It has been raining like crazy the last day or so. It started Friday night and the sound of the rain on the roof actually woke me up at 1 or 2am. It hasn't rained in over a month so I got up and opened the window just to double check that it was actually raining and not a massive leak. Mmmm it smelled good. All you PNW people are like "if I never smell rain again in my entire life it will be too soon dammit". Seriously though, you can't deny the sweet smell of rain after it has been dry for a while. Also sweet: not having to spend half an hour watering the plants. My hedge is still very fragile so the lack of rain has meant that I've had to lug water out there every day. The plants dropped a ton of leaves at first (apparently laurels don't take too kindly to being transplanted) but they are showing a promising amount of new growth and I'm starting to relax. The wisteria has turned from a dead-looking pile of sticks to a forest on the wall.
The wisteria kind of took over the bird feeder so I moved it across the patio. Jeff caught this squirrel having a snack the other day. I was asleep and he really wanted to show me, but he didn't want to wake me up - Jeff is awesome!!!!
It stopped raining for a while today so we took the dogs to the park to play ball.* Plato had his usual reaction to temperatures over 60 and stood around panting half the time.
*Don't get me wrong. We are are soooo not fair-weather park goers. This reminds me of when we went the same dog park every day in California. We were part of the in-crowd that stood together in a certain part of the park. When people came on Saturday or Sunday with super-hyped up dogs we would shake our heads and sigh "weekenders...." If you ever have any dog park etiquette questions btw, I'm the one to ask. Number one sign of a dog park noob: freaking out if another dog humps yours.
The park is like a whole different place now that all the trees have leaves. An ice cream truck pulled up in the parking lot while we were there so we decided to partake. It was very good because eating ice cream in the park is fun. The ice cream itself was not good. I need to remember to have some Tillamook when I'm home.
I've been very busy packing today for my trip back to the states. Normally, I don't get too stressed about packing, but this trip is a little different because I'll be in Seattle and Austin/Waco so I need two completely different types of clothing. I know Texas is super hot right now, but I think I'll probably enjoy the warmth (without layers! what a novel concept!) for about 5 minutes before I start complaining. And the I'll be able to complain about the heat AND the excessive air-conditioning (and THEN I'll be able to go back to Seattle and complain about the rain!). I actually love going running in Texas because you sweat like crazy which makes you feel like you burned about 2000 calories in a 30 minute jog.
Last night I took this picture of Sascha laying on her back. This is always a funny position because her top lip hangs down and you can see all her teeth. She looks especially crazy in this pic though. (GoT fans -- we call her the baby direwolf).
