Thanksgiving and Visiting Stevenson

Thank you to everyone who voted in my poll. I believe the new kitten has a name by a pretty wide majority, but I'm going to leave the poll up through Monday since I started the poll over a holiday weekend.

We had a quiet Thanksgiving. Ryan and Keri went to Ryan's parents' house and we had Kevin over for a few hours and Tim came home for a 30-minute dinner break since he worked. Kevin, Lyn and I talked, ate, and watched The Planet Earth - the episode about caves. Besides getting claustrophobic, we laughed a lot because of the spooky music and adjectives used in the narrative when some species was about to be eaten. It's traditionally my cue to leave the room when the music starts, but the bad animal this time was a glow worm and I was able to stay in the room. I was definitely grossed out. I can also tell you that I will never be eating Bird's Nest Soup. There was a lot of mucus in this episode (Sorry if that's too much information).

I've been knitting a lot and spent my few shopping minutes on Black Friday at the local yarn store, StitchCraft. I was buying yarn for gifts I'll be making, so that doesn't count as Black Friday money spending. This is usually a day I boycott, but I do make exceptions for local small businesses. No Waldemart (the store that cannot be named) or Target for me.

I started a spooky book called The Owl Masters and am having trouble putting it down. I hate that I have to work tomorrow because I just want to curl up with a cat or dog or two and knit and read. I'm in hibernation mode!

This afternoon Ardella went to her second agility class and this time there were other dogs and people in the class. Though Ardella wanted to interact with the dogs, she wasn't so distracted that she couldn't participate. We did some new challenges - Go to table and sit, a chute (like a tunnel but flat), a curved tunnel, a covered jump and a broad jump. Ardella had some initial difficulty with the chute, but her hardest thing to learn was the broad jump. She did everything she was supposed to do and I'm still impressed with her ability to learn. We ended the class learning "spot" where the dog learns to hit a target with its nose. We didn't quite get that one yet, and it's our homework for the week. Next week the dogs need to hit the target across a room when given the command.

I'm enjoying agility, but I doubt Ardella has the speed to compete. We'll see. We're taking the class as a confidence booster and I think that's working. I'm baffled by the dogs in our class. They're about 80% Labradoodles! I expected to see Border collies and Aussies.

After class Lyn and I drove out to Stevenson to see how far the drive was and what the road was like. It was a beautiful drive, but it took us 50 minutes and there was no rain or traffic to slow us down. We tried a different route back by crossing the toll bridge right outside Stevenson and traveling down I-84. That took us 55 minutes but it was faster and the road felt safer. I don't know. As much as I'd like to be part of a smaller guide dog group, I don't know if the travel time is something I could handle. We'll see. I certainly have time to make up my mind. I might try finding a group in Portland as that's closer than Stevenson, although I think Stevenson is charming and I really like the group there.

Ardella and Annalynn will be working with Cathie Laber, our former CFR, this weekend. I'm looking forward to that.