Parade of Mutants

This is a little long (it has 6 parts) and may not be of interest to you, but I found it to be a really well put together, albeit sad, look at the world of conformation and breeding. Of course if you are involved in either of these activities you might feel otherwise. Nobody wants to be told they are wrong and have been responsible for suffering and harm. Cavaliers are, unfortunately, an obvious poster child for this issue, so you get to see a lot of them. Also featured, pugs, German shepherd dogs, bull dogs, boxers...

Personalized Crate Tag

Personalized Crate Tag
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

I sold my first crate tag! I put this up on Etsy a couple of days ago (of course with their choice of breed and name) and I sold one today. I still have to work out with the buyer what colors they want and all that, but yay!

Scallop skewers

Scallop skewers
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

For some reason I felt like cooking when I was back home so one night I made these Curried Scallop Kebabs. They turned out quite well for a first try.

River Walk

Mom and Bleys
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

Back in Big Rapids mom and I took a walk on the now completed River Walk. I think its been done for a while, but I haven't seen it so it was new to me. It was a very nice walk and here near the end we saw some brave tubers (it was a little on the chilly side that day) getting into the water. You may not be aware, but Big Rapids is the tubing capital of Michigan. Impressed, aren't you?

Partay

Friends
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

There was, of course, the obligatory shin-dig at Jason's house. In this case it was a hoppin' fifth of July party. There was good food, melted chocolate, Henry's homebrew, and some guitar hero. Who could ask for more?

Foot prints

After North Muskegon we ventured over to Big Rapids to visit my family. It was nice to bed home and to see their freshly redone bathroom. They installed this cool faux skylight thing called a Sun Tunnel, that lets in a ton of natural light. One of the days we were in Big Rapids we turned right around and went back to the North Muskegon beach with my mom. We had a nice lunch and then walked along the beach for a while. The temperature was on the chilly side so all we really did was get our feet wet. Shortly after we got there the weather turned threatening so we only stayed for a while. Good thing, as just as soon as we got back to the car there was an absolute downpour.

Adventure

We also spent quite a bit of time over at the Wiles' house, hanging out, chatting, and playing some Guitar Hero. Once we took Bleys over...Adventure wasn't sure about that. Although very bold, walking right over and sniffing Bleys nose to nose. There was only one hissing incident, which was warranted because Bleys has a tendency to forget that Adventure is a cat and hence doesn't want to play in a dog type fashion. You may notice in the picture that Adventure has just been shaved. Being a long haired cat, it seems to make a big difference in the summer.

Pool Party

Another evening in North Muskegon we invited people over for a nice afternoon at Roland's parents' house. They have a pool and a grill, so it makes for a fun time, especially now that many of our friends have kids. One of the highlights was when Mila, our niece, discovered Bleys' crate. She decided that it was just about her size. There are some more pictures of her adventures with the crate including one where she tries to get in the crate with Bleys already in it. It was awesome.

Norman Rockwell at Jimmies

Our next stop was North Muskegon to visit Roland's family and many of our friends. It turns out that Erin, Laura's sister just opened an ice cream shop near by. Of course we had to stop by and see what it was all about. I managed to snap this picture, which I think looks like a Norman Rockwell painting. Behind the counter is Laura, who was working in order to give Erin the day off since it was her birthday. Jimmies has all sorts of ice cream options (both hard and soft serve) burgers that are cooked to order, and a cool potato spiral thingy which was good. So if you find yourself in Whitehall stop by for a sweet treat!

Readyyyyyyy

Our next trek took us to Hastings, Michigan for our first U-Fli event. We mostly just wanted to check it out and have a little fun. We ran singles on Friday night and with a pick up team on Saturday. The other team members were mostly from Overdogs, but we did race once with a Rude Dog named Melee. Everyone there was very nice, totally welcoming, and it was a great time. Bleys was the height dog and measured at 6" (which is the lowest height available and quite a bit lower than he runs in NAFA). Bleys earned his Top Flight title and got a sweet squeaky toy out of the deal. The racing situation was a little different than Florida with the crating outside. But it did make the racing arena a little quieter...not a lot, mind you, but a little. Most teams camped out in RVs right at the site and used those as their crating area. We set up in an open pole barn across from the racing building. It was just fine, but I would imagine it might get a little hot sometimes. My Mom even stopped by for a while to check it out. It was really nice to have her see it!

Baroo

While in Kalamazoo we stayed with Jason who allowed us to crash his place whenever we needed to. He has a nice big back yard which Bleys really appreciated. He got to run around a lot more than he does down here. There is a fun picture over at Flickr of him running. He's a little blurry, but I just feel like he was having a really good time after two days in the car. Here he discovers that Roland is up on the deck.

For Dr. J

Our first stop in Michigan was Kalamazoo. We took this picture to put Dr. J's mind at rest...there really is a Kalamazoo. :) We got a chance to visit with Jason, take a trip to campus and see all the changes, some good, some sad. They've shut down the awesome old school bowling alley in the Bernhard Center where I took bowling as one of my gym credits (hey, you've got have something fun when your other classes involve biology, chemistry, and physics). It is now "Textbook Alley" where they store all of the textbooks for sale.

Roland and Scotty

It's been a while huh? I've been to Michigan and back and been keeping myself busy since getting back last week. Roland has been super busy presenting at conferences and writing his article. He has finished a draft of the article, which is awesome and is hoping to be able to send it out for the fall submissions to journals.

So lets go back in time to when we left for Michigan. There was a flyball tournament in Orlando so we decided just to use that as a first leg and take off from there.

Roland got to run Scotty at this tournament and did a fantastic job. Scotty is not the easiest dog to run because he's pretty crazy, but I think that made Roland a good match, becuase he is perpetually calm. It was kind of funny to watch Roland standing there all completely calm holding Scotty who was yanking against his harness and generally doing his best to impersonate a rabid dog. Bleys shared a spot with another dog and did very well. He earned his FDX (500 points) and it was generally a good time. One of the other dogs earned her FM (5000 points) and I made her a crate tag to celebrate it. I thought it turned out really well.