Where oh where did the dogs go? They even left their bones behind ...

Alex enjoys the snow this morning, frozen drool and all. As I type it’s 16 degrees F and snowing. A perfect day for reading, knitting, playing Nintendo, cozying up by the fire, and making lasagne!

The other day while Rick was gone I decided to get brave and try to take all three dogs for a walk at the same time. They were going stir crazy and so was I. I knew we had a brace coupler somewhere; I just needed to find it.

We usually exit through the garage door when taking the dogs for a walk, but the garage door opener switch is at the top of the stairs just as you go out the laundry room door. That wouldn’t work to get two rambunctious dogs down those steps, past the car and out the door while on a brace lead. Not unless I wanted to find myself skidding across the garage floor on my stomach. Opening up the garage door when taking the dogs for walk is akin to letting the horses out of the starting gate before the Kentucky Derby. And .... they’re off!

I decided to hook Hailey and Sailor up to the brace and let Alex have his own lead since he pulls more. To solve the opening of the garage door, I decided to open the car door and use its opener. Hey, halfway to the goal is better than nothing! It worked! I hooked Alex up to his lead after we got outside. And we were off! Come join us!

All went well so we’ll do this again!

The snow (not the frost) is on the pumpkin!

I woke up this morning to a strange, ethereal light bathing the room. There is nothing quite like the light on a morning when it’s snowing. Looking out I saw fat, sticky, wet, flakes drifting ever so gently past the window. Ah ... SNOW ... and a couple of inches at that.

It stuck to everything.

Trees.

Railings and fence pickets.

The windchime.

Even the clothesline, which isn’t easy to do!

Dogs.

Cats. (I must have the only indoor cat that can’t wait to sneak outside when it snows. eBay is one silly cat!)

As I stood outside in my house slippers taking photos I couldn’t resist lifting my face to the sky, letting the cold, moist,  flakes settle on my cheeks like a healing balm. Of course I stuck out my tongue and caught some flakes—why do you even need to ask?!  This Jersey Girl is a snow lover!

Now here is some snow for you. At the end, be sure and lift your face into the flakes coming right at you! Can you feel their wetness?

I knew it was going to happen eventually. Rick loves boats too much to not take Andy’s pontoon boat for a spin. And, he was bound and determined to take the dogs with us. Gads, what is he thinking? They’ve never been on a boat before. Visions of dogs jumping over the side as we pulled away from the dock went flashing through my head. Either that or I would be babysitting them for the entire trip. Oh joy. But first we had to actually get them on the boat.

Alex didn’t want anything to do with the floating dock. The first few times we tried to get him on it he just stood there and whimpered pitifully after taking two shaky steps. Hey, this thing moves! Not only does it move, but it makes funny squeaky-clanking noises. Uh uh. No way. Finally, on the third day of our stay we managed to get him to “walk the plank.” You can hear him whimpering the whole way. He crouched down as far as he could and still walk.

Aren’t you beginning to wonder about our sanity?? But amazingly enough, once we were underway things went just fine.

Okay, guys, now what?

I know, let’s watch Dad drive!

Wheeeeeeeeeee ... this is kind of fun!

After a little exploring, Hailey and Alex look out the bow.

Alex says, “Look Hailey, there’s another floating thing over there ... “

Good dogs!

After getting his sea legs Alex decided he quite liked looking out over the bow.

Unlike our inappropriately named dog, Sailor, who took a few quick looks over the side and decided he preferred to stick close to Dad.

Nothing like a little wind in your tail!

All in all, I have to admit I was wrong about our little boat outing being a recipe for disaster. It turned out to the highlight of our stay at the cabin. Who knew?