Welcome Yakira

Posted on October 13, 2011 by tellingfamilytales

Yakira being handed to Raelyn off the puppy truck

We got puppy #5 off the puppy truck today. He name is Yakira, which I think is very cute. She is also very cute. Yakira is tiny at just 8 weeks and two days. But she isn’t at all skinny she is rather sturdy and boxy in her build. She is full of spunk and bouncy. She likes to bite my ankles. The really funny part is that we were told she was going to be a yellow lab and she is actually black. What makes this even more funny is the exact same thing happened when we got Casey a little over a year ago. Boy are we going to have fun over the next few days.

Cute little Yakira fresh off the truck

Y Littermates

Posted on October 12, 2011 by tellingfamilytales

Anjou/Pike “Y” Litter – two black and three yellow labs

The littermate photos for our new puppy where posted on GDB’s Flickr site today. I was so excited to get to see my new little girl. Even though I don’t know which ones she is I still love to look at the photos and watch the little video clips. Some of the shots are so cute. I also found out that her mom and dad are Anjou and Pike. Anjou is from a guide dog school in Holland and Pike is a brand new breeder with his first three litters in the puppy kennels now. There are two black puppies and three yellow pups. One of them is male and the other four are females. Our little girl was born on August 16th so she will just be a few days over 8 weeks. So she will be on the young side. Not much chance of her sleeping through the night at that age. Here is a link to all the photos and videos for the Anjou/Pike Litter

Candy Day 2

Posted on October 11, 2011 by tellingfamilytales

rock candy on Christmas light

Today I got the lights covered with candy. I thought I was going to use gum drops from the stash of candy I got from Kathryn but it didn’t look like I had enough and they are hard and difficult to work. So I experimented with other candy and decided to use crushed up rock candy. It is good because it transmits the light well. It kind of adds some sparkle in the way it diffracts the light. It took over four hours to get the lights done so that is all I got done today.

rock candy lights

tree with finished lights

Last Puppy Class

Posted on October 10, 2011 by tellingfamilytales

Casey in her Halloween costume

Today was Casey’s last puppy class! We went on our annual trip to the corn maze. This year we were joined by the Park City club so we had lots of puppies. Casey’s brother Crosby was there he will be going back on the same truck as Casey. It threatened to rain but mostly held off until after we made it through the maze and we were eating chocolate cake. The cake was to celebrate all the puppies that are going back to GDB this week. From our club Kasha and Radison are also going back. Karen is getting a new puppy this week just like we are but Gael and Laurene are done with puppy raising for awhile.

Salt Lake and Park City puppy clubs

Candy Day 1

Posted on October 8, 2011 by tellingfamilytales

tree trunk cover with tootsie rolls

Today I actually started gluing candy onto the structure. It wasn’t much but it is a start. It has been so long since I worked with candy that I’m a little tentative so I started with something simple – the trunk of the tree. It isn’t very visible and I knew that I wanted to cover it with tootsie rolls. So it was a good place to start.

Construction Day 9

Posted on October 7, 2011 by tellingfamilytales

finished under tree structure

Today concluded the construction phase of this project! I got the rest of the painting done which finishes my goal for the week. I hope to take some time tomorrow to move ahead on next weeks goal. It is kind of a big milestone to be ready to start putting candy on the structure. So far I’ve enjoyed this project and I’m kind of excited to see how it turns out. I hope it is my best yet.

Construction Day 8

Posted on October 6, 2011 by tellingfamilytales

My workspace

Didn’t get everything done today I had hoped. But I spent some time getting my workspace set up inside because we had a major change in the weather and it was very cold outside. So I’ve moved the tree inside where I finished painting it. The next step was to paint the objects under the tree but then I realized that I needed to decide what color they should be. In order to decide on the color I needed to look at my candy stash and figure out what I had that would work for each object. That takes time and I didn’t get very far. It is an important step in the long run.
I got an email from the candy company to day telling me that they only have 25 lbs of the green candy and did I want them to just send what they had. I said that was fine and I got notification a while later that the candy had been shipped.
Some other exciting but challenging news today. We will be getting a new puppy to raise for Guide Dogs for the Blind next week. We thought we were going to wait until November to get our next puppy but they have one ready for us now and we decided that would be o.k. I hope she is a good puppy and I can find good ways to work on this project while she is still very young.

Construction Day 7

Posted on October 5, 2011 by tellingfamilytales

I shaped the rest of the support structures for under the tree today. Plus I got more green paint and blades for my xacto knife which will come in handy later when I need to cut candy. I also ordered almost 30 lbs of green licorice pastilles. I hope I got enough. I tried to calculate how much I would need but the number I came up with was way more than I can spend and didn’t take into account all the other stuff that will be on the tree. I think I can make it work out. While I was shaping the support for Mary and Jesus I went ahead and did some for the ornaments on the tree too. So I should have the bulk of the really messy Styrofoam work done now. I meant to take a photo at this stage but it didn’t get done. Tomorrow I’m planning to paint all the under-tree stuff so I should be able to get a photo of it than. That will complete my tasks for the week. Next week is kind of exciting because I get to actually start working with the candy!

Construction Day 6

Posted on October 4, 2011 by tellingfamilytales

Nice change of pace today. I worked on structure for the stuff going under the tree. I cut some fabric for the quilted tree skirt, re-sized a cardboard box for the unwrapped gift, made some more gift boxes, decided the size of Mary and Jesus, and shaped a yule log out of Styrofoam. I also shaped the tree stand. This probably won’t show but I think it will help everything to look right. It was good to figure out what is going under the tree. Tomorrow I plan to shape the jacket (with a zipper) that goes into the open box and shape any substructure I need for Mary and Jesus. Then when I get everything painted on Thursday I should be ready to start putting candy on things next week.

Some good news today too. The check came from Jordan River. Yeah! I really didn’t want to have to call and see why it was taking so long. I think I’ll order the green candy for the tree tomorrow too.

Construction Day 5

Posted on October 3, 2011 by tellingfamilytales

tree structure with lights and most of the green paint

My goal this morning was to get the lights on the tree, get the tree painted and pick up some supplies. I did darn close to getting that all done. First I picked up supplies (hot glue, rolled fondant and paint). Then this afternoon a spent 2 hours putting the lights on the tree and then painting it. Painting was much slower than I thought because of the rough texture I put on the surface. The only flaw was that I ran out of green paint! I’m close but I didn’t quite get it all done. But not bad to come so close to my goal. I had to move into the garage soon after I started painting because it started to rain.