All of the out of town guests are here. Visions of sugar plums are hopefully dancing in their heads. I am sure that lam and lisa are sitting up still thinking about tomorrow. I just finished coloring my hair, updating my iPod, updating the precious (i.e. the iPhone), packing, wrapping, you name it. I am ready to hit the hay. I hope I haven’t forgotten anything.

Pebbles is packed and ready to vacation with my upstairs neighbors. She seems a little stressed out, like she totally knows something is going on. The only thing keeping me from being completely paranoid is that I know my neighbors will take excellent care of her.

p.s. I love posting to the blog from my phone.

You know, I am not a fan of his movies, but I sure do like his state park….

We went camping Mendocino this past weekend. I had worked enough overtime to take Friday off, thank goodness! It was a zillion degrees here in Northern CA and we (Winemonkey, Pebz, along with Siea and Brown Bear) wanted to escape to the coast! Winemonkey, Pebz and I got there on Friday night and found one of the last few spots in Van Damme State Park. It is one of my favorite places to camp because it is always incredibly lush with ferns, berries, and stinging nettle. Well… the stinging nettle doesn’t make it all that wonderful… The other thing that makes Van Damme such a great place is that it is in a gully, so the walk to the ocean is really really easy. No mountain climbing gear necessary.

Anyway, we took a chance going out on Friday as there were no reservations available online. I typically don’t like making reservations, but I knew with the heat everyone was going to run to the coast. Even there it was abnormally hot, in the 80’s (a far cry from the inland hundreds…). Our spot was really nice, good shading, level, pretty little flowers all around and no stinging nettle. It was nestled right next to a babbling creek. The bathrooms were located right across the street from the site, but it didn’t matter much as the light didn’t both us.

We spent the weekend cooking and relaxing, going to the beach, hanging out at a local bar in Mendocino, where they let my “service dog” in. The weather was perfect the entire time. The food was amazing. Winemonkey and I had our first grilled chicken thighs and grilled zucchini of the season. This is always one of my more favorite grilled dinners. We had tri-tip on Saturday night for dinner along with Siea’s perfect fruit salad and grilled sweet potatoes. I won’t even go into the killer ‘zza apps’ that Siea brought.

All in all, this weekend was beautiful. Even Pebz had a good time.

Click the picture to see the rest of the trip!

My shins haven’t been this sunburned in a long, long time. But I have to say, the pain, stinging, and trouble walking was well worth the nap we took. We did not end up making the hot dogs wrapped in croissants… we just grilled them. Sie and Brown Bear met us for dinner on Saturday evening. It was a great surprise and inspired us to go camping with them again this weekend. Hopefully I will be able to get Friday off from work so that ew can spend more time out in the wilderness. That would be the best.

But back to this weekend. It was really cold. Hard to believe with the sunburn I am sporting… but because of the wind chill I only have burns on my shins and a patch on my chest. The rest of me was covered for warmth. Sleeping at night was an interesting experience. Pebbles did not have her own sleeping bag so she had to climb into the bottom of mine. Winemonkey and I were both a little nervous about her suffocating down there, but she emerged the next morning like a little ball of sunshine. She had somehow wiggled out of her sweater during the night. The second night we put the rain fly on and it was infinitely times warmer in the tent. Pebs spent the night blanket-free snuggling alternatively with me and Winemonkey.

All in all, Pebs was a great little camper. She is so mellow it is hard to tell if she liked or hated it. But at least she didn’t seem miserable.

If you want to see pictures from the weekend, click here.

I love that Miss M liked Pebbles’ crate enough to climb in. It obviously doesn’t smell too bad in there…

I also love the fact that they are about the same size… and that they like one another.

Who could ask for more?

I MUST have Pebs on her leash by 7:10 am on the weekdays. Is this because she is well trained and knows when it is time to go out? Is her schedule that strict? Am I a morning poo Nazi?!?!?

No.

It is because there are three women who get off the bus a stop early so that they can see Pebs. And they give Pebs tons of love for about 2 minutes and then we finish our walk and come home to snuggle for about 10 minutes before I leave for work.

Yes. I plan my day around when my dog will get the most love on the street. How many people will admit to that?!?

I have lived in a second story apartment only one other time in my life. I have now officially moved into my second. I am now settling in to lucky #13. Anything has to be more lucky than the last apartment I lived in. I recently saw that my old apartment is already up for rent. I wonder if they are going to fix the raw sewage backing up in the bathroom, or if they are just going to wait until they find a tenant that won’t complain about it.

More pictures are posted on my kodakgallery space.

This new apartment is a little bigger, much cleaner, and doesn’t stink. Pebbles seems to be getting used to it. She hasn’t had it easy these last few days. During the move she got a cut in her eye. I had to take her to the emergency vet and now she has prescription ointment for her little eyeball. The cut is healed already, but I have to continue the treatment for a week.

I haven’t been posting much because with the move and the going to Santa Rosa for Sie’s birthday… well… quite frankly, I just haven’t had time.