How much is that doggie in the window!!!!!!

After some long soul searching and lots.....and I mean LOTS of browsing and studying, we have decided on a new pooch for our family!!!!!

I wanted a little something different at first. I thought at first I was going to go with a bulldog of some type and then I researched a Newfoundland(which by the way one day I will own....oh yes I will!) and ultimately I would of loved to have a Neapolitan Mastiff if any of you are unfamiliar with one I am posting a picture of a famous one! The first person who can post the correct answer I will give you a surprise!!!! Here's the picture!

SO any way back to what we got!!! Well drum roll please.......

This is THOR!!! He takes his name the Asgard's god of thunder. A viking legend!

His father was Zeus and nobody wanted to call him Hercules but wanted to call him something else! So we came up with THOR!

He is a German Shepherd and is a silver breed and will look a lot like his mom I have included this picture of his mom and dad! His mom being the smaller of the 2 with the blacker snout.Zeus is the ladies man to the left!!!

He is a cutie and I have attached the following video to see the killer in action!!!

I want to thank some people! I want to thank Paul of Silver Mountain Shepherds! I want to thank my mentor in this process Greg Gordon!! He is a true friend and the best damn trainer of dogs I know!!! (So if anyone needs help with their pooch let me know!) Most of all I want to thank my beautiful wife and her patience and understanding through my almost obsessive search for a new dog! I know she understands and I also want to thank her for helping feeding ,cleaning and sopping up some of those messes!!! It is more than greatly appreciated!!!More than she will know! Even if I am a freaking moron about it sometimes!! Thanks Heidi and I love you!!!

Easter

I know I am not the best blogger but here is some recent stuff! Its been a rough month with the kidney stones and Daisy dieing and with work I haven't been much for writing!!!

Here are a few pictures!

This slobbery, boogery mess is just the cutest little thing!!!

This is our annual family picture!

Besides my wife this is the reason I do everything!

So this is a first in the Birch family! Heidi and I as well as the kids have never ever dyed eggs! We had a good time and brought back alot of fond memories past.

SO I always like to leave you all on a laughing note! Kassidy loves to make this little scrunchy nose and when she does Heidi and I just laugh!

Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole. ~Roger Caras

So there are certain people or things in your life that make a pretty big impact. I want to share a story and if you get weary please feel free to pause and come back.

When I was a kid I don't know what it was I had a HUGE fascination with animals. I was constantly looking for animals whenever we went on trips. My grandmother lived in Montana and 1 time my parents took us through Yellowstone and that was it, I was hooked. I am sure it was before that but I would consistently pester my parents about taking us through Yellowstone to grandmas every time. I am sure my parents got sick of it!!! We also lived with our house butted up to a pasture in Pocatello where a couple old horses were and I was always back there trying to pet them and in the mean time avoiding getting my fingers bit off.

My parents always encouraged my love for animals, they had animals in our house be it a cat, a dog, a fish, and even at times a cockatiel, 2 Iguanas and a Ball Python!!!! I even had my senior pictures taken with the ball python and cockatiel!

Well I then served a mission. My favorite thing was to go visit each and every zoo that was in my area so that I could get my animal fix!

When I got home my parents still had our miniature schnauzers that they had since we had moved to Boise. They were good little doggies!!!

When I got married and moved out of the house I moved with my Snake and my Iguanas. I eventually got married and my dear wife put up with my scaly friends for some time. Well then that fateful day came that Heidi got pregnant and then a "decision" was made.....Snake.....baby....snake...baby. Well its obvious which route we went.

Tyler was born and eventually we moved to Caldwell. While we were there we had an unfinished bonus room but a front room where we usually retired every evening to watch TV or to visit. One night as we were laying there there was a flash of light and something hit our window and our front door! I yelled"HIT THE DECK!!!" I thought for sure we were just involved in a drive by shooting. Well as I cautiously opened the door I came to find out that my door had been the butt end of a teenage prank of a paint ball drive buy. Along with my window and garage door!

Well that night I had nightmare after nightmare. I kept dreaming of people breaking in to my house and harming my family. Well at the time I had not yet met my gun toting good friend Nate so I was not aware what could I do to defend my family. Well a gun was definitely out of the question. My wife at the time was adamantly against guns. An expensive home alarm system seemed ridiculous to me. Then it occurred to me that I could get a dog to scare away any unforeseen threat.

Now as I was a water deliveryman for Idaho Springs Water Company I had a lot of time to think of what breed and what kind I would want. Well as I was coming up to a stop light I noticed a sign attached to a fence that was facing the road that said ST. BERNARD puppies!! That's it!!! That's what I need a St. Bernard puppy! The mere size and bark of such a horse would scare away any unknown threat!!!! So naturally I stopped and saw the little bundles!!! Now to put it in perspective puppies at 6 weeks of age are the size of full grown Shitzu!!! I asked the owner if I could take one home to show my wife.They agreed and I loaded the little...uh big...uh little guy in a box and took him home. Well lets put it this way it was a flight of fancy,I had no fenced backyard, and I didn't have the money.....so I don't know why I was even trying and my wife made that very clear.

Well Heidi and I started looking for a dog and noticed that everything was expensive. We looked at adopting a Irish setter, or something from the pound and we always come up empty.

Well ( I'm wrapping this up I promise!!!) my mom worked with someone who was a lab breeder. He had a lab that he got from someone else who had house, hunt and crate trained. She was awesome she had the cutest little personality. She was a chocolate lab, her owner named her Daisy May Mudpie. She was always there. I would mow the lawn and she was right behind me. I would water the plants and she would be right there. And she was always so obedient and always trying to please. She was smart as a tack!! She went with me on my very first hunt ever. It was for dove and she new exactly what to do. She was a retriever to the max!!!

I loved her very much! We almost lost her twice in her life! Once because of a calcium defincey after a litter and once to a uterus infection.

She always seemed to be smiling and showing her happiness that we were there.

I love you my friend and I will miss you always and forever.

Rolling Stones......EOOOOOOOOUCH!!!!

So heres a quiz for you....what is this picture of?

Is it a geoligist's latest find? Is it a salt deposit? Is it a asteroid?.....

NO!

The above is the latest little adventure in my life that makes me sympathize now with all women and those that have had to endure the same type of pain I had yesterday!

I PASSED A KIDNEY STONE!!!!

So it went down like this, I was talkiong with a friend at work over at his desk and all of the sudden I felt this dull pain start on my left back side and stood up immediately to try and relieve it. I then proceeded to the restroom to see if I could relieve myself and possibly relieve the discomfort I was starting to feel. When I started to walk in that direction I noticed the pain started getting more intense my breathing started to get labored and I started to try and control my breathing. I got into the restroom and started to do my thing and I started seeing stars and blackness started surrounding me! I said to myself "GREAT!! I am going to be that guy that passes out in the mens room with his junk hanging out and be the talk of the office!!!!!" That got my attention real quick and new I would not be that guy! So I quickly finished what I was doing and stumbled to my desk and saw a lead and quickly called for help! A lead ran to my side and yelled if I was going down and I said I was! At this point the pain was more than I could stand I was vocalizing my pain with moans and pursing of lips. In the mean time I can hear other people making comments like" Look how white his lips are!!!" I could feel the sweat beading up on my head and feel it rolling down the side of my head!

The EMT's came and took diagnostics and recommended that I let them take me to the hospital via ambulance and I did! I am glad to because I thought for sure I was going to die so if it happend again I wanted to be in the hands of professionals!

Well I got to St Lukes Meridian and after a IV, 2 Cat Scans, a EKG and 4 hours later it was determined that I had passed a kidney stone an I now have a urinary tract infection!!! I wouldn't pray this curse on anyone I know!It was the worst pain EVER!!!!!

The good thing is they gave me some Vicodin for any future pain!!!!!

MAJOR SLACKER!!!!

People I have had a bit of a break because I got a new computer and I love it!! Its a power house and is fun to work on!! I wanted to just let you know to keep coming back I know that there wiill be more to come!! In the meantime I wanted to post a couple of photos to give you an idea some of the stuff thats been going on!

You probably can't see it very well but the kid has a knot on his forhead from taking a nose dive right into the windowsill!!! Beautiful things!!! He was MAD! I like this picture though because of those big blues!!!!

Tyler and I worked on this little ditty!! He is in an advanced class and they were talking about animals that use camoflauge!! He was really excited! He orcherstrated this and his dad helped him a bit getting it all in place! Its a mountain lion about to pounce a rabbit!!!

Kassidy has started eating solids, by this lovely face she made you can all see she is not too happy about the food djour. However she can easily go from this, to......

THIS!!!! I know! Everyone together now...(collective sigh!) AHHHHH!

And lastley all of our kids have been struck with a little baddie of a virus known as Fifths Disease. If your not familiar with it I will give you the footnote version. It smells like the flu, it feels like the flu and it can appear to be the flu, but its not. It goes away as quickly as it came and you don't know your kids have had it until 5 or so days later your kids cheeks get this horrible rash as displayed by my beautiful little daughter Alexa! Poor thing got pulled out of school because the teachers were afraid it would spread!!!

More to come!!!! Be ready...I will be back!!!!

PRAYING FOR DAYLIGHT.............

Now hear this!!!!

Now hear this!!!!

Brag time that's right you heard me brag time!
At heart I am a hopeless romantic....I try my best to show my wife that I love her and that there is nothing that I can do nor say that can touch the surface of how I feel about her. I cant give her the world but at least I can give her part of it!!

(flash back to the day before valentines......)

I was working a lot the week of Valentines day and new that I would be VERY busy on Valentines...in fact I had to work and I new I would not be home till late so I had to devise a plan.(evil laugh) I had found out a couple days before that Rascal Flatts was going to be in town in a couple weeks!! How could I have possibly have missed this! I and Heidi had been to every Rascall Flatts concert that had ever come to Boise since they were first a group! We saw them when they came to the fair back in the day!! They have truly been awesome!

Naturally I am always wanting to be the "International Man of Mystery" to suprise my wife whenever I can!
Earlier that day she said "Honey come straight home! No stops on the way because we have Parent Teacher Confrences at 4:30 and I need some help getting all the kids there!!".....So whats a little white lie when your the "International Man of Mystery!!!"
As we were heading home I called Heidi and told her that "Heidi I really apologize but I got on a long call and I am going to be late and I don't think I am going to make it home in time!!" ....(hee,hee) So I detoured to the Idaho Center and picked up the tickets and then I took my carpool buddy Patrick home. I then went on a wild goose chase to pick up some flowers. But the new place in down town Caldwell is amazing!! When I walked into the place it was 4:10...hence I had 20 minutes to get what I wanted and then off to the school,which mind you is at least 10 miles from where I was at. I would also like to point out its the day before Valentines, which is a florists NIGHTMARE!! And I ask the question.....I know .....Im crazy...but here it goes..
"I want this here(pointing to what I want) and I want it in purple and I want it in ten minutes...can you do that?"
The 2 gals there looked at each other with a look like"Is this guy nuts?" And they said "We will do our best!!!" They went in the back and in a little over 10 minutes came out with this beauty...


Can you see the heart made of garland behind the roses?
(yeah I know....I'm a stud)

Well I finally went to the school and as I was walking in the door, I was trying to figure out what room she was in because we had 2 kids doing the whole Parent Teacher Conference thing! Suddenly I saw a big group of high school kids walking in the door all dressed in Tux's and black dresses, some of them I recognize. One young mans stopped and told me that they are doing singing telegrams!! I asked if he would sing to my wife? And he said they would! So I found the class and embarrassed her with the flowers and the tickets and then later the choir walked in and sang to my wife!! It was awesome!!

Well tomorrows the BIG DAY!! And on my way home today I and a buddy got these shots of the tour coming into town!!!

I can't wait!! First date since the baby has been born!! Woo Hoo!!



I Love You Heidi!!

My Superkids!

Faster than a speeding bullet!

More powerfull than a locomotive!
Has the ability to jump tall buildings in a single bound!!!


Everyone would think the obvious right.......?

Nope

These are them!!!!! My little hero's!!
Heidi caught this moment early spring last year and I absolutely love it!!!!
They each keep us very busy!!!

Even though they are not superheroes in reality they are all very powerful personality's!!
The one on the end is our littlest son he does have something in common though with superman....his middle name is CLARK.......(cue Superman music!!).