Busy Weekend

After graduation, I raced home because Dennis and I had promised Jon we would take him and his friends to Poor Red's BBQ for dinner. Jon turned 21 this past week, so we took him to the closest and most unusual bar in the area. Poor Red's is known far and wide - it's in the little tiny town of El Dorado, CA, and the bar is the largest consumer of Galliano in the world. The bartender is amazing, as is Poor Red's famous drink - the Golden Cadillac - made of Galliano, Creme de Cacao, and cream - all blended into milkshake form and served in one of those old time champagne glasses with a milk glass sidecar. There were nine of us for drinks and dinner (8 out of 9 of us had pork ribs - one had chicken). Dennis is on the far end in a gray sweatshirt - from there it's Westside, Jon, Lauren, Hooper, Jack, Lugnuts, and Kelly. Most of the crowd had to drink sodas, but a few of us did the Golden Cadillac thing!

Astro and Piniella hadn't seen each other since Astro was about 8 weeks old. Astro is now three years old and I'd say Piniella didn't recognize him as her own - she usually has to make a show of letting her offspring know she's still in charge when she sees them - she was happy to sit next to Astro and have her picture taken. I didn't get a very good shot of the two of them - but as most of you know, Piniella is not a small Golden - so you can see how big her son is! Astro's dad is Baumann.

On Saturday, after helping the photographer take photos of some 50 matriculating dogs, their puppy raisers, their breeder/caretakers, dog parents, etc, we haeded off to graduation to meet up with Astro. Astro's puppy raiser, Monica, came out from the east coast to present him to his new CCI partner, Ashley. What a pair they are. Astro is a big, gorgeous black lab/golden cross who will be working in the Snohomish County court system assisting Ashley interview children who have somehow been involved in violent crimes. Astro will be sworn in as a law enforcement deputy and will accompany the kids and Ashley as the kids testify in court. This is a huge job, but this big guy seems up to it!
This is Astro with Monica before graduation.

Izzy got her last set of puppy shots on Friday - she weighed 33.3 lbs on 2/22! Izzy, Piniella, and I then went to Santa Rosa on Friday afternoon. We checked into our hotel and headed over to CCI to visit our friends at the vet clinic and in the program office. Kerinne invited us to her place for a run - which was fabulous. The only thick, green, grassy, non-muddy place in all of northern California! We attended the Friday night reception then communed with the Gold Rush gang in our hotel lobby until almost midnight. Izzy was a very good girl and Piniella basked in all of the attention!