All three of the boys were in the cat tree this afternoon, enjoying the sunbeam.

Dash helped me make costumes today. He likes sewing. For Halloween he is going to be a Black Panther -- the Oakland kind, not the jungle kind. Because The Man won't let him outside. (Because he's an indoor cat).

He's about to lose this box from the scaffolding. It's been a beloved play area for months, and he will be sad to see it go. But there will be other boxes.

The earthquake woke them up.

It's been extra hot the last few days.

The animals are blossoming.

Just a little under the chin and some nibbling around the ears.

Dash put up with it like a man.

Even when the licking moved to his chest and paws.

Well, maybe not the paws so much.

Mr Kitty was enjoying the sunbeam on the low cat tree.

It's a very hard life.

People are always surprised to discover that our dogs love to eat fava beans (pods and all). My answer is that yes, they are purebred Labs.

Dash got up and started to walk towards me, but the power of the nap was too great.

The girls took the opportunity to do some dog-beach romping.

We went to Ocean Beach's dog beach, at the end of Voltaire St. This is where we went the last time we visited San Diego, before we got Goldie.

Rosie loves to lie down right in the surf.

After a long day in the car driving down the state, even Goldie was a little crazy in the water.

Nothing like a nice cool dip in the ocean.

For the first ten minutes we were there, there was a lot of running around in the water.

Rosie had an embarrassing moment when she was rolling in the sand and a big wave came in and got her.

After she shook herself off, she moved to a more secure location to finish her roll.

The end result was one happy, sandy doggie.

We could tell we had older dogs now (they turned nine in the fall), because it wasn't long before they were tired and ready to go home.

But they had a surprise in store. On the way back to the car, we stopped by the Dog Beach Dog Wash just down Voltaire St. to get cleaned up.

The dog wash is super-nice. You pay $12 per dog, which includes the tub, aprons, some basic shampoo, and towels, then you can pay a little extra if you want premium shampoo or conditioner. We did standard shampoo, then upgraded Rosie with conditioner to bring out the curl in her fur.

It's a nice way to end a trip to the beach, especially when you have a dog who likes to swim, and even more especially when you have a dog who likes to roll in the sand.

Usually, it would be Dash up there with Mr Kitty, but sometimes he snuggles with Dot, too.

Dot really likes to help with home improvement projects. She loves being held in one arm while you work with the other, as inconvenient as that may be.

Dash is wilder, as he always has been. Doesn't like being picked up. But he does like pouncing, and any decent construction site has good pouncing potential.

It's pretty typical for the little ones to be wrapped around each other (they usually wrestle a little before falling asleep), with Mr. Kitty playing big brother.

I've never had kittens this young before, so I was not aware of how much they sleep (a lot). This is about as active as 2pm gets in this household.

And, well, we came home with two kittens, because we found one who was perfect for Schwa and the other one was just adorable in her own right.

That's Dot on top, Dash on the bottom.

Dot is Dot because she has this cute little chest blaze:

Dash is Dash because he never sits still:

(That's the two of them wrestling.)

Now the re-catting of the household is over, thank you very much. I believe we are at twice as many cats as I originally planned on ending up with.

Goldie's not too clear on what exactly a tramp stamp is, but she's trying.