Favorite Photo Friday. On Saturday.

To me this looks like the scenery from a King Kong movie...even though it was taken in Alaska.

favorite photo friday on saturday...

Here are a couple of our favorite photos from our trip. Zach has turned out to be an awesome photographer. He has an amazing eye for detail and framing, and took some really terrific photos.

Courtyard with fountain, Palazzo Vecchio, Firenze. (Zach's photo)

Sunset, Firenze.

Gargoyle on the Cathedral, Pisa.

Rain in Rome.

Detail of fountain in Piazza Navona, Rome.

F.P.F.o.S.

Today was busy, cleaning, getting ready for my parents' visit. And Vail Pride Day, a day for the schools to show off their kids' work and achievements. We spent several hours there, as Zach's girl friend got an award for excelling at all three sections of the AIMS test -- the Arizona standardized test. Then Zach and I had go run a few errands, getting ready for Italy! We leave a week from tomorrow.

The one thing I am not doing today is springinginging forward. We don't need no stinkin' daylight savings time. This is the wild west. We don't spring. Springing is unmanly.

So here's my favorite photo for today...Tess took a photo of Zach and I at Vail Pride Day. A truly excellent portrait. Really captures our true selves...

It's F.P.F.O.S. time again!!!

Kim (of frogpondsrock fame) liked the photo of rocks on Mount Lemmon. So Kim, these are for you!



Gratuitous shot of the desert around Tombstone. Yeah, that Tombstone, the one with the shoot out at the Okay Corral.

This shows the various environments you encounter driving into the Santa Catalina Mountains, from 3000 to 8500 feet. It's what I was talking about a couple posts ago, how you go from Sonoran Desert to Pine-Oak Woodland to Mixed Conifer Forest...

The rocks along part of the road are very cool. Great place to take pictures.

The drive up to Mount Lemmon is a great place to take photos. The first scenic overlook is a great place to take pictures at sunrise and sunset. Not that I have firsthand experience of sunrise there, or anywhere much, but sunset, it's good.

It's a little freaky, at times, because these rocks look verrrrry precariously balanced...

Mark.

Mark, are you surprised? I included a shot of me!

My mom is not a big fan of these kinds of roads...but she thought the views were worth it.

Favorite Photo Friday. On Saturday.

I like this photo of Abe. It makes him
seem thoughtful, when we all know
he's a big git.

Favorite Photo Friday. On Saturday.

I am going a completely different way this time...I saw Sweeny Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street this afternoon with Zeke and Thor.

It was awesome. I loved this movie. So much blood and many ugh moments, but great acting and singing and just wow. I loved it. The boys did also...they even got the soundtrack at Target on the way home. Just wow. Such a good good movie.

And just so I am not cheating, here's a favorite photo of Tess and I on the trampoline. I think I may have posted this before, but hey! just proof I am not in fact perfect, no matter how perfect I may seem...

Favorite:

And Bonus:

Favorite Photo Friday. On Saturday. The Abe version.

I used to have a photo of Abe looking rather deranged in my header, but when I switched templates that photo didn't work any more. It looked kinda like this one...

Abe is Tess's dog. He's very goofy. This expression here -- surprise and confusion -- is pretty common for him.

Abe with a week old bagel. He and Mojo, our other big dog, are really tough on toys. They shred vinyl toys, they eat rawhides in under an hour. They don't like hard rubber toys, probably because they can't destroy them. So we are always giving them random things to play with -- water bottles, cereal boxes, dried out bread. They particularly like those little yogurt drink bottles, probably because the bottles taste like strawberry yogurt...

In November, Abe started limping. He had a congenital deformity in his left hind leg and his kneecap was wiggly. Very gross. He had surgery. I gave him little puppy sedatives for a while while it healed...it was weird to see Abe not his usual agile self. He was finally starting to get back to normal, running and playing with Mojo...

Unfortunately sometimes dogs need a second surgery to make sure the kneecap is solidly in place. So this past Thursday Abe had that second surgery to tighten up those ligaments. He's not very happy to be back in the bandages. (As usual, he has a goofy expression.).

So this is my favorite photo for Friday. Posted on Saturday. Abe is asleep in my Suburban. Not like a normal dog, of course, but rather with his face wedged in between the seats...

Favorite Photo Friday. On Saturday.

Still weird, I know. Why don't I actually post on Fridays, or choose a different name? I dunno. I like it this way.

Mojo is the subject of my favorite photo for today. Mojo is mastiff/pit bull who weighs almost 100 pounds. He is very muscular, built like a tank pretty much, and he has an absolutely enormous head. His head is as big as mine. (No, I do not have microcephaly.)

Mojo is a rescue dog. We adopted both Mojo and Abe from a local group. Abe was only a few months old, and was not mistreated before we got him. Mojo, unfortunately, had been neglected and beaten and starved. He was terrified of running garden hoses and the first time we raised our voices to him he practically crawled to us -- obviously he had been beaten. He was also underweight, and has always had a thing about food. When he is offered treats or food he acts like he has to eat it immediately and as fast as possible, and hates to get too far away from it.

He can look most majestic and regal. He is a very handsome dog, and people always remark on him when we take him out.

But in real life, Mojo is a big goof. He's dorky and klutzy and graceless. We have taught him to have a seizure on command -- he lays on his side and kicks and wiggles. We originally taught him "bang" -- we shoot at him (with our fingers of course) and he is supposed to play dead, laying down on his side. But because of his thing about food, he hates to lay his head down on the floor -- he has to take his eyes off the treat. So he lays on his side on the floor, kicking and wiggling and jerking around, his desire to do what I want him to do fighting with his impulse not to get too far away from the treat. So now, instead of Bang, we have started saying "spaz" instead. I know it's not very nice, maybe not so politically correct, but we think it's pretty funny...

Whew. This was a very long introduction to my favorite photo...It's a photo I think captures the true Mojo: