Most of the 35 puppies from my parents’ three recent litters are now at their new homes. The owners have been sending lots of pictures of their new beloved babies and they are collected on the home page of my parents’ website: www.blueheavennewfoundlands.com

For example, here’s Hank who went to live with a family in Akron, NY. I’m definitely in love with this little guy already. The name’s pretty good, too. 

I have a few rules when I’m sick including no coffee, minimal caffeine, no sugar and no dairy. I had a bad chest cold for 3 weeks, and followed that rule pretty well. Now that I’m feeling better, I’m trying to see how long I can go without coffee. I still crave it but eventually that will go away too. So far I have survived!  The challenge will be tomorrow since our user group meeting is right across the road from a Starbucks! And of course, my fave is latte’s (I blame Michele for turning me on to their Vanilla Lattes 😉 which is coffee AND sugar AND dairy all together. I’d call that an addiction.

I can’t say I have had no caffeine though since I am now drinking English Breakfast tea and plenty of Green Tea too.

Today I did what people think that I do frequently, though it’s actually (and sadly) not common. I went skiing. That’s right  – on a work day! RIch and I took off at 8:30 and didn’t get home until about 3:30. We hooked up with a fellow Vermont.NETter and awesome tele skiier who commented on how many people must have called in sick that morning (which made Rich and I , both self-employed, laugh about being the only ones not getting paid to ski), and spent most of the day in the woods. I’m a crappy skiier in the woods (always worried about those trees!) but I still love being in there. It’s not pretty, but I can get through it.

Mad River got about 2 feet of this fluffy stuff on Monday and Tuesday.So we had epic powder (western style powder, deep and light and fluffy) and I wasn’t going to miss it. Even if it was 0 degrees out. Brr! 

My parents continue to send me pictures of the puppies to put on their website.

The first litter , which was born on Nov 22  – the amazing litter of 17 – has puppies that are over 10 lbs. already. They had their first cookies today. Their eyes have been open for a while.

The second and third litter, born Dec 7 & 8th, are still small, but they are getting fatter and cuter (is it even possible?) every day.

Yesterday was the first break – I broke a promise to myself that I was going to take a few hours out to go skiing. I never did.

Right now we have the most phenomenal snow in Vermont…highly unusual for December (it’s still Fall, y’know) and everyone who loves snow wants to enjoy it while they can just in case.

So today I was determined not to break my promise. I didn’t leave until 1 hour later than I wanted, but I left. I got to Mad River, put on my boots and defogged my goggles with the great defogger cloth I bought instead of buying new goggles last year. But I noticed there was a 1 inch crack in my goggles. Oh well. I put them on anyway, went outside, grabbed my skis and walked over to the single chair where I put them on. First the right, then the left. Something looked funny on the left. My binding was BROKEN! There’s a big plastic piece that pulls the cable tight around the boot and it was cracked. But I could still clamp down and it seemed solid.

Just in case, I went to the ski shop and they said that it would be way too dangerous to ski on them. Arrgh. We are talking PERFECT PERFECT packed powder conditions, 30 degrees and no wind. And I couldn ski. Rather than renting skis and skiing anyway, I drove down the mountain in to Waitsfield and dropped off my skis at a local ski place to get the bindings either fixed or replaced overnight.

Then I drove home and figured I’d go ski in my woods instead.

I took out my brand new back country boots that I’ve only worn 3 times so far. They are new fangled hightech boots and the zip up (similar to cross-country boots now). The zipper pull broke off in my hand.

I managed to zip it up anyway and I finally got out to do one loop in the woods with no more breaks and got back to the house before dark. The snow was so perfect, it was worth all the effort.

But geeze loueeze – that was starting to push it!

While I was at my parent’s house helping out with their THIRTY-FOUR new newfie pups, Tasha was at home hitting an amazing milestone! She turned 14 years old. This is very old for a newfie. While she isn’t the athletic young girl she used to be thanks to arthritis, she is still full of it! Barking every morning to make sure everyone in the neighborhood knows “I’m still here!”, eating like a champ and full of desire (though not the ability) to go down to the road and see what there is to see. I spent years keeping her from getting hit by cars. Now that she’s old, I finally don’t have to worry about that any more. Her eyesight and hearing seem to be fine and she gets acupuncture to help out with the arthritis since her back legs are quite stiff. It’s hard to get up, get down and to walk. Not so hard that she’s not willing though although she hasn’t been doing stairs for a few years now. Every day I watch her so carefully to make sure that I’m not being selfish.

Here’s a picture of her today. A little scruffy because it’s basically impossible to give her a bath as we can’t make her stand for a long time. We can’t get her upstairs to our easy access shower to try to bathe her there either and now it’s too cold to bathe her outdoors. But she doesn’t mind and neither do we. She’s 98!

A little less than four years ago, I took some pics when we were giving Tasha a bath at our local (wonderful) pet store that has a great setup. Even then she was old for a newf at 10 and standing for a long time was a little problematic. But look how cute she is!

No less amazing is Daisy who will be 13 in a few more weeks.

We just got a call from my mom on her way home from the vet with the last of the three litters! Bumper had eleven puppies. We can’t wait to see them.

You can keep an eye on things at my parent’s website: Blue Heaven Kennels.

Here’s a picture of the mommy, Bumper, at a dog show.

It’s feeding time again! These are Celeste’s 6 puppies.

(On going… you can catch up at www.blueheavennewfoundlands.com)

The second litter was born yesterday. I’m helping to watch over them today. Celeste has to feed them every two hours and they nurse for over 1/2 hour. In between everyone rests up and the puppies get a Snuggle Puppy to curl up with. These are more than toys as they have a heartbeat and are warm. Sometimes they are all underneath it. Here’s what they are doing right now (there are 6 total but you can’t see them all here). The upstairs puppies (the litter of 17 that is now two weeks old) get two Snuggle puppies!

My parents have sent me another batch of photos (puppies at day 2) for their website. This one is especially gorgeous.