Bachie's New Trick

Tonight CJ decided that it was time for our little Bachelor to learn a new trick. So he grabbed a bunch of cheese, and about 20 minutes later, Bachelor knows how to "Beg" on command. This trick is really great and its hard to see from the picture just how cute he looks going from sitting on all fours to sitting upright like this. It is adorable and easily one of my favorite tricks yet.

Here are some other tricks that he knows...

1. Pepsi - Bachelor opens a fridge by pulling on a towel which is tied to the fridge handle and grabs a pepsi and brings it to CJ.
2. Hoop - Bachelor will jump through any kind of hoop that you put up in the air. (hula hoop or you can just make a hoop with your arms and he'll jump through)
3. Bang - Make your fingers into a gun and shoot him saying "bang" and he'll roll over to his back and play dead.
4. Crawl - Tell him crawl and he'll crawl along the floor using only his front paws.
5. Open & Stay - You can put nearly any kind of food or candy between his front teeth and he'll hold it there as long as you'd like.
6. Focus - Looks you in the eyes and maintains eye contact
7. Find It - Following the scent command, he will go find whatever treat you made him smell out and when he finds it, will bark to alert you that he found it.

Of course he knows many others, but these are our favorites. We're always looking for new tricks to teach him, so we welcome any thoughts or ideas that you might have for a new trick. Eventually, we're thinking about featuring him on a you-tube video and seeing if we can make him famous.

They're Back!!!

I usually don't like to do shameless product endorsements on my blog, but I just can't resist. For YEARS I've been complaining to Ciege that my beloved pudding pops got ripped from the shelves sometime between my childhood and my teenage years when I wasn't paying attention.

For me, pudding pops ARE my childhood, so when CJ surprised me by pulling a box out of the freezer section the other day and showing it to me...I nearly screamed so loud in happy excitement.

What are pudding pop's you say? Pudding Pops are a frosty Popsicle treat originally made and marketed by Jell-O. When they were first launched, Bill Cosby acted as spokesperson for Pudding Pops He called them "Puddin' Pops!"
(thanks wikipedia)

So there you have it. Another childhood friend has returned :) Now, if they could just bring back the garbage pail kids collector cards and scratch-n-sniff stickers.

Our New Garden

Every day we spot a new kind of blooming flower in our backyard. Its amazing to have inherited this garden. Here are some pictures of some of my favorites...

TGIF

Phew! Its finally Friday! Has anyone else just had the LONGEST week ever? I can't believe how much this last week has slowly crept by. Here is a little recap of what happened this week...

Monday: We drove the car to work today because after work we had to go to the old house to mow its lawn. While we were there, someone came by to look at the house with their agent. We're still crossing our fingers and hoping for a quick sale. After some yard work, we loaded up the mower and headed over to Craig & Nona's house for dinner. We had some yummy tacos and had planned on staying for 24, but CJ was not feeling well, so we headed home early and got some rest.

Tuesday: CJ found an ad for a free gas grill! So we picked it up today. It's definitely used, but we don't mind because it will be a good cheap way to have plenty of outdoor BBQ's. Also, tonight we went over to our boss Mike's house for a game of Texas Hold'Em. It was great and CJ came in second place :).

Wednesday: Is it Friday yet? We're loving our house so much that we're having trouble getting out of bed in the morning. We just love being at home and can't wait for the weekend. Today we got the garden setup for watering and watched a movie - Blood Diamond. This movie was pretty good and was very entertaining.

Thursday: We rode our bikes to work this morning and enjoyed the wonderful smells and scenery. The weather is just so gorgeous in Boise right now and we're loving that we're able to fully enjoy the springtime since we've been bike commuting. Once we got home, CJ did a bunch of Checkabiz work and I cleaned the house. I can't believe that we've already been in the house long enough to get it dirty. Mostly I just unpacked some boxes and vacuumed a bit. After some work, CJ & I cuddled and watched a re-run of Frazier and then went to bed early.

Friday: TGIF!!! Hip Hip Hooray! Finally Friday. We LOVE our jobs and love the company we work for but this summer weather and the new house is enticing us to count down the days to the weekend. I'm super excited about the chance to spend some time unpacking some boxes that are in the garage, do some yard work...and best of all... we have a bunch of gift cards that we need to spent, so its time to go SHOPPING :) CJ has a ton of Checkabiz work, so it will be a complete work weekend for him... Oh yeah, and our fridge is busted again! We are having the service guy come out to fix our fridge for the fourth time now! I woke up this morning to a pool of water because all of our ice had melted. I'm really hoping that the fridge guy can get it right this time. But its a perfect day for this to happen because I am so happy about it being Friday that I don't even mind :) Happy Weekend Everyone!

Mother's Day

For Mother's Day this year, we got both sides of the family together and took our Mothers out to eat. The original plan was to head over to Marie Calendars for their "Mother's Day Brunch". When we got there, there were lines right out the door and the hostess said that there was a 2 hour wait! So since we had buffet on the mind, we decided to go to the Golden Corral for our lunch. There was lots of food there and LOTS of people, but we were seated almost immediately. At the end of the meal, someone noticed that there was a little gummy bear attached to the ceiling. CJ immediately grabbed another gummy off of his plate, bit its head off, and tried to launch it with his spoon. The Mothers acted like they disapproved, but after the first failed attempt were very quick to give him pointers on how to get the little yummy projectile to stick better. Finally he succeeded...well kind of. The Exit sign now has a nice little gummy bear attached to it. Craig Sr. said, "You hit it right in the I"

It was a great time and it was so nice to be able to spend time with our Moms and family.

Our New Url

The sweigartSpot has a new web address. Now you can access our blog by either typing in www.sweigartspot.blogspot.com or the much easier to type... www.sweigarts.com.

Anyway, that is all I have to say today :) Have a happy Saturday and a great day!

Hiking in our backyard...

We took some really great pictures of the view we have of the foothills in our backyard. Bachelor loves running through these hills and there is actually a pretty cool hike out there. When you reach the top of the hill behind our house, there are amazing views of the city. Here are some pics I took one evening on our walk...

Life is Good!

This has been such a great year. I cannot believe how happy and content I am with everything in my life. I was telling CJ yesterday that if I would have dreamed of exactly how I wanted my life to be, this is tons better than what I would have imagined. For the past couple of days, we've been riding our bikes to work. It is an amazing ride. We ride next to the Boise river for about 2 of the 3 miles it takes to get to work. The smell of the trees is just like camping. This morning I saw a really cool Crane bird. It was awesome. Also, there was an adorable duck that was sitting right next to the path we were riding. I can't imagine every commuting in cars again! It is so amazing to begin your morning with the peaceful breeze and such amazing views of the river.

Last night we ate dinner on our back porch. It was great. Our back yard is so shady during the evening and the crickets were chirping last night. I keep wanting to pinch myself, because life is so good right now. I honestly can't imagine it getting any better :)

New Family Member

This morning when brushing my teeth, I looked down at the sink and saw this little face staring up at me. Last Saturday, Craig found a little tree frog (similar to picture) in our front yard. He immediately got out his 'pet supplies' box from the garage, and made the little guy a terrarium. I have to admit that at the time I was a little frustrated because we were in the middle of moving and he was grabbing rocks, sticks, dirt and making a mess on the kitchen counter. But the end result was awesome. There is a cool little terrarium with everything that any good froggy pet would want. But apparently when catching some flies, the frog made his grand escape from downstairs to the upstairs bathroom. I could not believe my eyes this morning when I saw him sitting in the sink. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to capture the picture in fear that our new little member of the family would go hopping to some other room.

16 Things on 16th Birthday

For my little sister, Becca's 16th birthday, I took her out to do 16 silly things to celebrate her 16th birthday. At the beginning of the evening, I gave her a box of 16 candles, each wrapped with the 16 things she was about to do. Here are some pictures from our wild evening...

1.Pump 16 cents of gas - the closest we could get was 17, so we called it one to grow on

2. Eat 16 mozzarella sticks for dinner- We actually shared these

3. Drink a LARGE soda in only 16 gulps - Here she is getting ready for a giant sized gulp.

4. Wave 16 times in a row to the same person -This was so much fun. The poor person she was waving to acted very confused.

5. Do 16 jumping jacks on 16th street - I think she felt kind of silly...but no one was watching her.

6. Send 16 text messages - to the same person and don't tell them why.

7. Let 16 helium balloons go

8. Shoot 16 confetti poppers - The people at the party store were giving us some silly looks for this one.

9. Buy 16 gumballs

10. Chew 16 gumballs at once and blow a huge bubble - What I thought was going to be a blast ended up being torture for her. 16 gumballs is a lot to chew at once, and believe it or not more gumballs does not equal a bigger bubble.

11. Spend $16 - After a tough gumball task, she was pleased to be able to buy herself some makeup at Mac.

12. Throw 16 cents into a fountain and make a wish - By this time we were hurrying as fast as possible before the mall closed for the night. So you can tell that she is just really wanting to get this task over with. Maybe her wish was for no more gumballs.

13. Go up & down the mall escalator 16 times - I giggled at the bottom while she tirelessly went up and down.

14. Earn and spend 16 PoJo's Arcade tickets - She bought a bunch of little tree frogs with her hard earned tickets.

15. Take 16 funny photo booth photos - This was a blast. At the end, we started running out of poses.

16. Hug sis 16 times (sorry no pic) - Gimmicky, I know...but this was really sweet. She gave me 16 huge squeezes before we ended the night.

We had so much fun hanging out together and celebrating her birthday. I loved being able to spend time with her driving around in the car to each of her stops. I also thought it was great that she humored me for each of the silly tasks and didn't complain once as I was torturing her :) It was a great time and definitely something that I'll remember forever. Its so great to have such a fun little sister.

Living out of Boxes

Hurray! We are at the new house now and it is WONDERFUL. Thank you SO much to J, S & K, DL, Nones and Judy for helping us move. Two giant u-haul trips and two truck loads later, we now have nearly everything in our new house. Phew! (except for a few boxes at DL's house)

Our new garage is not nearly as massive as our old one and is currently bursting full of boxes. We've been dying for a good ole grilled cheese sandwhich but I can't find the box with the frying pan! And where is my can opener???

We're sore from all of the hard work. This morning we showed each other our battle wounds. CJ has a bunch of bruises, I have a cut on my finger, and both of our feets are so sore that we can barely walk. Today we went back to work and our desk jobs are a welcome change to all of the manual labor we've been doing the past three days. It is nice to only be working 2 days until the weekend again.

I promise to never move again! At least not for a really really long time! I cannot believe how much work it is.

But I am so thrilled about our new house its been worth the work. Here are some fun things that we've noticed about our new place....

1. Our picture windows have an awesome view of the garden. There are cute little robins who like to play there.
2. Our upstairs bedroom has some really cool lighting above the bed...perfect for reading before bed.
3. Our neighbors are great! They have a dog named Spanky who just loves Bachelor, but pee's everytime I try to pet him.
4. There are froggies who make noises at night. Its great!
5. We have ants....MAJOR! And Bachelor loves to eat the poison baits, so we're going to be battling keeping him away.
6. We desperately need cable tv. This house has poor local television reception with just rabbit ears.
7. The basement is SO chilly. I love it. During our hot moving days, it was great to just go down there and cool off.
8. The water pressure is good :) This was something that I was concerned about. It seems that sometimes older houses don't have quite the shower power that I'm used to, but this house does.
9. It is easier to see the stars at night from our house.

Thanks again to everyone who helped us move. We appreciate it!