Scout's 2nd Birthday

Scout's 2nd Birthday, a set on Flickr.

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Tommy and the Great Sand Dunes!

Before we left Colorado we went camping at the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Reserve :)









Tommy spent the weekend sniffing around the trickling water from Mandano Creek and running up and down and across the dunes.

Tommy goes kayaking

Mark's mother, Lisa, visited us a few weeks ago and for part of her trip we all went camping and kayaking up at 11 Mile State Park.
Tommy loves camping and sleeps better than anyone all snuggled up between Jill and Mark deep down inside the sleeping bag. The morning after Tommy's most excellent sleep was too cold for Tommy's comfort but snuggling into a sleeping bag on a chair while the rest of us made breakfast in the cold, July air was quite alright with the spoiled puppy.

Tommy's camping trip included his first kayaking experience. Tommy bravely headed out onto the water sitting in Jill's lap with his front paws propped up on the front of the kayak. Very quickly, however, he decided that he would prefer to be in Mark's kayak and began attempting change kayaks mid-lake. Eventually we naively thought that if he jumped in once he would hate it and never attempt it again. Tommy licked the water, jumped gleefully into the lake, bobbed under for just a second, popped back up with a splash and doggy paddled to Mark's kayak. With the handy little handle on Tommy's life vest, Mark hauled Tommy out of the water and into his lap. And then Tommy licked the water, jumped gleefully into the lake, bobbed and splashed and doggy paddled to Jill's kayak. He just couldn't decide which was better but he was quite convinced that the other kayak was always better and he loved jumping and swimming and making a wet mess of us all.

Tommy Vacations in Leadville

Tommy visited Leadville, CO last weekend. Leadville is America's highest city at 10,200 feet above sea level. Needless to say, it wasn't exactly summer-like up there. But Tommy had a very good time anyway visiting all of the dog-friendly spots in the area.

We stayed at the Silver King Inn, a dog-friendly hotel. We were very lucky to find a dog-friendly restaurant, Tennessee Pass Cafe, which had a back patio that was completely fenced-in where Tommy could roam free and play while we ate. We ate there twice. The food was delicious. The waitress was super-nice and let us come inside the restaurant with Tommy when it started raining.

We visited a few shops that were friendly to dogs and we also toured the Tabor House, an historic home. Tommy was allowed inside the home and toured with us.



Best of all, we took the Leadville train, a 2.5 hour ride through the Mountains. This train-ride was also dog-friendly. They even had complementary doggie-biscuits :) Tommy thoroughly enjoyed watching out the train window at the scenery and licking all of the childrens' hands. He also loved barking at the train whistle. He fell asleep on the way back to Leadville and then he slept the whole way back to Colorado Springs. A very good mini-vacation, indeed.

Hiking!

Yesterday Tommy went geocaching at the Pueblo Reservoir with Jill, Mark and Kaitlin Hoke. Tommy had so much fun chasing butterflies and sniffing grass. At lunch time, Tommy got to play in the water, chasing the waves and trying in vain to bite them. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't get a hold of those waves!
After lunch it was time to find a few more caches but, boy, was Tommy tired. Tommy spent the afternoon hikes in the comfort of his backpack lounging while Mark carried him over the hills and down the dry creek beds. While Mark, Jill and Kaitlin were searching for one cache, Tommy was resting under a Juniper bush, taking advantage of the shade, when suddenly, his backpack lost its balance! Tommy toppled over inside of his pack and the pack began to roll down the hill toward the ravine with Tommy inside!
Quick as lightning, Kaitlin raced toward Tommy and grabbed his backpack, saving Tommy from an uncertain future at the bottom of a cliff! Kaitlin is now and forever our hero!
The rest of the trip was, thankfully, uneventful and after the hikes, Tommy got to have ice cream from Sonic. We are very grateful and happy that Tommy was none the worse for wear after his tumble.

Tommy settles in for a long winter's night

Tommy has discovered that while having pee out in the freezing cold is not a whole lot of fun, sitting by the fire in his warm sweater and comfy bed is the ultimate relaxation.

Tommy decorates for Christmas

Tommy put up the Christmas tree and decorated the house today. He had a lot of fun rolling in front of the fire and playing with the tree skirt and sitting in Mark's lap while Mark put the hooks into the christmas ornaments. It was all fun and games until Tommy discovered that a nutcracker soldier had somehow infiltrated the house and set up camp on the DVD shelf. He would have NONE of that. Tommy was happily cleaning out Jill's bowl of cream of mushroom soup when low and behold, Tommy looked up to see the soldier and let out a stream of barks and howls. As soon as Jill and Mark realized what Tommy was barking at so ferociously, did they remove the offending intruder from Tommy's sight? No. Instead they brought the nutcracker soldier down onto the floor and pretended to make him bark back by moving his nut cracking mouth up and down. Tommy went into hysterics. Barking and howling and running in circles, and jumping backward and growling. Tommy hates Mr. Nutcracker. To make life even worse for Tommy, Jill put a peanutbutter treat inside the nutcracker's mouth to try to gt Tommy to come close to the soldier so the puppy could see that he wooden toy wasn't scary at all. It took Tommy 10 minutes to work up the courage to grab the treat and run away with it. Eventually, Tommy was able to approach the nutcracker, sniff him and knock him over. Heh, the nutcracker soldier isn't so scary afterall, is it?