A few weekends ago we participated in a walk to benefit H.O.P.E. (Homes for Orphaned Pets Exist) http://www.hopeanimalrescue.org/ H.O.P.E. is a great organization dedicated to giving animals a second chance at life.
My mom participated as well with her well-behaved dog Jessie shown below as we hung out in Congress Park.
And then there’s my dog….
Along with the walk Saratoga was having a Dog Day. We even had lunch with pooch!
Blowing out eggs instead of hard boiling is another option if you want to keep your colored Easter eggs out on display for a while or possibly keep them forever! The first step is to poke a hole in each end of the egg. We used thumbtacks.
Blow into one hole and let the insides ooze out into a bowl. Demonstrated here by my fiance who I made color eggs with me along with my mom and brother.
Color and enjoy 
Well we had a glimpse of summer for a week and then it got COLD again! Just in time to hike up Buck Mountain in Lake George. At least the heat wave melted all the snow! It’s about 3.2 miles one way which took us about 2 hrs to get up to the top. Yes people passed us and were on their way back down while we were still on the way up haha.
Maybe I am reaching a little here but I love this next photo. When Chris and I went to Maine to relax, grieve and reconnect with each other I found (and stole) this rock that was shaped like a heart and had a dark crack/line on the left corner. I thought it symbolized my broken and healing heart. And LOOK here on this mountain I found another rock with the same marking. A sign from my girls? Maybe. Maybe not. But it made me smile anyway.
We made it to the top with only slight complaining from moi. It was cloudy and cold. It actually started to sleet!
Patty loved every moment and never stopped moving. This was the best photo I could capture.
A tired pooch is a happy pooch
As I was helping a friend move I saw this in his house and completely forgot I had done this for him! It was drawn from a photo of him and his son with their latest catch. I used watercolor and colored pencil. I really need to take some better photos of my work BEFORE handing them out haha
Over the weekend we climbed Prospect Mountain in Lake George. It’s about 3 miles round trip. Not a bad first hike for the year
The hiking trail is actually part of an old railway that was used to get to a hotel at the top of the mountain.
It was a bit icy in spots!
We made it to the top with only a handful of falls haha
Patty met several dog friends on the way down!
A VERY tired pooch! Mission accomplished
P.S. This is what we saw the last time we climbed Prospect about the same time of year 2009. Enjoy.
I will never regret adopting our dog Patty from the SPCA. Although some days she drives me up a wall…I love her so much. There’s just something about the way she snuggles up to me when I’m sick, always happy when I come home, nudges her way in between Chris and I on the couch and her puppy like excitement when she realizes we are going to the dog park. There’s just something about that unconditional love that you can’t get anywhere else but from your pets.
Yes, I spoil her rotten. I would totally have like 10 cats and 4 dogs if it weren’t for Chris haha. I would be that crazy pet lady.
Funny story…at Chowderfest I convinced Chris to get Patty’s photo taken by Enchanted Reflection Photography (http://www.enchantedreflectionsphotography.com/) that had a Valentine’s Day doggie photo shoot set up at Sloppy Kisses. We get in there and Patty decides she wants to ROLL AROUND knocking over the entire display!! She wouldn’t sit and was throwing around toys! I have no idea how this lady captured THE MOST PERFECT PHOTO EVER!
The photo was just too cute that I HAD to make some Valentine’s out of it! So I went to Target to make some illegal copies…ignoring the “DO NOT COPY” message on the back of the photo itself and also the warnings on the copier at Target. No big deal right? Everyone does it. The lady behind the counter goes “I’ll LET you copy that one” I was like oohh crap I got caught! Um not only did I get caught but the woman WAS THE PHOTOGRAPHER THAT TOOK THE PHOTO OF PATTY!!! Seriously?! What are the chances that her second job is at Target and she happened to be working the day I was there. Only me. I was mortified.
I really think having Patty around has helped me in this healing process. I love taking her for walks and taking her for walks means I get to talk to Chris without any distractions. No TV, no phones, no xbox. I really enjoy this time we have together. It gives us a chance to talk about anything that’s on our mind. What is going on at work…what wedding plans we are thinking about…how we are healing and grieving. Sometimes we get really off track and start to talk about things like “what would you do if you saw a bear right now?” or “what would be the first thing you would buy if you won the lottery?”
Mom sent me these photos over text of a drawing I reproduced from a photo of a friend’s dog. Mom is my official PR person haha. This was done with watercolor and colored pencil. Sorry for the crappy cell phone images. First photo is the photo I was given to work from and the second photo is of my drawing.
