The day before the school started, we joined our friends for a day at the beach just liked we had the past few years.  We went to Capitola this year, and we had a perfect beach weather.  The kids hung together to dig a big hole and they were proud how deep they dug.  We ordered pizza for lunch there and the boys enjoyed taking a break and eating before returned to play.  We probably stayed at the beach for hours before we wrapped up to leave.  Some of us went for hot cocoa and ice cream in town before we made the drive home.  The beach day had become another nice tradition we are doing each year.

   Due to our upcoming camping trip, we had to find Buddy a boarding place and he had to have a temperament test.  So after the boys’ doctor appt, I took Buddy to the boarding place.  It was the first time for Buddy to be in my car; I think both of us were a bit nervous.  When we arrived at the place, Buddy was excited and was majorly greeting the trainer.  Then the trainer took him into the big dog boarding room and turned on the TV for me to watch.  Inside the boarding room, the trainer slowly took other doggies out from the crates and slowly introduced Buddy to more dogs.  Buddy was totally nervous; he kept running away from other dogs and staying around the trainer.  It was nervous for me to watch Buddy as well; this experience reminded me of the first days when the boys started daycare.  Buddy was inside the room for probably 20 minutes.  When the trainer returned with Buddy, he told me that Buddy was very shy and did not know how to socialize very well yet.  He recommended Buddy spending a full day to acclimate.

   We returned the next day; I dropped Buddy at 8:30 for a full day before I took the boys to the beach.  During the day, Stuart and I could watch on a cam to see how Buddy was doing.  He started out the day pretty much similar to the testing time, shy and ran away a lot.  Later on the day, we saw slight improvement; Buddy did not seem to run away as much.  When I picked up Buddy up, the staff suggested that Buddy had another trial day.  Buddy was tired the rest of the day after all these excitement.

     The two days before school started, I took the boys for their annual doctor visits.  I also needed Logan to have a physical form filled out, so it was a good time to have this appt.  We were all in the room together and the doctor took her time with us.  The boys were giggling during the physical exam, but were engaged with her.  Everything checked out well and the doctor showed me their growth charts.  They both are growing well on the same trends as before; Logan is estimated to be 6’2” and Connor to be 6’1” when they grow up.

Logan:

Wt: 80 lbs

Ht: 5’1”

Connor:

Wt: 71 lbs

Ht: 4’8”

After the exam, it turned out that Logan needed 3 vaccines, Tdap, meningococcus and HPV.  Poor Logan, his arms were sore for days.

   Last Monday was Logan’s new school orientation, so Connor and I dropped him off in the morning before Connor went to camp.  Then Logan came home at 12noon with Cole and Lisa before I picked him up and took him to camp to join Connor.  Logan claimed that the orientation was “good”, but he did not share too much information as usual.  The one thing he did tell me was that he was super hungry as he was not given any snacks.

    The next day I had to take a long lunch to accompany Logan back to school for his school picture and to get his ID.  We then picked him up some PE outfit, paid for yearbook and finally picked up his schedule. This is really happening, Logan will be having 6 classes with 6 teachers everyday soon.

Buddy had a skin issue where we got worried that he would have a broken wound above his eyebrow, so we finally took him in to see a vet.  It turned out that he had mite which caused the hair loss in multiple spots in the body too.  He received a medication, and expected to have his hair grow back within 2 months.  One of the amazing thing with the visit was that we learned about Buddy gaining over 10 lbs in slightly over a month.  He was 54 lbs which meant he doubled his initial weight of 27 lbs when we adopted him 3 months ago.  We are amazed how fast dogs grow and how he does not look like a puppy anymore.

At Week 13:

At 6 months:

    We made it to my work picnic this year and it was last Sunday.  My department has grown so much these days that it was a bit overwhelming seeing many people there.  There was a taco truck, a few potluck items, and boba drinks.  It should be a plenty of food, but the truck was too slow and we did not bother to get more food.  I chatted with some coworkers while the boys and Stuart checked out the structures in the park.  Later the crowd also did some group games together.  The boys enjoyed playing with the water balloons.  Logan and I also joined the water balloon toss; our balloon did not last too long and we got out along with half of the group.  It was good to see everyone outside of work.  After a couple of hours, the boys were ready to go home, so I said bye to everyone and we headed home.