Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Apollo Ulrich

Yep... it's about the puppy again. One thing that we have learned for sure since having him is that a puppy will very nearly demand all of your attention...all the time.
Mostly because if you don't always watch him, it is inevitable that when you turn around he will have something in his mouth he shouldn't. No matter How much you try to keep things up off the ground.
He is also quite mouthy. He likes to chew on everything, including our hands, legs, arms, feet, and hair (if he can reach it.) Supposedly it will go away on its own around 16 weeks, we are doing our best to use the positive reinforcement method as everything we have read says that yelling and swatting will never work and only teach your puppy that you aren't trustworthy. Even though he will always love you no matter what. So we say a firm "no" or "no bite" and put a toy in his mouth. Unfortunately our skin must taste better because it's not working. Am I being to anxious for him to learn? It could very well be that this method takes longer than a week to learn. Does anyone have any advice?
Regardless of his relentless biting, with razor sharp puppy teeth... We love him. He is so cuddly (when he is sleepy)
Here are some pics of the cuddly Apollo. Enjoy!



Cute right?
He has also advanced very quickly and doing tricks. He now has come, down, sit, and jump. And we are working on Heel. He needs to be a good walker before he gets to big for me to hold back!!

Friday, February 11, 2011

New member of the family

Hey All,
Well as many of you have probably seen on facebook. There is a new member of the Belcher family. His name is Apollo, and he is a German Shepherd puppy.
Right now he is quite a ball of energy. But he is eager to learn, and spend time with us. I had some time this morning to work on some training. He has "sit" down to a t, and to my delight he is getting the hang of "down" I was so excited when he finally did it for the first time.

Anyway here is picture of our little guy


He is awesome.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Photo Dump

Hey Ya'll. It's been a while.

Today we are snowed in. There has been a state of emergency declared in St. Louis. So stuck inside we are. I thought I would make a little update of Belcher happenings. I wont even try to recap all that's happened since our last post.

We have been getting into a lot of stuff since being here it st. lou. For one I got a new Iphone and really enjoy it. One of the best things about it is having a decent camera with me all the time. Following are some of the photos I took off of it today and the accompanying info about them.

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We have a lot of candles. I always feel bad throwing away a bunch of wax when it could still be burned. So today I made a candle out of our old candles. Steps:
1. Put a bunch of wax into a glass (relatively thick glass....your going to be getting it hot).
2. Place the glass on the stove on low settings (I put it on setting 1-2 of 10).
3. Let it sit there till all the wax has melted.
4. Make a wick: This can be a strand of twine (nylon apparently works really well), or anything that would burn well. I have used tightly rolled toilet paper a couple of times.
5. Dip the wick in the wax and keep it upright. If you are using twine you can tie it to a support that is directly above the new candle to keep the wick upright (as shown below). It's also a good idea to anchor the wick, I used an unused nut tied to the bottom of my twine to sink it to the bottom of the jar.



6. Wait for the wax to solidify. Untie the top of the wick from it's support and snip it to the desired length. I think most would recommend a 1/4" wick.

Make sure not to rush the process. This will take a few hours.

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This is an interesting photo. There is a pretty good rail system here in St. Louis called the MetroLink. In one of the stairways I spotted this bit of what looks like street art. It's a drawing pasted to the concrete with some crude adhesive. If you've seen "Exit Through the Gift Shop" you will know what I'm talking about.



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Em and I went to eat at Schlafly Brewery on Friday. It was intense. My stomach could hardly handle it. I have decided that if I am going to be drinking beer (I had a Kolsch - on left. Em had a hefeweizen) I need to eat small portions. I went the opposite way that night and ordered their "Plate O' Swine". A bit of mash taters with sauerkraut, accompanied by a full pork chop, fried bacon and a sausage. Too much.



Em's might look bigger, I assure you they are both pints.

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I recently built a computer. I wont bore you with the components but I will tell you about it b/c I am excited. I have wanted to build one for quite some time. Plus now I can run Starcraft 2 and some other software packages that are important to me.



Props to my mom and dad - they provided the monitor for this
computer, which keeps the whole project on the cheap.

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A bad side of having the new Iphone (and a new computer for that matter) is the constant contact. I always feel the internet beckoning. I am thankful that Em and I purpose to read each day. It is a relaxing and necessary sabbatical from daily tasks and the constant hum of social media. Grumpiness ensues if these breaks aren't taken. It's making more sense why the Lord tells us to rest on a regular basis.

That's it. We'll try to keep things more up to date from now on.

TB