susuwatari

So as I have mentioned earlier I have been thinking about getting another dog. I have been thinking about it for a long time actually but now that I have a backyard of my own it seems like a good time. After much deliberation and searching I have found a good candidate to bring into my family. He is a Corgi rescue named Hobbes. I had applied for him about a month ago but apparently a lady had asked for him before I did but couldn’t make up her mind if she wanted him or not. I was in no rush (amazing for me I know) and have actually been patient about the whole thing. I think it was the fact that I didn’t know there was another lady interested and I just thought the rescuer was taking so long to get back to me because she was dealing with 5 sick puppies (which she was doing as well). By the time I heard about this other lady she was starting to have second thoughts and finally decided to back out of the deal before even meeting him. That meant I got to meet Hobbes last Saturday to see how he and Freya got along and of course to see if he and I got along. I went to say hello to him first without Freya because I didn’t want her to distract him. He politely said hello but you could see he was a one person dog and very attached to his rescuer. This made sense as she was the first person to treat him well. It didn’t discourage me as I could tell while he wasn’t as gregarious as say Popper who loves almost everyone, he was still curious enough about people to say hello. I then got Freya out of the car and she was a little wound up as she had been watching me the whole time petting another dog while SHE was stuck in the car! I got her to settle down a little bit (not really) and she went bounding up to Hobbes to check him out. He stood his ground and didn’t seem really that intimidated or annoyed with her but curiously and politely sniffed her. He is such a polite gentle little fella. After they said hello to each other they promptly ignored each others existence as we went on a little walk together. After the walk, the rescue lady and I sat around a bit and talked which was sort of boring for the dogs (especially Freya) but they took it in good stride and continued to ignore each other unless one was getting pets that the other wasn’t. I found him to be a sweet adorable little guy that I think would fit in very well as his calmness would help balance out Freya (ok and maybe me as well) a little bit. The next step is to see how he does with cats, so after Labor Day weekend he’s coming to my house to meet Boo and Sano. I’m hoping that he doesn’t try to kill them but also that he isn’t scared of them. Anything in between is ok with me. If it works out then I will soon be the proud new owner of an adorable Corgi. I hope he likes Agility because Freya and I think it is pretty fun. Can you imagine those stubby little legs jumping…so cute!!

Here is a link to his Petfinder page: Be prepared for extreme cuteness

I wanted to share a few more pictures of Elliott for her adoring fans out there.

Just in case you had any doubts about who she looks like – here is where all those dominant genes came from:

This is Wes’s favorite position to hold Elliott when she is fussy. I don’t know if she really prefers this or if it is just the terror of seeing the ground below that makes her get quiet. In any case, it works!

This is one of my million attempts to get a picture of Elliott smiling. She smiles a lot… just not for the camera.

Despite the fact that it always looks like Elliott wears the same sleeper… these pictures were taken a few weeks earlier than the ones above.

Here are a couple of videos that Wes took with his iPhone of Elliott. He does some baby talk which comes off slightly creepy in one of the videos so I apologize in advance. Enjoy!

I recently switched over to Firefox (yes yes I’m that behind the times) and was cleaning up my giant pile of links when I came across this gem made by my dearest friends:

Thank you…I think?

My host father and sister, from the year that I studied in Japan, came to visit us last week. Yasuo had personal business so he visited for a short time on Sunday, then we had Yuki do a short home stay with us until Tuesday. We had so much fun! I am so grateful that they made time to come to St. Louis to visit us! I hope next time the whole family comes to America! They brought the cutest presents for Elliott from Japan. She has a cute little Hello Kitty summer kimono for when she gets a little bigger. They also brought her some cute Sanrio stuffed animal toys. Maeda-kazoku he, hontoni domo arigatougozaimasu! Tanoshikatta!

On Sunday I picked Yasuo and Yuki up from the airport and brought them to see our house. Here are some pictures of them meeting Elliott.

Afterward, we had lunch at the diner in Lafayette Square and took them to see the Arch. Yuki loves animals so she enjoyed seeing the ducks and squirrels at the park.

That night I barbecued dinner for us and we had a fire in our new outdoor fireplace. We showed Yuki how to make smores. We figured this was an important traditional American summer dessert! Yuki spent most of her free time at our house playing with Popper. Popper is very sad that her best friend returned home to Japan.

The next day we took Yuki to the zoo. We were there for five hours and we still didn’t see the whole thing! We stopped by Target that evening so she could buy some American candy as gifts for her friends. For dinner we took her to Red Robin. We had warned her that the hamburgers were huge but she was shocked. On Tuesday I took her to the mall and bought her a Cardinal’s shirt as a souvenir for visiting St. Louis. I hope she had as much fun with us as we did hosting her!

Okay, I’m having problems with getting more pictures to show up on the website so I’ll add more later. Take care!
~Christina

Excuse me as I step onto my soap box and support a belief that is currently unpopular within the media and current culture of America. Obviously my viewpoints are heavily influenced by the fact that I’m a scientist and that I’m a cheapskate. I think this organic craze is a con job preying on our fears to get you to pay more for items we normally wouldn’t splurge on (like milk!) and normally I wouldn’t care about it except I am disgusted by the methods that are being used to promote this idea. Still if people want to have organic food and can afford it than by all means go ahead, heck if the organic food is cheaper than what I was going to get you’ll see me getting it too (back to me being cheap). Even with economic times as it is America is a pretty rich and blessed country and people can often afford the choice of what type of food we consume. What makes me sad is seeing these biases pressed on a country that can not afford this choice. There are many complicated problems in Africa that can not be easily solved, but food should NOT be one of them.

Here is some “food” for thought (ha ha I’m so punny).

Ugg and now enough with being serious, it is too much work and not enough fun.