New House for Mikey

Mikey doesn't look happy in this picture does he? We bought him a new "Dogloo" on Saturday.

I worried a lot about him last winter being too cold in our garage. He had a bed with lots of blankets to keep him warm and we tried covering him up at night. Sometimes he'd keep his blanket on and sometimes not. So I worried.

When it started to turn cold this year I started to worry again. I wondered if they made blankets for big dogs like they do for horses. When I asked AD about that he just kind of gave me one of those looks.

Knowing how I worry about animals though - any animals - not just ours, AD took one of our little guys' heated pads out and hooked it up for Mikey at night. He put Mikey's other blankets on top of the heated pad and Mikey REALLY liked laying on his bed. Sometimes in the morning he didn't even want to go out - he just wanted to lay on his warm bed.

I still worried because the big guy might be warm on his underside but surely he was cold on top.

Then one of the local farm and ranch supply stores had the Dogloos on sale last week. I asked AD about getting one for the big guy. He agreed that Mikey would probably stay warmer in the Dogloo rather than just a heated bed because the house would keep Mikey's body heat inside.

Saturday we went to the store and bought the house. And we came home and set it up in the garage, of course. Put his bedding in - but without the heated pad - along with some of his favorite treats. And tried to get the big guy to go in. Try as we might, no amount of coaxing could get Mikey to go in! He laid down and wasn't budging. And he's one big dog. Talk about dead weight!

You should have seen AD and me trying to "put" him in the house. We just knew if he'd try it once, he'd like it.

We could have probably won $10,000 on America's Funniest Videos if we had the event on tape.

Then something dawned on AD. Mikey is SCARED of the dark. He has to have his own night light. So AD got a flashlight and put it in the house to see if Mikey would go in and look around. You can see it there on the left.

Mikey did go in all by himself and I ran to get the camera. By the time I got back to the garage though he was coming out. He'd had enough looking around for the time being. That's the reason AD has hold of him so I could snap a picture.

Then the worrying started again. We'd spent all that money on a Dogloo right before Christmas and Mikey wasn't going to like it after all.

But AD had yet another idea. Maybe the flashlight didn't light the house up enough. AD moved Mikey's night light closer to the house, hooked it up (it's really a small lamp) and that did the trick because Mikey went right in, laid down and was happy as a clam.

Now he LOVES his house!

The downside is - Mikey can go clear to the back of the house and if he doesn't want to come out, we can't make him. And he's one stubborn dog.I foresee that being a problem sometime in the future but for now, I'm just glad that he loves his new digs and I won't have to worry about him being cold.

Mikey's snug as a bug in a rug at night - a Big bug - but's he's snug. LOL

Celebrating Another Birthday

Fifteen years ago today AD and I welcomed our second grandson into the family.



G1 had weighed in at a whopping 9 pounds. The clothes that Daughter had for him before he arrived were either too small or they didn't fit for long.

We just knew this guy would weigh at least 10 pounds, maybe more. So everyone planned accordingly when shopping for the new arrival. However, when G2 arrived he weighed in at 7 pounds 3 ounces. His clothes fit him for quite awhile! (We did buy some smaller things for him until he could grow into the ones we already had.)

And now overnight - he's 15!




Friday night his folks hosted a birthday party for him. Of course I made the cake.

If you've been reading my blog since August you know that the cake I made for G1 for his birthday looked - at least similar - to his turf car.

Over the past few months I kept asking G2 what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday. His answer was always, "Chocolate cake with chocolate icing." He never wavered.

I said, "But I made your brother a cake that looked like his turf car." And G2's reply was, "I want a chocolate cake with chocolate icing."

I took the issue up with Daughter. She told me not to worry about it, just make a chocolate cake with chocolate icing.

Two days before his birthday I asked one last time. You can tell by the picture what his answer was. I still felt compelled to do something even a little festive - hence the Autumn sprinkles around the edges.


The party was held in their shop - the shop where the boys' race cars are housed. G2's friends seemed to be pretty interested in them. There's G2 showing his Pure Stock to one of his friends while G1 talks to another friend.


See G2 checking out his cake. Can you tell what he's doing?




He was picking the chocolate border off of the cake and taste-testing it!



He taste-tested quite a bit!

Besides the cake there was lots of other good food - ribs, pork tenderloin, brisket, potato salad, deviled eggs, baked beans, chips, tortilla pinwheels, crackers, cheese, canadian bacon. Everything was delicious.




In addition to housing the boys' race cars, the shop is also home to trophies, trophies and more trophies. Some belong to the boys' dad, some to G1 and the ones in this picture are just a few of G2's many trophies.

It was a fun evening celebrating G2's birthday.

In a couple of weeks we'll be celebrating another special event in G2's life.

This year, at the young age of 14, G2 was chosen Driver of the Year out of all of the drivers from the 3 area race tracks! Quite an accomplishment for someone his age considering he races with/against men twice and even three times older than he is - a few even older than that.

His Papa and I are very proud of G2 for the young man he is and wish him the happiest of birthdays!