Darla meets the "cousins"

I am pleased to report that Darla flies fabulously. She didn't seem too put off by the air-travel - aside from her eagerness to be back at our side. Over the ten days she met many of her canine cousins (as well as Merlin - the cat who stayed in Winnipeg - who wanted nothing to do with another dog, although he's quite cozy with Jesse.)

Here is Darla with Rollee the grumpy old dalmation and Hudson the husky (named for Hudson Hawk) chez Corey.

Darla also made friends with Jesse, my parents dog. Jesse looked different to me, more like a horse in comparison to Darla, but I've been assured that she hasn't changed. I am definitely accustomed to how Darla looks.

And here we are at my Aunt's house for a family BBQ with Jesse, Darla and Barley (pictured here with Darla).

10 Days visiting family friends is no holiday. It's fun, but far from restful. Granted, I got to spend 5 of those days at Bird's Hill Park with my family for the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Again, fun but far from restful. On one of those days I missed the afternoon and evening concerts to attend Joe and Jen's wedding - which was well worth the sacrifice! ;)
Congratulations to the happy couple again!! While I was at Folk Fest, Robin was busy with his friends and the wedding party. And Darla hung out with Rollee and Hudson. Now we're all back to work - well, not Darla unless lounging in my reading chair and occassionally chasing the cats counts as work.

Almost

Almost in Winnipeg. 2 days to go. In less than 48 hours we'll be there. Yippee. Got some pills for Darla to ease her tension. Hopefully she won't flip out too much at the airport. I'm still not sure how exactly we move about in the airport with her. We must be able to walk her until we can load the carrier onto the plane... because we can't move her in the crate... there's no handles and she's pretty heavy.

At long last Robin got his XBox 360. Then he discovered some of his games, including his beloved soccer game, are not compatible. One of them is a game I just bought him. grrrr. He's going to trade them in.

Almost done marking my second batch of papers. Guess how many cases of plagiarism I've caught this time. I have 57 papers and I've marked just over half... I'm up to 9! Robin and my supervisor can attest that I've been grumbling a lot...

Almost have vegetables. We've been blessed with rain at long last and all the plants are catching up in their growth. I look forward to seeing their progress when I return. Maybe I'll have peas or beans to pick... I already have a teeny cayenne pepper.

Almost asleep. It's closing in on 1 am. I've been out on the deck grading papers under ths stars with a couple of candles and the deck light. I'll just input those numbers and crash for the night. I finished off the last small brandy glass of caribou earlier... makes me sleepy (unless I'm partying at Le Festival).

I'll share photos when I get home. Hopefully I'll have something worthy of sharing by then.

OMG - almost forgot to mention that I'm going to be an aunty! (By blood this time). My sister is pregnant. See the happy couple this past February.

The soon-to-be parents. Looks like we may have kids a year apart (and that's all I'm saying on that!)