~Crazy few days~

"Yes mommy, I'll go shopping"

Sunday night, or should I say the wee hours of Monday morning, Tommy is still up wanting to go to IHOP. What is with this kid and IHOP? LOL. Needless to say, there's no way I'm driving in the middle of the morning to get him IHOP. I suppose since the summer is here, our hours of sleep are all whacked up. We stayed up late a few times and slept half the next day. I'm not the type to want to sleep in like that, however, I'm also not the type to want to miss much sleep even though that seems to be the story of my life these days.

So later, once we finally got up on Monday, I decided to take him to IHOP. After we ate, I dreaded asking him to go to Khol's cuz my son DOES NOT like to shop but Father's Day is on Sunday. I HAD to get some shopping done. So I asked him if he would mind going in the Khol's with me and he frowned and asked if we could go the next day. Well, the answer was no because we were right there. To my amazement, he smiled and said, "Yes mommy, I'll go shopping". I was in total shock but was so happy at the same time. Khol's is my FAVORITE retail store next to Target. I could spend hours in Khol's but since I know how much Tommy dreads shopping, I thought we would get in and out as soon as we could.

I love the Tony Hawk section so we spent quite a while over there. Tommy picked out a belt and hat for himself. After making our way around the store, I ended up getting some really nice things for Father's Day. I got my Father in law a couple of nice shirts as well as my dad. Our family revolves around anything that looks beachy so I always try to get my dad something w/ either a sail boat or some kind of nautical print on it. I ended up getting him a shirt to bring out his pretty blue eyes and of course, a tropical type shirt. I know he'll love both. I can't say what I got Gabe cuz I don't want him to read the blog and me ruin his surprise but I know he will be very happy. Tommy assisted w/ picking out the gifts. We are really excited to give them all to him. I'll have to update later and say what we got him. Oh, I can say that we got him some chocolate covered strawberries, chocolate dipped pretzels, and a "DAD" cookie that was delivered yesterday. Never hurts to have a little gift early. He was extremely surprised and shared a strawberry w/ me. :) They were yummy. 

By the time we checked out, my buggy was full. It's been a long time since I've done some shopping like that so I had no regrets.


"I don't want to play nice"

After doing our shopping, I thought I would see if my mom wanted to take her dog, Soldier to the dog park. I've been out there already a few times w/ my dogs but knew she had been wanting to take him. It's such a nice park and just opened up over the weekend. We have been out there every single evening just about.

As we pull up, I see a couple of the ladies in my neighborhood in the large dog part of the dog park. They are both good friends of mine. We took Soldier in and he behaved so well. I suppose that wild puppy is finally going away. He is a Boxer so anyone that has ever owned a Boxer knows EXACTLY what I'm talking about. I grew up w/ nothing but Boxer's so I know they can be rowdy but so loving as well.

There was a man bringing in his large black lab looking dog behind us. As this man enters the gate, he keeps his dog on the extractable leash. Any dog this particular dog came in contact with, he was jumping all over them, almost as if it was a dominance thing. Obviously, you can't let your dog off the leash if they are going to act that way, or better yet, take the dog out of the park. I had seen this dog there on Sunday but he didn't act crazy like that. He was puppy, yes, but sweet. He liked to bark at HALO (that's my Pug), but didn't seem aggressive. So the man would let his dog, Eli, pull the leash and extend to where he could reach other dogs. All of the other dogs were trying to escape Eli's wrath and were scared. One of the ladies politely asked him to pull his leash in some since Eli had been pouncing on her dog, as well as everyone's.

Later, he let Eli off the leash, I suppose thinking that may help him settle down. He took Eli to the water bucket and told him he was in time out. Eli stayed there laying down for a little bit and then this man let Eli run around. At that point, Eli jumps on any dog he could but not in a playful way. It was aggressive behavior and it was aggravating that Eli's owner didn't seem to care. Eli was getting to obnoxious and all of the more docile dogs were horrified of him. At one point, my mom's dog crawled under the bench since Eli seemed to wanna pick on him. Eli was thinking, "I don't wanna play nice". The lady in my neighborhood that had asked the owner once before to pull the leash in some finally spoke up for everyone and asked the man to put Eli back on his leash. The man got his dog and left the park. It wasn't anything personal but the man stormed out of there as though we all ganged up on him. Eli is a puppy, I will give him that, however, his behavior was aggressive towards other dogs. The only dogs he wouldn't mess with were the ones that would snap at him if he kept jumping on them. This wasn't just jumping, Eli would take his entire body and lay on top of the other dogs and bite them in a dominant way. I was glad that the owner put him back on the leash but felt bad he left the park. I suppose maybe it was best. There were other pet owners getting very upset at the owner as well as Eli.

All this excitement at the dog park hasn't kept us away. It has became a great place for us to spend our afternoons.

I'll post more later on our last park adventure. :)