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March 23, 2009
Dog Park
It was another beautiful day in Kansas City.
The flowers were in bloom.
The dogs were content.
Before the fourth straight day of basketball got underway, we decided to go to the local dog park. It was, after all, the birthday of Charley, my stepsister Courtney's very fine dog.
At the dog park, we walked around while the dogs frisked. Grandma Judy was in charge of the high-performance jogging stroller.
Alden was supposed to be wearing this green hat. But she doesn't like it when the hat fits snugly on her head.
No, she much prefers it when the hat sits haphazardly atop her head in such a position that it cannot actually do a bit of good.
She is a contemptuous little cuss. Nevertheless, the exploration of the dog park continued.
Iggy and Charley were particularly taken with the dog tunnel.
Iggy had more trouble with it than Charley did.
But, eventually she made her way through it.
While at the dog park, we let Alden try a few new thrills.
First we tried swinging.
She didn't really like it.
Nor did she think much of sliding.
She wasn't particularly keen on the jungle gym.
Rock climbing, however, might be her born calling.
At the center of the dog park, there was an enormous water tower.
It seemed unlikely that I would be able to jump over it. But the more I convinced myself that it couldn't be done, the more I wanted to try.
Back at home, Alden was attacked by a bear.
After recovering from that trauma, she settled in with Grandpa John to watch the Kansas/Dayton basketball game.
Meanwhile, Charley's birthday party was happening upstairs. Courtney made Charley a special dog cake out of dog-friendly ingredients. Naturally, the cake was shaped like a bone.
Not only did Charley get a birthday cake,
...but he ate it, too.
So far this visit has been overwhelmed with basketball. We have either watched or closely followed 48 games in the past four days. Fortunately, both my team (Duke) and my dad's team (Kansas) managed to advance to the sweet 16, and so both my dad and I are in relatively good spirits as we contemplate three days of no basketball. The powers that be require us to wait until Thursday for the tournament to resume. Good thing, because we are starting to unnerve and alienate the others in our lives, those who do not understand how 48 basketball games in four days can possibly be a good idea.
Fortunately, Alden is not one of these people. She fully understands the importance of college basketball, the tournament, and coming up with novel ways to express one's enthusiasm while cheering for the good guys.
I expect her patented "hand gnaw" move to be all the rage by the time the games resume on Thursday.
Posted by bogenamp at March 23, 2009 12:14 AM