in which the Golden Girls Receive a Special Package

Look, Piper! You got a package from Gypsy, Greta, and Hattie in Mississippi!

Mmmmm, that smells good, better check it out.

Sipsey, of course, needed to see what all the fuss was about.

Red Christmasy Dog Treats?!!?!?!?!?!?!

Delicious green Christmas Stars?!?!?!?!

Gigantic Milk Bones, too?!?!??!?!

Thank you for our delicious treats, Neal Girls!

sometimes I'm jealous of my dogs

This past weekend we traveled to Mississippi to visit some friends. Just the golden girls and me. And we had such a great time. I've always been so inspired by new landscapes, and Mississippi was no exception. I haven't even begun to edit all the photos I took of the river, the delta, the gorgeous fields, etc., but I did spend some time with these photos I took of all the goldens. They have the most awesome life.

We took the dogs swimming at Lake Sardis. Jimmie & Cindy have a black lab, Gypsy, and a golden, Greta. In May of this year, Greta gave birth to her first litter. Hattie was breeched, and Jimmie ended up delivering her, so she decided to stay.


Greta and Sipsey could be twins. They first met 35 dog years ago, and have very similar temperaments. I love this moment I captured of the two of them:


I'll share more scenic shots later, I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Can I See Some ID?

I think it's time for an Intervention.

Altamont

An abandoned dog has found the most loving of homes. I am so excited that I got to meet her on her first day with her new family.

Our Iowa Minimoon

After the wedding, neither Dirk nor I had either the time off from work or the funds to go on a honeymoon, so we decided to take a big trip on or around our one-year anniversary, and go on a series of "mini"moons, Atlanta in July being the first, and Iowa, this past week, being the second. Who knows what's to come?

We left at seven o'clock at night and drove straight through. I only puked once. And if you know me and the sensitivity of my gag reflux, you are not surprised. All I have to say is that I will never again drink a 5-hour energy drink at 3:30 a.m. on an empty stomach. Lesson learned. We knew we had gotten into Iowa when we got stuck behind this:After being on the road 17+ hours, we were both screaming our heads off trying to pass this guy.

But then we made it to the farm and it was BEAUTIFUL! I know that all of you Iowans are sick of rain right about now, but look how green and lush everything is!

The farm is pretty much summer camp for Golden Retrievers. Seriously. We'd look outside the kitchen window and see two doggy butts rounding the bins on their way for a dip in the lake.

I think we probably drank 86 Fat Tire (IN CANS!) We even brought back a couple of cases in the U-Haul.

There was a street dance in Galva on Mama and Daddy's anniversary, so we made an appearance and boogeyed a bit. Dirk loves "going out" in Galva. We had to drag him away from all of his newfound friends. Seriously. I don't think it would be hard to turn him into an Iowa boy, he's always talking about moving up there. Hmmmm.

Piper became a bona fide farm dog. She was outside except for night-time sleeping. She'd run down to the pond, swim around, roll in the grass, chase birds, you know, dog stuff. At one point Dirk turned to me and said, "She's not our dog anymore. She's the farm's."

This is where we'd catch her taking naps.

Sipsey loved to swim in the pond, but she's such a titty baby she did not want to be away from us. Except on the last night when she'd kind of had it and wanted to be inside by herself while we all sat on the deck and relaxed. Then we found her asleep on Mama's loveseat, the sneaky B.

All in all, it was a super relaxing time. Not once did I log onto the Internet, and I only turned my cell phone on once. I didn't miss the internet time, but I did miss playing games on my phone. Sad, huh? I did, however, finish "Water for Elephants", a book I cannot seem to shake, no matter how hard I try. It was amazing. Tremendous. An absolutely beautifully told story. Read it!

Dirk drove a tractor. And compared the experience to being on "Son in Law"

We love the farm!

And sitting on Mama and Daddy's deck!

And then we slept all the way home.

Happy Birthday Sipsey

I'm a little late on this one, but I'm sure Sipsey doesn't mind. She turned FOUR YEARS OLD on June 7th. Usually it's a tradition to drive the birthday girl through McDonald's and get her a Happy Meal as a birthday feast, but our Sipsey is currently on a diet. She's gotten right portly, this one. So Dirk grilled her a miniature lean ground meat burger instead.

Doesn't she look thrilled?
Piper wasn't feeling the birthday mood, either. No idea why.

Here's a video of Sipsey and my second doggy love Otis (second after Shadow). Otis tried his hardest to keep up with Puppy Sips when she first visited the farm. Big O was pretty old at this point, and Sipsey was about five months. I miss him.

adaptation

One of the reasons why Golden Retrievers as a breed appealed to me almost four years ago when I decided to adopt a dog is because everyone (in the books I read) raved about what an easily adaptable breed they were. And they were right, for the most part, but they should have added an addendum. The Golden Retriever (in my humble experience) is very easily adaptable in it's first two years. There. I said it.

The move from 800 square foot apartment to three-bedroom house with fenced yard and doggy door was a breeze for Sipsey. Sure, she missed the proximity to the dog park, but all said in done, there were no major personality changes when moving from apartment to single story house. Then we moved from single story to three-story house and Sipsey has turned into a diva.

As exhibited by the look on her face here.These days she only has one expression, and that is "sullen." No smiles. Just grumbles. We thought that the floor-to-ceiling windows would excite her, since she would spend her days at the other house sitting in a chair with her chin propped on the window sill. Now she just stairs wistfully out the window.

Piper, on the other hand, is within the two-year age limit for adaptability, and is having a party from morning 'til night. New smells, new yard, new creatures to bark at (we have rabbits and squirrels and even a couple of cats lurking around the property.) She has turned into independent Call of the Wild dog who will take off and look back at you like, "What? I don't belong to you." This has been a problem that I fear nothing short of an electric fence or a shock collar will alleviate. But at least she's happy.
And she can now fit Sipsey's entire head in her mouth. Maybe this is why Sipsey has turned into a grumpy old B-word?!

The Roadtrip

Okay, so we've been home a week now and things have settled into a routine enough for me to go ahead and post about the rest of our super fun summer vacation.

I like to title this one "Are We There Yet?" The pups did GREAT on the trip. They were super great at staying close by at all the rest areas and aside from some elevation sickness (experienced by the humans, too) they were wonderful. So yeah, the dogs (and we) survived a total of over 60 hours in the car and two different hotel rooms. Traveling with them was interesting because we had to discover the area we stayed in a much different way. Instead of being concerned about where we were going to eat (I take after my mother in that regard), we were more intent on finding places to run the crap out of the dogs. We found some great lakes, parks, rivers, etc., and the girls even got to walk around downtown Denver for a couple of hours one night.

We took a family photo in every state we went through (on the way out to CO, at least.) I was super glad I remembered to bring my tripod! Here is our Tennessee shot:

And our Oklahoma shot (it rained the entire way through OK!)

Mississippi

Oh, Kansas. I think it is a lovely place, by the way, and gets a bad rap because it shares a border with a state boasting snow-capped mountain peaks. If it weren't SO STINKIN LONG it would make driving through it much more tolerable.

Colorado

And last, but not least, Arkansas. We became very familiar with different states' rest areas on this road trip and I have to say, I really think Arkansas wins. For now, at least.

More posts and photos on our time spent in Fort Collins and Denver to come, friends!

nada

So here's a weekly random post from me, just to let you know all the mundane details of my super boring life. Ha. I'm being kind of sarcastic because I'm getting ready to leave town for two weeks on a couple of different adventures.

I took the dogs to Lake Purdy one morning to let them frolick around in the water. This was partly because Miss Piper (a.k.a. Devil Puppy Dog) had just rolled around in the mudpit that is our backyard after it rains and proceeded to run laps around the house and jump up on every piece of furniture. On a day in which I was having company over for hors d'ouevres and cocktails. How sweet of her, right? So rather than bathing her and getting myself nasty, I let her swim it off in Birmingham's water source. Those signs that say "No Swimming" are for people, right? Because I'm pretty sure my dogs can't read. I mean, they can't even see colors.

We also took a hike at Ruffner one day. I hadn't been there for a couple of weeks and remind me not to go back 'til September. It was super overgrown with tons of skeeters and ticks and I must have walked through eleventy billion spider webs. I'm not joking. But it did give me a chance to play with my new 24mm f/2.8 camera lens and practice a technique Chap introduced me to called hyperfocal focusing. Super cool and fun and one that I will be utilizing and working on in the next couple of weeks.

This photo clearly exhibits the attitude this "puppy" possesses. I put puppy in quotations because she's now larger than Sipsey and she's not even 8 months old. We've had a trying time with her recently. Aside from the art books, I came home the other night and she'd shredded my yoga mat, as well. I'm trying not to think too much into it, but it is kind of odd that she only ripped out the religious masterpieces pages of the books and now she shreds a matt that is used to practice yoga, a hindu philosophy. She's obviously not buddhist or she wouldn't be destroying anything. Maybe she's Muslim?

My sweet damen friend Lorrie is leaving Birmingham for Baton Rouge and was kind enough to donate a few of her amazing pieces of furniture to This Young House. This is a mahogany bookshelf/cabinet that now graces our entryway and contains my vintage camera collection and all of my favorite books (behind doors Piper can not open where they will hopefully be safe (knock on wood.) She also gave us an amazing desk and a mint plant, which I'm super excited about. Now I just need a muddler and some rum and I'll have you all over for mojitos. Well, maybe not all of you or even most of you, but I'll toast you as I'm sucking back.

I wanted to test this lens' versatility by trying to take some upclose shots, and I'm pretty pleased with the results. I found this littler heart on one of my hiking excursions.

Granddaddy and I had our weekly lunch today at the Garden Cafe at Birmingham's Botanical Gardens. And since I'd had a bad morning and lost my $#!& at Southeastern Salvage, or as Granddaddy put it, "I had a Meg Blackwell Young moment," we had some wine. The look on my Grandfather's face is him checking out our waitress. He's been on a bit of a flirting spree lately, which is only enhanced by the chardonnay.

Finally, this is Emma. She belongs to our dear friends Aimee and Jorge and is the reason why Aimee and I are friends in the first place. Emma and Sipsey are the same age, and when we lived in our little one bedroom apartment, Aimee lived close by and we would see each other at hte park EVERY day. Emma and Sipsey fell in love with each other, and eventually Aimee and my friendship evolved past the dog park. Aimee's been studying in Guadalajara all summer and Jorge is flying down to spend a week with her at the beach. I cannot wait for my friend to be back in Birmingham! I've missed her so! Sipsey is super excited that Piper will have somebody else to bug and maybe she can get some peace and quiet for once.

There you have it.

Happy Fourth of July!

We were itching to get out of town over the Fourth, so jumped at the chance to join our friend/neighbor Bobby at his family's lake house near Clanton, AL (and yes, there were fresh Chilton County peaches!)

The dogs were in canine heaven, and Piper spent so much time swimming in the water she got "Dead Dog Tail," a condition common amongst retrievers who over exert themselves in water. It causes her tail to fall dead between her legs (like Otis' after the car accident,) and it was difficult keeping her out of the water 'til her wagging came back to life. Ha!


Lake Mitchell is gorgeous, and I'm learning more and more about Alabama "lakes" because they're really not lakes, they're dammed rivers. Lake Mitchell is technically a dammed section of the Coosa River, and a large part of it is a Nature Preserve and will never be developed. So it's absolutely gorgeous and peaceful and so scenic!


Bobby's family has had a home on the lake for a super long time, so it was fun getting the tour and hearing funny stories about people running into islands, towing boats, etc., etc. The lake has a bunch of little islets and secret coves where locals tie their boats together and float. We couldn't find a group to tie up with that wasn't flying the Confederate flag, so we just floated by ourselves for awhile.


Both of our dogs like to bobble, and will fight for the prime position on the raft. Which is kind of cute and makes for good photos, but I have scratches all over my arms from their efforts.


Finally, here are a few videos I shot:

The dogs fetching off the dock, this is right before Sipsey decided she'd rather go on a boat ride and jumped onto Bobby's neighbor's pontoon boat:


This is the fireworks show, which is put on by one of the wealthier families on the lake. He's apparently been in charge of the display for over a decade and has professional pyrotechnicians on site. Dirk begged me to put music over this video, because his commentary is kind of hilarious, but I really like the sound of the boat horns honking and the boom of the fireworks: