Christmas Time??

I can't believe that we'll be in BC in two weeks!!
Even though there's a ton of snow on the ground and it's looking like Christmas all over our neighbourhood, I just can't get my head around that it's only 3 weeks away, and we leave for BC in less than 2. Maybe the problem is our house? We can't find our outdoor lights, so those are not up (yet, or at all I'm betting), and we're not getting a tree this year because we won't be here to enjoy it. Inside our house, we have very few decorations up and I'm hesitant to put any more up (do we even HAVE anymore?) because Echo's been taking interest to the few things that we do have. Namely, the garland along the hand rail to the upstairs. I think it's 2 pine cones short since last week.... Rounding out the Baden Rolt Christmas decorations are a nice cranberry door wreath and 2 wooden stick "reindeer". Funnily enough, Echo hasn't bothered those at all, which we both thought he would.

This weekend might be different, though. Marn's family is coming over for their "2nd Annual Christmas Baking Extravaganza" on Sunday. Maybe the SMELL of Christmas will get me in the mood? :)

Echo's 1st snow fall

Last night we got our first substantial snow fall, and Echo was pretty funny about it this morning. He walked out really cautiously sniffing around the deck - as if he was looking for a spot to pee which made me nervous. I think he was a little confused, but finally figured it out and went out to where the grass used to be.
Once he got his bearings he started running and jumping around like a madman... it was pretty funny as he approached his basketball in the yard with snow piled on top, gently sniffing it and pawing at it. When the snow fell from the top of the ball, it scared him and off he went running around, jumping at and around it again. He stayed outside before I left for work for a good 10 minutes running around the yard and investigating. He still did manage to find some loose bark to eat - yes, he still eats bark and toilet paper!

After reading my sister's Blog this morning, I had to laugh that Echo and Mariner had their first good snow experiences at nearly the same time, and both reacted about the same... like crazed animals. lol

This past Thursday was our last 'level 2' training class too - Echo "won" first place again! haha You'd think he was this highly intelligent and obedient dog after 2 first place finishes in both puppy and level 2 classes... well, think again! He's a good dog, yeah, but we need to take the training to the next level - obedience outside of the classroom and without flashing treats in front of his nose.
He's like the brat kid in grade 2 who's wearing his Sunday's best and flashing the teacher a smile when she's looking, but when teacher is looking away, he's throwing spit-balls at all the girls. Or in Echo's case, when you're holding treats in your hand and in "the classroom", he's a show-off. But outside - in our backyard, for instance, he's a little bugger.
Echo knows it all, but now we need to break the "if I feel like it" syndrome - especially with "come". Frustrating at times! But again, we need to remind ourselves that he's only 7 months old on Thursday this week and he's bound to start getting more independent and distracted with his hormones kicking in.

I took him to work this weekend while I stopped in shortly, and weighed him on the skid scales here.. he's 105 lbs!

Dog Calendar

I forgot to mention that Echo made the Delightful Dogs Calendar! After submitting our picture and talking to the trainer about it, she wanted to see the rest of them, so, I gave her the link to the "photo shoot" and she loved them all. She joked that we should make a calendar with only him because the pictures were so cute. Anyway, she told us that he'll definitely be in the calendar, but that she'll surprise us with a photo that she's going to pick from the album.
She picked the photo that we both loved, but didn't think she would like for the calendar...

She said she couldn't resist when she saw this photo... I agree - he's too cute!

added pictures

I added pictures of Marnie's Okoberfest 10K run to the post below.
CLICK HERE TO GO THERE

Just an Update

We haven't posted anything in a while because not much is new, so I thought I'd give you a small update on Echo and us. It's not because of the new TV, that there's no new posts either. :)

Weight: 195 LBS
Height: 31 Inches
Age: 6.5 months old

We took Echo to see his Mom and family back at the breeders on Sunday. It was fun to see how he's growing compared to the others and see them interact with each other.



Maggie, seen here in this side-by-side comparison is his sister born from the same litter. They are about the same size so far - Echo might be a little taller actually, but Maggie is definitely heavier! Echo's a skinny boy, but we've started to increase his food, so hopefully will fill out a little in the next week. We found out that Maggie was getting 9-10 cups/day whereas Echo was on 7/day... so he's getting more starting today (we knew he was skinny, which is good, but he's a little too skinny according to our breeder right now - not unhealthy, though).
It's funny to go back to the breeder's now and see the full size dogs, because they don't seem all that large anymore. It's pretty crazy... I was actually sitting in their kitchen with a few dogs around me thinking to myself, "they aren't THAT big..." 6 months ago they were, though! Both Marnie and I thought the same about their size. It's amazing how your perception changes. Echo is now 31(ish) inches at the shoulder. He's getting near full height now and standing next to the other female dogs, looks about the same size, although much skinnier than them.

The breeder also just had another litter of 13 (!!) ALL BLUE puppies on Thursday (8 females!). So we got to see them at 4 days old. Very cute, but kind of ugly as well... They looked like blue lab rats with big heads. Marn got to pet the runt with Danielle under the very watchful eye of the mom. They made very cute squeaking noises as they slept and ate.




When we first arrived and the dogs came tearing after Echo, he was really really scared. His tail was firmly curled between his legs, tickling his belly as he tried to hide and run away. Angus, the big (and only) boy of the pack was going at him pretty good, never hurting, but growling very viciously. Danielle actually tossed him outside for a while until he settled down - it was a little scary, honestly. He's a big dog with very deep growls. Anyway, after 5-10 minutes Echo settled in and played with the others. The older ones didn't pay too much attention to him, but Maggie sure did. They played and bit at each other the whole time. Finally Echo had some dogs to play with that weren't afraid of him! Maggie threw her weight around and flattened Echo a few times, but it was all good playing.

Danielle also had a few updates for me for the website, and mentioned that she's been getting all positive comments about it and is really happy with it. So that's nice to hear. She actually asked me how much I owe her for it, which was a little funny because I thought we were even - she got a website, we got Echo.
The "trade" included everything with updates for the year, and if she wanted me to continue updating the site after that, we would work out payments. We were both happy about that. It's nice to hear that people, including her, are liking the site.

Plasma it is!

We bought a new 42" Plasma HDTV this weekend and picked it up last night! Yahoo!! It's GORGEOUS! I can't believe how good the picture is compared to our old 25", and with "normal" standard definition as well. It's really incredible how well these new TV's display the picture. We will be getting a free 3-month High Definition rental from Rogers with the purchase as well, but so far from what we saw last night there's not THAT much of a "need" to get an HD signal...
Here's a picture of it:
And here's the story:
This past Saturday, Marnie and I were out shopping (getting some Christmas stuff done already which might be a record for me!) and were near Future Shop, so we went in to have a look at the TV's. You know, just for interest sake... So we browsed around and liked a few, but nothing really stood out. So then so I suggested that maybe we should stop in at Best Buy because we were already out looking at TV's and these one's were fresh in our mind and could compare them... Well, Best Buy had the TV that I had been watching for the last few months on sale. A Samsung 50" 1080p Full High Definition DLP rear projection. The first time that I had seen it on sale... so I got a little excited! We sat there and watched it for a while and both really liked the picture, but we still keeping a few plasma's in the back of our mind because we really like the viewing angle of those compared to the rear projections. So we decided to hold off on it, because the sale would be on all week and that would give us some time to mull it over. On our way out, I suggested that we should go to Natural Sound (a high-quality stereo shop in Kitchener) to see what they had and compare them again. Thinking that I had pushed my luck with that request, Marn said, OK, let's go!
We walked in and straight in front of us were a bunch of LCD and Plasma screens on the wall, so we walked over and had a look... Price tag's were $9,999, $4,999, $3,999... you get the idea. Yeah they were gorgeous TV's - one connected directly to your Computer on the network and allowed you to play downloaded movies, MP3s, pictures, etc. VERY cool, but not $5000 cool! So the sales guy comes over within about 5 minutes and asks us what we're looking for and if he can help, etc.... I told him what we had been looking at and our price range and 45 minutes later, we were sold! He basically talked us into a Philips brand - One that I hadn't considered before, but had seen in Magazines. He had tons of good things to say about the brand, but that it wasn't very well known in the North American market, but owned the Europe and Asian markets. He convinced us both that it would be a very good choice for the middle market brands - which so far it has been (after one night of viewing using the crappiest equipment interconnects available - coax and composite cables). When we get digital interconnects, the quality can only improve. Probably the biggest thing that sold us on this TV was that it was on sale as well. $600 off it's "normal" price which put it right in the middle of my budget, but just over Marnie's... She liked it enough to bend her limit. I'm assuming that the manufacturer is trying to move these sets in order to prepare for their next model line, but that's fine with us!

It has this "Stereo Ambilight" feature that lights up the wall behind the TV and changes colour as the scene on the TV changes. It's stereo because it has two independent lights that can display different colour if the left of the screen is different than the right side. I thought that I would be turning that off the first thing, but after 5 minutes of it on, I was hooked. It's actually very cool, and really does make it easier on your eyes when you're watching in a darkened room, as Philips claims. It also tricks you into thinking that your TV is bigger than it actually is.

This will give you an idea of what Ambilight is, although ours doesn't light the top:

Anyway, the thing that has blown me away so far is the image quality for Standard Definition TV coming from our Satellite. And since most of the TV watching going on these days, and probably for the next few years will be in Standard Definition, that was important. It was amazingly clear and sharp for a non-HD signal. I've seen plenty of HDTV's displaying standard signals and so far this is one of the best. The only thing that I didn't get with this TV that I wanted and that the Samsung DLP had, was support for 1080p HD signal. Now, to most of you that might not mean much, but technically, it's the "best" HD signal out there. It does handle 720p/1080i, though, which could be considered "2nd best". The difference is interlaced (i) vs.. progressive (p) scan. Progressive scan is supposed to be better. The 1080p plasma screens are relatively brand new in the market and are twice the price of this anyway, so it really wasn't an option if we went with plasma.

We are going to hang it on the wall with a bracket at some point, and eventually would like it above the fireplace, whenever that happens. That's the bonus with the plasma compared to the projection we were looking at - up and out of the way of giant noses, tails and feet (Echo!).
We are super excited about it and now want to go home and watch TV! (On our old TV, we couldn't read the ticker tapes at the bottom of the screen, or the scores at the top when watching sports... this was a much needed purchase!)

Happy Christmas to us, because we're done between us!