A quick recap of Mom’s birthday weekend visit to San Diego.

Friday:
The weekend started off with some fireworks on the way home from the airport. Not everyone would setup a fireworks show over the bay to celebrate their mom’s arrival in town, but that’s how we roll Either that, or she just happened to fly in at the right moment. I’m sticking with the version that gives me credit. (Actually, the weekend started off with me and Shae hurrying to get the guest room cleaned up from our painting adventures in time for my mom’s arrival, but we’re starting this story from when the plane touched down.)

Saturday:
And now time for the humps and cruises. My mom wanted to see some of Lunchbox’s dog park fun so we loaded up the pup and headed to the park. Of course, the one day we were hoping for lots of dogs the park was almost deserted. The only dogs there that showed any interest in Lunchbox were a pit bull and a black lab. The lab growled and barked at LB, and the pit bull…wow. The entire time we were there the pit bull kept trying to hump our puppy. Heads or tails, it didn’t matter…the pit humped Lunchbox any way he could catch him. The pit bull’s owners made a few half hearted attempts at pushing their dog off and LB kept trying to get the pit to run around and play, but eventually it just turned into Shae and I taking turns pushing the pit bull off of our dog. After about 20 minutes of that we got tired of dealing with the other dog and left. I swear, usually the park’s a lot more fun and entertaining. At least no one stepped in crap.

After a trip home and a quick nap, we headed out for the main attraction: a dinner cruise around the bay. Since we got downtown early (the cruise boarded at 7:30), we headed over to Seaport Village to kill some time. Walk, store, walk, store, walk, cookie, store walk. That pretty much sums up Seaport Village (from my POV; Shaes’s take: “Boats, birds, sunsets, kites, pretty.”). Eventually it was time for the cruise. Not a lot to say, except the food was good, so was the view, and overall it was a great time. Happy birthday Mom!

Sunday:
Pretty relaxed day. With the time change and our relaxed pace, our day was basically breakfast and a trip to the airport. No fireworks this time, but we did have the puppy with us to say goodbye.

Now I’m sure there were a lot of good reasons for the Writers’ Strike, but I just don’t care. My DVRs can only hold so many shows and at this point all I have left are reruns of “My Big Redneck Wedding.” I just hope they get some new shows on the air soon so I can get back to sitting around on my ass all weekend. This is all just my long-winded way of saying Shae and I didn’t have any TV shows to watch this weekend, so we were forced to leave the house.

Friday and Saturday, we took Lunchbox to the La Mesa dog park. The last (and only) time we took LB to a dog park (in OB), he started the day getting pissed on and ended it running away from a 3-month old shepherd puppy. In between he played for a while and got beat up by a little mutt. We figured it was time to see if our big pansy was ready to try our local park.

Friday afternoon we decided to get off our ass and get the dog some exercise. After finally finding the park (thanks Garmin) we got LB out of the car and into the dog run. As soon as we got into the park three dogs ran up and surrounded our poor little baby. After everyone was introduced (and Lunchbox didn’t get peed on, baby steps) we started wandering around the dog run. Shae and I found a nice bench and decided to have a seat and watch LB play with (aka run away from) the other dogs. Of course, Lunchbox decided it would be fun to play with the 120-lb hump-happy German Shepherd. We spent the rest of our stay at the dog park watching LB run up to the shepherd and then run away just before he got mounted. I’m sure there’s a joke in there somewhere; feel free to post it below. Saturday was another trip to the park, and more of the same. Lunchbox was more comfortable with the other dogs and spent the day running around with a dalmatian. We spent about an hour and a half there and LB didn’t get peed on or humped, so I’m calling the day a win.

On Sunday, Shae and I wanted to get some exercise too so we decided to take Lunchbox and go for a hike over at Mission Trails Park. I think the real reason we went to Mission Trails was so Shae could take pictures, but we’re going to stick with the exercise story. It was a nice hike, but for the most part there isn’t a lot to say. It was fun, pretty (very green because of the recent rain), and a beautiful day. Of course, LB made sure the day wasn’t completely uneventful. After hiking for a while, we came to a spot in the trail that the rain had turned into one big puddle. I saw a way to get around the puddle without getting TOO wet, but Lunchbox had a different plan. As I was doing my best to stay dry, LB figured out he was in water (he is definitely a water dog) and started splashing around, jumping in circles, and generally covering me in muddy water. About 20 yards after the puddle we discovered that the entire path was flooded and we had to turn around and head back across the puddle. This time Shae was ready with the camera.

All in all, it was a fun weekend. We didn’t remember to take the camera to the dog park, but here are some more pictures of our hike.