men. you might find one that meets all the requirements on your checklist, but he just might not end up being the right one for you. cuz what you think you want “on paper” might not be what you find yourself falling in love with =P we’re hoping this in this litter, we’ll find “the one”.

*the one* -elton john

from the 8 that we picked from, we got four.  the four are now happily fed and sleeping in the crate near me.  they are doggy-piled up together, on top of a heating pad, with what i would imagine are little happy puppy smiles on their faces.

christi is weighing them now.

ranging from 18-24oz, these puppies look like they are going to grow up and be great dogs.  their eyes aren’t opened just yet, but i’m sure that they will start opening their eyes and seeing the world for the very first time soon.

this past weekend, we played with john and evalyn. they were great to play with. for the first time, i was a full time hitter. that was a lot of fun, because i do like to hit on a women’s net, but i missed blocking. i can’t block for crap indoors, but for some reason i can get some solid touches and even block some down on grass.

we came in second. shocker. we always come in second. it’s what we do. mike says it’s our destiny.

*****

on a completely unrelated note, i finally caved and joined the rest of the civilized world on facebook! i still don’t get it. on my first day, someone’s “spicy side rode my dog”. wtf?! my available options were to “view” or “war”. now, i dunno what it means to have my dog ridden by someone’s spicy side (can anyone translate for me???), but isn’t it a little extreme to respond by waging war?

great, facebook just notified me that mike’s brother, randy, owns me. wtf?!

*be my number two* -joe jackson

this last weekend was a lot of fun to play in the tournament.  we played with some friends that we’ve never played with.  it’s always one of those things where you never know if you will have chemistry playing with someone or not, but it was tons of fun with john and evelyn.

other notable events, though i had no idea, christi joined facebook.  and what’s even stranger is that i wasn’t her first friend!!  so she has finally succumbed to the evil social networking ways.  that’s probably a good thing that my wife has a mild interest in the social networking space now that her husband is working for a social networking company!  otherwise, our conversations about our days are not going to be very interesting.

other news of note is that i have placed my order for the big projector project.  a projector, a screen, a mount, and cables.  it’s all slowly coming in the mail and i suspect that once it is here and installed, i will be spending more time indoors.  =P