Puppy Growth Should Be as Forbidden as the Castle Journey Ride in Harry Potter World…

Well, we are back from vacation- bank accounts empty, but we’ve got tans and plastic souvenirs to show for it!

Florida was completely awesome.  Stressful going down, as Minnesota tried to hold me hostage at the airport with the snow storm, but smooth sailing once I touched down. The weather was perfection- 80s and 90s with a breeze.  Mr. Sun graced us with his presence all day, every day (and it is storming there today and maybe all week long so we are really lucky!).

OMG The crowds! Almost as big as the castle!

We did a LOT in just the four days we were there:  Both Universal Studios parks, Epcot, and Disney’s Hollywood Studios.  I HIGHLY recommend Universal Studios: Islands of Adventure.  So much to see and do! We spent the majority of our time there, though a big part of that had to do with the fact that HARRY POTTER WORLD IS THERE!  It was amazing!!! If you are a fan… GO!!! Even if you aren’t a fan- GO!  They did such a good job.  The Forbidden Journey ride in the castle was the best ride I’ve ever been on. First you tour the castle, so the line doesn’t even feel like a line (though it was- an hour wait or so each time we went). Then you hop on some ‘enchanted benches’ and get swooped through the castle and castle grounds in a mix of real life scenes and Omni-max like projection screens. I can’t really do it justice, but it was worth waiting for time and time again. The other rides were great too and the whole village setting was perfect- fun stores, good food, and excellent atmosphere. It did the books justice, and anyone who is a fan should know what that means- it had authenticity, which isn’t easy to achieve if you are replicating a magical world!

So yeah. We had fun. We ate a ton of awesome food too, so don’t you worry about how I managed to survive a vacation on THE REGIME- didn’t even try (though scarily, found myself eating healthier things anyways… what is WRONG with me??).  Joyfully, I only gained back a pound or so, thanks probably to all the walking we did.

Amazing dinner at Emeril's restaurant:, Truffle Pizza, Wine, oh my!

Me- so happy to go have butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks! YUM!

Me- so sad that they NEVER have a "Shenna" Keychain...

Of course I was overjoyed to see The Dog and The Pup yesterday. As much as I hate coming back when there is a 50 degree difference in temperature, I missed the girls too much to stay away much longer!  They came with to the airport to pick us up and The Dog nearly squeezed herself through the crate wires à la PlayDough in a PlayDough Factory trying to get to us.  I was happy to see she didn’t hold any grudges. It sounded like she had a fun vacation herself at Grandma’s though- she got to play crony #2 to White Dog’s Mob Leader; a role she dearly loves. AND sources say she even looked out for The Pup and kept her safe from Black Dog (possibly using excessive force though… she does love biting Black Dog…).

And The Pup was excited to see us too, after she remembered who we were!  I was very mad at her though- I gave her orders NOT to grow AT ALL without me and she went and had a spurt! NOT FAIR!!! Now her front legs are all knobbly like she is Popeye and her back legs look very stretched. Her ears grew about two feet too. She looks like a rabbit overall.   

Fighting hard to get one rabbit ear up!

Gangly weird phase! My little Tween...

But she still chomps like a Velociraptor. I told her all about how we went on the Jurassic Park ride and it featured her ancestral Velociraptors playing with wires. They looked just like her.

I do have a training video of her- almost ready to go.  I’m really happy with how she is coming along. It doesn’t look like she forgot anything after 5 days without training. Oddly, her recall is better than before?  So we are making sure to always have some form of reward around to mark that good stuff. She even called off of The Dog last night. AND she called off of chomping the Boyfriend’s ears. WHOA! Major improvement. Though not really on the chomping front…

I evidently missed the sign up for the Recallers e-course while on vacation but think it was a tad out of my price range anyways. SO instead I signed up for Silvia Trkman’s online puppy course.  I’m excited to try the online format and to do total emersion into Silvia’s methods from the ground up with a dog… and to have some help if something goes horribly wrong.