Poor Charlie only gets a blog post recently when he’s spending time with his little brother Gus and his cousin Birdie. Poor Charlie. For that, he gets one picture by himself.

Elizabeth and the boys and I drove down to San Diego on Friday night because my parents were throwing Loren and Charlie (person-Charlie) an engagement party.

Gus and Birdie were really excited to see each other. Charlie tried his best to be excited. I got up really early on Saturday morning to go out to the Pacific Coast Trail near Mount Laguna, to support a few friends participating in the PCT 50 mile ultramarathon. We really wanted the dogs to be as tired as possible by the time the party started so Charlie and I took them to the Fiesta Island dog park which is pretty close to my parent’s house. Had Charlie and I known that Floatopia was going on, we would have left the dogs at home and brought a raft, beer and bathing suits instead. San Diego is a great place to live and even the dogs there have it good. The dog park at Fiesta Island is huge – something like 2.5 acres of wide open space. It’s fenced on three “sides” but one edge is the bay on the side of Fiesta Island so if the dogs are so inclined they can get wet. Our little ones weren’t gonna get wet, but they did have plenty of space to explore!

The plan worked for 2 of the 3 dogs. We put all the dogs into the back bedroom to keep them out of the way. Gus and Birdie were perfectly happy napping and playing. Charlie, no so much. His barking was so friggin’ annoying that he got his way and had the run of the party. When the party was winding down, the puppies were released. The night ended with me, Gus and Birdie out cold on the couch.

During our drive home this afternoon we clipped the boys into their carseat and within minutes they were out cold. Definitely the sign of a good weekend!