August Is My Month!

August has been pretty good to me as far as contests go. In addition to the BIG win of the PetSmart Charities video contest, I had a slightly smaller win in a Great Urban Race contest. Every month they ask people to submit pictures from their races. GUR followers on Facebook then vote for their favorite. The photo with the most likes gets to be the GUR Facebook cover photo for the month. As I've said before, my friends rock and for this one, Nicole's friends rock too! The owner of the Obstacle Races and Mud Runs Facebook page posted the picture asking for votes and that led us to our big win.

Nicole and I are fabulous cover models! We should do this for a living. Check us out here:  https://www.facebook.com/GreatUrbanRace  or just check out this screenshot:

Best cover photo ever!!

Friends, Family and Random Strangers

Remember this contest that I was begging you to vote for?

My video of Frankie was chosen as one of 10 finalists in a PetSmart Charities video contest (you can see the video at the bottom of this post). The winner was then decided by the most public votes received in a two week period. It was a long two weeks of promotion! Every day I emailed all my friends, family and co-workers with the link, reminding them to vote. Every day I texted all my friends with the link and asked them to vote on their phones. About every other day I posted the link on Facebook asking for votes. Here are two of my posts:

 

I posted pleas for votes on the Maricopa Animal Care and Control Facebook page. I found a few other people on Facebook who were in other contests and started voting for them in their contests in exchange for them voting for me.  I posted in the Classified Ads email at my firm asking all the lawyers and staff to vote for me.

In my emails and Facebook posts, I asked people to vote from their desktop computer, their laptop, their phone, their co-workers' computers and their neighbor's computers. I asked people to forward the link to all their friends. And wow, did people do just that! My sister texted me one day saying that she just got home from voting at her next door neighbor's. My dad emailed all his friends and my mom's friends. They went crazy with it, emailing their kids and their friends. My boss, the COO of  our firm, emailed all of our admin team and requested they vote every day. Some lawyers at my firm and a lot of the staff voted daily and passed it on to their networks. Many of my friends posted the link on their facebook pages. People I don't even know had it posted on their Facebook pages to vote for Jill Diamond. My NFBF is a technical trainer and he made his entire class go online to vote at the start of their training. I heard stories like this every day. It was CRAZY! I could not believe the amount of support that was criss-crossing the country (and the world, actually, because one friend was voting from India) for Frankie.

The Bacon Bits having a voting party on the final day:

I kept an eye on the current vote totals all day every day for two weeks. It was quite a roller-coaster ride! I would be leading when I went to bed and then be in second place when I woke up. My main competition was a lady from Indiana. The two of us had a mad race to the finish.

And then on the Monday after voting ended, we got this announcement on the PetSmart Charities Facebook page:

And the winner, with 1,599 total votes, is Jill Diamond and her buddy Frankie! Thanks to Jill and Frankie, a local animal shelter of their choosing will receive a $1,000 donation from PetSmart Charities. Way to go guys! 

 

I have the best friends, family and co-workers EVER! My supporters ROCKED! Thanks to everyone and your 1,599 votes! You guys are awesome!

As promised, here is the video of Frankie:

And here is the video that I entered for Mo that they did not chose as a finalist:

 

Excessive?

There is a cheap glasses place in Scottsdale. I mean cheap, really cheap! They charge $29 for frames and lenses. Frames AND lenses - only $29! They also will put your new prescription lenses into frames you bring in.

I took 3 pairs of frames in to be updated with my new prescription. Then, while I was there, I tried on a few pairs. I couldn't decide which ones to get, so I got them all.  And now, I am the proud owner of 12 pairs of glasses.

Excessive?

Nah. You can never have too many shoes, and you can never have too many glasses.

Olympic Pups - Track and Fielder

Who fostered the cutest puppies ever? I did!

I got these cuties four weeks ago, during the height of the Olympic excitement. Thus, I wanted them to have Olympic names. I thought about Shot Put and Discus, Breaststroke and Backstroke, Bars and Beam, but finally settled on Track and Fielder. Track is the brown one, Fielder is the cream colored one.

They were picked up as strays by County and were transferred to the Humane Society for medical treatment. When they were found they were covered in ticks and scabs. When I got them they were covered in dead ticks (thanks to a tick dip) and scabs. Track was underweight and he had no hair on his body at all except that little brown spot by his tail. 

They were tested for mange and tick fever and luckily were negative for both. All they needed was a little fattening up, some oatmeal baths and some TLC.

They certainly didn't know they were sick. They were jolly, cuddly and super-playful. It was hard to get good pictures of them because they were constantly in wrestling motion. I have about 100 pictures that look like this:

I haven't had puppies in a long time and my dogs were not quite sure that they liked the idea.  Frankie was terrified, to the point that he was drooling like a madman. I tried to explain to him that they were puppies not monsters, but he wasn't convinced. A little (a lot) nervous:

Georgie didn't want anything to do with them. She spent the first few weeks as far away from them as she could get:

Mo was simply annoyed. The puppies loved to jump up and bite her in the face. She would growl at them, but that didn't deter them. She finally gave up the growling and tried to just ignore them. That didn't work either.

After a few weeks of the puppies, my dogs decided that perhaps puppies really are dogs and perhaps they could accept them.

When I go swimming, I leave the dogs' room open so they chill inside if they want to. They all wanted to.

Isn't this cute?

I've had over 30 dogs stay with me and Track and Fielder are the first dogs to take up the diving board as their relaxation spot. This is also cute because it highlights how they were always together. They acted like one dog, never more than a few feet from each other. I bet they will be sad at first when they get adopted since they will be separated for the first time. I hope they both get adopted on the same day so neither one has to spend time at the shelter alone. It's a scary place!

Here are the kennel card photos I submitted for them-
Track:

Fielder:

The cute Olympic puppies are getting neutered tomorrow and will be up for adoption on Tuesday. I'm guessing they will get chosen quickly. They are adorable, playful and Fielder is even housetrained! Good luck little Olympic puppies! We loved having you!!

Elaine's Birthday Flash Mob

First of all, have you voted for Frankie yet today? Please do! http://www.petsmartcharities.org/video-contest/gallery-vote-now.html Click on the Jill Diamond video, wait for it to load and then click Vote. The number should go up if your vote registers. We fell to second place today but for the moment are back in first. It's a fight to the finish for sure!

Anyway...on to the topic of this post....
For Elaine's 40th birthday, she threw herself a flash mob. If you've got a bucket list item (such as to be in a flash mob) you just gotta make it happen. So she did.

She made up a routine, she videotaped herself teaching the routine and posted the links on facebook. She invited everyone she knew and asked them to invite everyone they knew and so on. She is awesome, who could say no? Let's face it, even if I didn't like Elaine, I wouldn't have said no! Flash mobs are fun!  But since I adore Elaine, this was fun x 2!

Pat, Brian and Kiri also wanted to do it. Irene wanted to too, of course (she's as much a joiner as I am), but she was going to be out of town that week. Bummer for her.  So Brian and Kiri came over a few times in the weeks preceding the dance and we practiced, practiced, practiced!

On our last practice day Christy brought Miranda over. Miranda is 12. I didn't think she'd do it because she's shy sometimes. But no, she said she would and she did. She's never taken dance but she learned the dance in one night. We 3 swing dancers took 3 full nights of practice to learn it, which just goes to show that just because I learned to swing dance, by no means am I a dancer!

Christy doesn't dance (even though I bet she would have learned it in one night too) so she videotaped it for us. The dancing started before she was ready so you don't get to see the people milling around and then all start joining in. There is a video of that but it's on a private facebook page and I can't figure out how to share it.



Elaine is the girl in hot pink off to the left. I am the spazzy one (of course) in the front (of course) in the purple-ish t-shirt. Brian is behind me also in a purple-ish shirt. Miranda is the tall thin girl in the yellow shorts. You can see Kiri for the first 10 seconds off to the right in the black tank top and pants. Then Christy realized Elaine wasn't in the video so she panned over to include the guest of honor. Sorry, Kiri. :)  Pat and his mom are way in the back so you can't see them at all.

You can see Miranda and Brian in this picture and I'm peeking out from the vines.

When we were hanging out waiting for the music to start I was kind of worried about the turn out. It seemed like very few people were there. But then the music started and tons of people started joining in. Where did they come from? It was awesome! It was more people than even Elaine thought would be there. We were terrible at the "walk away like nothing happened" when it was over. Everyone was so excited that we were cheering and congratulating each other and Elaine. It was really fun to be in a group of such happy and excited people. I'm so glad it was a successful flash mob for Elaine!

Here are a bunch of the dancers:

Happy birthday Elaine! GREAT JOB!!  Do we get to do it again next year? I vote for an annual tradition!