Early birthday party

Since Jeannie & family will be in Philadelphia and other points east on Donald's 40th birthday, we had the Sacramento celebration at their house yesterday.  He made his own cake - the "frosting" is ice cream and there is a layer of ice cream in the cake.   To make it easy on Donald, who usually does the cooking, she brought in pizza.  I didn't get many pictures because of my main camera not working properly - I think it's done for.  (Click on pictures to enlarge)

They caught me as I was leaving.

I sure will miss them while they are away.  They will be spending some time with Mike and his family, and they have a few days at the  beach as well as everything the Philadelphia area has to offer.  I would love to go back there some time, but I won't be going anywhere this year.

HOLD THE PRESSES!!!

I want to introduce you to a new friend of mine:

His name, at least most recently, is Bear.  I was going to change it but my daughter thinks he looks like a bear, so for now I am calling him either Bear or Baby.  Jeannie went with me to Folsom Petsmart today where the Central CA Lab Rescue brings adoptable labs twice a month.  I definitely wanted a black male, but this chocolate guy won my heart.  He's an old guy, 11 yrs old, so I know we will have a relatively short time together, but he was the calmest and most mellow of all the labs there.

He will drive me crazy - exploring the house looking for anything to eat - I've had to empty my kitchen garbage can and all wastebaskets, put away crayons and things the kids leave around, and lord only knows how it's going to turn out.  He is obviously needing to lose some weight but has already consumed more than a day's share of treats.  I think he is about 90#, so we are going to try to help his heart out and get rid of some of the pounds.  It's hard to put a lab on a diet.

I hope to be able to take him camping for a couple of days in the next month or so and see how he likes being in the great outdoors.  He was found as a stray in the Sierra mtns., microchipped but not registered to his former owner.   I will be glad to get the paperwork to register my name and how to contact me.   His coat was very thick, no doubt because of living in the mountains and snow, but with a lot of brushing he's lost a lot of it.  

We have a couple of weeks grace period in case it doesn't turn out to be the perfect match, but as for me I am very happy.   I'll be glad when he can settle down and stop looking for food.  It's only 3:30 in the afternoon and I don't want to give him supper for a little while.

I'm glad Jeannie went along with me because she thought to ask a lot of questions that wouldn't have occurred to me.  So I am pretty limp right now, and just want to flop into my recliner and close my eyes.  Bear, on the other hand, is not ready for a nap.

Within 10 minutes of him being in the house I had to follow him around with a paper towel wiping up the saliva dribbles.  We poured him a plastic cup of water when we got into the car and he gave all of us a shower.    

UPDATE:
Supper was interesting, and once I set the bowl down it was over with in seconds.  I bought  organic grain-free pellets, and mixed a third of a can of organic chicken-duck grill wet food in with the pellets.  Added a fish oil capsule to the mix, and he loved it.   I'm also going to give him one of my glucosamine tablets every morning to help his joints.  He doesn't seem to have any problems getting up and down, but with the weight he is carrying I think he will in the near future unless I can put him on a diet.  Dang, that's near impossible with a lab.