Sunday, February 27, 2011

Visit to My Favorit Sister and Favorite Niece!

That would be Claire and Laura! Last weekend we had four days off due to our compressed work week schedule and President's day. I hoped in the car early on Friday, then had all day Saturday and Sunday to spend with them, then departed early Monday.



Driving. But where I am headed? It was not raining, luckily, just very, very foggy.


A giant Hyundia plant complete with a test track (right side of pic.)


Not my destination, just another state I'm passing through.





And now we have a Kia plant. I did not see a track. The amusing thing to me was before seeing the plant I saw a sign that said KIA Rd (all caps like that) exit in 1 mile. I thought "Killed in Action?" What kind of a name is that? Then I saw the assembly plant and all was clear.


A milestone, to be sure.


This is where I was. Georgia. If someone had asked me where I thought I might be when I hit 100,000 miles I would have guessed "on the way to work" or "on my way to dog training or a dog show." Not dogless in Georgia.


And another state. My photography is disintegrating.


A tourist place called South of the Border that my dad tells me he visited as a kid.


And the pictures get even worse. I've arrived in North Carolina! 10.5 or 11 hrs after leaving Mississippi. I'm not exactly sure which. I made good time because I only stopped twice (for gas both times.)

When I arrived Laura gave me to very nice drawings. I'll put them up on my fridge when I get home.

The next morning I went for a run. I used Claire's GPS watch to know how far I went. I made it the 1.5 miles in just about 15 minutes exactly. I had to walk some because the small hills did me in. Claire and Laura and Moxie went for a walk at the same time. When we got back to the house we brought out the (really cheesy!) agility set I gave Laura for Christmas.

I think the following pictures tell a story with no captions necessary!









Good job Laura and Moxie!



Three girls.



A girl and her dog.


Clarie shows off one of Moxie's tricks as Laura looks on.

Claire takes over for the jump and this amusing picture results.


Moxie was done, so we moved onto other things.


Such as more picture taking! My sweetie.


Laura shows me one of her seashells she keeps in the sandbox.


Playing. Which lead to a conversation about erosion, canyons, the Grand Canyon and evaporation. We looked at pictures of the Grand Canyon online. I think I know where Laura wants to take a vacation.


A nice looking dog.


Three girls again but this time I am there instead of the dog.

Laura and Moxie test out the new toy. We bought it at Petsmart. Apparently the popular thing to do in this town on Saturdays is go to the local Petsmart and adopt a dog. The place was packed! I'm happy dogs were getting adopted, but Claire reports the dogs seem to be ditched later and then the families adopt a new dog. Her neighbors have gone through 5 dogs in 4 years. :(


So cute together!

As it turns out, my Nana and Godmother (Aunt Anne) were visiting my Uncle Chris and Aunt Amy who live only 1.5 hrs away. So we motored on down there to say howdy!

But before we got there we stopped at a high school friend of Claire's to drop off a quilt she had made for the friend. The friend has 2 very nice cats that kept Laura entertained, and also a Shiba Inu named Buddy, who I went outside to meet. They told me he is stubborn and independent and I commiserated that Sheba Inus can be hard to train. They were happy to hear that it wasn't just them being bad trainers.

I think it is cool that 2 friends who went to high school together in CA both moved across the county and ended up within 1.5 hrs of each other.

After the quilt drop off we zipped over to the Mall to do some returns. Laura and I had some Mrs. Fields cookies. Yum! It is great to try to spoil Laura. So far it isn't working because she is way too sweet and good. Of course, buying one cookie for a child is hardly spoiling them. Must come up with additional ideas.

Then we arrived to the visit.


Aunt Anne.


The cousins. But they are actually my cousins, so what does that make them to my niece? 2nd cousins?


Beware when I have a camera! If you do something silly, I'll get a picture of it! One of my aunts on my other side saw this picture on FB and commented that it seems my Aunt and I are similar.


Claire did not learn a lesson from Aunt Anne's picture and was being silly also.

The whole gang. It was great to see so many relatives because, living in CA, I never get to see anyone!


Posing prettily.


I think we see where Laura gets her silliness from!


Laura and Uncle Chris have fun.


Claire declares the trip a sucess.


Laura is very well behaved in the car.

In fact, Laura was very well behaved the entire time I was there! As I said, she is sweet, cute, silly and just an all around great child. Not that I am at all surprised, I just wanted to comment on how perfect she is!


One more picture of Laura and I the morning I left. She had just gotten up and was still in her jammies. Notice the skull and cross bone pants.


And last one of Moxie. I should mention that Moxie is the only dog I know who gets excited about going outside (alone) just for the sake of being outside. My dogs and other dogs I know want to go outside to run around, play with toys and the like, but if you go inside they usually want to come in also. Moxie likes to stay outside so she can obsessively watch for critters. Claire had to take down the bird feeder because all she would do all day was stare at the birds. It didn't seem healthy. Moxie is lucky because she is living in NC, but her owner is from CA and has a different idea of where dogs should live. (Inside.)

The visit was much too short, but at least I got to see Claire and Laura for a few days- better than no days.

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