growing up

Whenever I get home from work, the first thing I do is to go see the pup. If he's in the house I make sure to let him out right away, to avoid any accidents from happening. Next we walk to the mail box together. If you haven't been to our house, we live at the end of a pipestem, so our mailbox is at the beginning of it, next to the street. Aspen is so good at staying pretty close to me, and coming back to me when I call him, he never runs in the street either. I check the mail box and if we have some junk mail I give it to Aspen to carry back to the house, I carry the other things that I don't want to get drool on. Today there was no mail in the mailbox.

So today, on the way back to the house I told Aspen we were going to race to the house. We started running and as he was one step ahead of me most of the way he kept looking back at me, and running sideways for a second. I think he did this to prove to me that even running sideways he can still run faster than me. (Of course I wasn't sprinting or anything.) He did, however, beat me to the front door.

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By far, his favorite toy is the soccer ball.

The ball started out being pretty deflated (as it is in this picture) so he could grab it pretty easily with his mouth. We decided to pump it up and see what he would do. It was so cute he was trying to get it so hard, and would start to come back to us to help him, but then would go back to the ball because he didn't want to leave it. He finally figured out how to grip his mouth just right around the ball that even with it full he can still carry it. Its just a little more difficult to pick up at first and to hold on to for a long time. --- He loves the soccer ball so much, its so fun to try to steal it from him and see him chase after it. He'll bring it to us when fetching, but if we chase after him to get it, he'll run away so he doesn't have to give it up.

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Aspen is getting so big lately! I haven't weighed him in about a week, but last time I think he was 48 pounds, or so. Its crazy to think back on when we first got him and he was only 18 pounds. This last week he started to look a little chubby, and we don't want a chub-pup so we gave him a little less food and tried to make sure we were exercising him and giving him as much play time as possible.

Like Nate said, he is still such a snuggler. Even though he's getting a little too big for it, he still loves to come and sit on your lap and be as close to you as possible. I hope he continues to cuddle with us even when he becomes a full grown dog -- ps. I can't believe he'll probably gain another 40 pounds! At least he's finally growing into his body and doesn't look quite as awkward :)

A beautiful day at Utah lake.

What a handsome pup.