Abilities Expo Weekend

Hey Guys!

 

TGIF:)

Hopefully this weekend will be the lazy one. I deserve just being a dog for 1 weekend after working almost nonstop for the past weeks! OK, that's stretching, Nikki says; but we were pretty busy...

 

The last weekend of May, we went to Anaheim for the Abilities Expo So-Cal. Nikki's job had a booth, so she had to work. That means I had to! NO CHOICE! Who signed me up for this??? Anyway, we took a train up to Anaheim on Friday afternoon. Piece of cake! I like the train ride. It's so smooth and spacious compared to trolleys. After getting off, I got us lost in a huge parking lot with almost no car!!! Nikki heard a radio playing and headed towards the direction. We finally found someone, who happened to be a firework man! He told us that the parking lot was empty because they were setting up fireworks for Angels Stadium that evening. After some more wandering around, we found a bus stop and went to the Convention Center to join Wes & Joe, and Jake of course!

 

The convention center was very crowded with lots of wheelchairs and service dogs! I had a hard time not to lose focus. I know it's bad, but sometimes, eye candies are so tempting!!! And sometimes, I was focus, but other dogs came to say hi. It's rude to totally ignore them, right??? We got to the registration table no problem, but had a hard time finding Nikki's booth. Rows & rows of accessible cars & state-of-the-are wheelchairs, tables with venders, people stopping at the tables, power chair suddenly backing up towards us to see something... I was so happy when I saw my office buddy Jake! That was our booth! Have to admit that we didn't really get down the best way to get to our booth until the last day of the Expo. Every time we left by ourselves, we got lost a bit! But I always managed to get us back to the booth.

 

After the show closed at 4:00pm, we went to the hotel next door and checked in. The front desk manager showed us our room all the way from the front desk, which was very nice of him! We were on the 6th floor. I learned our room right away! When we got to the room, the manager gave Nikki a brief orientation of where things are. Then Nikki asked him to put a strip of tape on her key card so she would figure out tactility which direction she should insert the card to open the door. The manager was pretty intrigued with the simple way to adopt to blindness. Yay for little education! The hotel room was as big as our living room, and I got to have some relaxation on the bed!!! That was until Nikki chased me down onto the floor so she can hog the bed all to herself!!!

 

Saturday & Sunday were all work during the day. Most of the time, people didn't even notice me because I was neatly under the table. But after finding out that Jake was getting all the attention and love, I decided to come out a little bit and played a role of the booth mascot! Jake & I were the peep magnets! Win for everyone!

 

Saturday evening when we got back to the hotel, we were both tired. After a short play session, Nikki just passed out on the bed with her shoes on and all! So I took a nap too, dreaming of kibble shower & prince charming... Then around 9:00pm, we decided to go to Downtown Disney with Joe & Jake just for fun, and maybe something to eat because humans hadn't eaten. It was a very nice walk from the hotel. I managed the jam-packed Downtown Disney like a champ! I'm pleased to say that Joe was impressed, and even Nikki was quite thankful for my awesome guide work!

 

Sunday after the whole event was done & we loaded up the cars with leftover stuff, Steve offered us a ride all the way to San Diego! WooHoo! It was absolutely nice not having to take a train back after a long day of work!