A House Divided

This is getting to be too much. Another big game and another loss. We have a divided camp here, my older son and I rooting for Michigan and my wife and younger son are Ohio State fans. Way back it used to be a fun game but not the past several years. We have been hosting a game party with my parents travelling up from Ohio (he's a U of M grad) and a lot of my son's friends. One of them brings a projector and we have the perfect wall in the living room for showing the game. In spite of the outcome it is still a good time. I thought that the death of Bo might be enough to put Michigan over the top. I don't know what happened to Michigan's defense but Ohio was definitely the better team yesterday.


At least I got to spend some time with my parents, taking them out to dinner on Friday night and then shopping Saturday morning at both some new and old places that I thought they would like to see. One of them was Whole Foods in Rochester. While there we found out that a store will be opening next spring down by my parents. A manager even gave my mom a jar of jelly for free just for stopping by from out of town.

For the past week we have had some new members of the household running around. We picked up two dogs from the pound, one last week and then one early this week. We spaced them out to give our current dog a chance to adapt. We were concerned that she may not like having another dog(s) around since it has been several years since we last had two dogs. The first one we picked up is about 4.5 months old and is a beagle/lab mix. We were lucky that it was already housebroken and got it used to its crate from day one. The older dog didn't really want anything to do with it at first but now enjoys playing with the pup.

The second dog we got is a two year old black lab, or at least mainly lab. He's a big one, weighing 90 pounds. At first I thought he would be a real handful but it was just excess energy from being at the pound. Someone had worked with him as he knows most of the basic commands. Unfortunately we don't know what his name was so he is getting used to the new name we have given him. The pup took to him right away but the older dog has been more reserved. She seems to have some maternal instinct kicking in since she will growl if she thinks the black lab is getting too rough with the puppy.

Meal times are definitely exciting along with the arrival of any of the family members. Lots of happy tag wagging but it makes it hard to get in the door. The black lab has gotten out a few times and we have been fortunate to round him up in the neighbor's yard. Today I plan on looking for an electronic fence to help control the two new dogs. We have never had a problem with the older one other than chasing a few squirrels into the neighbors but she always comes right back when called. I'm sure Christmas will be interesting. We have an artificial tree, I hope it doesn't get "watered" for us.