Getting Ready!

No, we haven't fallen off the face of the Earth. I didn't even realize I hadn't posted anything since Monday! We've been crazy busy getting ready for our vacation! We're flying out Saturday for "State #44" in mine and Brent's quest to see all 50 states. It's a surprise trip for his birthday, so you'll just have to wait and see where we end up at!Adding to the stress of just getting ready for our first family flight, was finding a place to leave Pippin. His usual kennel was heavily damaged in the flood. Since he has a bit of arthritis these days, we don't want to leave him at his vet where he won't get any play time (they don't even have a fenced in yard, so you're basically in your crate most of the time.). Luckily our normal kennel was recommending Dogtopia Daycare and Spa, which is very similar. He'll have daycare during the day and then a private crate at night, and we can watch via webcam. But, places like this require you to be evaluated first to make sure he can play well with the other dogs, so we hurridly got him in Saturday for a mid-morning appointment and they kept him until we had to get him later that day. He did great so luckily that crisis was solved! Lilli LOVED watching him on the webcam Saturday, but I don't think she really realized it was Pippin. I think she just liked seeing all the dogs!
She has discovered how fabulous her finger is in her nose, so we've quit asking her where her nose is. Especially in public.

We've had some bad hair days...

But they don't get us down!
And she's just been loving being outside! We usually go for a walk each afternoon when we get home, sometimes she rides. She just loves walking on the sidewalk and exploring the neighborhood. Most days we end up next door and she just loves sitting in Mark's gardens and running around his brick paths. We also usually see our neighbor Jim walking his dog Yoshi and she'll love on him for a while. Sometimes she walks just a couple of houses and looks for our neighbor's cat that we saw one time and she's NEVER forgotten. She loves walking down the hill on the street behind us. We don't normally get all that far since birds, dirt, leaves and flowers distract us constantly. Yesterday a dead bird stopped us for about 5 minutes until (thankfully) someone with a dog went by so she started running after them. This afternoon we went across the street and played at the playground of the school next door - so handy! Swings, and slides, and all kinds of fun stuff to explore.

That's all for now! More laundry to finish, packing lists to add to and maybe some sleep!