What a Week!

My week started and ended with snow. Last Sunday I was running and playing in the snow (surely you saw my post and the cute videos of yours truly). Now I just came in from my lunchtime walk and the snow was flying again. Mom and Dad says we are lucky cause the rest of the state is getting dumped on by the snow. We weren't supposed to get any so I am happy we are getting some since all of last week's snow is gone. It is very pretty coming down.

The in between part of the week was exciting. Unless you have been living under a rock, you probably know my mom was a finalist in the Shorty Awards. She tweets for @VaStateParks. In fact, she started their whole social media program which includes a blog that various staff post to, a Facebook page and the twitter account. She started doing it a year ago in December on top of the rest of her job. She is Operations Director which means she is in charge of a lot of things: budget, administrative and financial processes, the reservation center, volunteers, signs and some other marketing stuff. She works too much.

Thanks a LOT to anipal votes, she finished with the second highest votes in the government category. Mom has 8,000 followers for her Twitter account but we really brought in the votes! NASA got the most government votes. In our family we are saying since NASA is space, mom's Twitter account is #1 on the planet. Maybe mom should have been a politician since she sure knows how to spin. NASA won last year in the very first Shorty Awards. The final decision is with the Shorty Academy. Some really interesting people there like famous people like MC Hammer and Alyssa Milano and tech people like the men who started Wikipedia and Craig's List and the woman who helped start Flickr.

@FrugalDougal and @BrewskieButt's mom @BZTAT did well in the votes too so we are just waiting for the decision of the Academy. They also had "Crowdsource" categories. Our own @ZackRabbit won the Awesome category. Mom happened to meet the #2 guy in the Awesome category Thursday night. While the #shortypawpawty was going on there was a real pawty in Richmond, Virginia to honor the 5 RVA Shorty Finalists. Also, @obiweinerkanobi was #2 in the dogs category. If you don't follow Obi you should. He does great puns on Fridays. My favorite category was BACON. I was confused because only the person in the #6 vote spot actually seemed to have anything to do with BACON. Two of mom's friends won their regular categories. @LewisGinter (a wonderful botanical garden) won the votes in the Cultural Institution category and @Flack4Ric, our Richmond airport, won the #travel votes. But just like Team Anipal, we all have to wait for the decision of the Academy. The Awards will be presented on March 3rd in New York City.

While this was certainly exciting, next Friday I get to go with mom and dad to one of mom's parks for a week vacation. They are going to Chippokes Plantation State Park. Last time I went I ate the bedspread but that was last year and I am no longer a puppy so I will be good. We are staying in their newly remodeled cabin. I know February seems like an odd time for a vacation in a park in Virginia but mom and dad like to go to celebrate Valentine's Day. They have a romantic story of how they met. Apparently before everybody used the internet to find dates, they used to advertise in the newspaper and mom wrote her first letter to dad on Valentine's Day. I love a good love story. Mom will probably be working extra this week to get ahead of her work so she can enjoy the time off. Cell service is iffy at the park so we are not sure we will be able to tweet much. But that also means mom won't be able to sneak working on her job.

This is a picture of the cabin we will be staying in.
The picture is from November so all of the cotton has been picked now.

This is one of the inside shots of the cabin