Boston, the dog

Boston came into our lives March 11, 2006.  We met her previous owner at a gas station in a town east of Oklahoma City.  She was 8 weeks old and not even 3 pounds.  She had the most adorable little puppy face and floppy ears.  Natalie took her to puppy training at Petsmart and to the dog park once a week so she could socialize with other little dogs.  So many fun experiences with her as a puppy, from her licking attacks, her falling asleep on our road trips to Austin, to being peed on more than a few times. 



As she was growing up we noticed that she was looking a little overweight so we took her jogging with us almost every night, she would run up to 4 miles with us some nights.  She still seemed to not be shedding any pounds.  On our last day in Oklahoma we stopped to say goodbye to our neighbors.  Our neighbor happened to be making sausages that morning and said, oh I will give one of these to Boston, they are her favorite!  All along the neighbor had been sneeking Boston sausages over the fence!  I couldn't believe it, but when we moved to Utah she lost the extra weight and has been a normal size since.

Boston is a good little swimmer, she likes to pretend she is a life guard when all the little kids are swimming and splashing around.  She barks and swims to them to make sure they are ok.  Boston enjoys lots of dog activities, she still goes running, on vacation, on walks, treat time, and sometimes goes to work! She is such a cute & fun friend to have around.

Dirty Dash

Me and Breann decided that it would be a good idea to participate in the Dirty Dash held at Soldiers Hollow.  We both run and thought, wow it would sure be so much fun to run and play in mud at the same time.  The day came and we were ready, we planned matching outfits and everything.  We made the drive there and started seeing people covered in mud everywhere, uh oh, they really mean dirty...  The race started out with a huge slippery hill of mud, it was all over from there, throughout there were several obstacle courses filled with mud and people.  Somewhere in the middle this guy comes up to me and Breann and says, hey you two have goggles come with me, he proceeded to talk us into falling backward into a huge pond of mud.  Umm if you ever want to do this, let me give you one piece of advice, close your mouth before you hit the mud.  Yes that's right, I got a mouthful of mud, super awesome.  Well we made it through and lucky for us they had warm showers that you could stand in line for...hooray, too bad the dude in front of me took like a million years to clean himself off as I stood there shivering giving him death looks.  The second picture is of us near the end of the race.  We did cheat and pour water on our faces after the mudd pond incident.

Austin, Texas

One of our favorite vacation spots is Austin, Texas.  We love to golf, go to restaurants, shop, and just hang out with Natalie's parents while we are there.  This past trip we were able to go to the University of Texas vs. BYU football game.  It was soooo hot, but really fun.  Natalie wore a BYU shirt and got many comments from the Texas fans, she just laughed and made comments back to them.  Texas ended up winning the game.

Matt and Paul getting a little bored of shopping.  These masks remind of us the movie Nacho Libre, hilarious!

Oil Painting

Something that I (Natalie) have been working on the past few years is learning to oil paint.  I took lessons almost every Tuesday afternoon for about a year.  I learned a lot about mixing colors, composition, and just trying to be creative with paint.  Lately I haven't been taking lessons but still enjoy learning from experience and studying other artists.  Above is a small painting I did of an iris, the goal of the class was to finish the entire painting in 2 hours, well this is what became of that 2 hour endeavor.  I entered this one into a competition.  Unfortunately I didn't win anything, but maybe someday I will (I'll keep my fingers crossed!)