Ho-Hum

Okay, well first, I should say that the Super Top Secret exciting stuff is probably only Super Exciting to some of us. It's not like we are getting a new little sister (although I wish we could get one who would chew on Abby's tail...)

This one is cute, but she's already taken! Which is probably a good thing, because I think Mom would take her in a heartbeat!

And Mom didn't indulge herself and go buy a new Mustang GT500 (as much as she may have wanted to)...

She's going to wait until she sells her first book, and then she'll go buy one!!! Of course, she has to finish writing said first book, first, but that's just a minor detail...Heehee!

But, the Super Top Secret excitement has to wait for another day.

In the meantime, if you recall, my Mutant Puppy sister got spayed last Monday (a week ago), so we haven't been able to engage in our backyard MMA adventures...

Actually, it was raining up until yesterday, so we engaged in a little surreptitious indoor wrestling. Surreptitious because Abby is supposed to be engaging in 'minimal activity' through this week. Uh-huh. She's a 6 month old Mutant Puppy. They don't make drugs strong enough to keep her down.

She is supposed to be doing this:

And instead, she's looking for ways to get into trouble...

I know she looks all innocent like (and yes, she's milking the 'oh-poor-me' look...), but trust me, she's anything but...

First, I would like to say that I am a Super Tolerant sister.

Seriously. If that isn't tolerance it's me a split-second away from biting her mutant head off I don't know what is.

Do you see what I put up with?!?

And my only retaliation is to post unflattering pictures of her on the internets. Heehee.

However, the last couple of days have been nice, and Mom and Dad are back to taking us on walks on the local 'multi-use' trails. Because while Abby is supposed to limit her activity, she is only supposed to limit activity that involved biting/jumping on/harassing her much wiser and more beautiful older sister. Apparently long walks are OK. And since the vet knows Abby, they are also strongly encouraged. Heh.

First, Dennis, we've been checking out real estate for you, since you are all ready to get your Dad to buy you a house that backs on to the trail. I think this one would suit you perfectly:

It's only about 30,000 square-feet, but it should be large enough for you to race around in, while still providing Trouble with living quarters that will meet her exacting standards. I think the place even has a special Cheese Storage Room. At least that's what I think it said on the description. I will get you the realtor's name/number if you'd like.

Here's the multi-use trail being used buy multitudes...

Brutus, I would like you to notice the blue skies in these photos. I know you aren't familiar with such things, so I thought you should be able to at least see pictures of non-rainy skies!

Anyway, at least the 4.5 mile walks each day help take the edge of Mutant Puppy's ridiculous amount of energy.

Is it me, or does my Mutant Puppy Sister have an unnaturally large tongue?

*kissey face*
-Fiona and Abby the Mutant Puppy

MY Day (sort of)

So, my little (hey, she's younger than me, she'll always be my little sister) mutant sister had her 6 month birthday just a couple of days ago. And apparently 6 months is a pretty key point in a mutant puppy's life. (Well, okay, in most puppies lives, mutant or not.) Mom took her off to get sprayed today. Oh. Wait. That's "spayed". I guess that's why she didn't come back with airbrushed pink racing stripes like I was rooting for.

Anyhoo. Abby was off at the vet all day, so I had Mom and Dad all to myself. Which mean that when we went on our walk, I got all the attention, and Mom was able to take some pictures because she wasn't trying to wrangle the Mutant Puppy.

Park City has a giant network of "multi-use" trails (some are paved, some aren't, and they are used by cyclists, joggers, dog walkers, etc., etc.), and since our local hiking trails haven't dried out yet (it's been nice during the day, but it's been raining at night), we've been walking on these trails.

We start the trail where it borders the Swaner Preserve. It's a wetland area with lots of birds and beasties. And a nice place to walk.

There are houses that border the preserve, and the trail system.

We've had really warm weather as of late, so the stream that runs through the area has been running high with snow melt. The trail was actually washed out in spots, and we could see the stream running big throughout the walk.

At the turn-around point of our walk, there is a park. And in this park is a pond, that is apparently quite popular with doggies who enjoy that sort of thing.

Me? Despite being a child of "water dogs" I'm not super keen on the whole swimming thing. So far.

But Mom and Dad decided to see if they could entice me into the water with a little tennis ball action. It was hot out, so I thought I'd give it a try...


Okay, so I didn't exactly dive right in. But hey, it was a start, right? And maybe I'll get braver - especially as the weather gets warmer!

And then it was time to head for home.

But we stopped to play a little ball before we got back to the car...


A little water, a little ball chasing, a long walk. And Abby came home this afternoon all safe and sound, but Very Sleepy. (And sadly, with no pink racing stripes...) So it was a great day!

And on a totally unrelated note, here are some flowers from around the house:


And now, I'm going to go take care of my little mutant sister.

*kissey face*
-Fiona (and Abby the Mutant Puppy)

Another Very Exciting Day!

Heehee. Today I had the last laugh on Mom and Dad. They went on a bye-sickle ride, like usual. And they knew that there was a pretty good chance that they'd get to see part of The Tour of Utah, a professional bike race that, well, if you can't tell from the name, goes through Utah.

What they didn't know was that as soon as they left for their ride, I was picked up by the Tour organizers (knowing Lance Armstrong comes in very handy - I've now got All Sorts of Pro Cycling connections), and got to start the race and ride in the lead car for the entire race.

Anyway, Mom and Dad stopped along their ride to watch part of the beginning of the race. (The race started on Main Street, and then the riders leave Park City for a whole bunch of mountains, and end up climbing up to Snowbird Ski Resort. 96 miles, and something like 10,000 feet in climbing!).

Here's Dad waiting to watch the racers come by.

Imagine Mom and Dad's surprise when they saw this (you have to click on it to biggify it to be able to see anything... Mom only had her phone with her):

The racers were still in the neutral zone (they do a rolling start, so they follow the referee's car for a while until I wave the flag and zoom away from them so they can start racing) at this point.

It was really Quite Cool! (And equally cool was the helicopter ride I got back home from Snowbird. Alas, I didn't get a picture of that, because we didn't have another helicopter flying beside us to take pictures of me...)

And to cap off the day? When it finally cooled down (it was REALLY HOT today - it was 90 in Park City, and 101 in Salt Lake) a bit, Mom took me on a walk.

C'mon MOM. Let's go!!!

'STOP'? Surely they don't mean ME?!? *ahem.

Very cool day, today.

Oh, and if you want to see a picture of Boring Snobby Cindy, you can see how boring and snobby she was - totally running the other direction. What a boring snob.
*ahem.

*kissey face*
-Fiona, Cycling Referee Extraordinaire