Author: Emily Dolloff

Soccer season comes to an end for us this weekend with my oldest daughter’s annual soccer jamboree on Saturday and I am looking forward to some pumpkin carving on Sunday. I admit we still haven’t finished cleaning out our camper from the summer and it still needs to be washed and winterized before being tucked away for winter. It’s looking like another busy and productive weekend at my house!

Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

_Emily, Morgan and Scott_

I am a huge fan of wireless technology. I have been slowly updating my home office to be as wireless as I can with speakers from Sonos and all of my computer accessories from my keyboard to printer are wireless as well. One area that I had not ventured into yet has been wireless headphones. I am often working at home, and because my office space is part of my main living space, I often have to have headphones while working. It was only recently that I started to use wireless headphones and frankly I can’t believe I hadn’t started to use this technology sooner! “*Urbanears*”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/?mmfg%5B0%5D=Urbanears has a bluetooth option in their popular Plattan line up, the “*Plattan ADV*.”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/87175/urbanears-plattan-adv-bluetooth-indigo I was able to easily link the headphones to my computer and no longer felt tethered to my desk when working. With the bluetooth headphones I could easily leave my desk for a glass of water or to let dogs out without missing a beat. The battery easily lasts all day and unlike some other bluetooth headphones, you can easily plug them into your computer or device directly with a cable should you forget to charge them. I also linked up these headphones to one of my iPads. These headphones allow you to have them linked with up to 8 devices, so you can easily use them from one device to the next without having to pair and unpair constantly.

Over the ear headphones are great for around the home and office, but not the most practical when you’re exercising. As mentioned a few weeks ago I have begun trying to get out and move more in recent weeks, and carrying my iPhone in my hand or pocket when out for a run was becoming a bit of an annoyance. The “*Ourdoor Tech Orcas*”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/85798/outdoor-tech-orcas-wireless-sweat-proof-earbuds-black are the perfect solution. With the bluetooth on my Apple Watch I easily paired these headphones with my watch, synced a playlist to my watch and left my phone behind! The headphones are lightweight and comfortable. I am not a fan of in ear headphones and I was skeptical that these headphones would work well for me, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well they stayed in my ears and with the quality of the sound. Many in ear headphones begin to wiggle out of your ears or provide sub par sound quality, but these headphones have truly made me change the way I think of in-ear headphones. As an added bonus they also feature a built in microphone. This feature isn’t something that I can say I have taken advantage of, but it’s certainly nice to know I could take a call if I needed to.

_Dear Friends,_

It’s that time of year again; a few snowflakes fell over the weekend signaling that winter is around the corner. Don and Grace headed south earlier this week and officially bid farewell to winter before it even begins. Palm trees and beaches await them in sunny Key West. I have to be honest, I can’t say that I am a huge fan of winter either; winters are a lot of work! I have an aging horse barn that requires special care in the winter and frequent trips up on the roof to remove snow. My woodpile ends up inevitably buried in a cocoon of ice and snow by about mid-February and last year a new twist as our water hydrant in the barn froze up several times. However, this year I am going into the winter with a glass half full mentality. We built a brand new wood shed for our firewood and bid farewell to giant tarps keep our wood day. Next spring we will be building a new horse barn so with any luck this is the last winter of frequent shoveling and my oldest daughter and I have a season pass for skiing this winter. I am looking forward to winter this year!

New emojis! **iOS 9.1** came out yesterday and if you’re a fan of emojis then this is the update for you. **iOS 9.1** features over 150 new emoji so you can easily have endless visual conversations with your friends. There are several new faces from the zipper mouth to money mouth, and you can update your friends on the forecast with new weather clouds and brag to your co-workers about your vacation spot with new scenery emoji. In playing with these new emoji we have found that recipients of these new emoji will also need to be on **iOS 9.1** to view them. We discovered these new images will appear as only a “?”. Other updates to **iOS 9.1** included “**security updates**”:https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205370 and included an update to live photos. Live photos will now sense when you raise or lower your iPhone so as to not record these movements. The live photos is still only a feature in the new iPhone 6s.

This week I have put together an exclusive bundle for Kibbles subscribers only, save $25 on a “*Belkin Wemo light switch and outlet!*”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900001992/special-get-a-belkin-wemo-power-switch-and-wemo-led-lighting-starter-kit-for-74-99 A great way to add a touch of security to your home by turning on and off lights when your not there, or just wowing your friends when they come over to visit. My favorite use is to secretly plug our Christmas tree into the outlet and show my younger nieces and nephews during the holidays how to turn the tree on and off with a magic wave of my hand.