I need a vacation!

With such a nice day outside and considering how busy I have been, it makes me think back to our last vacation from last summer.  We took the horses out to Ft. Robinson with our friends the Cooks, and Rosie Roseland.  It was beautiful out there and even though it was 100+ degrees everyday, we really had a fantastic time riding.  Here are some pics from last year...  Here's the view from between Lucy's ears...

Our riding party

Rosie and his paint

The Cooks

Love this picture!  This is the Cooks again

My rear and and my horse's rear end!  ;-)

Lucy my horse

Mike and Rev

Tightening up the cinch

Lucy and me bringing up the rear like normal!

Nothing to say

I really don't have much to say, I've just got a lot of cute pictures to share!  :-)  I'm pretty sure I take more pictures of the dogs than I do of anyone or anything else.

Go State!

Molly's usual pose

Dog Fight!

This looks like trouble!

Oscar's usual pose

4 wk old baby Kota

4 wk old Baby Lola

Pumpernickels brand new kitties born on Easter

And that's all the excitement I have for tonight.  Now I'm off to some vanilla ice cream.  :-)

Nothing could be finer than the taste of Aunt Jemima in the Morning!

Well, this isn't pancakes and syrup but it's almost as good!  Liquified puppy food or gruel...  pick what you want to call it.  To us, it's gross, to two puppies who haven't experienced much in life yet, gruel is truly the nectar of the gods!  Here Lola and Kota have their first breakfast of real food!  It went down pretty good!  They dug right in....

slurp, slurp

And when it was all gone...  we don't want to be wasteful!  Kota cleans off her sister Lola!

mmm...  you taste like puppy chow!

Going for a ride!

Today we got to go see Grandma Helen and Grandpa Jack in Quimby!  Oscar charmed everyone at Simonsen Industries.  We stopped to say hey for a while, and then we went to Gma and Gpa's house for lunch.  The car ride was the first time Oscar has been anywhere since we brought him home.  It was lots of fun!

Where are we going??

Mike, take a left up ahead...  :-)

We didn't stay too long.  Just long enough for lunch and then we headed back home.  Mike took some really cute pictures of Oscar while the two of us were messing around.  Here they are.  He is so handsome!

The only time wrinkles are cute

Playing "I can fit your fist in my mouth"

Easter Bunny!

And of course here is me giving Oscar instruction and he is telling me to buzz off!  ha ha!!

nanner nanner!!

There is nothing to do around here.....

For those of you not from Iowa and didn't grow up on a farm, you probably wonder what the heck you do every night.  There really isn't anywhere to go or much exciting to do.  I thought I would review a typical evening for us with nothing to do.....
We get home from work about 5:00 to 5:30.  The first thing we do is change clothes and run out to see the puppies.

2 1/2 weeks old now

We play with the puppies, get Molly fed and watered and give her some attention, clean everyone up and then we are off again...  We let everyone else out for some exercise..

ahh!  That is the spot!

Harley decides his rear end itches so he uses the bottom strand of fence to itch where it itches...

Do I see a cat?

Rasmus gets to get out and run around the farm checking out all the cats, horses, etc.

Yep!  I see a cat!

Oscar gets to wander under our watchful eye.  He especially likes to see the cats but they don't care much to see him....  Then as we are taking hay out to the horses, we discover Mike's horse Rev is being stupid...

What's wrong with this picture...

I'm free!!

 So, Mike coaxes Rev out of the hay feeder luckily without a scratch.  Then aghh!  Cow in the barn!!

What the heck??

Rosie gets in the barn...  Looking to see what's going on...  So Mike gets some corn and coaxes her back to where she is supposed to be..  Then Oscar and Rasmus decide they would like to introduce themselves to Jimmy Dean...  So Jimmy comes up to the fence to visit..

And Oscar decides I'm outta here!  That's just a little too close!

ahh!  I'm out of here!

Then we get everyone put away for the evening and head for the house.  There Oscar gets to practice his stack for a dog show some day!  Pretty boy!

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful!

And, by that time, it's pretty much bedtime.  Yep 8:30 p.m. is it at the Johnson Ranch and we are all pooped!

Of course we get up at 3:45 a.m. to be to work by 6:00 a.m. so 8:30 doesn't seem all that early...  That's just one evening of nothing to do here in Iowa...  :-)

I can see!

The puppies eyes are open and they are starting to develop real little personalities.  The fawn "Lola" is a vocal bossy little thing that doesn't hesitate to tell you what she thinks.   She's started growling and trying to wrestle around with "Kota" the apricot.  Kota on the other hand is laid back and a real cuddler.  Both girls have met their families now and in the last couple of days are trying to get up and walk around although they aren't too good at it yet.  Molly is still the best mom!!

Oscar had a fun weekend in the house!  We started everything off with a good scrubbing bath.  I can't lift him anymore so I have to lift his front in the tub and then lift his back in the tub.  Then we had some fun just messing around in the house on this cold yucky weekend.

Look what I can do!

Apple tried to take a nap but she appears kind of traumatized.  Looks like she's waiting for Oscar to come pounce on her in his ungraceful, elephant like way.

He's around the corner isn't he?

Finally even Oscar pooped out and decided it was time for a nice nap.

And then at the end of the day, we took a walk through the slushy snow back to the barn.  Oscar enjoyed it!  It was kind of pretty with the big flakes falling from the sky.  I think we ended up with a couple of inches on the ground but it's gone today.  As pretty as it was, I'm ready for green grass and no more white stuff!

It's crappy outside!

Baby Apricot always has her tongue out!

It's so crappy outside.  Wet and rainy every weekend.  It's a good thing the two little princesses don't have to be outside.  The are cuddly and warm in the tack room in the barn.  The babies are two weeks old tonight.  We came home from work today and their eyes were open right on schedule.  Our little apricot gets to meet her new family this weekend.  The little fawn "Lola" met her family when she was a day old.

Baby Lola the fawn

With all the rain and snow and cold, it's good to just stay in this weekend.  Mike and I put in a lot of work last weekend and got the bathroom painted an awesome color "Pickle" which looks great with the tile.  This weekend the molding gets in painted and the toilet will be set soon.

This is proof that I do help sometimes if Mike lets me!

Pickle!

What else is going on this weekend?  Not much.  Mike has to work so I'll be doing laundry.  Oscar will no doubt be the center of attention like always.  Here Oscar and I are still playing dog show.  Oscar is now up to 47 lbs.  I have a hard time picking him up anymore.  It's kind of tough dragging him into the bathtub.  Thank goodness he loves his bath!  He tends to just lay down in the water and let me scrub him.  Oscar and my first Obedience Class / Open Ring is approaching soon.  We can't wait!

Fresh out of the tub!

Mike and Oscar chillin'

Other than that, tonight it will be a quiet night here.  Nothing like a Friday night with no plans...  Maybe a little Netflix!  We will probably start by watching a little T.V., then I'm sure we will end up zonked out.  Here's a perfect example....

Everyone seems alert

Two minutes later.....