A Trip to the Beach...

This past Saturday, Grant had the great idea of packing up the dogs and driving down to Port Aransas beach. I had never been able to go to any of the South Texas beaches and Grant wanted me to see the area before it got too cold to enjoy. Plus, Maggie & Tex had never been to a beach before so we wanted to see whether they'd become sea-faring pups or park it in the sand.


On the three-hour drive down south, we came across literal clouds of butterflies heading the same way for the winter. Unfortunately, a good number met their fate in the grill of my truck. Grant called Big Red the "Chariot of Doom". This is only a small section of the butterfuly grave that covered the front of the truck.


Not far from Corpus Christi, we were able to stop and check out some of Grant's handy work. Here are three of his very own wind turbines. Impressive, huh?
My husband, Master of the wind. :)

When we made it to the beach, both dogs were amped up but Maggie was especially nuts. As we walked towards the water, she acted like she'd been going to the beach for years and yanked at her leash so hard I was almost unable to control her. (I think I would've expected this more from the lab than from our mutt-baby.)

I'd say we had an excellent spot...

and as I suspected, Tex was pretty happy being a beach bum.

Maggie's big thing was chasing the seagulls and I had to repeatedly call her back after she'd sprint a quarter of a mile down the beach . Tex was a little different, he'd play in the water but if I waded out too far for his liking, he'd come up behind me and bite my hand to pull me back. If that didn't work, he'd put his body in front of mine horizontally so that I couldn't get around him. I guess this was his way of keeping an eye on me.

Grant knew I needed to get down to the beach before the season was over. It's good for his wife's soul. :)

Grant had quite a sexy beach look...

here it is for closer inspection. ;)

Happy wife :) Tex gets a little crazy about retrieving stuff from the water and this picture totally demonstrates that. Grant called this "Old Crazy Eye".

The drive back up the beach was definitely worth getting on video. Yet another reason I love having a truck!

Paws in the Pool

I realize after hearing from so many of you that my tribute to Annie left some a little weepy (Mom!). I suppose I owe everyone a happy dog post, huh? Well this one should not only make you smile but LAUGH as well.

Tex & Maggie were lucky enough to go to Paws in the Pool at our YMCA this past weekend. Since the pool is closing for the season, dogs were invited for a Saturday morning swim. My sister took three of her seven dogs to a similar event in Dallas last month and I was beyond jealous that my Austin pups didn't have something like this. Thankfully the Y came through for us and our furry pals swam for an hour and a half straight!
I love this picture. It looks like I was taking a picture of the pool and a water-happy lab decided to swim by during my shot. :)
Tex & Maggie got their first chance to go down a waterslide! Here they look a little hesitant about the whole thing.

As you can tell from the video, there was a little pushing on my part but they both did it. Willing or not, my dogs were going to take full advantage of their day at the pool!

I was able to get an action-shot of my little ball-crazed girl on the slide. She's focused!

This is, by far, my favorite moment of the day!


At one point, Tex was so excited to jump in after a ball that he slipped on the way in. Grant got this picture of him slipping in. His back legs went to the right, his tail went to the left, and his ears were flying. We laughed pretty hard at the clutz.

More action shots...this one a little more graceful than the last.

Maggie is such a weird dog.

A big "thank you" from our water-loving labrador.
And as the event was wrapping up, leave it to Maggie to get stuck out on the island in the middle of the pool.
Thanks to the YMCA from two very happy dogs. :)