summer vacation, part one - Seattle

For the first part of our summer vacation, our friends Greg and Kristen came out to Seattle for a week along with their two young children Aidan (almost 4) and Averie (2.5). We did the tourist thing together, doing many activities that Chris and I have never done despite living here for eight years, such as the Duck Tour, going whale-watching, and visiting Leavenworth.

First off, you can tell how excited both Chris and Averie were to be exploring the Pacific Science Center's Grossology exhibit and butterfly house - don't they look thrilled?

On Saturday we took a ride on the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad, which unfortunately was neither anywhere near Mt. Rainier nor scenic, and was running -extremely- late to boot (it took 3.5 hours for a scheduled 2-hour trip). With the only entertainment the forest outside the windows and a distinct lack of narration (only one guy "available for questions"), we were pretty disappointed in the experience, but the kids definitely enjoyed themselves so all was not lost.

Every morning Chris made coffee for himself and for Greg, and Aidan quickly learned to help him out.

Monday was our trip to Leavenworth, where we took the walking tour of the downtown area which was really fantastic. We were the only ones on the tour that morning, so we got to ask our guide lots of questions and pause to take photos. My favorite bit was the wrought-iron apothecary's sign, showing the mortar-and-pestle to indicate the business inside. Many of the murals are done in the trompe'l'oleil style, and were absolutely incredible in their details.

Whale-watching pictures in the next post. For now, off to finish preparing to drop the dogs off so we can go to LA tomorrow for Blizzcon!

quick vet visit that was unnecessary

Last month we went to Lake Tahoe for a flyball tournament, and since California does have heartworm endemic to the state, I investigated to find out what I needed to do to protect my dogs. I was told at the time to get their blood tested three weeks after we returned to see if they had been infected, and so today I dutifully took the girls to work (daycare for them) and then left early to take them to the vet. After the blood draw was taken, Dr. Nobrega called the lab and it turns out that you cannot test for heartworm until six months. So she wrote me a scrip for a six-pack of Sentinel to treat all three of the girls with, and did not charge me for the visit - but I'm still irritated that I made a completely unnecessary trip. Oh well, better safe than sorry, I suppose.

Weights:
Ezri - 35.6 lbs (she can stop growing now!)
Jadzia - 33.3 lbs (finally losing weight, yeah!)
Phoebe - 9.6 lbs (lean and trim)

In other health news, little miss Ezri developed a hotspot on her behind that I caught her chewing on Saturday. Quite a bit of fur trimmed off later (a splotch about the size of my spread hand), and everything has dried out, scabbed up, and is healing nicely. Good thing she's a merle, it makes the weird cut pattern look less obvious!

Thursday I will take all four of them to the nearby doggy daycare which has a pool, which is ours for one hour in the morning. I figure an hour of swimming, followed by a rinse-off with fresh water, will be enough of a bath and activity to mellow them out for the impending arrival of our friends and their two young children. We'll see!