Who Let the Dogs Out, version 3

painting by John Emms

Countries all over the world have iconic structures, plants, and even animals. India has the Taj Mahal and sacred cows.  Ireland has Hill of Tara (and lots of other places), along with shamrocks (sham-rogue).
Bern, Switzerland, also has its own icons that stand out. This past summer was exceptional in representing: St. Bernards.  These are truly immense dogs made famous for rescuing people trapped in snow.  The brandy cask is wishful thinking, not accurate.

23 things to know about a St Bernard

During our visit to our daughter, we discovered an astounding number of St. Bernard artistic statues all over the city.  We bounded around trying to find new statues, photos in all of 20 massive dogs.

  

Skully

Bernadette

Timmy

      

Each monument was given a name.  My favorite was "Timmy", the cheetah above. Not so much for the cheetah paint, but for the name. Every Timmy I have known has been a boy, like in the show "Lassie".

We thought we had done so well with our twenty sightings, but we soon found out that there were one-hundred and twenty all over the city. They were even on roofs. 

  

This live St. Bernard was with his owner who was showing and explaining more about this magnificent creature along old town streets.

What more can I say? You had to be there.

Still Swirling

Bright Eyes (3 yr.) and Sunshine (1 yr.)

From the day our granddaughters were born, we have been blessed to be part of their lives in many ways.  It is a thrill to share our joys and interests with them, receiving same in return.

Now they are in the “tween” age, neither child nor teen, confusing us all. Hormones or no, they still delight us with this new stage.

A movie, Leap, recently appeared and we took our girls to spend time in this dark theater with us and watch a young girl who wished to become a ballerina.

DanceInform

Leap was delightful, at least to us and partly to the girls. Images that once made them happy and laughing held them in silence, even stoic. If we had not sneaked in two orders of edamame for them, they might have fallen asleep.

When Leap was over, both girls ripped it apart. 

Oh, Grandma…no girl could learn ballet in five days…Look, see! NO one could have made that move!...See THAT pirouette! Not remotely possible!...THAT defies laws of physics!...NO one could do that!...She should have DROPPED like a big heavy stone…I mean REALLY!!..

 They were absolutely spot on.  Two Irish dancers with many years of experience and awards could rightly judge.

Just when we were about to sigh heavily, a flutter of little girls in filmy tutus ran by, raced by giggling, to the screen where credits rolled and music played.  They swirled around, arms lifted over their heads in light, shadows against screen.

”Daddy! Daddy!  We want to be ballerinas!  See us dance!”

A new generation of future dancers brought smiles to tween faces and sweetness of remembered days to us when they wore little girl dresses, swirling and squealing.

Sunshine (11 yrs.) and Bright Eyes (12.5 yrs.)

Oh, Molebut!

Forget about watching re-runs of NCIS.  Forget about Netflix.  Forget about texting.

Grandpa and I gathered our daughter and husband, along with our two tween granddaughters for a night of Mexican food and game playing.

A "Game Night" is above and beyond all definitions of fun.  This was a blast as we played Balderdash.  Not just the average Balderdash, but we played the Beyond Balderdash version.

To truly understand this game, you will need to visit the above YouTube site.

The word chosen was molebut, which elicited a bunch of crazy answers. This is Sunshine's false answer:

Sunshine's version of this definition

Brilliant child.  Eleven years old, Sunshine thinks outside, way outside, the box.

Look up molebut just for the heck of it.

Forget about DVD or World of War Craft.  Game night is an awesome way to spend time together.