Goodbye, Charlie Barkins!

This is our silly dog, Charlie. This Spring, Charlie figured out how to jump our 6 foot fence. We patched up the fence, gave him a shock collar, he still jumped. The vet was always calling us, "Your neighbor has Charlie." One neighbor threatened to shoot him. We tied him up while we were planning to build a kennel, and he almost hung himself twice, our neighbor saved him once. Charlie's whole goal in life was to get out and go play around the neighborhood.

We took Charlie to Scott's parents in South Dakota to be a farm dog. Now he has thousands of acres to run on, ponds and irrigation ditches to swim in, barn cats to chase and carry around, and rabbits and pheasants to hunt.

This is his new best friend, Lolly Pup (she was lonely after Soda Pup died).We miss Charlie, my running partner, but are glad he's happy and free! We will still get to see him when we go visit South Dakota.

Here's cute puppy Charlie
There's one member of our family who doesn't miss the dog- Our cat Lucy!

My 2 1/2 Weeks as a College Girl!

For three summers now, I have gone to Colorado State University in Fort Collins to work on a master's degree. My friend Jodie from in my program rented a house in Estes Park this summer, so we stayed there most of the trip. As we commuted, we saw elk, deer, and big horn sheep!

This is Jodie from Long Island, NY, her dog Jack, and me hiking.This is the amazing house we stayed in up on the side of the mountain. Here is the view from the front porch!Scott and Victoria came up to visit one weekend.One day we went to Rocky Mountain National park, and walked up to some lakes. It started raining and hailing on us! We were about a mile or so from the car, so we just kind of gave up and just enjoyed the rain.

My master's degree will be in music education with a Kodaly Emphasis. The class I took was Level III of Kodaly, the last one you need to earn the certificate. We studied conducting, choir, folk song research, methodology, and sight singing (solfege- hence the do re mi handsigns we are all doing). For 12 days, we go from 8:00 am-4:00 pm to class all day. The seven of us have been together for three summers. Some of us will be presenting together at the Colorado Music Educator's Conference in January!

I love being a college student again!