Oh What Fun

SLEIGH-ER: Last Thursday was the day. We made our way to Swanson's Nursery north of Seattle's Ballard neighborhood. It was our first and favorite nursery when we moved to Seattle 12 or so years ago.

A beautiful place, they have a lovely little cafe, a pond with enormous koi, oh, and plants and things. :) Come Christmas time, the place is rather splendidly decorated, and for as long as we've been visiting, there has been this little red sleigh. The photo below is from our first visit. Long ago, I Photoshopped a starry night sky behind the kids.

Fast forward a few years, and the little red sled isn't such a great fit. The quote today, from Annabelle, who had to try to wedge in after CJ, was, "It hurts! It hurts!"

Hahaha - happy holidays. ;)

They do have a bigger sleigh there. It's a much better fit.

I do hope you all are noticing that CJ wore his Slayer concert t-shirt for his sleigh ride. :)

While the Christmas camels have long since retired at Swanson's, the reindeer are still around.

And the sweet train set up continues to be a favorite. We love their random figurines. Below is Rey, from Star Wars' "The Force Awakens,"  and a whole bunch of trolls. 

 Godzilla was wreaking a little havoc on a castle.

 Meanwhile, Han Solo and Lando Calrissian were chillin' by the fire.

 And Santa and some elves simply had to be included, of course.

OH MY FRIDAY: It's gonna take a few blog posts to recap all that was Friday. We left home in the early morning and were gone for 14 hours. So much to tell! For now, let's just settle for CJ sharing with you some info about the documentary he went to see while Annabelle and I were in an art class. 

Last Friday, my family had a busy day. My mother and my sister spent most of the morning and early afternoon at MoPop, in Seattle Center. They were going for a homeschool class program. I went with them, but since I wasn't in the class, I did other things at Seattle Center. One of the things I did was see a documentary at the Pacific Science Center's Paccar Theater. The documentary was Superpower Dogs, which was released earlier this year.

In its 45-minute runtime, Superpower Dogs covers several different dogs, all of which serve provide valuable public services. The first dog introduced to viewers is Henry, a dog who works in British Columbia by saving humans from avalanches. Since the start of his career, Henry has saved several different people's lives in the snowy mountains of western Canada.

The second dog I was introduced to was Reef, a Newfoundland who works on the coast of Italy. Reef is the latest of a long line of utility dogs in her family: Many of her ancestors apparently went on voyages with Italian sailors. Because Newfoundlands have webbed paws and impressive musculature, they can swim for miles at a time. Reef has helped bring men overboard back onto boats.

Two more dogs covered in the film are Tipper and Tony, two dogs that work in a village in Kenya. Tipper and Tony's duty is to locate local poachers, and help bring them to justice. Tipper and Tony are brought to the scene of poaching crimes, so they can memorize the scent of the poacher(s). Since the dogs have a much more developed sense of smell than humans, they are able to infer rudimentary details from the scents. They can follow a "scent trail" left by the poachers, all the way back to the poachers' residence. After the poachers get sent to prison, many of the local villagers express their gratitude towards the dogs, believing them to have magic powers.

Overall, Superpower Dogs was an entertaining and informative documentary, and a decent use of 45 minutes.