But first a little something from fall - visitors! Krista and Dan, friends from when I lived in Calgary, came to see Murphy and me. They are both nurses, and ever since graduating nursing school have worked in the USA. Well Dan has just finished a Masters program, and the two of them have finally moved up to the Pacific Northwest, Seattle specifically. So to your left we have the two of them with Murphy enjoying the west coast rain in all its glory at Lynn Canyon's suspension bridge! Note the rain drops on the camera lens. I've known Krista for over 10 years but she'd never met Murphy before because we'd both moved away from Calgary before he was born, so this was their first meeting.

So Murphy and I are now all settled into the new condo. In fact Murphy is a little too settled, frankly. He's quite certain that he rules the place. Below we have him on his new favourite perch, the back of the couch:

This is cute and all, but he has to claw his way up there, and he smushes the cushions down while he's up there. So I'm trying to discourage this behaviour. I'm not sure where he picked this up, since he'd never done this with any other couch before, and it's not like he lives with any cats from whom he may have witnessed this activity.

As November rolled around Vancouver got its first snowfall of the year. Murphy is a big fan of snow, so here we have him admiring it from his window seat:

At first he was all excited, as you can tell from his stance, but after a while he settled in, and just sat and watched the traffic go by:

Of course I did up the condo for Christmas, and had Murphy pose for all the pictures, so here you go:

Murphy of course likes his stocking the best, as he can smell the remnants of Christmases past in it. He caught a sniff of some one night and went hunting:

Needless to say I'm not dumb enough to leave cookies in Murphy's stocking out in the open where he could grab them and devour them at any point. Murphy's treats were hidden in cupboards and the fridge for weeks ahead of time:

And those were just a few of the ones that were stashed at my parents' place on Christmas Eve. I'd had most of them hidden at my place. Murphy wasn't just obsessed with his stocking, he was also obsessed over the tree. Any tree - mine or my parents':

Don't ask me why, he just was. Some times a particular ornament would catch his eye, sometimes he would just sniff the tree itself. He never tried to mark the tree, just sniff it. Notice how excited he is, panting away, trying to reach that tree. He would clambour over the presents, squishing things, trying to get right next to that tree.

Murphy also clearly new which presents contained treats, which isn't much of a surprise. He'd sniff them out and just grab them from you (or your sister, in this photo):

I just think it's a cute picture, so I included it here! Notice that he's still smiling away. My sister commented that Murphy's the only dog she knows who loves Christmas. It's true, he seems to really get excited about it. The presents, the tree, all the cooking, the family around - all things Murphy loves.

So I think that brings us to Christmas itself. Murphy couldn't wait to get to his gifts:

You can't tell because there's no action in a still photo but Murphy is pacing back and forth, waggling madly here, trying to get past that gate to his stocking:

Also in Murphy's stocking was a dental chew that miraculously had nothing in it that Murphy was allergic to. I'd have taken a picture of it but Murphy devoured it so quickly that I never got the chance! I figured it would take days or weeks for him to get through as it was a medium sized rock hard bone, but it just disappeared:

After all the stockings were emptied we started in on the wrapped gifts. Murphy dug right into some of his:

That above may be the only moment Murphy was still the entire morning. He was insanely hyper, needing to be crated for everyone's benefit. Below we have my father hanging on to him to keep him still for a moment or two:

Murphy did receive non treat gifts, and enjoyed them tremendously, which is actually quite surprising, considering how ruled by his stomach he is. My parents bought him a candy cane pillow, which my sister thought was a hideous gift for me, but Murphy *adores*:

It also plays Christmas tunes, but you have to squeeze it just so at the very end of the hook, so it's actually very hard for Murphy to set it off. Murphy loves to carry it around by the hook end of it as seen above to the right. I bought Murphy a little dog bone blanket that I came across at the grocery store of all places:

Very cute, I thought, and only $10, and perfectly coordinated with his brown doggie bed.

My big gift from my parents this year is really a gift for Murphy too; a pillow for the window seat in the living room:

That 80 by 24 inch pillow cost hundreds of dollars for the fabric, foam and labour! It wasn't under the tree at my parents' and everyone told me that it wasn't ready in time for Christmas, which I was fine with, I was just glad it was being made. Then I come home after Christmas morning (and this is after having worked a 12 hour shift Christmas Eve, and having to go back and work another 12 hour shift Christmas night) and there was the pillow waiting for me! This photo was taken right after I'd discovered it sitting there. Murphy loves it already, and lounges on it all the time:

In the closeup below you can see the detail better, and can tell why it cost so much to have made - just look at the alignment of those stripes!

After Christmas we had another visitor from back east - Natalie, who I went to respiratory school with, and who I used to work with at St Paul's Hospital. She's a big fan of Murphy's so I had to get a picture of the two of them together:

It's funny how dignified Murphy looks in that picture, since he was acting all goofy the whole time she was here! He was waggling all over the place, bringing her every single toy he has; "Look, it's Patches, she's my favourite toy! And this is Octopus, you remember him from Kamloops, right? And this is Candy Cane, I just got it for Christmas!" You can see the evidence in the shot, with both Patches and Candy Cane on Natalie's lap. Of course it didn't hurt that Natalie brought a ton of sausage treats for Murph either.

So that's it for now, and that's it for another year.

Email me!

Meghan

Here's the link to the next update: March & April 2006
Here's the link to the previous update: November 2005

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