When I'm Gone

OMGOMGOMGYOUGUYS, five more days! FIVE MORE DAYS!!!!!!!

So, next week I'll be at the Association of Professional Dog Trainer's annual conference in Spokane, Washington along with my friend/boss, Sara Reuche. After the conference, the Voice of Reason and I will be flying to Seattle for the first time to spend a week with friends. Well, he has friends in Seattle and will be making up for lost bro love time. I'll be hanging out with the Fremont Bridge Troll and the rest of Seattle.

I'm a little excited.

I want to share my experiences at the conferences with the rest of Bloglandia, but if there's one thing I've learned as a blogger, it's that I really suck at getting around to writing summaries of the various conferences I've attended. I do, however, write fairly reasonable notes at seminars. So what I'm going to try to do for the APDT conference is, at the end of each day, translate my notes into a paragraph or so about each of the sessions I attend. The summaries will be short and sweet, but hopefully they'll be better than what I'm currently doing, which is nothing. So, fingers crossed and stay tuned for the first day's summary on Wednesday, October 23rd!

One of the things I've already learned is that I have the Best. Friends. Ever. In the nine years of our relationship (did I mention our anniversary is October 31st?), the Voice of Reason and I have never taken a vacation together. This means that we've never had to send our dogs anywhere while we were gone because one of us was always home. With seven dogs to place, most of which have special needs, I was planning to have my work cut out for me. But lo and behold! with in a week and two full months before we planned to leave, each and every dog not only has a friend to stay with, but also a caretaker I am certain will be able to handle their unique needs. I hadn't hoped for anything this good!

So a huge shout out to Nicole and Steve (Marnie), Laural (Jai), Tom and Debbie (Piper Ann), Crystal (Maus - and a little Rubi and Allister), Michelle and Brian (Cannon), and Jenny (Allister, Rubi, and assorted little critters) - you're the bestest, and you've taken a huge weight off my mind. Thank you, thank you, thank you so very much!