Another day in the life...

As we anxiously await the RH's decision as to who the lucky gal will be who gets to go on a dream date with him, Abby and I have been amusing ourselves in the usual ways... hiking, walking, barking at things... the usual. As Jed and Abby (the other Abby, not my sister Abby...) sagely pointed out, we actually have had our dream date with Mango, so if he doesn't pick us, that's okay - we'll always have the bobsled! And we got the chance to meditate with the RH - how cool is that?!?

So, what have we been up to? Well, a couple of days ago, this deer decided to wander into our backyard. We were barking at crazy like her through the kitchen window, and I think she kept looking at us like, "What are you making so much noise about? Miserable beasts!" Or maybe that was Mom. It's hard to say. Anyway, I think she must have been a youngster, and not accustomed to being barked at from behind glass windows, because she hung around for a while... (The pictures look a little funny because Mom took them from inside the house - something about how Mom didn't want us to go play chase with the deer...)


Mom took us on a hike yesterday; our neighborhood has miles and miles and miles of single-track hiking paths, and there are access points all over the place - we've got 3 trail heads within a half mile of our house. Dad's still not allowed to go hiking where he could stumble over rocks, roots, dogs, etc, and fall, so this was our Quality Time With Mom. Abby thinks she's the alpha dog (she's not, I just let her think she is...), so she leads, even though she's not as intrepid a hiker as I am, and so she kept tugging at Mom while Mom was trying to snap some pictures (hence the quality - or lack thereof - of the next few pictures...)...

See.... What a doofus... I tried to guide her in spots, but she's a bit of a trail hog...

We love going on hikes in the mountains, and Mom assures us that we'll be doing more of this.

However, we also like going on walks with Dad, too. And we've been keeping Dad healthy by making him go on LOTS of walkies with us.

Abby and I both gave heartfelt sighs as we passed the Olympic Park. We'll never be able to walk by that again without thinking of Mango standing at the top of the 120K ski jump. Heehee!


All of our walk is on a MUT (multi-use trail), which crosses wetlands and borders neighborhoods. It makes for all kinds of interesting sights. We love this sign - these people speak our language!


(Okay, okay... we'll poop elsewhere... besides, Mom and Dad always carry baggies with them anyway...)

Anyhoo... we were walking along, minding our own business...


When we saw this family of herons!


Awww. Aren't the little ones so cute?!? I wanted to get a closer look...


But apparently Dad Heron was feeling rather protective of his family.


He squawked at us to leave him and his family alone, and once we got the hint, he joined up with his birdie family (although I think he was still keeping an eye on us...).


Pretty cool stuff, huh?

In addition to the birdies, this trail also has a little park, and I ALWAYS make sure Mom and Dad stop at the park for some tennis ball time!


And after the park, we cross more wetlands toward the smaller White Barn (there's another Big White Barn on another part of the trail, but it's miles and miles from where we are here...)


Once we get past the barn, there are a whole bunch of 'pot guts' (or prairie dogs, if you prefer). I always want to check them out, but Mom says I should leave them alone so they can sun themselves...


I just wanna say hi....


But no.... Dad and I keep walking...


Abby, on the other hand, is bit of a hot dog, and she gets thirsty quickly, so Mom has to stop and give the beastie some water...


It's a great walk, and you can see why this trail is one of our favorite places to walk!

Oh, and when we haven't been hiking and walking and chatting with wildlife, we've been hanging out.

Did I mention Abby thinks she the alpha dog? Yeah.... Apparently the Puppy Hat is the summer's hottest fashion accessory! Heehee.

Happy Sunday!

*kissey face*
-Fiona and Abby the Hippobottomus

PeeEss: Mom thought we should change our header photo, so people didn't think we still had tons of snow. The higher elevations have snow and the runoff is pretty strong right now, but we are totally snow-free! (For a month or so...)

PeePeeEss: Sorry if we've been slacking on visiting bloggies - it's all Mom's fault - something about being 'fried out' after the hiking, and taking care of Dad, and stuff. We're making the rounds, but slowly.

Oh Deer, It's Friday the 13th!

Thanks to Dennis, early this morning we were made aware of the fact that it is Friday the 13th. Which probably explains a lot of the unusual things we saw on our hike today.

First, before we even left the neighborhood (we weren't even off our street yet, actually) was this Mom and her two youngsters.


This Mom and youngsters is not to be confused with Momma Moose and Youngster that showed up in our backyard two mornings ago. I had gone outside to do my morning business, and when I rounded the corner of the house, I ran into a couple of big dogs. Well. One big dog, and one not so big dog. (Note from Fi's Mom: they were not dogs - it was a Mom Moose and her calf - at the time, all my brain registered was 'MOOSE' and trying to gently urge Fi back into the house, as moose and dogs don't mix - particularly mothers with calves...) I just wanted to say hi... Mom is saying how I should be more friendly to other dogs, but apparently these were not the dogs she was talking about. *sheesh* (Second note from Fi's Mom: no pictures of the moose because I about had a heart attack when I saw Fi moving toward the moose - who were (luckily) just sort of loping along, only mildly interested in her. My heart didn't stop racing for ages...)

Whatever, Mom.

So, we go on our usual route to The Park With The Pond, and we saw more deer. Mom was snapping pictures, because apparently it is unusual to see deer this time of year - it's a little early for them to be moving to Winter Quarters, so maybe they were all heading to a family reunion?

Anyway, we got to The Park With The Pond, and Mom wasn't even planning on taking pictures because she said (and I quote) "we don't need more pictures that look exactly the same". Huh? You can never have too many pictures of me. Never. They don't sell terabyte memory cards for no reason, you know...

Anyhoo, Mom whipped out the camera as soon as this little mutant ball thief showed up.


A Yorkie. You cannot be serious!

SERIOUSLY?!?

Apparently so.

This little terror, terrier was a ball hog, too. Look at this!!!

I mean, the ball has got to be half the size of the dog. Who is he kidding?

Us, apparently... The little terror scared us out of the water, and we headed to the grassy knoll field to play fetch with one ball (the other being having been sacrificed to the Lady of the Lake - in the hopes that she'll start dispersing swords...).

The hike ended well, though, because we got to see our favorite puppy, Hugo.

We think Hugo is a cutie-patootie. He's a 7 week old American Bulldog, and he is SO CUTE!!!!

I think Abby is sharing puppy secrets with him here...

In spite Dennis' dire warnings of maniacs, we have only experienced a mildly weird day today. How about you?

*kissey face*
-Fiona and Abby the Mutant Puppy