September 2nd; Marymoor Dog Park

After our tiring hike the day before, Fel and I woke bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ready on Sunday morning! This time we drove north on the other side of Puget Sound to the Issaquah/Redmond, WA area to go to Marymoor Dog Park.  I have a book called The Dog Lover's Companion to the Pacific Northwest, and it asserts that "if you only get to visit only one dog park in the entire city, make Marymoor the one." The off-leash area on it's own is 44-acres and includes some fenced-off areas of the Sammamish River, which runs next to it. Neither of our dogs were too keen to go jumping in after tennis balls, but it sure was fun to watch the dogs that did!

We spent several hours walking around and getting lost there while our dogs frolicked  :)

These last two are my favorite. I love how Fel and Banjo are looking at each other in the first one...ahhh nothing comes between a girl and her dog :)

 

September 1st; Mount Walker

I sure hope that everyone had a great Labor Day weekend, because I definitely did! Instead of driving away and pitching a tent like most, I was lucky enough to spend the weekend with my great old friend, Felicia.

Fel and I go way back--we were inseparable throughout most of high school, but then drifted apart as, tragically, many good friends do. We reconnected through Facebook last year and have been rekindling our friendship.  Unfortunately, she still lives closer to our hometown of Spokane whereas I'm across the state, near Seattle.  We've discovered through texting and a few brief encounters that we still have many things in common despite so much lost time. 

She arrived on Friday night with her Heeler-mix, Banjo, loyally at her side.  Penny was happy to have a visitor as well, and the two canines became good friends in no time!

Saturday morning we took a tour around Gig Harbor, then went to Bandix dog park (I sure love that place)--it was a great place for the dogs to get their wiggles out...because later we drove for about 1.5 hours up to Quilence, WA to Mount Walker Trail. We drove to the top of the mountain to enjoy the viewpoints, and then did a little bit of hiking too. 

August 26th; Dahlia Festival

I have to be awake and getting ready for work in less than 6 hours...and here I sit editing more photos and updating my blog! At least I have my priorities straight...

Today, my friend Lauren and I packed up our four-legged friends in my SUV and we drove 3 hours south to Canby, Oregon to attend a Dahlia Festival there. We had an amazing time and got to see so many beautiful flowers! It's not often that an experience like this is inexpensive, but the price for admission and parking was 100% free! Penny enjoyed the flowers, as did Lauren's beautiful Border Collie, Eleanor!

 You'd think that with all the money I saved I could have tipped the nice man at the gas station who pumped by gas for me...How do Oregon residents learn how to pump gas?! What happens when they vacation outside of the state?!

Our drive home, which logically should have also been 3 hours, took almost 5. Today's big idea: Traffic sucks, but listening to Disney Princess Soundtrack makes everything better!

Anyway, delirium has set in. Here are new photos!

August 11th, 2012; a hot date

62.

This is the number of days, with perhaps 3 exceptions, that Bryce worked this summer without a day off. At least the last half of it (probably more) was working graveyard shift.  As of last Friday, August 10th--this ridiculous work schedule is NO MORE!

I don't even begin to try and understand how miserable this must have been for him...it was miserable enough for me! I've found that I'm incredibly difficult to keep entertained. I've turned to blogging for crying out loud. Perhaps I could have made more of an effort to go outside and socialize with the three-dimensional people...

Nevertheless! It appears the darkness has ended. We spent our first day becoming re-acquainted with one another up in Seattle. We ate at a cute little burger place in Tacoma for lunch. It was supposedly rated one of the best burgers in the greater Seattle area.  

We drove up to Seattle and meandered about until 7:30 when we saw The Dark Knight Rises in IMAX--very cool. It was a wonderful, beautiful day...very happy to have been able to spend it with my amazing husband (who also makes a great model)!

August 5th, 2012; Purdy Spit

I'm all caught up on my photo projects now! Blogging is exhausting ;)

The past couple of months have been a bit of a struggle because of Bryce's work schedule. He's basically been working 7days/week, and the last 4 weeks he has been doing noc shift. Aside from the blatant injustice of his having to work so much, it's been rough not seeing him very often. What makes it harder is that he IS physically in the house, but he's sleeping during the day--which is much harder! Part of me just wants to go start jumping on the bed and say "Wake up! I miss you! Let's spend time together!"

To prevent myself from being so uncouth, I try to make myself scarce. Today, I took Penny down to the Purdy Spit--a beach that we used to take her to all the time when we first got her. The tide was very low when we got there, so lots of room to run! It's difficult to find a path down to the beach, and even harder to do in flip flops once you find one. It's not exactly very sandy, either. The ground is covered in barnacle-infested rocks. I won't complain...Penny and I were just happy to have cool water to walk in. There's also a small freshwater stream that flows to the ocean, so Penny stayed hydrated

I attempted to be extra creative in the next two pictures. Tried to focus on the paw prints that Penny left what little sand there is on the beach. It was bright and hard to see...but maybe this is a shot I will work on in the future. Regardless of how successful I feel afterwards, it's just nice to get outside. I feel so lucky to live in such a pretty place! I think I actually got a little sun on my shoulders today :)