Today was incredibly gorgeous. It's short sun-filled breaks like this that keeps the Northwest populated. If it were completely gray and rainy and gloomy for eight months straight, we'd all move. But Mother Nature throws in a perfect day, and suddenly we forget the last soggy four months (and delude ourselves into believing that we're not in for four more). Thanks, sunshine!
Jim had his first bike race today! It was very cool & he did great. He's bummed that he didn't win, but he had a lot of fun and rode really strong. I was proud. And cheered really loud! :-)
We had sushi for lunch. Mmm.
When we got back home this afternoon, we traded the bike gear in the back of the car for the dog gear, and we took Chester down to Minto Brown Island Park. We were going to hit the dog park, but instead decided to take him on a walk along the river paths to work on some of our training. He did really well. It was incredibly busy down there (sun, remember?), so there were a lot of distractions to work with. He has developed a hatred for bikes, skateboards and other dogs on leashes. (He amuses himself in he backyard by chasing bikes, skateboards & other dogs along the fenceline as they walk along the sidewalk, which parallels the whole length of our property.) But after a few bad reactions, we got him to start paying attention to us instead of to the things that were annoying him. We sat by a pond; we almost sunk a dock; Chester got lots of petting by strangers; we enjoyed the gorgeous day. Finally, after an hour or so of walking & getting Ches into his “good dog” mode, we went to the dog park & let him off leash. He did great & followed us around & came when we called (sorta-ish) & played with other dogs & didn't jump on any strangers from behind (that used to be his favorite dog park trick).
We ran some errands, made a quick dinner, and then got some good painting done in the living room. It's almost done!! I think we'll have furniture moved in tomorrow (knock on wood!!).
It was a delightful day. And the best part? No work tomorrow! Thanks President's Day, and thanks government job! (Now that I'm not a copy editor, I neither remember the correct style for President's/Presidents'/Presidents Day, nor am I going to look it up.)