Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Family and Summer Fun

Two posts in the same month, that's a pretty good record for me. It's summer time in the North, a very busy time for Minnesotans.

Knitting

I haven't spent the time knitting that I would like to. I've made a bit of progress on my Cameo sweater. I only need to knit 12 rows of the ribbing, the small, capped sleeves and the button and neck band. "Just" those few things and I'm done! This is a very nice knit, perhaps a little boring. I'm going to finish it though, I swear I am, before I start several other interesting projects calling me.



Family

My sister, who lives in Kentucky, came home for a visit in July. We had such a nice time together. Not only did we walk the entire Mall Of America one day, we then crossed the street to walk all of IKEA. That's a lot of walking. I think I'm still recovering. The weekend my sister returned home, she won the Ladies Race at Kentucky Lake. Here is a picture of my sister and her beautiful boat. She's the one in the back, steering. Well, I think it is called steering, I'm not much of sailor. I do know she's the only race participant who recruits an all lady crew for the Ladies Race so it's great they won this year!



We had several nice family gathering while my sister was home. My mom made popovers one night. Aren't they the prettiest? I love popovers.




Dogs

The dogs and I have been having a blast this summer. We've suffered the ups and downs of agility. Here is Dot who has definitely been on the up.



Dot finished her OA, OAJ, AX and AXJ titles this year despite a forced 6 weeks off any training or participating in March and April for foot surgery. At 8.5 years old, it goes without saying I'm pretty proud of her. I'm not sure what's up next for Dot. You can be certain she's not ready to settle on being a couch potato. Dot's still looking for fun and I hope to provide it for her.

Meanwhile, JJ, the love of my life, the happiest dog in the whole wide world, is showing me the down side of agility.



JJ has more fun and is faster in agility than any of my other dogs. Still, JJ can't keep the jump bars up. Both Dot and Whisper have come and gone through Novice, Open, Excellent A and in to Excellent B and yet there is my JJ, still hanging out in the Open Jumpers Class. It isn't that he doesn't love agility, it isn't that he doesn't have tons of potential, it's just that JJ says, "Bars? I don't care about no stinking bars, I just want to run fast and have fun and those bars are in my way". Very.Big.Sigh.

I swear, if JJ could speak English his first two words would be "Dudes, hey"! Still, what a handsome, happy dog. His registered name includes "Jump For Joy" and I sure got the Joy part of it right...even if I did miss the Jump part!

By the way, these agility photos were taken by and purchased from Great Dane Photos. I have no affiliation, other than think they take the greatest action shots and I have spent far too much money there.

Hope you are having a great summer!

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Saturday, July 04, 2009

Happy 4th Of July!

Friday, July 03, 2009

Doe In The Headlights



This lovely doe eating out of the bird bath bird feeder was the first thing I saw this morning. I stood and watched her for the longest time, then finally woke up enough to go looking for my camera. The doe was walking away by the time I came back to the window with my camera. I thought I had missed her.



But I hadn't. Percy, who had been outside overnight, came walking down the driveway to have his own look at the doe who in turn was intensely curious about Percy. She started following Percy around the yard.



Here she is giving Percy a good look over.



Percy's sitting in one of his favorite places. He's a little hard to see in the picture.



A fun way to start my three day weekend. Hope you have a great Independence Day holiday!

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