St. Pauli Grrrrrrrl

The first 3 months of my mission, I served in Hamburg proper... Just north of the neighborhood of St. Pauli. We were proud fans of the never-victorious St. Pauli Pirates soccer team. We cruised the neighborhood, with the exception of Reeperbahn, of course (immediate undignified and dishonorable release from the mission...), and appreciated this center of German punk culture. It was a pretty cool neighborhood to roam. To my great disappointment, St. Pauli Girl beer is actually from Bremen (another favorite city of mine). Not that I am a partaker of said beverage, but I would just feel a special bond, and since there is also Squatters St. Provo Girl beer. ANYWAY... this kinship I feel with St. Pauli inspired my creativity-- in costuming my dear Kiste for Halloween. She has German roots, bears a German name, and couldn't wait to show her German side (and front!).





She so proudly carrier her beer around and let anyone who wanted to look down her shirt. Trampy dog. I love her.

Happy Birthday, Brown

September is full of birthdays. I don't even know where to begin telling about Katie's birthday, but she did a pretty good job here. There are 2 co-worker birthdays, 2 sister birthdays, etc., etc. But the very special birthday was on the 16th. It was Kiste's birthday. The only reason I really know this is that I was updating some information in her medical record at work, and it lists age in years, months, and days, and I happened to notice that it was 2 days to her 9th birthday. That means she is an old dog. She gets more and more gray on her beautiful face, gets slower and stiffer, and every little bump gets me worried, with her mast-cell history. I love this silly brown dog. She is my family. She and Max and I have a good thing going here in our little green house. She is the queen morning snuggler. This is my favorite picture of us lately. The angle is strange, because I didn't want to disturb her, so i reached for my phone on the nightstand and snapped this one morning. I just have so much love for my silly beasts...