4th of July weekend

Hopefully everyone enjoyed their 4th of July. We're definitely enjoying the long weekend here. We spent the 4th in Santa Cruz. We've been there a few times before, but not in the summer. A friend had told us it's too crowded in the summer with tourists, but we went with friends who hadn't been there before. It's true, it was way too crowded with tourists, especially since it was the 4th. We still had a great time, though. Santa Cruz is a beach town that is an hour southwest of us when traffic is good. On Thursday, it took us 2.5 hours to get there, the last 1.5 hours of which was within 8 miles of the city, and we were just sitting on the interstate not moving. Nick compared the beach/boardwalk area to the Jersey Shore, which is a decent description of the activities. The boardwalk has lots of fast food type places, tourist clothing shops, an awesome arcade, and carnival rides. The beach is wonderful and there is a pier full of restaurants. We started our time there by sitting on the beach in the sun. People all around us had charcoal grills, large tables of food, tents - the whole shebang. We had one blanket for 6 people, 1 acoustic guitar, and 1 ukulele...we were less prepared, I guess. As we walked along the water, there were 2 sea lions swimming only 10 yards offshore. That was really cool to watch, but I'm not convinced they're as friendly as they look. Despite the "no dogs, no alcohol" signs everywhere, there were plenty of both all over the beach. As the sun started going down, the tide rose rapidly and our "half-way up the beach" location became front-row seats to the waves. We packed up and headed to the arcade where we had a great time trying to prove who the best zombie-killer was, the best motorcycle drivers, the best trivia contestants and the best ski-ballers. There were fireworks around 9:15 and then we drove home. We forgot to take even a single picture while there, though. Sorry, everyone!

Friday, Nick, Echo, and I went to hike Montara Mountain Trail again with the goal to make it to the top of the mountain we'd only half climbed previously. It was foggy/cloudy, but there were still some great views. The hike took us 1.5 hours total, which was shorter than we thought it would have. We had an elevation gain of 1500-2000 ft. Not exactly sure. Wonders of the trip included major temperature drops, an amazing view of the plant life on the mountain side, and an awesome stone chair on a cliff we found.

Nick and Echo on the stone chair

Looking over the edge from the stone chair

Stone chair, looking out

Saturday we heard about the bad airplane crash at the SFO airport. Pretty devastating to see all the news footage, but luckily we weren't anywhere around. We went to the dog park where Echo used her big girl bark on other puppies for the 3rd time. She seems to just have adopted it into her play, but it's pretty intimidating for all the dogs/owners that aren't used to big dogs. She also only uses it on dogs that are smaller or very similar in size than here. To big dogs that I wouldn't have to worry about, she still acts relatively reserved. We're working on a new trick: "pick up your toys". It's really slow going. She picked up the basics very quickly, but we've been struggling with several: balancing treats/toys on her nose, crawling without getting up to walk, and putting her toys into the basket. We've abandoned the nose balancing tricks for now. I cannot for the life of me get her to keep her head still. She bites at anything near her nose. She will leave a treat on the ground, her paw, furniture, etc. until I give her permission to eat it, but put it anywhere near her face and she goes nuts. She's picking up on putting her toys in the basket, but I'm not sure to what extent. Every lesson feels like we're starting over from scratch. She's always been treat trained, but it's difficult to get her to hold toys in her mouth when she knows treats are around. She also seems to think I just want her to pick up the toy and drop it. The basket may happen to be around, but she doesn't know why. After about 10-15 minutes of training, we get about 5 good "pick up toy and put it in basket"s. Eventually I'll be glad to announce she's a pro.

We don't have plans for tomorrow yet, but it's sure nice to have one more day before going back to work. I hope you all had a great time with the holiday festivities, as well.