I don't have many pictures from vacation, other than the ones I posted of the visit with Norine. I spent a lot of time knitting and catching up with family members. I loved visiting with my sisters and brother and parents, but I especially loved getting to know my sisters' granddaughters, Ava and Caroline. Caroline only stayed 2 days, so I spent more time with Ava. We got to be friends and we watched many musicals like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and The Music Man, which I enjoyed, and a few TV shows I did not enjoy, like Dora the Explorer, but Ava made even that show worthwhile. The Music Man sparked off a game that we played over and over in which Ava dragged in books from my mother's bookshelves, and proceeded to be the librarian and I was the library patron who wanted my books checked out. This game escalated to one where Ava informed me that she was going to leave in the middle of having my books checked out and I was "going to cry." We played this game a lot.
One of the things Ava enjoyed was a lizard that kept getting between the screen and window panes.
I got a few pictures of the lizard and then Ava wanted to take a picture. Here's her picture - not too bad I think:
It was good to see all our old family friends from Tallahassee and it was nice to take it easy and relax.
The weather was so-so, half the time it was warm and sunny, the other half it rained, especially the last 2 days we were there. It has been cold in Florida - colder than in the northwest, and there weren't many spring blossoms this year. The weather affected the trip home, in that our plane from Jacksonville to Atlanta was delayed 3 hours and we had to hustle to get another plane and route to Portland in order to get home Friday evening. Fortunately, we were able to be rerouted to Minneapolis, were able to get on the evening plane to Portland (flying standby and getting the bulkhead no less), and arrived home 30 minutes later than we were originally scheduled to arrive. Oh and it pays to be nice to the ticket agents when schedules go awry. I got to send my bag free.
It was good to be home and great to see the dogs and cats again. We picked up Kristin from Mike's house and came back home with some new strategies to help Kristin's relieving frequency problem. We're only feeding her once a day. The vet at GDB says it is not unusual for dogs to need to go as often as Kristin does, and that we should see lessened frequency by the time Kristin is 14 months or so. In the meantime, we are watching her schedule closely and we only go out and about during dry and empty periods of the day. So far no accidents. We're going on 2 weeks without one and I'm keeping my fingers crossed this will continue to work.
I went to graduation on Saturday with Kristin and felt like I couldn't handle her well - I kept getting reprimanded. Kristin needs some work in public settings. Fortunately, my leader was there and helped me relax a bit. Honestly, if I didn't know puppy raisers who had dogs graduating, I don't think I'd go to graduation with a dog. It's becoming so STRESSFUL! I did enjoy meeting Sarah (Millie's raiser) at graduation and perusing the boards in the kitchen with her. I also got to meet Sarah's new dog, Rafferty. That was the graduation highlight.
Aside from graduation, I've really been enjoying Kristin this week. I confess that the bonding has been slow, but I really think this week has been successful and I'm very attached to Kristin now. It was very helpful to have my leader keep Kristin during my time away and to get insight into Kristin from another person. She does have some great qualities and is very, very sweet. We go on an outing tomorrow night and then have an evaluation with my CFR on Friday. I'm looking forward to it and am keeping my fingers crossed that both events are accident free.
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