We survived our big family reunion! Although Zeke and Karma’s sister Hana couldn’t make it over (silly horse shows!) we did meet up with the rest of the family. We also determined that Zeke and Karma STILL aren’t sick of each other after 5 days together! But, let’s start at the beginning…
Early Friday morning we met up with Pat, Jacqueline, and Zeke at the Longmont airport with Karma in tow. After getting everyone situated, Pat flew us on a beautiful flight to Monterey, with a quick stop for fuel in Milford. This also meant Pat got to show off his landing skills (which we believe are much more important than flying skills) twice–and they were both perfect. Enterprise had our vehicles waiting, so we loaded up the pups, and headed to the beach!
It was all the puppies first visit to the beach and they absolutely LOVED it! We were also joined by their Aunt Kona and her daughter, Skye. The girls are seasoned beach pros living in San Diego, so Skye quickly proceeded to engage her cousins Z & K in a game of driftwood-keep-away. It was really cool to see the cousins all getting along and burning off steam. Especially with Pebble Beach in the background! In fact, we had one caddy yell down, “That’s a great Weimaraner! And I really like your Vizslas!”
After the beach we headed to Fisherman’s Wharf and Jacqueline introduced us to sea lions, homemade candy shops, and an amazing dinner. Jacqueline’s best buddy, Lisa, joined us for dinner too, and we enjoyed hearing about her adventures — she’s home to 4 rescued Chihuahuas!! Then it was off to bed in anticipation of the Lone Cypress Vizsla Club’s Specialty on Saturday morning.
In the morning, Marc, Jenny, and Jacqueline enjoyed Lisa’s homemade preserves she brought up, apricot/pineapple and blueberry on sourdough, yum-o! Mid morning, we headed to the show site to meet up with the rest of the family: Jamie and Jeff with Battue, Grandma Geli, Aunt Tokaji, Cousin Chance, and Mary with Kona and Skye! Since we flew in the plane, Jamie brought along some extra crates for us, and our Wild Bunch legacies took up one whole length of the ring!
First up was sweepstakes, Zeke won his class and then stepped out of the ring to watch the girls. Mary didn’t enter Skye, so it was just Chancey-Pants and Karma in the same class. Chancey went on to win, so we had a dog and a bitch in the ring for the Best in Sweeps competition. First the judge, Nancy Keller, pulled out Zeke, and then another bitch, and then Chancey! We were really excited at the thought of Zeke as Best in Sweeps and Chance as Best of Opposite, but in the end, it was Zeke that earned the only placement as BEST IN SWEEPSTAKES!!!
Then it was on to the big kahuna. Karma went first in the 9-12 month class, and Chancey and Skye both looked great in bred-by. Then in the breed ring, practically the whole family was entered. Tad was on Karma’s Daddy, Tok, Jacqueline was on Zeke, Mary was on Kona, and then Battue, Tokaji, and Geli had handlers to take them around. After a nail biting session and lots of switching the dogs and bitches out of the ring and into the shade, the judge, Mr. Robert Hartinger, came up with Tok as Select Dog and a Judge’s Award of Merit, and Kona as Select Bitch also with a Judge’s Award of Merit! After the ribbons were distributed, Bev Wanjon (Russet Leather Vizslas) came over for a “Happy Birthday” serenade and some cupcakes to celebrate her big day!
After the show and an exercise romp for the dogs, we met up at Jamie and Jeff’s RV for a wonderful dinner. The x-pen was quite the family affair, especially when Karma’s Uncle Otis showed up with his big sister Lulu! It was a great night and we got to hear lots of fun stories about Grandma Geli.
Sunday’s Vizsla ring was another family affair. This time Skye went Reserve WB under judge, James White, who also put up Battue for BOS, and Kona for Select Bitch. Kona now has FIVE GCH majors and is sitting at 22 points! With the show nonsense out of the way, we said goodbye to our new friends, took the puppies to the beach again, and then headed to San Juan Bautista to check out the mission and some excellent Mexican food. After getting in some quality tourist time, we headed back down to our rental home. Later in the evening, we headed down to the Sandbar on the pier and had dinner (along with Mary who stayed with us Sunday night) overlooking the marina and all the lovely yachts!
Monday was picture day! Jacqueline had arranged for a photographer to come meet up with us on the beach for a family photo shoot! It was too much fun and should make for some great Christmas cards 🙂 After our pictures, Mary and Tad went to go work on a breeding with Battue, while Marc, Jenny, Pat, and Jacqueline drove down to Big Sur with Karma and Zeke. The drive along PCH was amazing, and Jacqueline even pointed out the famous car commercial bridge that is in several Porsche commercials! The views were spectacular and Jacqueline wore in her new camera taking tons of photos along the coast. Then it was back up to Monterey to hit the beach shop and then we split some amazing pizzas late in the afternoon. Monday night was very low-key. We took some naps, watched some Bravo TV, and just kinda hung out.
Sadly, for Karma and Zeke especially, we had to come home today. The puppies were so cute on this vacation. Karma, who you normally have to drag out of bed at 11 on the weekends, was up bright and early the entire trip! She would jump out of bed and then sit in front of our bedroom door, just staring at the door knob. She isn’t a vocal dog (unlike our roo-rooing, Indy), but she would let out a short whine about every three minutes. Then, once we heard Zeke sniffing at our door, we’d let her out and it was game on! Since puppyhood, they’ve only had eyes for each other (in fact, we quickly realized it was a waste of money to take them to the same puppy class, because they would only hang out together!) but we thought they’d tire of each other at some point! But alas, poor Zeke looked completely distraught when we loaded Karma into our car without him this evening 🙁
Guess that means we need to start planning another vacation…Wisconsin in late September anyone?!