Category: Relaxation
Another lovely Oregon day
Yesterday Kris had the day off, so we slept in then had pancakes for breakfast. The forecast was for rain later in the day so we decided to head to River Front Park for a walk with the dogs before doing other stuff.
There were lots of people out enjoying the morning like we were. The park is located along the Willamette River at the base of the one bridge crossing the river from Salem to West Salem.
The park boasts a Carousel inside a building
as well as an outdoor amphitheatre,
some art and a dock for the Willamette Queen (that’s Willamette Dammit!).
The dogs really enjoyed the walk and being outside. I think the sun may be getting to their heads though….
After the walk we went to a Wine and Beer fest at the State Fairgrounds. Apparently out here, you have to buy tastes. 🙁 So we looked for deals, multiple tastes for a buck and even scored a couple free ones. The wine was good and we didn’t try a single Pinot Noir. 😉 Tried a nice Malbec and a new Tempranillo. I also bought a pizza stone from the Pampered Chef booth. 🙂
After an afternoon of boozing, we went back to the RV, had a frozen pizza made on the new stone and then went to see some belly dancers. It was a very entertaining show and it makes me want to take lessons. Maybe some day.
Today I’ve been doing laundry (almost done!) and I plan to go out to the Basket Slough Wildlife Refuge just down the road a ways and look at some birds.
Happy Holidays!!!
Happy Holidays from us to You!
May all your holiday wishes come true. May all your friends and family have good health and good cheer this season.
I wish you all the best for 2011!
Griffy Trip
Today started out pretty awesome! I had a Skype date with Kris and we talked for 2 hours where we could see each other. Kris was first in Scot’s truck using a wireless device thingy, which worked really well. It was pretty cool. Then when his laptop began to die, he drove to Starbucks to plug in and we finished our chat. 🙂
After that I met with Alicyn and her border collie, Jess. We tried experimenting with a game called Treibball. We used a small, hard, plastic ball at first and then we moved to a larger exercise ball. Jess did really well and both Alicyn and I learned a lot. Neither of us had tried anything like that before, so we both were experimenting and using Jess as a guinea pig. She did an awesome job and was very patient with us. 😀
Then I decided to take my dogs to Green Bluff out in Owen County. However the directions were not that great, so I ended up driving about 30 minutes longer than necessary and not only that but the roads were totally crap! I found it finally but it seemed a bit more rugged than I was really ready for today, so I decided to head to Griffy. I’m glad that I did, it was a lot of fun and I think the dogs enjoyed it too. Following are some examples.
Kota going out after the ball.
Swimming back with it.
Look Ma! I gots it!
The little guy hates to be wet. I didn’t have the heart to tell him he’d never get dry that way….
A whole pack of dogs meeting….
It’s the rare Tasha-shark….
Look at those nasty feet!!! The water level was down quite a bit so the “shallows” were actually the deep revealed. So instead of mixed up mud from dogs playing in the shallows, it was deep, nasty sediment that doesn’t get stirred up much.
Tasha come to say hello. I was petting just the top of her head because she was wet and dirty, lol.
Again, the rare Tasha-shark, with the even more rare, Kota-belly on shore.
Another Fun Weekend
This past weekend was another fun weekend for me. It was made more relaxing by knowing I would not have to worry about getting the mowing done before Monday.
My husband is in town and I canceled classes for this week so that I could spend as much time with him as possible. This means he can get the mowing done today, Monday.
On Saturday we headed down to the Borden/Floyds Knobs area of southern cheap jerseys Indiana Audio and hung out with some of my extended family. The Renn side of things had a reunion, one they do every year, at my Aunt’s house.
Kris and I headed down there with Kota and Tasha. We took the dogs so that we would not have to worry about the length of time we were gone from the house. They spent most of the day in crates in the van (parked in the shade) but they did get to go on a walk down to the “lake” with us. We had Kota do some swimming after a tennis ball cheap nfl jerseys and Tasha did her usual shallow water Weekend wading. After that we went to visit my grandfather, my dad’s father. He is looking really good for an almost 93 year old man. He even is still moving around on his own pretty well. It was so good to see him. The dogs hung out in the car, in the shade with all doors open again. Our dogs are such good pups at times.
After that we went to the River City Winery in New Albany, IN. My cousin, Mike is the head chef there, so we tasted wines and had delicious food. The dogs, again, hung out in the car with water, windows open and in the shade. We made sure that where we parked was in the shade for their comfort and luckily the spot was almost right in front of the winery so we could keep an wholesale nba jerseys eye on the van while we ate dinner. That was my biggest cheap nfl jerseys concern for the Buddy’s day, was whether we could find a spot that was shaded for them. We lucked out and I’m thankful for that.
On Sunday Kris and I had a leisurely morning at home and then we packed the dogs up again and drove to our friend’s parent’s place. They have a pond and we spent the day outside with the dogs running free. We started out at the pond but it began to rain, so we were sitting under some pine trees hoping it would blow over. However the rain just kept coming down and we were all soaked, so we headed back to the house until it did. It was amusing and we were drenched, but having fun.
Her parents have a great front porch where we all sat around talking. The dogs wandered in and out of the rain until it stopped. Weekend Then we went for a mushroom hike looking for chantarelle mushrooms for dinner before heading back to the pond for some mars swimming.
I think that the Bonchek’s have at least 4 or 5 dogs, so adding our two made 6 or 7 dogs, I think. Oh and Rob brought his dog, Buster too. Tasha and Kota like to swim and Kota would swim out to us to hang out in our laps while we floated in the pond. Tasha wasn’t too keen on sitting in our laps, so she would just swim around us, make sure we were all accounted for, and then swim back to shore. We’d just be talking and having fun, all of a sudden Tasha would swim by and then head off to shore again. It was great to see her enjoying herself and she swims so well too.
I even got her to climb up onto the floating dock with me. I jumped off into the water and she managed to jump off as well and keep her head out of the water. I managed to dump Kota at one point, which he did not appreciate. It was not on purpose and it was his fault for shifting the way he did. Poor little guy got submerged a bit and took off swimming for shore.
The funniest part was after dinner we were sitting on the made porch again and Tasha had put herself in the open door of the van. Apprently she was ready to head home. I found Kota sleeping in the “hay dog house” at one point that evening.
It was such a wonderful weekend and so much fun to be more relaxed in my time and expectations. Way more relaxing and fun than stressing about getting things done around the house and/or Support holding classes, etc.