Partners Dinner

Yay!! That was even more amazing than I thought it would be. I had tons of fun. :) Sorry for the lack of pictures...I got like..two, but they both turned out bad and aren't even worth posting. I'll post the link for the pics GDA posts once they do. :) And...Just wait for the end of the post and see some GREAT news on Blitz!!

I brought Kutter, who is VERY well mannered...Like, nearly perfect. He's just not very affectionate. ;) We showed up at about 5:45, and went to the reception. There was a silent auction with very expensive stuff...It was fun to look and see how little I could afford. :) Then again, I wouldn't have been able to afford the dinner if I hadn't gotten a free ticket! Lol. I'm glad that GDA raised a lot.

At 7:20 we went down for the dinner. I sat at a table with Denise, Mary Lou, Mary Lou's daughter and son-in-law, a puppy raising couple, and a graduate and his wife. They were all great company, and I was happy with my table-mates. :) There were some great speeches, a live auction, (my first! It was amazingly funny, especially since Yvonne (the self-labeled "tough" one) was going around screaming excitedly to get people bidding.) and great food.

After dinner we toured the museum. It was beautiful! I just kept thinking of a friend I have who is in love with cars. :) There was a dance floor, but there're never any guys my age at GDA events. ;) I ended up dancing with Debbie, Jeff, Chiappus, and, my dance partner of choice, Kutter. :)

That morning, I went to GDA's obedience class. It was fun. :) I handled Catalina for a while, but it was the older class, and we started playing a higher-level game. I traded her off for Miss Roxy. (A breeder) As I was walking around once, Joanna took her leash from me and told me that Blitz was waiting for me!! I was so incredibly excited I nearly ran down to where Blitz was. When he saw me, he got excited, the puppy raiser holding him let go of his leash, and we ran into eachothers arms. (hehe...) It was quite the reunion, and I, of course, couldn't keep from tearing up a bit. He's looking good, and is definitely gaining weight, though he still looks skinny. He was there at a vet appointment. And here's the great part...The people he's staying with right now live like...Five miles away! They raised one of Jaylie's brothers. I was very glad I got to see him. I asked them how long they were going to have him, and though she didn't say so, it SEEMS like they MIGHT be considering adopting him. I don't know though...Maybe it's just wishful thinking. How amazing would that be, right??

Anyway...That's my exciting news!!

Exciting News!!

I get to go to the Partners Awards Dinner!!

For those of you who don't know what it is, (i.e., non GDA raisers) it's a fundraiser GDA puts on once a year. Every year they pick a different raiser to honor. It's a huge event, and the first two years were held at the Ronald Reagan library here in Simi, but this year they moved it to an auto museum in Beverly Hills!

Anyway, yesterday I got a call from Denise...
"What are you doing on Saturday night?"
"Umm, I have Bible Study. Why?"
"Oh, I was just wondering if you would like to go to the Partners Awards Dinner with me."
"Uh, YA!!"

So, yes, I am getting to go to a dinner I thought I would never be able to go to. (Tickets are $150 dollars each) I'm very excited about it, and have a dog lined up to take. (Kutter...Remember Kenny?? Kutter is his brother..)

So...Update about that on Sunday! (Probably.)

Just a bit of an update

So, I'm actually puppy sitting! For a while there I didn't have any puppies and I felt kinda lonely. :) But, I've had Vito several times, (SWEET big guy!!) and I now have Catalina, and I'm getting Fahrenheit for about a week in October. YAY!

I've had Catalina since Tuesday night. I got her because I was going to a fundraiser with GDA, and sent out an email to see if I could borrow a pup. Her raiser offered her, and then ended up telling me I could go ahead and keep her until Saturday, which is an obedience class at GDA. She's adorable! Sorry I don't have any pictures...My camera's broke right now...

Tuesday night (virtually right after I got her!) we went shopping. For the record, I HATE shopping for clothes...I don't really mind grocery shopping or anything, but clothes shopping...Yich. I had a Mock Trial scrimmage the next day, and my mom wanted me to dress decently. (No jeans or t-shirt...) So, we did that, then went to two grocery stores. By the time we got home, Catalina was exhausted and fell right asleep. :)

The fundraiser on Wednesday was lots of fun! It was an in-n-out lunch at Farmers Insurance. Farmers paid In-N-Out, for a certain amount of food to bring, and then when people ate they paid Farmers, who then donated all the money made from the food back to GDA. There were about 12-15 puppies there, and then there was a merchandise table. We were there mainly to express our thanks to Farmers Insurance, and so they could sort of see what their money was going to. They do that once a year. Catalina did fantastically for her age! She's five months old, and there was one puppy younger than her, but she was by far the smallest there. People have been guessing she's about 3 months old...She's just very small. :) So, she was the star of the show!!

After that, we went home. My sister wanted to go to the Library, (she has a booklist that she's supposed to read, and she only has a few of them) so Catalina and I went with her. I just sat and did homework, while Catalina slept and looked adorable.

Then we had to go home, do chores, and get ready for Mock Trial. This scrimmage was a sort of second audition...We hadn't gotten the official case packets, we just used one from 2001, to practice and for the coaches to see how different people do as different roles. They were trying me out as an attorney this time. :) I LOVED being an attorney...It was so much more fun than being a witness, as I was last year. I did get a compliment by one of the coaches, (the one who doesn't give so many compliments...) so MAYBE I'll be one of the attorneys. They're thinking about only using two attorney's on each side this year, and if there are, I will definitely only be a back-up. If there are three on each side, though, I think I have a good chance of being an attorney. We have a much bigger team this year than previous years, so we will be having a few back-ups. They will learn several roles, just in case someone gets sick or something. Last year we had someone get sick, but we only had 16 team members so they had to compete anyway.

Catalina just slept through the entire, boring thing. :) At the end of the meeting, we got our new case packets!! It's so exciting. It's an arson, and coincidentally, the practice case we chose was also arson. So, we were prepared with that!! The case is much longer than previous years. Last year, each witness statement was around 1 1/2 pages. Some only had half pages. This year, each witness statement is 3 pages long. The pre-trial subject is also very interesting. For those of you who don't know, pre-trial is always a constitutional right, and it's decision effects what evidence can be used in the case-in-chief. This year it is the 1st ammendment...The defendant gave a riot speech, with the slogan "burn 'em out." The first charge is inticement to riot...The pre-trial attorneys will argue whether the defendant's speech was protected by the first ammendment or not. If it is decided that it IS covered by free speech, then that charge will be dropped. If it isn't, the charge will not be dropped and the prosecution will try to convince the jury that the defendant is ALSO guilty of inticement to riot.

Tonight I have ASL. It's an AMAZING class and I love it. The first week I brought Belle, this time I'm bringing Catalina. I don't know how I'll explain the situation though...We're not allowed to use our voices and I don't know enough signing to answer why this dog suddenly turned yellow, lol.

Saturday is obedience class at GDA. I'm going to ask more about Blitz there...I saw Karen at the fundraiser on Wednesday, she said that she doesn't have Blitz anymore.

That's about it!! For now I'm enjoying Catalina's company. :) Thanks Denise!!

Haha, so I was beginning to worry that nobody liked my blog, but lo and behold: Elizabeth and Alana put me in as a nominee! Thanks!! (Their link is at the side of my blog.)

Here're the rules...
1) The winner can put the logo on his/her blog.
2) Link to the person you received your award from.
3) Nominate seven other blogs and put links of those blogs on yours.
4) Post the rules at the end!

So, here are my nominations! You can click on their links at the side of my blog. (Sorry, not sure how to do the whole link/name thing on here...) I only picked those who haven't been nominated yet...I truly LOVE all the other blogs I read, but you guys have already been selected!

Madison and Andros (CCI puppy raiser)
Patty and Halor (CCI Breeder Caretaker)
Garret (CCI Puppy raiser)
James and Tonka (GDA puppy raiser)
Nicole and Vito (GDA puppy raiser)
Megan and Spanky (GDB puppy raiser)
Dutch (GDA Puppy In Training)

Thanks again, Elizabeth and Alana!!

The Blitz Decision...

So, I'm just copying and pasting this from an email I sent a friend...I don't exactly feel like typing the whole thing out again....

Well, Blitz is going to be dropped. He's doing much better, about which I'm VERY happy! He's still getting better though, so he's staying with Karen so he can go to GDA every day. I can't keep him...He'll be way too expensive. He's on a special food, and if it happens again I wouldn't be able to afford to give him the care he needs. Sooo...I'm hoping that the Gettleman's (his sponsors) will be able to keep him. AND I'm REALLY hoping I'll be able to see him again before he goes to his new home.

I can't tell you how weird it feels to be talking about Blitz as if he's someone elses...I still feel like he's mine! But...I need to let him go, or I'll be sulking for a LOOONG time. I went through the same thing with Jaylie.

I feel really bad every time I tell someone and don't get emotional at ALL, but truly, I think I used up all my emotions those few days after I got the word that he was going to be dropped. So people usually look at me funny when I can tell them about it without breaking face. But I AM still very sad about it, I'm just not wearing that emotion out on my sleeve. (Anymore...I certainly did plenty of it the first few days...)

For now, I'm just not up to talk a whole lot about it. Obviously I'm fine with a little bit, but I don't feel like talking about it a lot yet. I actually don't have any puppies right now...No puppy sitting or anything. So...It's just me. (well, and the other 7 people in my family, but they don't exactly understand puppy raising...)

Blitz prayers. :(

Please pray for Blitz right now! I called Louise today to ask how he was doing, and as soon as she heard who it was I could tell the news wasn't good. Blitz has been in the emergency hospital for about a week, and they almost lost him. He's better now, but GDA fears that it'll happen again, especially since they have NO clue what caused it. If it had been poisoning or something, it would've been better, actually, because they would've known that it was a one time thing. But all the blood tests came back fine, and they don't know what the problem was. Louise told me to call her back later this afternoon or tomorrow morning, because Blitz has a vet appointment today that will determine whether he stays in training or not.

So please pray for him! Pray that they'll figure out what's wrong, and that it won't effect his health or training. If they still can't figure it out, pray that I'll have peace about him being dropped and that it won't happen again to him as a pet.

Thanks for the prayers...

Kasey

It's officially sunk in!

Okay...So now that we're back home and settled in, it's sunk in that Blitz really is gone. I'm really glad we went on vacation right after turn in, but it didn't get rid of ALL the pain. :( I'm fighting the urge to call GDA...I really want to hear something, and they said to call whenever we want, but I feel like I'll be a nusiance, and plus Louise basically said they won't be able to tell us anything except, "He's doing fine" or whatever. So, maybe I'll call, but I'll try not to. ;)

Right now I have Miss Belle! I'm so happy I'm puppysitting. She's been here for a little more than a week, and I'm not sure when she's going home. (Her raisers are remodeling, so it's not like a defined time when they'll be done.) I know I've said this before, but I LOVE this little girl! She has incredible amounts of energy, (so she's the polar opposite of Blitz, haha) and seems to be ecstatic about life in general. I took her for a 2 mile run today, and when we got back she was still wiggling all over, and when I let her outside to go potty, she did about 3 labrador laps around the yard. :) But then she collapsed, so she's not infinitely energetic. :) She is like the energizer bunny though.

On Tuesday we're going to Disneyland, and I'm trying to find a dog to bring. I'm not sure if I'll still have Belle, but if I do I can just swap for the day for an older dog.

Ooh, Geocaching!! I finally got everything set up and I am LOVING it. I've found 14 so far...Last night we had some people over (the Lucas's, a family I LOVE.), and Mrs. Lucas, Tatum, (the oldest girl, who's ten) my mom, Belle and I all got into the jeep (amazing car, especially for geocaching! It's open...Like a more burly convertible...) and found 6 in a row. We looked for 3 more, and for some reason couldn't find them. All this while the rest of the kids and the dads were watching Star Wars II. Belle LOVED the jeep. She was sitting on my lap, (there was absolutely no room on the floor!) and I could tell she was immensely enjoying the wind flapping her ears.

I started an ASL class at the college, and even though we've had only one class, I LOVE it. It's 3 hours long and completely interactive. There is no talking aloud, (and yes, I did mean to spell that "aloud" and not "allowed," lol, though I guess it'll work either way.) and we learned a lot just with total submersion. I brought Miss Belle, and she was perfect, except for about 10 minutes before break. At that point she got a little restless, but at break I took her potty and then she fell asleep in class.

We had a BIG party last friday for Brook and my birthday. We were born a year and a week apart, so we just combined our party this year. We didn't know about it until two days before though, so some people that we wanted there didn't get invited. But we had SOOO many people there!! I couldn't believe it, actually. You could hardly walk through the front part of our house, (which consists of four rooms) and the backyard and pool yard were really crowded too. On the invitations my mom put "gift of choice: iTunes" and combined, Brook and I got $280.00 of iTunes, and then we got SO much other stuff, especially gift cards, checks and cash. Officially, it started at 7 and ended at midnight, but being Simi Valley, people didn't get here until 7:30 and didn't leave until 12:30. (with the few stragglers, of course.)

And I'll leave you with this adorable picture of Dixie..

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