Sadie

A couple people have asked to see some pictures of our dog, Sadie, so here's a post dedicated entirely to her. We got Sadie from a lady who fosters rescue dogs until they are found a permanent home. Rhea and I disagreed a bit on exactly what kind of dog we wanted - she wanted a lap dog and I wanted a bigger dog. I had grown up with lab/retriever mixes and she grew up with a toy poodle, so we had to come to a compromise. I think we met closer to my position than the middle, but don't let her know I said that. In any case, we looked online for quite a while (with help from my mom) and finally found a dog named Trudy who seemed like she might fit our family. We went down to meet her and pretty much decided that she would be the one. We brought her home on labor day weekend and showed her off to mom's side of the family (they always hang out for labor day weekend at mom and dad's). "Trudy" didn't really seem to fit her, so we changed her name about six or seven times that day until we settled on Sadie. She was really timid to begin with, but as we spent time with her, she opened up quite a bit and is now an excellent pet. She still doesn't really fetch except inside our living room, when she's in the mood, and only with her stuffed animal toys. That's a lot better than it was when we first got her, but still falls short of my hopes. She really enjoys hiking with us and even had her own saddle bag style pack (in the picture here, she's very ready for a drop break). She loves to go with us wherever she can (thus the happy dog smile when she is in the truck), tolerates a cowboy hat for pictures, and believes herself to be the lap dog Rhea always wanted.










(For those of you who may not know, you can click on the pictures and see a larger version.)

Things are brewing

As some of you know, we've got a few things brewing at the Burien Wuth Household. For one thing, Rhea is pregnant. Yippie! We're pretty excited about it. Ian even got a special shirt. Actually, the shirt was purchased about four years ago, so we had to scan the graphic and print it on a shirt that fit him better. Otherwise he would have gone to school looking like an emo kid. Oliver Lynn Wuth should be joining us on or about July 16th. Ian is particularly excited to help with the changing of dirty diapers. We have not discouraged his enthusiasm whatsoever. I have been concerned that Ollie will somehow be more challenging than Ian was. I'm not sure why, and the more I talk with friends who have multiple children, the more I realize how irrational my concerns have been. In truth, we're all very excited and more than ready to welcome Burien Wuth Number Four. I suppose Sadie might be a bit worried that her place in the pack just got 33% lower than it was, but she probably doesn't really know that she will soon have another little boy commanding her around. It is kind of neat to see how she seems to just sense that Rhea is pregnant. We're sure that she will continue to be a fully maternal and benevolent pet.


The other thing brewing around here is some beer that I made. This will be my second attempt (anyone else see a pattern here?). My first was sort of an IPA (it wasn't very good, so the pattern breaks down right at the beginning). This time I'm trying a recipe that attempts to mimic Alaskan Pale Ale, one of my all time favorites. It should be ready to drink in a few weeks. Currently, it's fermenting under this blanket with a space heater and a digital thermometer that broadcasts its temperature to a remote unit so I can see how it's doing from the bedroom! We'll see how it holds up against the original. Ian helped me with this batch. He enjoyed adding the ingredients to the mash (basically boiling grains and hops) and helping clean the bottles. When it finally came time to bottle the beer, he was about done with it and he went to go see what Rhea was up to. As it turns out, mash makes pregnant women want to leave (or at least that's the effect it had on Rhea). So I'll have to time my next batch a bit better.

And so it begins

I have thus far held a decidedly anti-blog position. There's something about it that just kind of turned me off. I never really understood the allure of posting one's daily doings. However, since so many people I used to keep in touch with regularly have recently relocated across the country, I find myself thinking often "I should call so-and-so" when I'm three minutes from arriving at work or in the shower or somehow in a situation that isn't conducive to the depth of conversation that I would want to have with "so-and-so". I have recently seen evidence of a blog's ability to keep distant people closer. That certainly does have some allure. I'll see how well I do keeping up with this thing - my fear of starting something I won't commit the time to do right has also contributed to my anti-blogger stance, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try. And so it begins...