A Visit from Ben's Daddy

A lot of you noticed that I mentioned Ben's daddy's visit in passing throughout the weekend. I finally got Jeannie to post a longer post about all the things we did together.  This was a very important visit for all of us -- Ben and Jeannie had not seen Ben's daddy in a very long time and this was my very first time to meet him! And guess what!  He liked me very, very much! :)  I hope you enjoy this post about our weekend visit.

On Thursday of last week, Ben's daddy took an airplane all the way from Ann Arbor, Michigan to San Antonio, Texas.

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What a long distance to travel!  Thankfully, it only took about 3 hours by plane.  I was born in San Antonio and then lived at the San Antonio Great Dane Rescue in Helotes (pronounced "hello-tiss"), Texas.  Every once in a while, Ben and Jeannie will take me on a trip to Enchanted Rock in Fredericksburg, Texas, the beautiful countryside in Gruene, Texas and once we went to the Cibolo Nature Center in Cibolo (pronounced "see-bowl-oh") , Texas.  But, I've never really been beyond the Texas Hill Country.

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I can't imagine what it might be like in places like "the midwest" where Ben's family lives or "the south" where Jeannie's family is. Yes, I know that Texas is technically in "the south," but Jeannie thinks it's much more appropriately categorized as the "southwest."  To her, Texas is much more like New Mexico than Alabama, where her family lives.

Remember when I told you that Ben's daddy came up with a very funny game of Hide-N-Seek? On the first night of his visit, we played the game with my green squeaky ball. Then, on his last night in town, he surprised me with the Froggy Game!

You know, I was surprised that they did so many things without me on this trip.  Every time they picked up the car keys and walked toward the door, I was so certain that I would be going along for the ride.  But, I was wrong.  I just can't figure out why that was. I've heard Jeannie talk about how dog-friendly Austin is as opposed to San Antonio - I wonder if that had something to do with it...Well, even though I'm not in all of these pictures, I still want to share where they went and what they did.

My humans LOVE sampling different restaurants and Ben's daddy really likes a well-cooked meal, too.  So, they spent a lot of time sharing conversation over meals.  

On the first night of Ben's daddy's visit, they all went to one of my favorite places, Tycoon Flats.  

I've been there once before, though I really should convince them to bring me more often!  It's very dog-friendly there.  Lots of families go to Tycoon Flats and it's designed a bit like a beer garden, so my humans don't have to worry about finding a nice open place for me to lay down.  The only problem is that there are so many young kids who don't really understand doggy boundaries.  Don't get me wrong!  I LOVE kids and my humans are very comfortable allowing me to interact with them.  But, sometimes outsiders don't understand that I'm working hard in a "down stay" when they come up to say hello.  I wish the parents would check-in to make sure they aren't interrupting before unleashing their kiddos.  I get so confused when that happens and I stop listening to my humans altogether.  That's one of the reasons my humans have been hesitant to tote me along as often as they would like. :(

Since Ben's daddy lives far from the coast, Jeannie insisted that they go to Pappadeaux's (pronounced "papa-does") for Friday's dinner.  Poor Ben isn't too crazy about seafood, but Jeannie reminded them that make pretty good steak.  Oh, man!  You should have seen my jowls watering when they had that conversation! 

On Saturday morning, they just had to go to Guenther House in the King William district of San Antonio for brunch.  

After brunch, they stopped by the Witte (pronounced "witty") Museum for the Amazon exhibit.  Yes, it was geared toward kiddos, but they still had fun and learned some interesting facts.  They showed me how doggies in the Amazon live -- this made me very glad to live in a walk-up apartment in the Monte Vista neighborhood of San Antonio!

I wonder how long I could last on the banks of the Amazon River...

Those doggies are doing a great job of guarding their family! Tough work on the Amazon!

I hope you enjoyed reading about Ben's daddy's visit as much as we enjoyed having him!  It was very sad to say goodbye, but I'm so glad that he'll be returning in May for Jeannie's commencement ceremony.  

A weekend full of "Hellos!"

Ben's daddy is still here visiting with my humans, Ben and Jeannie.  I'm so glad that I got to meet him!  He's slated to leave tomorrow in the late morning and I know that I'm going to miss him terribly when he goes.

When he first got here, we played this very confusing, but exhilarating game of ball.  I have this green squeaky ball that drives me nuts. It squeaks.  It bounces.  It does it all! Just after meeting me, Ben's daddy grabbed the green squeaky ball up and hid it behind his back.  After a moment, he pretended to throw it very hard into the next room.  Being a typical doggy, I fall for this trick every time.  Ben's daddy is very clever with doggies and used this weakness of mine to create a variant of "hide-n-seek."  Once I was convinced that the ball had been thrown, he squeaked it from behind his back. What a prankster!  This made me so excited!  I danced and pranced and leaned against Ben's daddy with glee until he let me chomp the ball again.  After a moment of chomping bliss, he grabbed it up and started the whole game over again!

While Ben and his daddy spent some time together, Jeannie and I took a few walks.  There are two Great Danes who live in my neighborhood and we are very good friends.  Since they're a bit older than me, they're often napping when I walk by their yard.  But, every once in a while, I hear a friendly, slow, deep bark like mine and they come running to their fence line to say hello.  I hope their humans done mind me stomping through their flower beds...I promise I don't do it too often!

Don't I look an awful lot like the black Dane?  Maybe I'm a bit closer to 90% Dane after all...