a quick trip back to the home-state this weekend for a high school graduation party.

i managed to fit in some breakfast and chat time with the mommy and daddy of this little cutie:

who is trying very hard to sit and stand and see everything she can:

we also fit in a quick round of golf:

the high school graduate had to fish his ball out of the water trap, not once, but twice:

we interacted with the wildlife on the course:

jessie won, but little adam helped her, so it doesn’t really count:

add all that to some dinner with friends and it makes for a whirlwind, tiring, fun trip. right, adam?

when you are out and about tag sale-ing on a saturday morning, you can’t not support your local chapter of the roller derby league, right?

it was a tag sale/fundraiser/bake sale. we bought a few random things, watched everyone skate around, and got recruited:

recently abby, grendel, tom and i graduated from a six-week obedience class at a local dog school. we spent wednesday evenings learning new skills and then were given homework to work on throughout the week.

while they didn’t really learn fancy tricks, abby got more comfortable being around dogs she didn’t know which helps at the dog park. and gren learned to pay attention much better than he has in the past. and we continue to work on, and build upon, what we learned at home. “stay” continues to be a challenge.

a wonderful side-effect of the class was how tired they were after each class. it really challenged them! just look at these two after the graduation ceremony, during which they were each given a treat and a certificate of achievement:

gren is particularly proud of their honor student status:

(let’s not tell him that everyone got one of these bumper stickers)

abby used to be a clean, lovely, white pup.

this new yard has turned her into real dirt-diggin, ground-sniffing dog! (she was even dirtier than she looks in the pictures! and gren has sap all over his face. what were they doing out there?)

gotta go finish watching “the real match game story: behind the blank”

did you hear that charles nelson reilly died last week? sad.