Wonder Dog

I feel the need to brag about Mason this week. I still refer to him as our monster, but he's really the sweetest, well behaved dog (most of the time). He came to the Bit Group office with me last Friday and was a huge hit. He'd been coming for a bit until his injury months ago so he was missed and overly excited to be back. I probably won't make it a regular/weekly visit until he outgrows his puppy-runs (bolting full speed with all his power around in circles) and begging everyone for constant play time, but it's great to know that days the boss is out or we have a schedule conflict, it will be ok.

This morning I took Mason to the park across from our neighborhood and ran into a Golden puppy about the same age. This is one of the first times he "played" with another dog since his surgery and I was shocked that he wasn't the one doing most of the jumping and mounting. He was so well behaved and excited to make a new friend.

I was daring enough to let him off the leash for our walk through the trail in the woods and he blew me away. He didn't run too far ahead, stopped to look back at every turn, and came when called. He also went right back on the leash at the end of the trail. I'm amazed! He was so good that when we got onto our block, a few houses down from ours, I took the leash off again - and he bolted! My heart stopped until I realized he was running onto our yard, up the front hill, and sat at the back door and waited for me to let him in. As usual, we finished our morning routine with plenty of cuddles and kisses.

We can't wait to be back at the farm to run around and play in the stream and go for long walks. Also, his new favorite game is "hide-and-seek" with his bone. Our goal is to teach him "left" and "right" which we shout out as clues to where we hid his bone. Good luck to us with that one.

Next stop - White Plains this weekend for Kristen & Jesse's Engagement Shower. Fun!

Photojournalistic blogging

As Aleks and I start to grow our blog we plan to use images and stories to keep everyone connected. I've recently come across an amazing example of Photojournalism created by Alan Taylor at Boston.com. Please use the link below to view this site.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/

For anyone intrigued by Life, National Geographic and such, you will probably find this quite interesting. As a web designer I'm amazed at how he was able to push the boundaries of a web page and maximize it's real estate for such large images. As a human being I'm amazed at the emotional connection being made through his stories. I guess I'm also a fan now that we live and work in the Boston area and there's a good balance between local and global news stories.

I have already added an RSS feed to my daily reader (I've been pleased so far with Google Reader). I don't plan to use our family blog for sharing internet "stuff" often, but I thought this was worth it.

Enjoy and let me know what you think.

NYC was a hit!

Good thing the Wilson's thought NYC was a hit, because the Yankees didn't - not one run scored in this Saturday's game. At least it was fun to be at the game and work our way through the maze of city subways and survive Yankee Stadium with no running water!

We started on a train from White Plains to 125th Street, then transferred to the #4 subway up to 161st St/Yankee Stadium. After the 8th inning we took the subway down to 42nd St/Grand Central Terminal.

We walked up 5th Avenue from there stopping at Rockefeller Plaza and Radio City Music Hall (the Ice Rink Cafe didn't have seating for 4 in the shade, oh well). We eventually made our way into the heart of Times Square (stopping at the M&M store) and hit a glitch when three of us made it through the turn style to the subway at 42nd street and Aaron got stuck with "insufficient funds" on his Metro card! Two of us found another entrance that finally worked and we all managed to meet at the N/R subway to head downtown.

Next stop - Union Square (Staci's old neighborhood)!! We cooled off and rested at Heartland Brewery for beers and salads before heading to Russell's apartment on 14th Street between University and Broadway for a quick visit followed by some shopping and a night of drinking at Pete's Tavern on Irving St. in Gramercy Park. We didn't get lucky enough to get picked up by the Cash Cab when we hailed one to get us back to GCT and Metro North back to White Plains. What a day!! Oh, and we also saw a rainbow - a full arc from end to end (but no pot of gold).

Mason's First Birthday

June 15, 2008!

Mason had his first birthday this past weekend. There was no cake, no candles, no special treats, just tons of play time and a lot more of his every-day treats and extra raw hide's. Here's a recent picture of him at the farm (still on leash while he's recovering).



Speaking of recovery...
He was such a trooper when we brought him home from the vet after his surgery on his left rear hock (hock OCD is the official diagnosis). We've since learned that he had an abnormally large piece of cartilage removed which will hopefully keep him comfortable and active for many, many years to come. Here's a picture from the week of this ordeal, purple cast and all. As you can see, he quickly returned to his usual playful self.


We're slowly increasing his activity level. Our goal is to let him run free and play with his friends at Clam Fest in Maine in a month. For now he gets short stints in the field behind our house chasing tennis balls or a quick swim in the pond at the farm chasing after sticks - and to know Mason is to know that by "sticks" we mean large branches and tree trunks.

Mason's really looking forward to getting back to Bit Group for Dog Day Friday's. Tomorrow's the perfect day to see how that goes as I only plan to work a half day and the boss is out of town, not to mention that on a typical Friday we're lucky to have more than 5 people working in the office.

We'll keep you posted. Literally. Thanks for all your support through his recovery.

It's officially unofficial

We have a family blog!

We hope this will become a place for us to share what we're up to and keep everyone (friends and family) connected.

Highlights and History of Team Dubonk:
Aleks and Staci met in the 5th grade, graduated high school together, went separate ways, reunited just after 9/11, dated, married on 9/9/2006, settled in Framingham, MA (for now) and welcomed Mason to the family in August 2007.

And that brings us to now...
Enjoy and visit often!