K9 Karma - Yoga With Dogs!

I finally have found a Yoga With Dogs class! I have been searching for one since watching a show on Animal Planet last year called K9 Karma. The shows host was a yoga instructor and she led a yoga class where people brought their dogs and used them as props and also helped the dog relax using massage techniques. The dog, Charlie, was the narrator, and they would go and visit cool dog places around NYC. She had a baby and the show hasn't been back on the air since!

Anyway, I just found out about this so I missed the "workshop", but the classes start this Sunday! You can read more about it here:
www.seattlehumane.org/yoga-with-dogs.pdf

From their flyer: Yoga With Dogs will help you
• Understand the basic principles of how yoga can benefit you and your dog,
• Learn to transport your dog to a deeper level of calm and relaxation,
• Discuss methods of relating your movement to your dog’s,
• Find fun ways to explore massage, stretching and relaxation techniques for both you and your dog.

I wonder if I will be able to get any pictures for my blog out of this...

Images from the Northwest Flower and Garden Show

I was oddly disappointed by the display gardens this year. Normally I am really inspired by at least one of them, and none of them truly gripped me this time. I DID get inspired, however, by the Chocolate Flower Farm booth and ordered a seed kit. I will have my own chocolate garden this year! It will be fun!

Here are a few pictures of things I found interesting...

@home : In bloom

The snow drops are in bloom!

Will you be my Valentine?

Who couldn't love such an adorable face?!!!

How To Be a Megastar 2.0

Last weekend we went to Portland for a very special event - Blue Man Group. It's very hard to describe their show - it is equal parts performance art, stand-up comedy, audience participation, rollicking rock 'n' roll and pointed cultural satire. They play all sorts of weird things, like PVC pipe. whips, and drums with paint spraying up in the air. The show was very humorous and we had pretty good seats. These pictures were taken with my pocket pc/phone.

The modernization of the rock concert
At some point, in the last 3 years, fans have gone from waving cigarette lighters to glowing cell phones. I think this is in part due to a lot less smokers than there used to be, and also just the reality of new technology that is here to stay. It was an amazing site, seeing an entire stadium of waving glowing cell phones. It was something else. Most of the shows we have been to in recent years have been outdoors at The Gorge, and you can not get the same effect there (nor cell signal strength, hahaha).


We had a nice room on the 5th floor of the 5th Avenue Suites right in downtown Portland , not too far from Memorial Coliseum where the concert was. We took a taxi to and from the event, leaving the MINI safe in the garage of the hotel. I brought Sophia on this trip, since the 5th Avenue Suites was a dog-friendly hotel, and Sophia spent the evening with a sitter who catered to her every need for 6 hours. We had a nice dinner at Red Star Tavern & Roast House adjacent to the hotel, a highly rated restaurant. We were joined for breakfast by my cousin Matt and his wife Anastasia, and we had a fancy repast at Red Star again. The hotel staff watched Sophia in the office for the hour or so while we enjoyed our breakfast. We then all walked the few blocks to the waterfront and enjoyed the park and walking trail along the Willamette River (that drains to the Columbia River nearby). The weather was nice on Sunday and we enjoyed the relaxation of not having a schedule.

This weekend was sort of our anniversaey and Valentine's Day rolled into one. We'll still go out to our favorite restaurant on the 14th, but since it falls in the middle of the week it was still nice to do something fancy and call it a Valentine celebration.

We stopped at the outlet malls in Centralia both coming and going and finally got a 12 inch skillet so I could really cook the flattened chicken breasts the way I like to. Steve bought a bunch of jeans, and I admit I came home with some items for my Spring wardrobe as well.

It was a great time!

Related links:
Blue Man Group http://www.blueman.com/
5th Avenue Suites http://www.5thavenuesuites.com/fasmapa/index.html
Red Star Tavern and Roast House http://www.redstartavern.com/