we went to Utah!

So back in October, we went to Utah for a flyball tournament.  This was our first time in Utah at all, and the first time Chris has gone on a road trip with me to go to a tourney, so it was pretty awesome all the way around.  We traveled as part of a group that comprised people from four clubs in the Pacific Northwest, complete with shirts made for the occasion, and we had a great time.

Racing went really well, as we ran a modified A team lineup of Ezri (BC) / Danger (BS) / Sprite (BS) / Bogey (BW), which ran in the low 16's all weekend but sadly did not quite break 16 like we had hoped.  We did get some excellent times that we can use for seed times for UFLI Nationals next year if we want, so that goal was achieved.  We also won Division 1 on both days, despite being the slowest seeded club and racing against the world record holders Touch N Go, and that was pretty exciting!  Our friend Randy was there to judge the tournament, including the new record set by TNG's A team of 14.413, which was pretty amazing to see.

We took the opportunity to take some photos while we were there, of course!  Chris in his kilt and me in my racing skort, along with all three dogs.  The weather was incredible, we were there for the last warm weekend of the year and enjoyed 80F temperatures through our entire stay!

The parking lot behind the barn offered some good scenery, which I took advantage of to get some neat shots of the merles early on Saturday morning.  I loved the red rocks and the bluffs in southern Utah, they were beautiful - I hope to go back and spend time at Zion sometime in the future.

Here's Ezri all blinged out and ready to race - Swarovski crystals on her head, pink wraps on her front feet, and pink and glitter spray in her tail.  She was fantastic!  Martok was very intrigued by the process of putting crystals on Ezri's head, and when I was done with her he presented himself at my feet for the same treatment, so he got one little clear crystal on his forehead - and he was so proud!  He spent the next ten minutes prancing around like a peacock, clearly quite pleased with himself.

Jadzia is retired, of course, but a club there had two dogs get hurt on Saturday and so I offered to let her run with them on Sunday so they wouldn't have to pull.  She had a lot of fun, even as she has clearly embraced retirement and given up on any semblance of a boxturn.  I love my cranky old lady dog!

While we were in Utah, Martok hit his eight-month birthday, and Chris took him out to a different side of the parking lot to take photos for the occasion.  I love this one, he looks so grown up already!

We had a full caravan of five RV's on our trip home, as can be seen in this great shot I took while we were going through the Oregon mountain passes east of Pendleton.  Five trailer rigs made stops a little unwieldy, but we made it work and it was a lot of fun to travel with so many friends!

Sunrise early on the morning we left was glorious.  We were able to outrun the first fall storm that moved in that day, so yay for that!

And of course, it's just one week until Christmas, so here's a night shot of our Christmas tree.  It's so beautiful!  This year we used five strings of lights, two wrapping up the inside of the tree and three around the mid/outer branches, and it's very sparkly because of this.  I hope to spend some time this weekend taking dog/tree shots, so hopefully those will be up soon!