Mountain goat??

Okay...  somebody swapped my cute little Remy with a Mountain goat!

Mike threw our black water tank in with the ladies to see what would happen...  Yep!  Looks like we have some mountain goats here!  The ladies are so funny to watch!  I just get a kick out of them all the time.  They make me laugh!  :-D  Looks like Remy mastered the concrete waterer in the stall but Peggy mastered the water tank!  Farrah needs to get with it!

It was a beautiful weekend.  Definitely a weekend to spend as much time possible outside.  :-)  Watermelon Days next weekend!  Can't wait to see the girls, my family, and my friends!  Hot time in Quimby!  Don't miss it!

No faith in the ladies!

Mike has absolutely no faith in the ladies!  He's convinced they aren't going to graze their lot down so he just HAD to mow it...  No faith...  no faith...  They could have done it!

Doggy Pool Day!!

Unfortunately, we were derailed Friday morning.  We found out we weren't going to be able to show Ava this weekend at Cambridge.  But hopefully this is just a temporary thing and we are back to showing in a couple of months...  So we ended up staying home this weekend.  At least the weather was beautiful and the wind wasn't blowing too bad for a change.  So we decided on a Doggy Day at the pool!

Molly tanning poolside!

Ava testing the temp

Somehow pool day just isn't the same without Oscar doing the cannon ball into his kiddie pool and displacing all the water.  Sigh....  I miss Oscar...
Okay... so we spent all Sunday outside!  It was awesome.  I even got a little sun....  Of course every dog got a bath which is a given when it's so nice outside... 
When the baths were done, Mom (that's me) broke out the new bones from Bomgaars!  Yay!! 

We did get some practice worked in for Ava.  Even though we couldn't show this weekend, we gotta keep up the training!  I'm determined we will be back!!

The peanut gallery let us know how we looked.  They said Ava looked beautiful!  :-)  She stands like a champ now...  Doesn't move an inch...

Kelsey, this is for you!

Enjoy Kelsey!!  :-D

Cambridge, here Ava comes!!

One more night of practice before Cambridge Minnesota.  She's doing fabulous!! 

Watch my hand!

Still smiling!

Good Girl Ava!

Look at those Ragamuffins!!

So, normally when we are up seeing the girls we always stop at Caribou Coffee for a treat.  This time our plan was all three girls were going to meet us at Caribou Coffee before we left for home on Sunday morning.  So as we are sitting there waiting, this car full of three what looked like street urchins, pulled up!

Certainly these aren't my children....  These little ragamuffins that look like they just got out of bed about 5 minutes ago...  Yes, it turns out they were my children so we went into Caribou for our normal morning treat...

Kasey...  Still not really awake!

We had a fun morning...  I got my Hot Apple Blast!  Yum!  And then we were on the road for home...  Loved the trip...  Can't believe after all the years of driving kids back and forth and coming to Grand Rapids for events, that pretty much the kid events are done for me in Grand Rapids.  Kinda sad...  It is a beautiful area.  I'm very fortunate the girls got to grow up in such a beautiful area with such a fantastic school system. 
Mom and Dad behaved fairly well...  Dad started to get a bit unruly at Subway when we stopped for lunch but he decided to behave after all.  :-)  My Dad!  Such a character!
We got home late afternoon and guess what!  No hail while we were gone!  And guess what!  While I was gone, my tomatos did quite well!   I was actually able to harvest from my potted tomato plant!  Whoop!

I was so excited, I whipped up a batch of spaghetti (and no...  I know what you are thinking..  I didn't burn it!) and I threw my two little delicious tomatoes in the sauce!  :-D Well, I guess it would be more accurate to say I opened a can of Hunt's spaghetti sauce if you want to be 100% technical about it.
Three day weekend and it's suddenly gone in a blur!  Back to work and then off to the Cambridge dog show next week.  Send Ava your good luck!

Graduation from Hogwarts!

If you know my daughter Karley, you know she is a huge Harry Potter fan!  You know I've been working on some artwork for her party!  Well, the time is finally here.  We jumped in the car and headed to Minnesota for Karley's graduation party.  8 hours in the car!  But first!  On Friday night, we grabbed Karley and went out for our own little private celebration at the Ground Round.  It was fun and Grandpa only offended the waitress once so that's good!  ha ha!!

  And then it's Saturday and time to decorate for the Harry Potter themed party!  Everybody was busy with the floating candles, the pumpkin juice, the continuous Harry Potter movies playing...  It really was a cute party!

Before the party, we gave Karley her present from us...  It's never a surprise.  We gave all three the same thing, a really nice laptop for college.   Karley loved her present!  :-)

So once the party got rolling, there were a lot of people there we didn't know but that's pretty normal for us so we just hung with Kelsey and Kasey and Brent for most of the afternoon.  It rained a little but there were NO MOSQUITOES!!!  Awesome!!  If you've ever been to northern Minnesota in the summertime, you know what I'm referring to!  :-)

Kelsey and Gma

Kasey and Mike

Karley fixing my hair for the party... :-)

Jeri and Brent

Kelsey and Brent

It was a really fun party.  Karley's idea of a Harry Potter theme party was super cute and we all really enjoyed ourselves.  Can't believe my little Karl has graduated from high school!  I'm so old I'll be pushing daisies soon!  I better get back to working on that bucket list I had at one time.  :-)

It still hasn't hailed!

Just as we are getting ready to leave for the weekend, my tiger lillies start to open up.  I can't believe how lucky we've been not to have hail by this time of the year.  Hope when we get back I'll get to enjoy my flowers still and they won't be taken out by the weather...

My favorite!  It's called tomato soup!  :-)

Little off the top please!

Yep!  Check it out!  It was annual haircut day!  You get a butch whether you want it or not!  :-)

Harley and Dyna love haircut day!! 

What a sunset!

Thursday night it was an absolutely beautiful sunset.  It always amazes me how different the colors can be every night.  If I remember, Wednesday night was beautiful pinks and purples...  Thursday night was gorgeous oranges and yellows.  Nothing is more gorgeous as the sun sets over the pasture...  with the horses silhouetted from afar!  Beautiful!!

Reserve Bitch! Way to go Ava!

Ava had a very nice reserve win on Sunday.  There were more dogs there and her win was a good one!  At 7 months old, she won reserve mastiff bitch.  Very very cool!  Ava was full of beans on Sunday.  She had a lot of energy and was ready to get in the ring!  I think she must be a natural...  Here are some pics from Ava's second show...

One last drool wipe before we hit the ring!

Judge inspection

Go Ava, Go!

Getting our reserve ribbon

The female that beat us was a 6 year old female who was a granddaughter of Sherman... So Ava was in good company!!  Stout competition!  We can't wait for Cambridge Minnesota now!  After such a fantastic job, Ava got another celebratory Victory Burger!!  She thought it was pretty awesome!!  :-D

And so we headed for home.  It was a great show weekend!....   I even got to see the Jolly Green Giant!  It's been awhile since I've seen him.  :-)

Ho Ho Ho.......  Green Giant!

Karley's graduation party next weekend.  I get to see all the girls!  Can't wait!  :-)