Home!

Vacations are like Christmas -- you count the days with anticipation, which go SO slow -- and then it is over in the blink of an eye! Yesterday at this time I was in Minnesota and now I am home in Montana.

Unlike the drive to Minnesota, the drive home was uneventful. I did not want to pay for a hotel to sleep just a few hours so instead I pulled into the parking lot of a hospital in Miles City, Montana and slept there for 3.5 hours. I figured that a hospital parking lot was safer than a rest area, and how handy if I got sick! Including the sleeping time and stops, the trip home took about 22 hours. I always forget how wonderful Montana smells -- like pine trees and camping and mountains!

But Minnesota is also wonderful in a different way. It is very green and lush, with rolling hills, rivers and LOTS of lakes. I had a great time with the Osojnickis and enjoyed meeting their friends and seeing Clark's sister again, who is just as nice as Clark. I got some great ideas for training and just plain had fun! Thanks to Kris and Clark for hosting us!

Of course I enjoyed taking pictures -- lots of them. Kris was impressed with the editing program I have and now knows I am not really that great at pictures -- just editing them :)

In one run Kiva and Kris had different ideas about which jump was next, but Kiva belatedly remembered the course map and took the correct jump at a completely crazy angle, as you can see in this picture. However, she cleared it and qualified in the run :)


Kris's puppy, Tori, is just three weeks younger than Zoey and the names are so close that we just made it easy and called them both Zori. Here is the younger Zori demonstrating the success of our accelerated Tracking 101 program.


I loved taking pictures through this pretty tire -- this is Kiva.


Kris and Kiva


Clark's dog, Roxy.


Obviously I did not take these pictures of Cadi but I did edit them :)




Cadi qualified again yesterday, earning her open standard title! We do not often get to have such a colorful crate :)


I need a vacation from my vacation! Between not enough sleep and the strangeness of being abruptly transported between states I am feeling like a day or two of transition would be nice. However, the semester starts with orientations and retreats on Wednesday so this will be a quick transition from life as an agility/dog show/pheasant killing bum to university professor -- how fortunate I am to be able to do all the things I love! Well, most of them anyway ;)

I hope you are similarly blessed and doing what you love -- or loving what you do.