Week In Review and Pictures

Dear Husband arrived on Tuesday but not without drama. First problem was that he forgot his phone -- this would not have been too much of an issue if his flight had gone well, but of course it didn't. First it was delayed by almost two hours but he managed to borrow a phone and leave me a message about that.

Then I got an email from him while I was in class -- it said, "...First, I hope you got my message not to come to the airport. Second, we were diverted to Helena and now we are waiting for buses to get here to take us to Missoula. Third, I can't find a phone in this airport, so I have no way to call you since I left my phone at home by accident. Fourth, I will try to call you when I get to the Missoula airport."

Yes indeed, his plane was in a final descent to Missoula when suddenly they decided it would be better to land 100+ miles away in Helena and drive them over a mountain pass in a bus in a snowstorm. Dear Husband was 36 hours without sleep (he had worked the night before), hungry, and not at his cheerful best when he finally arrived in Missoula after his Big Adventure -- as you might imagine :) But he arrived safely and all is well.

This morning he threw Zoey's toy for her -- over and over and over -- Zoey was very happy :)


Usually I have to throw and take the pictures but today I was able to just take pictures, and here are some of my favorites....







Maize and Syd like to bark at each other (gee, they must be related ;) -- here are some of them mixing it up...




Just Maize -- barking (so unusual!)...


And here are a couple of Sydney -- she is growing up :)


(Are those DEVIL horns?!)

Yes, all boxes got checked again -- six walks, four bike rides, eight agility sessions, four obedience session, and TRACKING up the wazoo -- TEN tracking sessions -- ugh. Tracking with Syd (four sessions) is not a big deal -- lay the track, wait 30 or so minutes, run it) but Asia is tracking at the TDX level so that means her track is aged THREE HOURS -- we did SIX of them. If the track was just outside the front door that would not matter but TDX tracks are long so you need big fields, and she needed to track in different areas so I did a lot of driving this week. Kim was a great sport and laid tracks for me and that helped a lot. Oh -- and I taught my classes and did all that professorial stuff I do plus gave a presentation about community building in online courses at a conference! Yikes -- what a week.

Tomorrow is the tracking test in Palisades, Washington. Asia needs a "Perfect Storm" to pass but I am hoping to get good info about the areas of weakness in our training so it will be a success no matter what; remember the pass rate for TDX is about 15%. Sydney is tracking very well but anything can happen at a test... The girls and I leave this afternoon, and Kim will stay here with the other dogs. Think good thoughts tomorrow!!!

I hope your week has gone well, with no dangling boxes or participles.