Oh boy! A Road Trip!

With a beautiful weekend forecasted, we decided to pick up our nieces and pack the tent and dog and head down to Lincoln State Park. It is in Southern Indiana, about an hour west of Louisville, and 5 minutes from Holiday World, home of the #1 wooden Roller coaster on the planet and an awesome water park! So, of course we had to go to Holiday World....what an awesome park. It has to be the cleanest park, and is such a perfect place to take the family! With tickets being only $35 (with a Pepsi Can), you get access to the amusement park and water park, free sunscreen, all you can drink Pepsi beverages. Food is so affordable (5 of us had a BIG lunch for less than $30, and each had ice cream with sprinkles for less than $10!). Also, you can bring your dog, and leave them in the Holidog Inn (=AC dog kennel and you can come back and say hi to your dog throughout the day!) for only $10! The park was a blast! Tony took a really cool video while he was riding the Voyage. I'll try to get it uploaded to Youtube.

Sanders did pretty good camping. He loved all the smells and getting to sleep in the tent with the 5 of us. We had Pizza Pudgy Pies that Cyndi taught us how to make. We only burnt the first 2 :). And, we all learned that cast iron will get completely red and hot if left in the fire! Those are the pudgy pie irons in the picture below!!!! Weird how they're glowing, isn't it?

It was funny when we took him on walks. He looks like a little bear cub being walked around on a leash....check out the picture of him:
And the picture of the baby bear cubs we saw a few years ago in Sequoia National Park:
They look related, don't they?

A week ago, we went to Rod and Carissa's house for a wonderful dinner. We brought Sanders over to play with Heather's dog....and they had a blast!

New Bed(s), New Bone, New Training

The weekend after Memorial Day, we did some more spring cleaning. Jen and I took a trip to the laundromat to wash the large cushions from our kitchen chairs and our comforter. THANK GOD we have a washer and dryer. Regular trips to laudromat would s-u-c-k. Our comforter didn't get all the way dry, so Jen hung it out over a couple lawnchairs rather than spend another hour at the God-forsaken laundromat. Sanders decide to use the lawnchair/comforter tent as his own temporary doghouse and took a nap in there.

While we were out doing laundry, we made a stop by Mendards and while we were there, we bought Sanders a HUGE bone. Jen calls it his dino bone. Let me tell you, he loves it. We just left it in the backyard, but he became obsessed with it. When we let him out to go to the bathroom, he'd just run straight to the bone and lie down with it rather than using the bathroom. Then when he came inside, he'd keep standing at the door and barking wanting to go back out and get it. So we had to pick it up and hide it from him. We still give it to him every so often, and he hasn't made a dent in chewing it up, yet. We also gave him a large rawhide bone, which he has eaten. I've recently found out that rawhide is BAD for your dog, though, so please don't buy any rawhide. It can form a blockage inside their intestine and cause major damage. Luckily, no such blockage with Sanders.


Also, a funny thing happened while we were at the dog park. There's a gazebo at the dog park with a wrought iron railing around it, the base of the railing extending down to about 6" from the ground. Sanders was playing with a small, white terrier. Sanders was chasing him and was right on his heels. The terrier ran towards the gazebo and ducked under the railing... SMACK. Sanders hit it at full-on. His head stopped and his hind end kept right on moving forward until it looked like he was doing a handstand. HILARIOUS!!! I wish we'd had the video going.

Jen also bought a nice bed for Sanders at Pet Smart. He has not yet started using it, as he's taken to sleeping on the couch after we go to bed. Now, he never gets up on the couch while we're up unless we "invite" him, and we only do that if we first lay out a blanket for him. Now, having said that, I got up the other day and he was there sleeping on the bare couch after apparently removing his blanket from it. Since he has so much hair, I think the bare leather is "cooler" for him than lying on a blanket/bed/carpet. GRRRR.... We'll see how we deal with this little issue... Here he is looking at me after I found him on the bare couch.

Lastly, Jen enrolled Sanders in another obedience class. This one is only about 1 1/2 miles from our house, and she did it with the mind that once he completes this class, she can enroll him in agility classes there (you know, running through an obstacle course... jumping over barricades and through hoops. On that note, Jen's mom bought Sanders a hula hoop that we're teaching him to jump through. He seems to like it, and its fun to watch.