Anything for my Dog

The pool is clean and ready and very inviting on these humid days. We had a few rain showers over the last few weeks which have done wonders on the lawn and garden. But to counteract that, we do have...Nellie. Nellie is a hazard to the gardens. She has dug up almost everything in the back yard, repeatedly. Adam and Calli planted a sweet little vegetable garden this year and I have been on day watch while Adam is away at work. Today, however, I took the liberty of not looking outside for only 1/2 an hour and what happened?? Well, the healthy Hydrangea that we transported all the way from BC, looks like it had a fight with a sharp-clawed kitten, and there is now a huge hole in one corner of the little veg garden. It will be interesting to see in a few weeks, how mixed up the neat rows of carrots, spinach and beans really are!!

Click on the picture to see the rain drops up close!!

We finally bought a Chariot bike trailer!!! We are absolutely thrilled with it and use it daily to bike around our town. The girls are quite happy in it and always "need" snacks whenever we go out in it. I don't think it's fair that they get to ride around in comfort, snacking on goodies, while I do all the hard work!
Marin is far keener on going for rides than her sister. Unfortunately for her, we didn't have time to look around for helmets and bought the first ones we could find. We were anxious to get riding! Marin's is almost larger than she is. It's awful. She has a bit of a time getting comfortable because it's SO big. We have since found a better one and will have her properly outfitted in not time with her new "Hemet."

Now that the weather is warmer, Nellie spends her days outside. Adam decided it was time to build her a dog house. He did a little research on the internet and found plenty of sites with advice for the weekend-dog-house-builder. These sites encouraged the builder to consider questions such as "What does your yard look like?" "How will the dog house fit in esthetically with the rest of the yard?" I suppose this is to discourage people from painting some crazy psychedelic design on the house being placed in a Japanese Zen garden or an English country garden. It only makes sense.

I have told you before that Nellie and Adam are a little too lovey dovey for my liking. So it should come as no surprise when I tell you that Adam built this house thinking "Anything for my dog." He even bought cedar shakes for the siding, preventing any thoughts of psychedelic paint jobs I might have been scheming up.

Calli was pretty excited to help out. She ran downstairs to get her own tools to help and came back outside with this little pile of goodies. As you can see, there are tools for working with, but she had the Dora purse slung over her shoulder and if you look closely, you'll see on the top left, beside the hammer, is a miniature Swiss cow bell. She proceeded to explain to Adam that whenever she had something to say to him, she would ring the bell to get his attention. And she did. All afternoon.

Adam gave the girls a little project while he was busy building. Because Calli has so much building experience, she showed Marin the ropes.

Here is Marin observing the master builder.

Adam calculated the measurements for the dog house by following the size of Nellie's indoor crate. Now, my Dad built a few dog houses in his day and they were fairly big from what I remember, and always with an attic for the cat. But...Nellie's house is a mansion.

It has been fully insulated and is more than large enough for the girls to use as a play house!
Because it is so big we will have to put an alternate source of heat in there during the winter. But we'll stick with Adam's motto, "Anything for my dog."
Calli had a Special Persons Day/Spring Tea last week. She sent home an invitation the week before and because Adam was working, Marin and I were the honoured guests. Calli seated us when we arrived, at our designated Guest seat, where there was a home-made place mat and a napkin with a home-made napkin ring as well! Then the kids lined up to sing us some songs! For some reason, Calli was nervous and only sang one of the songs. She wasn't totally alone. The little girl on the left had missed a few days of school that week and had no idea there was a spring tea, so had a hard time participating as well. Luckily for the kids, or not, the girl in the "Rapunzel" dress (as she explained to us), outsang everyone! Calli later explained that she was "a little bit nervous." This coming from the girl who sings all day beginning 3 minutes after she wakes up in the morning.

With a group of 4 and 5 year olds, something funny is bound to happen. The little boy on the far right end had invited his 7 month old brother as his special guest. When I arrived at the school, the boys mother was waiting outside in the car and explained to me that her baby was the guest of honour and she was told to wait in the car!!! After the singing, we managed to convince the boy to invite his Mom in for the tea that they were serving. He finally obliged, much to everyones relief. Luckily for all of us, the baby was very well behaved.