double smashed face trouble.

we're watching mr. milo for a week, and are glad to return the favor. hunter is a regular over at milo's house, so it's fun for huntie to have a friend at his pad. and by the looks and sounds of our living room, you'd think we were hosting a little boy's slumber party - sheets on couches, blankets and pillows strewn everywhere, bones, toys, loud wrestling matches, running around & chasing each other... they're pretty cute.  

this is pretty much nonstop around here. 

milo loves to lick hunter's ears. 

we're convinced that milo thinks that if he gets them soggy enough they'll flop down like a pug.

sure guys, you can have the couch. don't let me get in your way. 

seriously. 

mom! stop messing around with your trip photos and videos and hang out with me!

my view during the few hours i've been home this week.

my poor neglected bowling ball head and my macbook. 

more than 600 photos and 31 minutes of video footage to weed through from last weekend. 

i've been lagging since we've ended up at happy hour --> dinner --> nightcap 

every single night this week. and today is friday, so we'll probably be 5 for 5. 

equal parts fun and gluttonous.

happy friday.

this fur creature has a hold on my heart.

as they say, the face only a mother could love.

barefoot breakfast on the porch with my pooch.

sunday snoozin'.

before he could even fully recover from coachella, danny was off to a bachelor party last weekend. trooper. the guys were celebrating angela's fiance, nick, up in prescott with a mountain bike ride followed by bar hoppin' for a night on the town's "whiskey row." d had an absolute blast. and this is what things looked like most of sunday afternoon.

my little sun chaser.

as the afternoon sun pours into our living room, hunter moves from spot to spot to make sure he's in the light.

just like his mama, this kid loves him the warmth of the sunshine on his coat.

quality time with the familia (two of them).

we did a whole lot of what you're supposed to do with family -- kick back, relax, chat, cheers and laugh. danny and i decided that instead of coming up with an out of the ordinary itinerary for dad & steven's visit, we'd just simply do exactly what we'd do anyways and fold them into the mix. it worked out perfectly for everyone! it was fun to have them meet bunches of our friends and get a glimpse into our real life -- not the one that you create for visitors.

chillin' on the back patio enjoying the glorious friday weather

scrappy got to show off his mad soccer playing skills - video coming soon. 

and while scrappy showed off his tricks, hunter did what hunter does - laid around and watched.

"awe, come on dad... you're so funny." 

my flat-brim brother straight from so cal

playing with the ball...

...sleeping on the ball.

al fresco dinner at the Main Ingredient Ale House.

dad checkin' in with mom & filling her in on all the action.

my house full of men! six of them to be exact. 

our little french bully.

it's monday night which means the boys are off to "training."
that's right. our seven year old french bulldog is in doggy school.
and to add insult to injury, he's in the "advanced beginner" class. ouch.

during a walk last fall, danny and i stumbled upon encanto park's dog class. 

there were hundreds of dogs. everything from puppies to show dogs prancing around. 

ting decided then and there that he and huntie would be in the next session. a show dog would be born! 

(danny dreams of hunter being one of those dogs who can walk off leash on his heels - not gonna happen).

weekly class started on monday, january 7th. since then, it's been their thing. a little father/son bonding time. 

dad straps a "treat pouch" onto his belt (true story / fun visual for you), and hunter gets to have an hour at the park with friends and dad's undivided attention. it's very serious around here. 

i went to the first class, but got kicked out -- there can only be one master. i was happy to oblige d, the real alpha.

that very first night of class, the dogs had to weave in and out of one another. 

huntie had one of his "anxiety" moments (seen here).

after class, danny was telling the instructor that hunter gets anxiety around other dogs. 

her reply? 

"no, your dog is just a bully."

bah! classic parent moment... danny taken aback. not my kid. no. he's just nervous. 

no no sir, your kid is an asshole. period. 

...

so after being called a jerk by the teacher and the embarrassment of being the oldest (by far) in the beginner class, 

i decided to make a video to showcase all of huntie's awesome tricks. because that's what parents do. 

focus on the good. and yes, in our house "sit" and "come" are treat-worthy tricks.

take your pooch to work day.

i saw an (almost) meeting free day on my calendar & decided it'd be the chance for huntie to join me at the office. he was so good! (except for one little security breach with the mailman). everyone loved having him there -- especially me. our office has a great outdoor courtyard that's totally enclosed, which made it super easy. i took him to a couple of meetings & he just stretched out on the rug & chewed his bone -- barely knew he was there (minus a few frenchie farts).

here's a look at hunter's first day on the job as director of canine marketing at blind society.

on the brink of the next big idea in rawhide bones.

added a nylabone (his favorite!) to my typical meeting supplies.

chillin by my desk. "mom... when's lunch?"

board room style. mr. huntie directing meetings. watching people walk by.

... it's almost 7pm, mom. i'm exhausted. can we go home now? this work stuff is tough.

i thank my lucky stars i wound up sharing a life with these two. it's pretty great.

someone turns seven (eh, 47) today.

mr. huntie:

i sure do hope you know how much your dad and i love you.

it may seem borderline creepy, but we don't care. you're the best.

my milkbone wish today is that scientists figure out an age-defying dog serum soon 

so you can be in our family forever. 

happy 7th monsterpants.

read more all about huntie here.

here's to hoping for a lazy weekend.

he's totally gonna be annoyed at me for this. 

but i don't care. it's a favorite scene of mine. 

sunday snuggles.

mr. man is being super needy for mama today. 

can't get close enough in the nook of my legs. 

not gonna lie, i totally love it. 

all about dad.

hunter's usually a mama's boy, but lately he's been all about his dad. he follows danny around everywhere, sleeps on his side of the bed and squirms out of my arms when i try to cuddle him. and now, he's mimicking d. ha!

these are moments when i'm so grateful for iPhone cameras. watching tv, i look over and see this... so cute.

 

 



warby parker for pooches?

introducing, the newest model for warby parker's line just for pooches... hunter badass bockting.

 

why is personifying animals so funny? 

it just is. we're having way too much fun with this right now. 

welcome to the neighborhood... we'd like to introduce you to your new cats.

we're destined to be cat people. the universe has been pretty blunt about this.

rewind to july 2005 - the day danny got the keys to the old, old house (the 1801) - when we found overflowing bowls of cat food on the back porch plus three cats with collars & tags adorned with our new address. yup, we had officially acquired cats with the house. so for three years, we took care of princess, alley cat & garfield. our names for them.

fast forward to our most recent moving day... it was the loitering pigeons that tipped us off. danny went to the side of our new home and sure enough - a big old bag of cat chow and a bowl of water. déjà vu - cats. after some asking around, it's clear that these three - maybe four - felines are ours to feed.

we're totally okay with it. we don't mind cats at all. in fact, danny really likes cats. thinks they're "so smart." and hunter, well, he and the felines are getting aquainted. thanks to the bunches of windows and french doors, they're had a lot of face time and one actual meeting last weekend. hunter decided to bolt out the front door to chase the cat, so danny darted out to chase hunter, i was yelling at danny that it was okay, and poor vicky was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got body checked by danny and almost flew off the front stoop. it was quite the scene. the new crazy neighbors. we must have looked like a comic strip... dog chasing cat. owner chasing dog. wife chasing owner. innocent bistander getting knocked out of the way - pow!

so yeah. this one particular cat in the photos - who's all white with a black mask just like huntie - is super friendly and really wants to just hang out with us. each time you open the front door i think she's going to sprint in. this morning we named her felicia. felicia the feline.

the other cats are grey... apparently a mother/daughter duo. the only problem with the cats are the pigeons. and since the "deal" danny tried to make with the cats - for them to keep the pigeons away in return for their chow - isn't working (despite the conversation he had with them that i heard from the living room - true story), danny's new mission in life is to get rid of the pigeons by only feeding the felines at night - since apparently pigeons don't come out at night... this is all news to me, but apparently ting's been reading up on pigeons and is now an expert. cool.

felicia, the very vocal feline who lets us know when she's hungry. meow. meow. meow.

very friendly. she'd love to just come in and hang out for some warm milk if we'd let her.

this is what most morning's look like. and then all the hair stands up on huntie's neck and felicia hisses.

the reason it's called a terabyte.

a terabyte is a humungo amount of digital memory. ahead of megabytes & gigabytes - it's one trillion bytes of storage.

and you know what? it's named after me. get it? ter-abyte. bad nerdy joke. i know. danny's so embarrassed.

why? because it's official. i'm a data hoarder. it's out of control. my macbook pro is maxed out again and i've been spending hours the past couple weeks backing up my files to external hard drives and then backing those up because i'm a byte hog and terrified to lose anything (especially photos and videos which take up 90% of my space).

it's terrible. and although my iPhoto library is extremely organized, from this point forward i'm vowing to:
a) only keep my edited photos
b) only keep my very favorite edited photos
c) delete. delete. delete.

ugh. this is so hard for me. i love memories, but come on. i do not need 8 different photos of the french crepes we ate on our honeymoon. pick one, teri.

the only good thing about this cumbersome backing-up process is that i've come across all kinds of video footage. i've been reminded of all the random video footage we have and encouraged to make something of it before i back it up.

get ready for some totally random, mostly crap, but fun little family iMovies to appear on the blog. we'll start with this one i made last night. it's of huntie playing in the backyard irrigation or "swamp" as we like to call it. more about that here.

Hunter the French Bulldog Sunday Swampin' from Teri Bockting on Vimeo.
song credit: Arcade Fire's "City with no Children"

neighborhood watch.

i posted this photo on facebook a couple of weeks ago, but i love it so much it gets to be on the blog. 

our typical nightly routine is for the first person home to wait on the front patio with hunter

(and a beer) and then we sit and chat about our day. there's a lot of activity on our street and these two were particularly interested in the passerbys this night. it was a total candid snap and i love it. 

summer shedder.

do you have a dog that sheds? we do. oh, and he's white and we have dark hardwood floor. it's a winning combo.

our lovely beige couch constantly has a blanket on it, our ottoman is covered with a throw and we're pretty much covered in dog hair at all times - especially in the summer. 

the love he brings to our family makes the fur worth it, but oh what i'd give for an anti-shedding magic tool. at least this kid loves to be brushed. i don't blame him. i love having my hair brushed too. plus, dad always finishes with an all-over rub for the kid which looks like a mini massage.