Raindrops keep fallin' on my head....

What a wet 4 days!! 4 days of straight HEAVY rain! We found EVERY leak in the boat!!! Which is actually a good thing! All boats leak. From the top down, the all leak.... its only when the leaks come from the bottom up that you have to worry!!!

Due to the driving rains and the cooler weather approaching, we decided it was time to fully enclose the cockpit. So we pulled out the pieces and put her together. Tada!

Now we can still sit in the cockpit and enjoy our dinner or a bottle...er...glass of wine while watching the sunset. We can listen to the raindrops and watch the snow fall all while staying dry and warm!

Speaking of staying warm... with the cooler temperatures, we were able to test out our heating system. Boy does it work good!!! It got so hot we had to turn it off! So it was on and off, on and off, on and off..... even the hounds felt the ups and downs....

First they were cold....

Then they were hot.....

And of course they HATED having to go out in the rain to do their business... Here is Jasmine looking as pitiful as ever... giving Luke the evil eye to finish his business so she can go back inside....

For the parting shot.....

Our grand entry way.... looking so fresh and clean from all the rain....

A Happy Birthday Day!

Happy Birthday, Kevin!!

Kevin turned 47 years young on Saturday.... we had my mother watch the dogs and we enjoyed a nice long weekend of sleeping in and being lazy. We missed those silly mutts terribly but it was nice to be responsibility free for a couple days! I made him his favorite dinner on Friday, breakfast in bed on Saturday and then took him to Sakura Japanese Steakhouse Saturday night.

Kevin is such a wonderful man, husband and friend. I count my lucky stars every day that I found him!!

Here are a few of my favorite pics of Kevin.

Kayaking down a jungle river in Kauai, Hawaii.....

Just looking cute.....

Training the troops in Iraq....

Holding a baby gator in the Florida Everglades at the Gator Farm....

Taken just moments before our wedding.... = ]

Just being silly......

Happy Beach, St. Maarten...on our honeymoon....

Fishin' in Fredericksburg......

On patrol in Iraq... (actually we were sightseeing)

He's so handsome....

Ships Log...

It was a great day so we took the boat out for a nice easy romp around the bay....

Here I am at the helm....

...while Kevin plays around with his dinghy...

Sandy chillin' out with Kevin in the cockpit.....

Sandy looking at me wondering when I am going to put down that camera and fix her breakfast....

Our sunset view every night.......

Luke on the deck... enjoying the sunset

(actually he's eyeing the King Fisher flying around)

We had a REALLY high tide one night. The boat was so far off the dock it was over my hips! I had to put a little step over the side just so I could climb up!!

Our home at night.... resting quietly in her slip with the water gently lapping at her sides....

Paging, Dr. Pine....Paging Dr. Pine.....

We had our first boating accident.

Poor Luke still has not learned that we need to remove the hatch at the top of the ramp before he can get out. He still forgets that he is a simple dog and cannot walk through walls.

So... it went down like this....

We come back from the store and push back the top part of the hatch to say hello to the doggies. Before we can remove the rest of the hatch.... Luke comes bounding up the ramp and

wham!

Head first into the hatch! Ouch! But that wasn't the bad part! After running snout first into hatch, he then almost tumbles off the ramp onto the floor... but his back haunch got caught on a small shelf... (which has since then been removed) This kept him from tumbling off but it did rip a nice hole in his skin.... (see below)

Kevin is a paramedic and has saved us many trips to the emergency room for us and the vet for the dogs... So, Dr. Pine once again dove into his medical bag to fix up poor old Luke....

After a good wound cleansing and a few stitches, Luke was all patched up....

We put one of Kevin's shirts around him for extra measure to keep him from licking...

(doesn't he look so pitiful?)

Jasmine even jumped up on the bed to snuggle with him during the procedure...she is such a sweet heart.....

And here is the patient.... all doped up sleeping off the drugs.....

It was actually a little cool that night in the boat so all the hounds were wrapped up tight!

Here is Sandy... all snuggled up in her favorite corner!

And last but not least... here is Jasmine doing her ET impersonation....

Ocean City "Sunfest"

We went up to Ocean City last weekend to visit my dad. It was also the weekend of their annual Sunfest celebration. Sunfest is a great event to visit. Lots of vendors, food and good fun! Below is the kite show that was going when we arrived.... it was so neat! Those are all kites, no balloons!

We of course took the hounds. We found us a good dog friendly hotel. That's my sister, Kevin and my sister's boyfriend John. (and of course the hounds)

We got up early on Sunday to watch the sunrise and give the dogs a taste of the beach.

This was their first honest to goodness real ocean water beach! We actually had some surprising results!

The first surprise was that Sandy LOVED it! Once we showed her that the waves wouldn't hurt her, she just got right in!

Here's a great pic of her watching the sunrise........

Jasmine on the other hand.... our water dog would have NOTHING to do with that water that kept chasing her.....

And Luke... well.... no surprise there.....

The kids did enjoy the nice soft sand in their toes..... and the seagulls drove them crazy!!

They even made a friend......

Internet Access and Beach Bums....

HOORAY FOR VERIZON!

So we signed up for that wireless PC broadband service from Verizon.... now our Mango is connected to the WWW!!! It is so nice to have Internet service in the comfort of our own boat. We get great reception even inside! It was getting pretty tiresome going to McDonald's and Starbucks to get connected! and then spending 2 hours there doing everything we needed to do! We do EVERYTHING online so we have felt so lost... for so long.... BUT LOST WE ARE NO MORE!!! I love technology!

Now for the Beach Bums!!!

We are lucky in the fact that there is a dog park and dog BEACH just minutes from the boat. We have taken the kids to the dog park quite often but we finally ventured down to the dog beach.... and oh my my! It was like a bunch of kids playing down there!! All the dogs were just running and splashing and chasing each other and swimming! It was really awesome to see!

(my lens got smudged and I did not have anything to clean it with so bear with me on the foggy pics!)

Jasmine jumped right in, of course. She LOVES the water!

And it wasn't too long before she made some friends and started a game of tag with the little white dog. She chased this little white dog the whole time and that little dog loved it! Jasmine loves playing with little dogs! and she plays so nice and gentle with them! It's really cute to watch.

Sandy wasn't so sure about this whole, open water beach thing.




Wha? Did you see that? It was an Alligator!! Alligator's eat greyhounds you know!

She finally calmed down and decided to go for a swim...

She even laid down for a bit....

Luke wasn't so sure about this beach thing either.... He just stood and took in his surroundings for awhile....

....but being the loner and adventurer he is... he went off on his own walkabout through the bush...

While on his walkabout, he got too close to the edge of the marsh..... slip slided down a mud hill and plop! into the water! Now this was his first time ever being totally immersed in water! Kevin had been following him to make sure he did not wander too far and was happy to see that Luke came up swimming! Luke was pretty panicked at first! but then you could see his mind working and realized that hey! " I'm not sinking! and when I move my legs like this..... I move!" So Luke swam himself back to shore like a pro! Here he is with Kevin after his adventure!

Meanwhile........ Sandy decided she had enough and went back up on land to hang out with my sister and my Dad.

Jasmine finally slowed down (for a second) and I got a good pic of her looking out over the Bay.

I tried to coax Luke back into the water but after his previous swim he was not having that!

All I got was a snuggle and a pathetic "please momma! Don't make me go back in there!" look...

At least we don't have to worry about Luke jumping off the boat! HA!

(Jasmine on the other hand...)

....And here the kids are.... all nice and tired.....walking home after a long day at the beach....