Long weekend I really love you. The way you give me ample time to feel alive again. Time to remember that I am not my job, I am human, and not this stress ball walking around wishing there were many more hours in the day. I’ve really enjoyed taking a pause from everything and just being.

Saturday was a great example of one of those days where every moment was savored. I woke up at an unscheduled time by making sure that my alarm clock was off. We hung around, played with Charlie, and got some lunch from Subway (Minus the avocado for me. Does anyone else think their version is kind of bland?)

After eating, we decided it was the perfect day to take Charlie out to his very first dog park.  Now for a little background, I took Bella to a dog park early on when she was a puppy in Miami. I feel like that kind of socialization really teaches them to be friendly with other dogs and their owners. I was shocked to learn that Ryan had never been to one before! Say wha? When he started freaking out a bit at the sight of the German Shepherd, I should’ve just used my experience to relax him a little. I mean I’d never had a problem before. But that is NOT what happened. Suddenly, his anxiety was mine and I felt like the overprotective parent getting way too emotionally involved as I watched Charlie run towards the adult sized dog.

I was a wreck of nerves and had to turn away a few times when I saw the German Shepherd almost topple him as they chased each other. Holy hell was I nervous. We’ve only had Charlie for about 6 days and I guess the fact that I’d been wanting a dog for so long made me feel extra sensitive to his well being.

Charlie on the other hand did not notice a thing. Not a care in the world as he chased, frolicked, explored, and rested in the small park.

He went up to every dog big or small to say hello.

And joined into every game no matter if he looked like the rookie player.

It was really difficult to snap pictures because he was bursting with energy but I did manage a few clear shots.

We finally left after a huge pit bill came in and snarled at Charlie. I had had enough of the whole anxious wreck feeling, especially after reading the recent Runner’s World story about the pitbull dog attack.

If you haven’t read it yet, it’s a rather long account about how a family of runners got attacked by 6 pits in the hills. The pictures are really gruesome and kind of stayed with me   because I read it at night. So yes it was my scary nighttime story lol. Now I’m not saying all Pitbulls are bad. In fact I mostly think it’s all about how the owners raise the dog. However, I didn’t get a good feeling about this one after he snarled at our dog. We were all pretty tired anyway and it just made sense to call it a day.

I don’t believe we’ll be returning to this particular park soon because they didn’t have a small or medium dog section available. It sucked to see that they were under construction and they only option was the large dog area. Charlie will be much bigger one day but right now he’s a little too small to be hanging out with the big boys. And I’m a little too young for more gray hairs (I found like 4 of them recently even though I am 26 Check me out!) They may not intentionally hurt him but I feel like it would be pressing our luck to think that they wouldn’t harm him by accident while playing. Those other dogs towered over him and did almost knock him over a couple of times.

When we got home we showered, dressed, and went out to the beach to hang out with some friends. We played Ring of fire and I remembered how much I love drinking memory games. Have you ever played this game!? It was a blast trying to remember to take the little green man off and putting him back on every time you had to take a sip.

There was a lot of laughter and singing. Exactly what I needed to relax before my marathon training starts up.

What did you do this weekend?

Do you have a favorite drinking game?

Has your dog ever been attacked? or have you been attacked while running like those people in the RW story?

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