Doped Up

It's official. My dog is the coolest, funniest dog EVER! He creates hours of entertainment for us! I have to share this with you. I couldn't resist:


Oliver went to the vet on monday to get his leg checked out (he has been limping on it for a while). The doctor sent him home with doggie pain killers twice a day. He has been a little out of it lately. So...we give him his medicine by giving him a spoonful of peanut butter (not the recalled PB, in case you were concerned) with the pill surprise hidden in the middle. He LOVES peanut butter. He licks and licks and licks until it is all gone and after it's gone he licks and licks and licks, tilting his head up, down, side-to-side, etc...anything to help him get it off his tongue and roof of his mouth. It is truly the funniest sight ever! There is one requirement to reading this blog. There is a collage below of his peanut-butter-eating-behavior...you must CLICK TO ENLARGE!


Have you ever seen a cross-eyed-dog? You're in for a treat. This picture makes me cry from laughter ever time I look at it.
"thith ith the betht peanut budddder I ever had...tho nithe and thticky..."
"mmmmmmm...that wath delithiouth..."
We took Oliver for a walk the other day. In efforts to see if he would start going potty like a man dog is supposed to, we showed him the fire hydrant. He promptly sat down and cocked his head at us. Oh well, we tried. I am perfectly okay with him continuing his neat potty habits.
On the other hand, he doesn't seem to have much respect for the signs in the neighborhood... Wes was walking him the other day and he walked right up next to the sign and did his business as to say, "There, take that." You can't blame him...I mean when you gotta go, you gotta go.

Christmas 2008

I hope all of you had a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!! This year we spent Christmas with my family in Savannah, GA. Our tradition consists of waking up early, opening stockings, eating breakfast while reading about the birth of Jesus, and opening presents. After that, we usually play with all our fun gifts and watch movies. My mom had the house beautifully decorated, as always, so I had fun with some detail shots :). Here are some fun snapshots of all of our traditions...Enjoy!

My mom makes awesome Christmas cookies!
These were my grandmother's Christmas angels:
Check out this wine thingy...we actually have a couple and, if I recall correctly, we tortured my parent's dog (Buster) with them last year by putting them on his feet and ears and such and taking pictures of him. He was not happy with us. We decided to leave him alone this year.
The cook.
My sister and my mom

Our Christmas Eve dinner!
SANTA GOT STUCK!
Stocking time!
Our loot. Wes got some games for his PS3, I got some photography stuff :), and Katie got a Wii fit
Meanwhile, Buster opens his own presents. 
Wes and I made my parents a picture book of our wedding (mom's request)
Katie also got rock band for the Wii. We definitely had fun with that today!
Mom gave Katie the wrong sunglasses. I just cannot believe how HUGE these suckers are. What was mom thinking? Somehow she got Costa del Mar and cheap, HUGE sunglasses confused
Mom gave me and Wes a nice bag :)
Wow. Why didn't anyone tell me how rough I looked??
Go Gamecocks!
My mom is an oil painter---she painted this for my dad for Christmas. 


Fun times with the Wii.
I would like to point out that Wes is playing Hannah Montana with Katie.

Our cousins and second cousins came over for a while. This is my second cousin Charlie.

Merry Christmas from...US!

This year, we wanted to do something fun and different for our Christmas card, soooo we ventured out to various parks around Columbia for our self-Christmas-portraits. It was so much fun with possibly the exception of the full family portrait. You should have seen Wes trying to throw a stick and time it to hit the ground exactly when the shutter tripped so Oliver would actually be looking at the camera. I will say that the stick strategy/improv was genius on Wes's part...he made me forget all about the treats that we left on the counter at home :).

We have several pictures of close-up Oliver almost knocking over the tripod with the expensive camera attached in order to fetch the stick...because, after all, that is what dogs do. What were we humans thinking?

Cheers, big ears





My Love:)



Beware: Certain dogs tend to jump out of computer screens.




***CUSTOM DESIGN CHRISTMAS CARDS:

I designed our Christmas card with a collage of these shots. We were so excited to see the final product! I ordered them on pretty pearl paper-my favorite!

Remember me next Christmas to design your card!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! From The Parkers 

CHECK OUT OUR CHRISTMAS VIDEO HERE

Best Coach Ever + Crazy Oliver

This post is in honor of my good friend, Dylan. He coaches a boys high school soccer team. Last Sunday, a couple of us went out to watch him coach. Of course, I brought my camera along to practice a little sports photography. It was a beautiful day and the boys played great-they won! Now, I don't know a ton about soccer, so forgive me if I use the wrong terminology :) Here are some of my favorite shots (Dylan's team is blue & white):

This is a shot of one of the boys kicking a goal from what it seemed like half-way up the field...it was AWESOME!


This picture is just funny to me...

I Had to squeeze one in of Dylan (the one in the gray shirt in the background). It looks like the players are looking back at him; although, I feel sure they are watching the ball ;)
Now, some of these shots made me laugh because I managed to catch some of the players that looked a bit like they were playing a different sport...for instance, this one closely resembles karate.

And this one...fencing...

Super good goalkeeper

Okay, I know he is from the OTHER team, but I just really love this shot.

Our other friends, Mary and Ryan, also came to support Dylan.
They are a really cute couple :)
Dylan's wife, Karin, is also a photographer. I will refer to her as the official team photographer :). Here are some shots I took of her at work. Check out her website: KSC Photography

It's pretty cool because she is one of my best friends and we started getting serious about photography around the same time, so we always have fun stuff to talk about!
We brought our dog Oliver to the game only to find out NO PETS ALLOWED. However, Wes decided he would bend the rules a little. After all, it is cruel to leave an animal in the hot car for an hour PLUS we live 30 minutes away from the field. It's not like we were going to let him loose and allow him to "do his business" in the middle of the soccer field. Wes played fetch with him and luckily, we did not get kicked out.

I would just like to point out how crazy this dog is. This first picture is just plain creepy. He looks like the Joker from Batman, but the rest are super cute :)
I LOVE these ears!

Words cannot describe how much I love this picture-he looks like a little rabbit!
This dog is CRAZY about Wes...and vice versa ;)