Poodles Do Android Development

For those who are not aware, Charles' employer is one of the most dog friendly places to work. He occasionally bring in both pups with him and they are known as "desk dogs" (i.e., they sit on his desk). If you ever think their cuteness might be distracting, Charles will tell you that it makes him more productive. In addition, every once in a while they will do some killer app development themselves...

Space Poodle and Other Updates

Charles and I officially apologize for neglecting this blog. Both of us have been pretty busy lately, but we have a few updates to post.

Berlin's Paw: It is totally healed. He spent almost 12 weeks in a splint and was limping for a good portion of time thereafter, but he seems to be doing well.

We recently took a few short trips (with poodles) to Portland and San Francisco...

Portland: This is really a beautiful city. The public transport system is a lot better than Seattle's and the restaurants were fabulous. We stayed at the Hotel Monaco, which is extremely trendy and also very dog friendly. Other highlights of the trip were a trip to Powell's Books and Voodoo Doughnut. I have been loving my Kindle lately, but Powell's made me appreciate the value of a good book store. Voodoo Doughnut sort of just made me feel gluttonous and bloated. Photos from our Portland trip can be seen here.

San Francisco: I took some CLE (continuing legal eduation) at the PLI Center so Charles had some time to himself; however, we did manage a few days of vacation. We ate some fantastic food (oysters, shabu shabu, and Moroccan ) and saw a Thrillpeddlers show. Remus also got a fantastic Halloween costume at Best in Show in the Castro District...



The rest of our San Francisco pics are located here. You can also check out a few pictures of Remus modeling his new costume at a little Halloween party in Seattle.

Poodle Injury and Vaughn Gathering at the Colorado Cabins

Charles and I just returned from a four day trip to the Vaughn cabins near Mancos, Colorado. This was my first trip to the legendary cabins and although it was a bit rustic, the view was wonderful even if it did rain a bit...

In addition to the gorgeous surroundings, we had great company. All of the cabins were packed and there was even spillover into a friend's cabin. Here is a somewhat candid shot of most of the clan on the porch after a tasty dinner...

Will someone please Photoshop Ben into this picture?

One snafu = Charles reserved a VW Beetle as our rental car. It had some issues with the trail...

Another problem we ran into is that while we were gone Berlin broke two bones in his paw. No one is really sure what happened, but the vet says he could have fallen, accidentally stepped on, or had his paw pinched in a door. As soon as we found out, we rushed home and ended up cutting our time in denver short. The good news is that the little guy has a stylish splint...

For the rest of the pictures of our short trip to Colorado (including Durango and Mesa Verde) see here.

When Seattle weather was nice...

It is miserable in Seattle right now, but last weekend for one entire Saturday it was gorgeous. Luckily, Charles and I have a friend with a sailboat so we took advantage of the opportunity. For some beautiful pics of the Puget Sound see out photos here.

A video present for one of my coworkers

One of my coworkers celebrated his 50th anniversary with my company this month. I was able to dig up some old photos and make this celebration video for him. Sharing a cube wall with someone who has been a patent attorney for longer than I have been alive is definitely one of the best things about my job.

Texas Report

For the 2009/2010 holiday season, the Vaughns traveled to Texas. We didn't take very many pictures, but I thought some people might enjoy them...

Berlin and Remus flew with us to Houston and received doggie sedatives to make the flight a more pleasant experience. They're well traveled canines and are pretty used to this routine, but they can still be a hassle. While Remus took the usual cocktail, the vet in Seattle prescribed human xanax for Berlin because of his tiny poodle syndrome. This did not work out very well.

While Berlin was "tripping" he was very interested in my wine and the salmon rolls at Vino Volo in the Sea-Tac airport.


A quick drink before getting on the plane...


While staying in Dallas, the poodles ended up getting us a room upgrade at the Westin. They were particularly whiny one night while we were having dinner at a friend's house and the night staff picked them up "so they would not be lonely." We came back to find our dogs well cared for and our room upgraded to a suite. Here is a pick of the poodles with the night staff...


While Berlin and Remus were making trouble, we hung out with Charles' friend Big Jon and his Star Trek tree...


We also played magic with his adorable new daughter Brook...


As many of you know, it snowed in Dallas over Christmas. During Christmas lunch, Charles' uncle Mike found an innovative way to keep beverages cold which Remus felt the need to investigate...


The poodles also enjoyed the farm where Uncle Mike and Aunt Deb live...


After driving back to Houston, the poodles relaxed at Charles' dad's house while humans went shopping. I finally purchased a real pair of cowboy boots at this fine establishment...


While in Houston I also got to meet up with the HP Meetup group and eat good Mexican food...


I also got to see a number of great friends whom I miss very much. You can see the whole set here.

Jingle Run 2009

This year I participated in the 25th annual Jingle Run in Seattle. The race benefits the Pacific Northwest chapter of the Arthritis Foundation and is tons of fun. Although the official results aren't in yet, I think I finished at around 34 minutes. I also managed to raise $325 this year so thank you very much if you were one of my sponsors!

The fun thing about this race is that most of the runners dress up. This year I saw a number of reindeer, Santa suits galore, adults in PJs with giant candy canes, and even a dog dressed in his holiday best. I had some pretty festive socks...



Nearly everyone wore bells on their shoes, giving the race its own jingly soundtrack. If you would like to see pictures from the race, Charles took a number and they are located here.

2009 Thanksgiving in Canada

Charles and I decided to spend the holiday weekend in Canada. We packed up the poodles and drove across the border to Vancouver, BC for a relaxing weekend at the Pan Pacific Hotel. The idea was to take it easy, eat good food, and relax.

We spent most of Thursday driving. The traffic in the States was terrible. However I planned ahead and already had a massage booked at Spa Utopia.

I wasn't the only one getting spoiled though. Upon checking into the hotel, the poodles were presented with this gift basket including treats, a food dish, beds, mats, and other dog amenities.

Friday was gorgeous! We took the poodles for a long walk around the sea wall and had dinner at La Crocodile. I also checked out the Miraj Hammam on South Granville which was fabulous.

The weather on Saturday was miserable, but that didn't stop us from driving out to Richmond to visit a friend. I bet you're wondering why this post has a "dutch culture" tag. It's because there is a pannekoeken house in Richmond! The place is called De Dutch. Charles and I both agreed that it lived up to its name and appreciated some good pannekoeken!

We didn't take many pictures during our trip, but the set can be found here if you are interested.

It did not rain in Forks

This weekend I traveled to Forks, Washington for a Twilight-inspired Volksmarch with a few of my coworkers. For those who don't know, Forks is the home of the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer, which I read about a year ago because everyone else was doing it. In my humble opinion, the series not a great work of literature, but it has inspired a lot of tourism in Forks and it is sort of fun to jump on the fannish bandwagon.

We stayed in a Twilight-themed room in a motel that was pretty decent by small city motel standards. I was particularly dazzled by the sparkly curtains.

Seeing as how Stephanie Meyer drew her inspiration from Forks solely from the weather report, we were surprised to spend nearly an entire 24 hours there without rain! The walk itself was sufficient to make anyone feel well acquainted with Forks as it is a pretty small town. I concluded that it is made up pretty much entirely of Twilight stores like Dazzled by Twilight and drive through espresso stands (I counted at least 3).

On the drive home, we visited Bella Italia, which is the location of Bella and Edward's first date in the book. The wine list was great, the mushroom ravioli was decent, but the service was pretty bad. I did, however, enjoy the "Twilight sparkling syrah."

I took way too many pictures during the trip and spent way too much money on Twilight-inspired schwag. I was mostly just fascinated by how the town was taken over by the commercialization of the series. The entire set of pictures is located here. However, I think this shot pretty much sums it up...



Surprisingly Twilight merchandise is not visible in this picture.

Costume Contest for Dogs?

It seems like all of my posts are about poodles lately, but sometimes they're too cute to ignore. Today we went to the Seattle Off-Leash Dogoween event which was basically a costume contest for dogs. Jocelyn came along to show off Remus who dressed as a tanooki...



Berlin wore the panda suit we bought him in Japan...



The poodles had some rough competition including a light rail wiener dog...



And dogs dressed as flying monkeys...



In the end, the poodles didn't place, but we had a great time. If you're interested in seeing a list of the winners it is posted here. We took way too many pictures and you can see those here. Here's one final shot of the cuties...