Jack's balls

Now, now...mind out of the gutter please...

I thought it would be fun to share these few pictures of my big boy, Jack, playing and entertaining himself with his tennis balls. He is the funniest dog sometimes, and has come up with a game that he plays all by him self, over and over again. What he does is take a tennis ball, and lay at the edge of the pool with it. He has a specific spot that he always goes to. He paws at the ball, nudges it with his nose, rolls it around, until finally, it falls into the pool - right in front of the solar output, which is like a warm jet of water that goes into the pool from the solar heater. The jet output causes just enough current in the pool to slowly push the tennis ball across the pool to the other edge, where Jack is waiting, ever so patiently, to grab the ball, bounce it a couple of times to get the water out, and take it back to the edge where he started and do it all over again.

Glorious Sunrise!

I was up early this morning, and stepped out to see this beautiful sunrise. I'm not really a "morning" person, but with a sight like this, who couldn't appreciate the start of the new day. It offers the promise of warmth, new adventures, and renewed hope. Have a wonderful day!

Sandy

Ah, the beach....I love the beach! Sand, sun and fun, who can beat that?

Kona thorougly enjoyed his day at the beach today!

You may be having fun....

but Momma, we're bored.

I should've been born rich...

Remember, I said rich, not famous....I think I could handle being rich....living in a great big house, the luxury cars, flying first class, expensive vacations. I could do nice things with a great deal of money. Help feed homeless people, and homeless pets, heck, I do that now, without a great deal of money...but wouldn't it be fun to have enough money that you didn't have to worry about how much you spent?

I got a little taste of the good life today. I went on a "ship's inspection" with my travel agent friend, Lisa. We visited Royal Caribbean's Radiance of the Seas, toured the cabins, checked out all of the public areas, the theater, the dining rooms, bars, etc., and had a lovely lunch in one of the main dining rooms. Now, I've been on cruises before, sailing on many different lines, including Carnival, Norwegian, Holland America, and even Royal Caribbean, but never on a ship quite this nice before. It was HUGE, gorgeous, and had something for everyone - an adult only "solarium", a rock wall, a basket ball court, water slide, mini golf course, teen disco, kid gaming area, full blown casino, giant gym, and full service spa. Yes. Please. Sign me up. I could handle spending some quality time on this baby. In one of the "owner's suites" of course. All of the cabins we looked at today were nice, but the suites were spectacular! Oh, to have the money to book one of those! It. Would. Be. Awesome.

The ship was leaving this afternoon for a 14 day cruise to Hawaii. I wish I was on it... I could handle being rich...I really could.

My BIG Baby!

I took Kona to Puppy class last night. We had a few extra minutes before class started, so I walked him over to the scale to get a look at his weight. I got him on it, got him to sit still for a minute, and looked as the register said 75 lbs! WOW! He's 10 1/2 months old now, and 75 lbs! I think maybe instead of naming him Kona (after one of our favorite places in the whole world) we should have named him Chunk, or Pudge...or maybe Lump...He's such a great, sweet big boy!

I am honored!

The wonderful K & S of Dugan's Barkery gave me this adorable award. Thank you! Thank you!

The rules for this are as follows:

1. Put the logo on your blog.

2. Add a link to the person who awarded you.

3. Nominate at least seven other blogs.

4. Add links to those blogs on your blog.

5. Leave a message for your nominee on their blog.

But... I'm not going to follow the rules on this one, my little brain is tried, even though it's still pretty early here. I'm going to take a cue from my blogger friend Coffee Bean, and do what she did with one of the awards she recently received... So, I just want whoever reads this to consider themselves bequeathed with this award. Please let me know in the comments if you are taking it so I can go sneak a peek at your blog.

Everybody loves a clown...

Right? I mean they are so cute and fun and make you laugh, right?

Geez, I really gotta stay outta the Halloween stores....

Just a taste

...of what I've been doing the last couple of hours. Making "vault" doors, or "mausoleum" plaques, or whatever you want to call them. For the Halloween Party - the one that's been taking up 99% of my time and keeping me up at night. Making custom little stuff like this is very time consuming....but I think when everything comes together it's gonna ROCK! We've got about 20 of these so far...

Chunky Legs in Motion - Part Septynios (that's "7 "in Lithuanian)

A Pink Army.

A Herd of Pink.

Either way you look at it, there were a LOT of us out walking yesterday. It was the day of the official 3 Day "Expo" and they held a 10 mile training walk before the Expo started. They told people that wanted to go on the training walk to be there by 6:30am and be ready to start walking at 6:45am. Bear and I were there, with bells on. OK, not really bells, but we were there, on time, in our pink, with about a thousand other people.

Apparently the response for the training walk was a little overwhelming. The staff ran out of waivers, ran out of maps (thankfully we didn't get lost because it was pretty easy to just follow the throngs of other people in pink walking in front of us...) and - God forbid - ran out of frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Oh, the travesty! We managed to survive with out all of that, barely, and had a great walk. They said that the route they'd sketched out for us to walk was very representative of the areas we'd be walking in the real 3 Day, which starts Nov. 21st. (Holy Moly - 2 months from today!) There were some nice flat parts and several long hills. Unless you are actually walking the hills in San Diego, I don't think you'd ever realize how many there are...let me tell you, there are a LOT. Long, meandering hills that make your thighs ache and your calf muscles tight. I could just about walk forever if it weren't for those hills. I. Hate. Hills.

Waiting for the training walk to get underway...

Bunching up at a red light.

Bear and I at the Expo.

On Safari

Well, OK, maybe not a real safari, but I did spend a delightful day at the world famous San Diego Zoo today. I took a little break from the Halloween madness that’s been surrounding my brain for the last couple of days, and went out with a photography group that I am a member of to take some animal photos. I had a blast! Of course I still have TONS to learn about my Nikon, but I’m having such a good time just getting out and playing with it. (Have I read the manual? No! I don't need no stinkin manual!)

These are just a few of my favorites from today. I only took a few pictures today...505! Yikes! Out of those, I'm happy to say that I did get, what I thought, some nice shots. Enjoy!

Grandpa's "girl"

My Dad, Bro and niece (who flew in from Dallas today) spent a good part of the evening with us while my Mom is still in Germany visiting friends. After a great dinner at our favorite Chinese place we came back to our house to play some cards and have a little birthday cake. (It's my brother's birthday today.) My Dad is a real card shark, but I do think that sometimes he has "help."