Parents, dogs, and warriors oh my!

My parents drove out from Colorado for their annual winter camper storage pilgrimage to Arizona. Once the camper was more or less certified safe from snow, they threw in a short (HA!) side trip to visit us.

Here they are watching Darci pull up some carrots that we had planted in the plumeria tree pots.

Mother had made a large batch of wonderful peanut butter cookies for us to snack on. Well, most of us. While talking to her while she was still in Arizona, I reminded her that Darci is allergic to peanuts. So they found this pink heart-shaped box and filled it with peanut-free cookies - Darci was so thrilled with this that she guarded that box of cookies with an intensity that would have frightened a Navy Seal. (Or Sea Lion - I always get those two confused.)

The Bairds with the afghan mother made for them.

And us with the one she made for us. (Dad is providing balance for the picture - he did not get partial custody of the afghan.)

Darci is "wearing" a quilt that her mom, Weird Haired Mom, started making back when Darci was still hanging out in her tummy. But it was hot that summer, and one thing lead to another, and the quilt was never quite finished (it was all done but the actual quilting, which she started doing by hand).

The last time my parents visited, WHM handed the quilt to my mom and dad and explained that hand quilting is a pain. It turns out that my dad has a massive quilting machine, so he had it do the quilting, and finally, after seven years, Darci has her quilt. She seems to have outgrown it a bit however.

My parents have been suffering along with most of you while I go on and on about this race or that trail event. So Mrs Notthat and I skipped this weekend's race. But The Boy, His girlfriend The Big Wind, and Weird Haired Mom had already signed up for the Warrior Dash in majestic Casa de Fruta (Russian for "Put Up Enough Billboards and People Will Stop, Even Here in the Middle of Nowhere").

You can see a lot of Warrior Dash pictures here. But key to its success, at least from my parent's point of view, was that you could buy beer there and drink it under a shade tree while watching thousands of people jump over fire pits and crawl through mud pits lined with barbed wire.

The happy warriors. I'm pretty sure they all would have gladly done another lap. Weirdos.

What do mighty warriors eat? Quiche. And beans. And a token salad.

One goal my parents had was to adapt a small dog while out here. Back where they live, the shelters have nothing but large dogs. So a lot of time was spent on a variety of computers going through the inventory at various shelters. We were also looking for a big dog for us.

On Sunday we visited several of these shelters and ended up with nothing. This little guy was the closest they came up with, but they really wanted a maltese for allergy reasons. The shelters basically had two kinds of dogs; yappy (sometimes ridiculously so) Taco Bell dogs and Pit Bulls (which all said "not appropriate for homes with little kids," which I suspect was just to protect the shelter).

So we failed. We then turned to Craig's List.

Mrs Notthat stumbled onto Kaya, a black lab/boxer mix that is one year old and badly needed a new home since her current family was moving into a non-dog friendly condo. There are a lot of Kaya pictures here.

I cannot explain how this picture of Mickey Moose got in here. He does look like he's ready to do a trail race though.

Kaya loves chewing on sticks.

Riley found a nice big one for her to work on.

Dove the Wonder Dog and Kaya get along, mostly.

My mom making a ton of super bubbles. Riley levitating while trying to pop them all.

The grandkids and Kaya with a spider on that brown leaf. The spider was declared dead, and they were in the process of giving it a proper burial, when they thought they saw it move. It was then declared mostly dead and set free in the lawn where Kaya most likely found and ate it.

The Boy and The Big Wind being goofy with a grape.

Darci showing off her flexibility.

And Kaya just plain showing off.

My parents visit was a blast - perfect weather and lots of good food and lots of time with the kids and grandkids made it so. The only downer was that they left with no dog. Craig's List had a lot of maltese dogs, but they were all too expensive or their owners were too busy/stupid to respond to email or phone call questions.

The jury is still out on whether Kaya will get dubbed Idiot Dog Kaya, but she's making a strong case for it. She's completely if baffled by the dog door, which is something that even Belle, arguably the stupidest dog on Earth, figured out in a few seconds. So we will see.

And judging by the above picture, dog beds are confusing too.

That's it - move along...