The Lion King...I think!?!?

Let me explain....our good friends John and Sara Voorhees invited Don Pocock and Alex and I to attend the Broadway performance of The Lion King with them at Gammage theater. Yay...."of course" I said....however...money is tight so lets jsut get the cheap seats. No big deal....there really is not a bad seat at Gammage. Well our Sara, who handled the seating arrangements, really came through. We sat in the cheap seats...the very cheapest I'm sure....the very back row. By the time we got up to them Sara was having heart palpitations and my nose was bleeding. But we are at the Gammage after all, so we held our heads up and marched right up to our seats. Whew....what a climb. Ok...so i'm exaggerating....it was great. We enjoyed it very much....you know, the mind of extremely creative people is an amazing thing. We went to dinner first in Tempe at a little place called La Bocca...yummy...great italian restaurant...the pizza is wonderful...oh and the Bruschettas before dinner are amazing. Anyhow....word to the wise...don't park under the trees on mill ave. We could hardly see out the window through all the bird poop when we came out of the restaurant.
Here are a few pictures...apparently Disney doesn't allow cameras and some 14 year old kid that worked at Gammage was on his way to stop me from the crime of photographing myself and my friends so i snapped a few and quickly put it away. For crying out loud...I think the people in the back row should have some fun...I mean come on...this was our view of the stage....

it's the black nothingness in the background....just kidding....this is why taking photos at concerts with a flash you only get the people sitting in front of you in your picture. I wasn't about to carry my pro camera up those steps...i may never have made it. :)
Sara and I relaxing after our workout....

John and Don comparing golf scores.....

Apparently alex didn't like the flash either....

See the lady in the sequined blouse with her bra strap showing...she reeked of cigarettes...ugh...and guess what she did for intermission...yep...went out and came back reeking some more...Smokers...why don't they get it....it stinks...it stinks bad.

Sandy!!!

We have a new addition to our family since the last time I blogged...which was a month ago...good grief...I'm way behind. So let me tell you about Sandy. She's an eight year old Golden Retriever who is gentle, sweet, happy....and rather chubby. We got her from Rescue A Golden of AZ. She was given up by her owner because they couldn't care for her due to age and health reasons. Apparently they hadn't been caring for her for some time now. Anyhow...after submitting an application and having the Rescue do a home visit, we were approved for adoption. Then on Saturday Jan 10th we got a call about Sandy. They brought her over on Sunday. She tried jumping out of the small SUV that they brought her in and fell on her face. Fat dogs can't jump. I immediately started brushing her out and got mountains of hair out of her. She was all matted, had two-inch long toenails and was really dirty.


We took a walk around the block that evening and I worried that she wouldn't make it home. I never noticed it before but apparently the last half of the block is all uphill. She did make it home and layed down the rest of the evening and all night long. Monday morning i didnt' think she was going to be able to stand up...once she finally got up she limped on all four legs to the door and outside...after a bit of moving about she loosened up and began moving a bit easier. SHe went to the groomer the next Tuesday and looks so much better now.


Today she's feeling happy and perky and really looks forward to her walks. I took her to the vet the first week to have her checked out...she tipped the scale at 124.6 pounds. The vet said she should weigh 80 lbs. Yikes...we have our work cut out for us. I'm anxious for her to lose some weight because I can already see a playful happy beautiful dog under all that weight.

This was taken the first day I got her while I was trying to get her brushed out. The bag in the background is packed full of hair.

Same Day...couldn't get standing picture cuz she won't stand long enough for me to get the camera ready to snap.



Jan 24, 2009 Update....I took her today to have her weighed and she's lost 3 pounds. I know it's not much. But it's progress. Yay!!!


Oh ya.....I think I see a waistline in there.