Here Comes 2011!

The dogs and I have matching toe nails for New Year's Eve!!

As I'm reading through others' blogs, I have realized that it really is that time of year to reassess the goals you set for the current year and make goals for the upcoming one. I've loved reading over every one's posts on these topics and now it's time for my own.:)

I started by looking back on my post from last year. I have to admit that part of it gave me a chuckle! I also realized that Heffner was in the beginning phase of recovering from his iliopsoas strain. I'm glad that's over with! In a nut shell, we're sitting in a better position going into 2011 than we were last year. That boosts my spirits! Here's my reassessment of this past year, broken down by dog:

Heffner

*Had an iliopsoas muscle strain that required a very slow and quiet recovery period that made forming goals for him difficult because I didn't know for sure how long it was going to take for him to be fully recovered enough that I could start getting him back into shape, let along trialing. We were also dealing with a fair bit of stress related behaviors in agility at trials that made my hopes for him in agility for the year fairly low. He also wasn't as enthusiastic about obedience, which helped lead me to my conclusion that I didn't want to trial him in traditional obedience. That combined with his dislike for most intact males. He also developed an allergy to chicken over the summer which saw him in the vets getting subcutaneous fluids and meds to get him over the bout of diarrhea that he had as a result. After much playing around with food, we figured out that it was chicken that he was allergic to and thankfully not irritable bowel disease.

*Agility - After nine months off from trialing in agility, his first trial back was still disappointing. He was still pretty stressed in the ring, though I did see a small inkling of it getting better. After a summer off, he seemed to get his stress levels better under control and I think I was also dealing with them a lot better. He did a total 180 and was putting in runs that actually almost brought me to tears. He surpassed any goals that I could have had for him and finished all of his AKC novice titles and even moved up into Excellent A in Standard. In CPE he finished off his Level 1 title and made a significant dent into his Level 2 title, while also moving into Level 3 in a couple of classes. Overall, a much changed dog, and we now have fun in the competition ring and not just practicing!

*Rally - Again, due in part to his injury, I didn't know what goals to set for him in rally. We lost a few months worth of practicing when we were just getting started. Thankfully since rally isn't as hard on the body as agility is, he was able to come back to that first. He got his RN and one leg towards his RA title. At the trial in Oct. he showed a significant amount of stress in the ring, which has made me reassess what my goals for him in rally are.

*Obedience - I actually had him entered in the Northern California specialty because he was coming along so nicely in our lessons (that was another change from 2009, we started taking obedience lessons from a separate instructor from our agility instructor and have benefited greatly from it). The distractions and environment proved to be too much for him at that time and while I showed him in rally (where he peed on a station sign and we got DQed), I pulled him from obedience. However, I've seen a glimmer of hope there and I plan on pursuing it.

Bess

*Conformation - Okay, this is where I chuckled. My goal for this year was to get Bess finished. Um yeah, that one failed miserably. We didn't pick up a single point this year. We did end up taking a few months off though due to her pneumonia and then her chest laceration. Regardless, we are still sitting at the 8 points with one major that we were at the end of last year.

*Agility - Bess had some focus issues last year while trialing. I knew that we had some work ahead of us and I set my expectations low for her. Little did I know that we were going to miss out on an entire summer of trialing due to her illness and injury. That set us back just a smidge and we didn't entirely reach our goal of being in Open in AKC agility. She still needs one more Novice Standard leg and one more Novice FAST leg. But overall, she has also made improvements in her trialing. With regards to CPE, she did finish her Level 1 title.

*Rally - Since we were just getting started, I didn't really now where to set my goals other than to just start trialing her. She did very well for herself and we are now working on the RAE title with two legs under her belt.

*Obedience - Private lessons have helped immensely! I also entered her in the Northern California specialty with unsure expectations of what I was going to get. I'm not entirely sure what went wrong, but she seemed to get very stressed in the ring, which resulted in me doing part of our off leash heeling without a dog at all. It was a very awakening experience. That was the only time we trialed in obedience because we had so much that I wanted to work on and much that I wanted to become a good habit.

*Skijoring - Racing was a disappointment because our snow levels sucked this past winter. BOTH of our races got cancelled and Bess didn't get to make her skijoring debut. I also mentioned in our goals that I was hoping to move her up to advanced skijoring depending on how she did at her first race. What I forgot about was that advanced skijoring requires two dogs. That would mean enlisting Heffner. While he'd be doable for two miles, I already know that he wouldn't be pleased doing six miles.

Here are my goals for 2011, broken down by dog:

Heffner

*Agility - It's always hard to say what the year will hold, but I would like for him to be competing at the Excellent level in AKC agility in all classes by the end of the year. As long as we're able to trial as much as I'm planning to, I am also setting the goal of him moving into Excellent B in Standard as well as JWW by the end of the year. FAST I don't really care that much about and will be used occasionally as a warm up class. For CPE, I'm pretty sure that we'll only be able to hit a few trials this year, so I will keep my expectations low. I just want him to finish his Level 2 title in its entirety. Overall, I want him to stay sound and I want to keep running the enjoyable boy that I've been running!

*Rally - I'm taking a step back with him in Rally. I need to get his stress level under control and that's going to take some tweaking and toying with. It will also mean trialing him selectively at locations that are lower stress. My goal for him this year is just to get those two remaining Advanced legs and get his RA title.

*Obedience - As long as he can hold his sit stay without sliding into a down and DQing us, I think we can actually pull off a qualifying score this year. I will still be watching stress levels, though he seems less stressed with obedience than he does with rally, which I find interesting. Our goal for the year is to get one qualifying leg towards his CD. I will also be very selectively trialing him, so one leg is a reasonable goal.

*Tracking - We're actually going to have time to do it this year! I'm going to be stopping the weekly agility classes in favor of periodical privates (it also makes things easier with my work schedule, since I usually have to leave a half hour early on those days). Now that we're renting barn time, I can actually practice on full equipment on my own. Anyhow, this frees up one evening a week, which will now be our tracking night. That along with weekend tracks should be good for us. My goal for both dogs is to get them certified for the TD level by the end of the year and to pick out our first tracking test date to apply for.

Bess

*Agility - Since we do have the whole year ahead of us and I'm not taking nine months off of agility again, my goals for Bess are higher. I want her to be competing at the Excellent level in AKC agility by the end of the year. I would also like to see her in Excellent B in both Standard and JWW. For CPE, just finishing her Level 2 title.

*Rally - She only needs 8 more legs towards her RAE and I know that we'll get them this year. My goal is for her to finish the RAE by summer. I think I'll continue to trial her in rally after that, but sparsely.

*Obedience - My goals are much loftier for Bessy in obedience this year. We're going to actually trial! I want to get her AKC CD by the end of the year and I'm also planning on trying out UKC obedience during the summer. With that in mind, I would also like to see her with a UKC CD by the end of the year.

*Conformation - Hmmmmm.....it's hard to set goals for conformation when the results are completely out of my control. She will show in AKC conformation as long as it doesn't interfere with agility and ONLY if we are also competing in performance events. I'm not going to have an entirely wasted weekend any more. I'm also being more selective about the judges that we show to. If they've dumped us once, we're not showing to them again. I don't need to keep wasting my money on a conclusion that I am 99% sure of. I think this year will be the telling year as to whether or not Bess continues in AKC conformation. I would like to try her out in UKC conformation.

*Skijoring - We should actually have races this year! Her first race is next weekend! I'll be keeping her in the recreational skijoring division indefinitely.

*Tracking - See the part in Heffner's goals above.

Other

*I had made the goal of one scrapbooking day a month last year and that went by the way side pretty quickly. I'm planning on picking that back up, but with a better plan in place. Part of my problem with the scrapbooking is finding the time to do it with everything else. We're going to reorganize our spare bedroom and pick up some card tables so that I can have everything set up so that all I have to do is sit down and I can pick up wherever I left off! Such a genius idea! And it was actually Adam's idea!

*Photography - I've got some photography books that I need to do some reading up on and I plan on toying around more with my camera. I haven't decided if I'm going to go back to doing the 52 weeks for dogs or not yet. I fell off the wagon about half way through the year there. My dog of choice this year would be Bess and she's a lot harder to photograph. So it would be a challenge, but I'm not entirely sure that I want to add one more little thing to my plate. We'll see! But I do want to continue to learn more about photography and possibly get a better camera.

And I think that wraps things up for us here! I hope that everyone has a safe and wonderful New Year's Eve!

Christmas Catch Up (LONG)

Phew! Christmas has come and gone and I managed to have less time than I expected, but everything turned out very well! I hope that every one's holiday weekend was lots of fun and you all got to take some time for yourselves. I've got a fair bit of pictures and odds and ends to catch up on. So here goes!


Christmas Eve morning I got up early to take the dogs for a hike. I figured that a nice long hike combined with the nice long romp in the snow the day before should be enough to keep them happy and fairly mellow through Christmas day, where they would have a decided lack of outings. I am happy to say that it did! We stayed fairly local and hit up one of our fave new logging roads that we found. This road has plenty of little off shoot "trails" that I'm looking forward to exploring this winter. We were out for about three hours and I did a little over six miles. And once again, who knows how many more miles the dogs clocked in, with Bess putting in the most. The "trail" that we chose had some good climbing sections, so we were feeling the burn for part of it.

There were lots of great views that made for a breath taking morning.


We were high enough up that there were some interesting effects from a combination of really low lying clouds and fog. I told Bess that it was steam coming from the mouth of a monster that ate naughty little dogs who took off chasing deer. She wasn't phased. And yes, we did see deer and the dogs did give chase, with Bess being the most staunch follower.
After our hike I popped in A Christmas Story and wrapped all my presents. I have no idea why, but I really dislike wrapping presents. I enjoy buying gifts for people, but i hate figuring out how to disguise them. I have been known to deliver gifts in the bag in which I bought them. Yes, I'm sometimes that bad. Usually only to good friends who are understanding or family members because they're blood and have to put up with it.;o) Regardless, I put off my wrapping until the last minute. After that it was time to clean myself up, feed the pooches, and begin the Christmas Eve chaos!

We started the night at one of Adam's aunt and uncle's houses. They were hosting the giant extended family gathering. There's lots of food, lots of family, and lots of presents. I really enjoy the majority of the gathering. Everyone has a great time. The only problem is the present unwrapping part. I believe that shortest amount of time that it has taken to get through it all that I've been there for is three hours. I'm not exaggerating even a little bit. And I think that was short only because we had to cut out early because we still had to head down to my parents' who are over an hour away. The present opening is a very involved process. In part because there are a lot of people. The other part has probably to do with process itself. The presents get opening in order of age starting with the oldest. For each round, each person may only open one present at a time. We all draw names ahead of time, so it's not like we have to buy presents for everyone, but generally everyone has more than one present to open. It usually takes over an hour to make it through the first round. And it's understandable since the person buying the gift obviously wants to see the person opening their present. Understandable. But the length of time that it takes to open presents has gotten out of control. I would rather spend more time visiting with people and just chilling than sitting uncomfortably packed into an area for several hours, while waiting my turn. Thankfully we always head down to my parents' afterwards, so we usually cut out early because we don't want to arrive at my parents' after midnight or later.

So, we cut out early again this year because we were originally trying to make it to my parents' for my family's little Christmas Eve tradition. That was a no-go. It took too long. And we came home to a little bit of diarrhea in the house that needed cleaning up. Once we got the dogs loaded up we were on our way!

I think I've mentioned it before, but Heffner at least doesn't always sleep terribly well in places that aren't home. At my parents' especially he seems to be more "alert." Probably because every time we spend the night there it's because we're doing something exciting the next day. Also unfortunately, Adam is a really light sleeper. To the point where he can't handle sleeping in the same room as the dogs. So he slept in my sister's bedroom (she had to work all night) and I slept in the spare bedroom, on the floor with the dogs. Heffner enjoyed this immensely because he could get up during the night and lick my face or just plain dangle his lips over my unsuspecting self. It's a good thing he's cute! While trying to get him to lay back down on his bed, he usually decided that I was actually trying to get him to high five me. So there was a lot of pawing involved as well. The end result? I didn't get a whole lot of sleep that night. But it's Christmas Eve and I usually don't sleep well that night any way.;o)

When we got up in the morning, we had a leisurely time of opening stockings, eating breakfast, and then opening presents. Bess promptly took over my sleeping bag once I got up. We thought she looked pretty cute and Adam put a blanket over her and tucked her in. Much more cute in real life than in the picture!
Our entire Christmas day was quite full. We had my family's Christmas morning. Then we loaded everything up and headed to the house of some very good friend's of ours for Christmas breakfast part 2. That was kind of a last minute addition and we had exchanged presents earlier. They had more delicious food and we enjoyed just hanging out and chatting. Then we headed home to drop off the dogs and the loot thus far. Once the dogs got their breakfast, they were pretty happy to just pass out and get the sleep that they had mostly missed out on that night. From there we headed to Adam's parents', who thankfully only live about a mile from us (and for those of you who shudder at the thought of having in-laws that close, I am very happy to say that they're good in-laws and it works out very well). We had a lovely Christmas breakfast part 3 with some more present opening. Phew! By the time we wrapped up all of that, I think it was about 2:30pm. Which gave us just enough time to go home and get cleaned up for Christmas dinner at my aunt and uncle's!


It was a very full day, but I was really happy to be able to see everyone and it made the day that much more special. One of my cousins deployed today, so it was especially nice to see him before he left.

And if you're wondering if Santa was good to me this year, he most definitely was! Hubby scored some serious bonus points on his gift. He got me jewelry. But not just any jewelry. He got me the kind of jewelry that makes my heart go pitter pat.:)
I was really excited because the pendant and pin that he got me just happened to match the pair of earrings that I bought at last year's national specialty!!

After all the chaos and excitement of Christmas Eve and Christmas day, we were pretty much spent on Sunday. We slept in and just basically bummed around the house. The dogs had been so worn out by all the exercise and comings and goings that they weren't even being obnoxious about not getting to go any where. They would get up and follow me to each room when I would move, but that was pretty much the extent of it. It was a nice lazy day!

They did get one special treat yesterday that they were very excited about. This year, when my dad went hunting he got an elk! I told him ahead of time that if he got anything I would take absolutely anything that he didn't want and I gave him a lengthy list of the parts that he might not think about that the dogs would love. Well, once they took it to the butchers to portion it out, we got a few bags of random hunks of elk meet and lots of BONES! I had pulled out two of the big bones to thaw so that the dogs could dig into them. They'd been sitting in the freezer for about a month and a half to freeze off anything that the elk might have that wouldn't be good for the dogs (I did a little reading on that since I wasn't entirely sure what to do with wild raw game). The dogs were pretty excited about their bones.:)



The blankets are there so that they don't make a bloody mess of the carpet. Clean up is so much easier when all I have to do is throw the blankets in the wash!

And to end our lovely weekend, we got up early and met up with my dad for a little playing in the snow! The conditions were great with new snow on the ground and even more snow gently falling while we hiked around. And because I've already been quite wordy and still have quite a few pictures to share, I'm going to leave you with some of the pictures from today.:)











P.S. Remi's mom, the boots that Bess has on are from Dog Booties.com. They hold up really well! I've mentioned a few different booties that I've tried with them in this post. The Ultra Paws boots are the ones that Heffner is wearing and they are also holding up really well.

Snow Day!

Thankfully we didn't have snow at the house. While an inch or two is great, the whole city tends to shut down. I think I've come to the realization that it's far more conducive to myself and the dogs for us to have to drive somewhere to get our snow fix. And that's just what we did! Now that my truck is in fine running order, we headed up to Mt. Hood to play in the snow. I brought both my cross country skis as well as my snowshoes because I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to find. After the disaster that was last winter, I come prepared for all circumstances.;o) Thankfully we are having some good snow fall at the 4,000 foot level, so I got to hit my skis! I decided to try the dogs out for a little skijoring run. I realized that Bess and I have our first race two weeks from Saturday, and it would be good to get some actual time in actually skijoring! I snapped some pictures and took a little video while we were out. I still need to put the video together, so that will come later. Here are the pictures:

What you can't tell from the pictures (but is evident in the video) is that Bess, my normally more than eager to whip me around dog, was not really into it. It actually got to a point where Heffner was doing all the work. Bess gradually started lagging behind to a point where, due to the neck line, Heffner was basically hauling me as well as Bess. She has NEVER been like that! I was shocked! Normally I hook the two of them together because Heffner will actually stop and has enough weight to basically force Bess to stop as well. This time around you would have thought that Heffner was my primary puller and Bess was the one who needed encouraging to move forward. Not sure what the heck was going on there. She just really wasn't her normal self today.

I have a feeling that it has to do with her going through a false pregnancy. Her falses are nothing compared to what they could be. Her teats get a little swollen and there are some minor behavioral changes. The weirdest of them that has been fully manifesting whenever we're out and about, is that she roots around the bases of trees. I'm not entirely sure why, but I think maybe it has something to do with making a nest/den for the pups? She does this every cycle. She goes about it with a mindless fervor that is something else to watch. But terribly annoying when she has booties on and she's digging in dirt and we are surrounded by trees for three hours. Once I let them both off leash (I tried having just her hooked up to me for a bit to see if maybe she'd perk up by herself, but no go), she started going after the trees. So generally Bess was acting off today. On the up side, we all got some great exercise! I did 7 miles in almost three hours and who knows how many miles the dogs racked up! Now on to the rest of the pictures!

Here's Heffner waiting for Bess to resurface from inside the tree so that he can pounce on her:



We found an ungroomed side trail where the snow was a little deep, but the dogs loved romping in the wonderful powder.

And here is a perfect example of Bess and her trees! I thought it was actually pretty cute the way that she was peering out. It made a perfect little house!

It seriously weirds me out when one of the dogs goes on alert and I can't hear or see anything! ARG! If they both do it, I usually preemptively grab their collars in case a deer or something is coming our way and I just don't know it yet.
And this cheeky little bugger followed us (at least I'm pretty sure it was him the whole time) for almost our whole trek! At one point he landed on the trail and Bess went running up to him only to come up short. They had a stare down and then Bess did something that I haven't seen her do when she comes across something to chase. She turned around and trotted back to me. That combined with Heffner not even wanting to chase after the crow gave me a creepy feeling.

The Little Things

Today for some reason, I am pondering the little things in life that occur and we often over look. The little things that make some experience unique. The little things that happen all the time around us that we just take for granted. The little things that mean so much and one day we'll miss terribly. I'm not really sure why I got so focused on this and why it's been occupying my mind for the past little bit. But I appreciate it either way.

Just a bit ago, I was sitting on the couch and Bess immediately came up and curled up against me. Not just a casual lying next to me to be near me. But a "I would crawl into your skin" to be nearer to you, kind of snuggle. She can be very intense about her snuggling. The moment was just perfect. She fits herself so perfectly into the fold of my legs. And she's just so happy and contented to be there. I usually have an arm lying on her. If I pick that arm up, she immediately raises her head and looks at me. I'm not sure why exactly, but I think that part of it is her craving every possible physical connection to me that she can get. Or maybe that's just me anthropomorphizing things. It's just one of those perfectly sweet moments where I just want to hug her closer. She's so soft and loving. And her affection is so complete. Those are the little moments with her that I treasure.

Shortly thereafter I changed positions and went into our office area. Bess lay down on one of the dog beds and Heffner picked up a chew toy. He has this habit of preferring to chew on his chew toys while they are some how on me. I'm sure many of you know what I'm talking about. If I pick it up and hold it for him to chew on, all the better! As I'm sitting on the floor reading a book, he drops the chew toy in my lap and looks down at it. All the loose skin on his face falling forward and big floppy ears hanging in a most adorable manner. That look in and of itself was priceless. So I picked up the chew toy and held it for him, knowing exactly what he wanted. Overly indulgent I may be at times, but I do enjoy these little moments that are particular to each dog. Heffner is so gentle while he's chewing on it. It's almost akin to a self soothing act that I'm a part of. Instead of sucking on something or idly chewing, he's brought me something that we can "both" interact with. Or at least that's how I like to look at it.;o)

Like I said, I don't know what it is that's got me pondering these little things and enjoying them more than I normally would, but these are the moments that make my relationship with my dogs all the more richer. They're special. They're unique. And in their own ways, they're very tender. These are the moments that are often impossible to capture in a picture or on video. The feelings going on at the time can't really be captured on either.

This time of year I think it's especially important for us to slow down in our busy hectic lives and catch those special moments, imprint them on our memories, and savor them as they're happening.

Pictures With Santa

Well, I've finally fallen off the wagon. I broke my lovely chain of Christmas pictures with the dogs on Sunday. It was a wonderfully lazy day and I just never got around to getting a picture of the dogs. My creative juices have run pretty low and I've only got one other planned shot with the dogs coming up. I do thankfully have the pictures of the dogs with Santa! I picked them up yesterday. Here they are!

I could have posted these pictures yesterday, but I was in a rather foul mood. It all centers around my truck. I took it into the shop to have the weird grinding noise looked at. It turns out that I had a bad wheel bearing and the whole wheel was actually loose. As in, if I had continued to drive on it, there was a chance that the wheel would have just come off. Yeah, not good. The unfortunate part of it all was that they didn't have the part in stock and were going to have to over night it. In the grand scheme of things, this was a very minor problem. They got me that day, figured out what the problem was, and were going to have my truck back to me by the afternoon of the next day. I really can't complain too much. Oh, but I'm going to any way.;o)

The part that sucked so much for me is that I'm taking the majority of this week off from work. I had grand plans of going on long hikes with the dogs every other day. And on the days that we weren't hiking, we were going to be on the mountain. Specifically today was supposed to be a mountain day. That obviously didn't work out. I got the biggest rental car that they had, which was a Rav4. Technically in an emergency I'm sure that I could get both dogs in there. But not ideal. And it was a rental. And it was spotlessly clean. No amount of time with my dogs inside of it was going to leave it in the same condition that I got it in. Therefore, no hiking yesterday and certainly no mountain time today. So I was annoyed that I had two "wasted" vacation days.

The upside though is that I didn't drive my truck until the wheel literally fell off. And I did get two days of being a lazy bum and had a good excuse for it. But I tell ya, taking the dogs for a run last night was unpleasant! Especially since my preferred way of exercising them involves them being off leash so that we can all be happy moving at our preferred speeds. Yes, they were in fine form last night. They both wanted to run like the dickens. Bess was ready to go tearing off after anything that moved, regardless of the fact that she was ripping my arm out of it's socket in the process. Squirrels were in abundance. Heffner was posturing at anything in the distance that could possibly be another dog. And they both had the insane need to hurry up and first catch, then pass anything that was moving ahead of us. Needless to say, I got a heck of a work out!

Christmas Movie Marathon 2010

Happy December 18th!! Today is our annual Christmas Movie Marathon and we've been having a wonderful time vegging out with Christmas movies and good food. Bess has been a snuggle beast for most of the day. Mooching off of whomever happens to be on the couch that she decides to commandeer.;o) I have enjoyed spending the whole day in my pajamas!
We're currently on our last movie of the day, The Santa Clause, but I'm taking a little break to update some stuff. That way I can just hit the sack when the movie is over with. I gotta tell ya, laying around in your pajamas watching movies all day is exhausting!;o) That and I made the coffee waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay strong this morning (after over filling the coffee pot with water and then cleaning up the ensuing mess), and have been jacked up on that for most of the day. A little caffeine goes a long way!

The original plan for tomorrow was to hit the mountain and get some fun in the snow in. However, I'm starting to have some weird noises coming from truck, so I think I'm going to stick closer to home and do a hike with the dogs and then see about getting the truck in for a look-see. I hope everyone's weekend before Christmas is off to a great start!

Ornaments!

Happy December 17th!! Today's post is all about the looooooooooooooovely ornaments that Tiffany made for us! As soon as she started to post pictures of the Christmas ornaments that she had been commissioned to do, I knew that I had to have some for the dogs.:) They came in the mail today and I was so excited! Here they are:

And the dogs posing with their wonderful, custom ornaments!

Tonight we met up with some friends and saw Tron Legacy in 3D. I was looking forward to seeing the movie even though I'm not a super huge fan of the original. I definitely enjoyed it!

Tomorrow's task? Christmas Movie Marathon 2010!:) That's right. A whole freaking day of watching nothing but Christmas movies. Here's this year's line up:


George Balanchine's The Nutcracker
Claymation Christmas
The Year Without a Santa Claus
Santa Claus is Comin' To Town
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Frosty the Snowman
Frosty's Winter Wonderland
A Charlie Brown Christmas
A Garfield Christmas
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Classic Holiday Stories
The Happy Elf
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Elf
The Santa Claus

I'm super excited! But I better head off so that I can finish getting things ready for tomorrow.:)

The Santa Sack!

Happy December 16th!! The lovely giant Santa sack that I am "hiding" in is an item that we happily won in a raffle in October. It is seriously HUGE!
My original grand plan was to put one of the dogs in the sack and try to pose them in some sort of cute manner. Or just a picture of each dog in the sack. It was one of those ideas that sounded good on paper, but the actual logistics of getting either of my dogs into the sack was a whole different story. Needless to say, it just wasn't happening. Adam thought that maybe a picture with the dogs sniffing (more like bombarding!) at me inside the sack would work. That, again, sounded good until we actually tried it. The shot would have been all dogs and very little sack. And me trying to breathe through the material and the suffocating lips! On to take three! Have the dogs sitting on either side of the sack and call it good. And that's where we ended up.:)
Tonight's get together of my bunco group went well for those who showed up. Unfortunately we had several people who last week said they were coming that just didn't show up tonight. One person texted because they were running late, but ended up not being able to make it. In all, a whopping three people showed up. For those who came, we enjoyed ourselves. If I had known that so few people were going to make it, I wouldn't have stressed so much today about getting together food and drinks for the intended amount of people. On the up side, I was able to get a run in with the dogs.:)