Surprise Pictures

I've been trying to get myself organized before school starts up again next week, so today I was going through my email accounts to delete/organize my mail.  In the process I discovered a couple pictures that I had taken of Kobe with my phone and then emailed to myself.  I guess I had forgotten to save them to my computer, so I haven't seen them since I sent them to myself back at the beginning of December.  They are really poor quality, but it was just such a nice little surprise, like finding money in your pocket that you didn't know was there.

Big Boy Slide

Today on our walk we passed a small playground that wasn't being used by anyone so we decided to play on it so Levi could go down the slide.  When he was a puppy there was a little red slide that he and his siblings loved to slide down, but I hadn't had a chance to take him down a real slide yet.

He loved it, and was so excited and happy afterward.  He still needs to work on his form (he tried to just run down the last half of the slide instead of staying laid down and sliding), but there are plenty of playgrounds up in Davis for us to practice on.  Christine said that his auntie Lola can even go down the twisty slides.  He has a long way to go till he gets to that, but I'm just glad that he had fun and really seemed to enjoy the slide.

Souvenir from Maui

We got home from Maui late last night, and I went to pick up Levi this morning.  We went for a little hike at Carmel Meadows with Christine, Don, Ronan, and Thistle.  We also went for a walk along the beach there, and the dogs got to swim in a river/lagoon and fetch bumpers.

When we got home Levi got to get his souvenir that I brought him from Maui.  There is a long story behind the souvenir that all started when Kobe was young.  I don't remember when I started the tradition with Kobe, but it was several years ago when we had gone on a family vacation and I decided to get him a stuffed animal for a souvenir.  It started a tradition that every time I went somewhere and had to leave him behind I would pick out a stuffed animal souvenir for him.  I still have several of his souvenir toys (many with missing eyeballs since he liked to chew these off).

From left to right: Cabelas moose from my interview trip to Kansas, duck from Washington, moose from wildlife park in Washington, cow I think from Washington as well (all separate trips), giant head turtle (that you can't see very well in this picture) from Maui, dolphin from Maui, and Davis bear from my interview trip to Davis.

I decided to keep up the tradition with Levi, and I found him a really cute stuffed starfish with long legs.  It was baby blue with little designs on it, and it had big soft eyeballs that stuck out off the top.  Melissa named it Sebastian the Starfish.  It was really cute, and I'm sure Levi would have loved it but...I seemed to have dropped it in the parking garage when we were leaving the hotel.  I was able to get him a replacement souvenir at the airport that is a little whale, but it is nowhere near as cute as the starfish.  I'm still bummed I lost it.  We named the whale Sebastian the Second in memory of the lost starfish.

Levi seems to really like his souvenir, and I'm sure he wont mind me keeping the tradition going.

Happy 5 Month Birthday to Levi

Ok, I'm a couple days late but we were in Maui on his actual 5 month birthday so I couldn't write this post.

So, 5 things I love about Levi for his 5 month birthday:

1. His big, kissable face
2. He likes to follow me around
3. He looks for me when I leave the room
4. He is so bouncy and loves to jump on/off/over things (I think he's going to make an excellent agility dog)
5. He likes to jump up on me when I'm sitting on the floor, and puts his paws on my shoulder (this is actually bad behavior but I secretly love it because it's like he's giving me a giant hug)