Our Little Lamb

This picture is of Comet from a couple of weeks ago -- right after he had surgery on his ears.  Our puppy had hematomas (that is, fluid-filled pockets) in both ears.  The vet isn't quite sure what caused them, but hopefully this procedure will take care of them from now on.

As a byproduct of the surgery, Comet had to have his ears shaved.  The vet staff told us that Comet looked like a little lamb with his shaved ears -- and I have to say that I totally agree.  (He looks like a regular puppy these days since the fur has all grown back since this photo was taken.)

The Great Wolf Lodge

This week, I did something that I would have never, ever done in my previous (single) life.  I spent almost 24 hours at a place called The Great Wolf Lodge (http://www.greatwolf.com/).

These don't exist in New England -- but they do elsewhere in the United States in case you are traveling with children in the near future.  I have some fairly bad associations with water parks after Water Country (I'm not quite sure why except I feel like it was kind of old and dirty).  The Great Wolf Lodge, or GWL as we can call it, is a little different.

The first thing is that the GWL is all indoors and I'm fairly sure you are required to stay there in order to use the water park.  It's located about 1.5 hours south of Seattle, in a town that has not much else as far as we could tell.  But the whole point of going to the GWL is that you don't need to leave.  It's like a mini-Disneyworld or something.

Now that I've made it sound scary and horrible, I want to say that the kids had a blast.  And since it is south of Seattle, KLC's mom was able to make the easy drive up from Portland and meet us.  Our GWL seems pretty new so there was none of that is-this-water-really-clean worry.  In fact, I have to say that KLC and I went on one water slide ourselves (you had to be 48" or taller so the twins were out of luck) that was kind of awesome.

If, however, you ever hear that KLC and I went there on our own without any children, I give you permission in advance to perform any type of intervention you see fit.

Cat + Kids+ Chickens + Dog = ?

The elements in the equation above are in order of their appearance.  (Notice KLC and I are not part of this -- we just work here.)  Zeek has been with KLC for over a dozen years, and obviously the kids are now 4 and half.  Last spring we decided to get some chickens, and then this Christmas our latest addition has been Comet.

All of the family members -- human and otherwise -- have their own personalities, and, to put it politely, needs.  Sometimes the kids and Comet need to be separated because of mutually-induced frenzied behavior.  Sometimes Zeek likes to swipe at Comet if he's getting too close or being too much of a puppy.  And right now, the chickens are getting to run around the yard themselves on this very sunny day in Seattle.  (Note: do not put a puppy outside with free-roaming chickens in the yard.)

This very full house is a far cry from my serene (and often too quiet) days in my condo in Boston.  While there are times where KLC and I both wish for a little less volume, I wouldn't change a thing.  Well, that's not entirely true.  I've recently started experimenting with working outside of the house at this coworking office about a mile away: http://www.mapleleafbranch.org/  Because for all of the chaos we like in our personal lives, it's a little stressful during a phone call or -- better yet, video conference call -- to worry about what noise or image might appear.