Dog Days of Summer

It's still hot, and we're all still camped out in the living room, where we have finally installed a window AC unit. Lilli's bed is officially right beside ours, but when I get up in the morning, she takes my place by the boys.

We went to Lincoln Square for the afternoon on Saturday for eye exams and to look at new glasses frames. This is the pair that Martin is considering, but they look great on Max too.

We were quite pleased to learn that Spex is dog friendly (they had a jar of dog treats by the door, which is apparently the tip off). We're learning all this as we go along, but we are certainly surprised at the amount of dog friendly businesses out there.

After the optician, we met up with JoJo, who is, if you can believe this, Lilli's great uncle. He's from the same breeder as Lilli, and he is the dog we met on Father's Day weekend, the one sitting with his owner Beth, outside Letizia's Bakery. Beth introduced us to Jackie, and therefore to Lilli. We were so busy talking that I didn't get any good photos. But here's vague evidence of the dogs' meeting.

Also at the square: balloon animals.

Sunday morning: Lula's. We have managed to eat out quite a bit with Lilli, we are just exploring every restaurant's patio or outdoor seating area. And trying to pick those with shade, as it is still hot hot hot and anything other than absolute shade is intolerable.

Lilli sat quietly underneath our chairs, in a puddle of water, of course. She always lays her head in her water bowl.

Luigi and Mario are hungry.

 Farmer's market: snow cones.

Yard sale find on the walk home:

First visit to the groomer. We meet Chalie and tell her our ideal puppy cut.

And then...we leave her there! It was the first time we've been away from Lilli (aside from a few crate training sessions where we sat in the back yard and listened to her barking hysterically). The groomer told us it could take 3 hours, to get the heck out of there and have some fun. We hardly knew what to do with ourselves. And then we did. Go eat in some place with air conditioning! We chose Thai Lagoon.

We ran a few errands in the neighborhood, visiting some stores where we can't take Lilli, and then, while we were loading garbage cans into our cart at Home Depot (and the boys were playing with the galvanized steel lids, a la Stomp), they called and told us to come and pick her up.

You can actually see her eyes!

Tuft of her hair for the scrapbook. In reality, it will go in the box of random things from the boys that have also not made it into a scrapbook.

Home again.

Daily Exercise

Misplaced Blame

I was sure the Lilli had gotten into the newspaper pile in the bathroom and reminded the boys that we need to keep that door shut so she doesn't wreak havoc in there. Turns out, it was Max, looking for the comics section.

Monster Crafts

 



 

Not bad for our first monster puppets. I was in contact with a puppet maker from Furry Puppet Studio, who makes these beautiful puppets, which I absolutely loved.

This one, for instance:

But when I checked in with the truly lovely and talented people at Furry Puppets, the price tag on such a puppet was a bit steep for us. I looked at their process videos, and it is fascinating the love and work and careful details that go into each one. They have made some music videos and some funny commercials featuring their puppets, so these are movie star quality creatures.

He did send me to this helpful site, though. And this one for less expensive but still custom designed muppet style puppets. But I was already up and running with advice I got from this guy. So in the end, we had a great time making some custom designed puppets, and the boys are completely proud of themselves. (And me too.)

Piano Lesson in the Backyard

Max and Noah have a nice friendship going, and sometimes Max isn't in the mood for a piano lesson at all, and we all just hang out together. Sometimes they eat guacamole and chips and talk about wind-powered cars, or sometimes they sit on beanbags and discuss praying mantises, sometimes they take wacky pictures of themselves on PhotoBooth. The cool thing is that whatever Max is up for, Noah is up for—he just sort of goes along with the flow. He knows all sorts of things about all sorts of topics, and he is always happy to just let the conversation wander to interesting places. He asks lots of questions, he listens, he shares interesting ideas.

We've moved on from piano to all sorts of instruments, so the lessons should really be called "Music Theory," since they talk a lot about that and explore the sounds they can make, with actual instruments or with a jar of pennies. Sometimes they play around with our box full of instruments, which includes a few harmonicas, a slide whistle, a piano horn, a glockenspiel, a chinese drum, all kinds of other cool stuff. Sometimes we all listen to music together, sometimes they make music together, sometimes they just talk about cool instruments they would like to have. Right now, Noah really wants a bassoon.

Today's lesson found Max more in the mood to hang out with the chickens in the back yard. So we took down the ukuleles and serenaded the chickens with some tunes, sat in the limited amount of shade our new umbrella provides, and watched Lilli poke around, wishing she could run after those chickens. I love our life.

Lilli

is here.

Back to Anchorage: The End is Nigh

A rainy morning at the farm. A good day to pack up and drive the three hours back to Seward.

But first, a last stop in Homer. Two Sisters Bakery. We had heard so much about it, we couldn't skip it. We are so obsessed with the food aspect of travel, I know. Martin has posted several photos of our dining experiences to facebook, prompting a friend to comment, "You are just eating your way through Alaska. Have you stopped to look at any of the scenery?" But hey, we know what's important. Scenery is good, but food is always a critical consideration.

And then a long an uneventful drive to Seward, where we boarded the Gold Star for a second train ride, this time the 6 to 10 pm slot, driving what is rumored to be the most beautiful stretch of the Alaska railroad, and the most lovely time of day to do it. She had mentioned sunset when we booked the tickets, but as previously mentioned, the setting of the sun is not what you will picture in your head. The whole trip seemed more like a late afternoon. But once again, we were reminded that we really like traveling by train.

It certainly helps that there is a built in jungle gym/fresh air space accessible at all times.

And interesting things along the way.

Even if the most entertaining thing you see is often in the train car itself.

And the dining car. Oh, how we love the dining car. (Did I mention we are food centered?) We brought Sticky (the octopus) and Flippy (the beaver) with us. Sticky was all ready for his meal, as you can see.

After a couple of hours, interest lagged a bit. It's truly the end of our vacation, and that mixed feeling of ready to go home and not ready for it to end has hit us all.

Back in Anchorage. We stayed at a different hotel, one which had a big bear to greet us. But the other thing it had on the former hotel was a pool. We checked in and ran down to use it immediately. It was officially closed, but the really nice guy who worked there told us to have fun, he was the one who would kick anyone out, and he wasn't going to kick us out. It was empty, and we went from the cold pool to the hot tub and the boys practiced floating and Max practiced swimming and all was good.

It was kind of funny to be back in Anchorage, going to the same places we went just 10 days prior. We returned to Snow City Cafe for another good breakfast (and another long wait). Note to self for next visit: call ahead and they will actually put you on the waiting list before you arrive, as long as you arrive within an hour. I didn't know that until this second visit. But now that we are regulars, well, I guess we get the special treatment. 

Otto customized his pancakes into Os.

We spent the afternoon at the museum in the federal building, where there were really good movies about Alaskan animals and a cool scavenger hunt for all the taxidermied animals (all different examples of the typical and less typical animals you see here).

Stopped for reindeer sausage from a streetside stand. We hadn't gotten to cross that one off our list, so now we can.

We meandered around in the gift shops, trying to find good souvenirs to bring back for friends, but we had bad luck and then got frustrated. We wanted real Alaskan things, not things that say Alaska on them but are made in China. We had seen a lot of those at the Anchorage market, but we didn't jump on them, and we were a bit sorry. Luckily, we had gotten a few things there that will hopefully do.

And, one final stop before we headed back to the hotel and then to the airport. It involves, you guessed it, food. Well, not so much food as coffee. And really not so much coffee as these lovely designer hot chocolates, made for the boys by the lovely people at Midnight Sun Cafe.

And walking back to the hotel, we stopped to play in the garden at the Anchorage Museum. If this all looks very familiar, it is. We did the same thing a bit more than a week ago with my brother and the twins. It felt a bit strange to be there again, to loop back to the town where it all started, but only for the final day. But it was still nice. And a good place to run around and expend as much energy as possible before we hopped on a plane for an overnight flight.

And we're home.