I just got word from Mutti (my Mom), that our beloved family dog, Montague, is in doggy heaven. Monty has been in our family for about 10 years--10 years that have included many fond memories of our favorite beagle (sorry Snoopy).

Here's a pic from when he was just a pup

Dog lovers everywhere will agree that the love and joy dogs bring into our lives far outweighs the poop scooping and the difficult time we face when the dogs pass on. Here are a few of our fondest memories of Montague Brough Terry.

One thing I will never forget about Monty is his cute spotted belly. The family knows that I'm an expert on his belly because of what HE trained me to do. Like many other dogs, Monty loved his belly to be rubbed and scratched. A ritual that Monty never let me get away from was when I would get home from pretty much anywhere he would run to the middle of the living room and plop down on his back...sort of like this:

He just wouldn't let me get away from scratching his belly--not that I wanted to.  

Something else that's fun to recall is when we trained Monty to turn on the light switch.  He would hop onto the sofa and flip the switch. This is one of many tricks he learned to do.

One game Monty really enjoyed was after we would finish eating yogurt (or peanut butter) he would love licking what we just couldn't quite get out. He wouldn't rest until ever speck of yumminess was gone.  Most of the time this involved tearing the container to shreds. His tongue wasn't long enough to reach the bottom of the yogurt container and he learned that the easiest way to get to the bottom was tearing the bottom off. It was really interesting to watch. 

Please click here to check M&M and Rake's blogs; they should be posting a few things about Monty as well. We know it's best for him that he's not in pain anymore and hopefully these post will help the rest of us cope with not having him around anymore. 

St. George

Well, now that it's almost Christmas I guess it's time to blog about what we did for Thanksgiving.

We left Albuquerque at about 5pm the Wednesday before Thanksgiving on our roughly 600 mile journey to St. George, Utah. When going on trips we usually try to get there fast and so we can take it slow.  This means we drive straight through and made it to St. George at about 2am on Thanksgiving. Since we were driving at night we didn't get to enjoy some of the most beautiful scenery in the country--in the world for that matter. It was a little disappointing to see signs pointing towards one "Scenic View" or another around almost every turn. All we really had to look at was our new-ish, unnamed Saturn Vue. When this realization came to us we thought about calling our car our Scenic Vue. Thanks to all who made suggestions for Scenic's name we considered a lot of different things, but our trip provided us with a name we didn't expect.

My mom's parents, G&G Brough were kind enough to let us crash at their place for the few nights we were in Utah. It was wonderful to spend Thanksgiving with so much family. All of my mom's siblings were there with all of their families. The only people that weren't able to make it were my immediate family, but that's just the way things worked out. Sometimes I feel like my family likes Emily more than they like me, but at times like this I'm sure they like her more.     ;)

Unfortunately we kept forgetting to take our camera with us when we went places so we don't have any pictures of our family members, but here are a few memorable moments:

• My grandparents having to show their grandkids how to play a video game, the Wii.
• My grandparents showing up their grandkids when playing the Wii.
• Little Cannon (one of my cousins) and all of his quotable quotes--like when he asked me, "Do you have a girlfriend like me?" He seemed really impressed when I told him that I not only have a girlfriend, but that she was sitting right over there on the couch.  I wouldn't be surprised if he tries to bring his girlfriend on the next family outing.
• Fun on the Wii Fit--especially my uncle Brian hula hooping and 'everyone' getting hit in the head by flying soccer cleats.

On our way home on Sunday we did get to see some of the scenic views that we missed on our way to St. George. Here are couple of pictures near the Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell.

Good News!

Some of you already know that I (Bob) have been planning on continuing my education. Well, I got word late last week that I have been accepted into the Master's program at UNM's Anderson Graduate School of Management. I will most likely be emphasizing in International Management. I can't say I'm excited about more classes and papers, but I am excited about the opportunity. Wish me luck!

Snow in Albuquerque!

We've gotten a bit of snow here in Albuquerque during the past week. Last Tuesday we woke up with about 1/2 inch of snow on the ground. It snowed a little bit more (pictured above), but it melted pretty quickly.

Here's a timeline of what happened yesterday (Sunday):
7:45am-We rolled out of bed and let the puppies out to 'go potty.'
7:46am-I noticed that it was looking cold and windy so I decided to check a weather report to see what to wear to church. Oh, but there was no sign of snow...yet.
7:55am- I mentioned to Em that there was a 30% chance of snow/rain all day as well as a higher chance of precipitation between Monday and Wednesday.
8:17am-Em and I got out of the shower and started getting ready for church when we noticed a bit of white stuff outside our window.

Here's a pic of what it looked like in our yard after just a few minutes.

Those who know about the Albuquerque weather know that usually snow doesn't stay on the ground for too long. Here's what the yard looked like at about 12:15pm.


Our third snow storm of the season (in just a week) is has been dropping snow on us for about 5 hours and it's still coming down. Woo hoo!

A new neice!

So, as some of you might know, I have three older sisters. They have all been really good about regular having cute little babies that I can play with and cuddle. Heather made this a little difficult when she moved to New York but at least I still get cute pictures. She just had a new little girl on Thanksgiving. Check out the pics on her blog. We have a link on our blog under The Rochester Rigby's. Check back in soon because Genivieve is due with a little girl on the 13th and she lives here so I will be able to post endless pictures of her.