Adventures in Florida: The Callihans Take Tampa: Return of the Blog!

Hi Everyone!

So yeah, I've been pretty terrible about blogging lately. I missed November entirely, although we got to see you all in person, so hopefully that made up for it.

Last time I posted was after we lost Mojo. Since then, as many of you know, we've been having a difficult time with Deuce. He became extremely anxious and started to destroy stuff when we'd leave him alone.

We actually replaced these tccwo blinds, and then he destroyed the new ones we got like a week later one night when we went out for dinner.

He also attacked the Christmas tree, pulling off the lights and breaking a number of ornaments. Even through our gate.

It's a pretty tree if I do say so myself.

He was even doing dangerous things while we were home like pulling hot pans off the stovetop and generally being crazy. We took him to the vet and discovered that he is almost completely deaf. I think Mojo was providing him with visual cues when to react to things, so he was even more anxious after she passed away.

The vet gave us anti-anxiety drugs for him, which haven't been noticeably effective. So, we started taking him to a doggie daycare place which is only about a mile away from our house.

It took him a few days, but he seems to like it. The daycare posts pics of the dogs every day on Facebook, so we've gotten to see him on location. He even sent us this awesome selfie.

He seems to like going now and socializing with other dogs. We tell him he has to go to work in the morning like the rest of us.

ps. Check out the little dog on wheels in the top left. So cute!

At first I thought Deuce was sleeping on the bed in the foreground of this pic, but that is not him. He is sitting in the lifeguard chair in the back. Literally being the top dog.

They told us on the second day that he made friends with one of the other beagles and they hang out together.

Anyway, now when we bring him home, he is totally tired out. So far, since we started him at daycare, we stopped giving him the anxiety drugs and he's been a totally different dog.

After a long day at the office.

So. That's more than any of you wanted to know about our dog situation, but it's been a stressful thing for us, and we're really happy that things seem to be getting better and Deuce seems much happier too.

In other news, in addition to our tree, Glenn put up some really pretty lights outside that are the envy of the neighborhood.

Florida can be surprisingly festive during the holidays.

In work news, most of you know this already, but some of you don't, so forgive me if you've already heard: I won an Emmy Award for a video I worked on. It was just a little animated explainer video about why businesses should produce animated explainer videos. If you wish to see it, you can see it here: https://vimeo.com/158194017.

Obviously, I didn't animate it, but I came up with the concept, wrote the script, directed the voiceover talent and worked with the animators on it. I knew it was nominated, but when my boss asked me to go with him to the awards ceremony in Orlando, I said no, because I didn't think there was any way we would win, and who wants to drive to Orlando on a Sat night?

But we did win, and he ended up having to go on stage and make a speech. He texted me and let me know we won and that he was "not even joking!"

This was for the Suncoast Regional Emmy Awards which covers Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Puerto Rico...something like that. Anyway, I also had no idea that we'd get REAL EMMYS!

This was the one they gave my boss, but they made one for me too - with my name on it and everything - which my boss gave to me last night at our office Christmas party.

The party was held at my boss's house, and Glenn took some blurry pics but at least you can tell we are having a good time.

We also surprised Glenn at the party. My boss was saying a few weeks ago how he wanted us to get Glenn a gift because he always shares our Roger West posts on social media. So we got him this and presented it at the party.

So we both got awards!

Yesterday also marked the successful completion of another task my boss had given me which had become the bane of my existence - getting an office Christmas card made.

A few weeks ago we did a photo shoot, complete with ugly sweaters. This is one of the pics from the shoot - me, Baby May and Amy Mac.