Catching Up!

Bloggy Land! I have not meant to forsake you! Things have been super busy around here and I just don't know how photogs who update every day do it! I would love to, that's my goal, but unfortunately, until I hire an assistant, that probably will not work out as such!

Well, first of all, Happy (belated) Father's Day to you daddies! I hope you had a wonderful time with your kiddos!!!
We celebrated with my dad and family a week early because this past weekend was my hubby's birthday, (but we'll get to that next.)

The fam came up to our home and my wonderful chef of a husband made a delicious spaghetti lunch (with from-scratch sauce!), and garlic rolls, and salad, and I made the dessert. (An angel food cake cut into layers with a filling of Cool Whip, vanilla pudding, and crushed pineapple mixed in between the layers, then topped with strawberries. Yum-O!)

After lunch we hit the 'ole horse shoes in the backyard, (a new addition)! My mother-in-law gave us the horse shoes for Christmas two years ago but we had never gotten them out because my husband sort of has a vision for landscaping our backyard, and he wasn't quite sure how to incorporate the horse shoe set-up. Well, we have friends who live on some land in Sanger, and in exchange for my husband helping them landscape their yard, (his favorite pastime!), they let him have some of their flagstone rocks that grow out of their land! So with the rocks, my husband made two horse shoe pits as a new, permanent fixture in our backyard.

He got a ringer!

Afterward, we just relaxed and talked on the porch for a while until it was time for them to leave. A wonderful, family day!

This past Saturday was my husband's 26th birthday. He loves to go camping - strictly the traditional, tent sleeping-grill cooking- fire building type. So we went! We left Friday afternoon for Lake Tawakoni, east of Dallas.

In the past when we've gone camping, we have left our dogs at home with a doggie-sitter, but we knew they would LOVE it, so we caved and took them along this time. They were pretty good. I know they had a great time! Around our campsite we left them off their leash, just to see what they'd do, and surprisingly they stayed pretty close to us and would obey us if they strayed and we called them back.
Oh boy, when we first arrived, after the 2 hour car ride, they bolted out of the back and straight in to the trees and down to the lakeside. Pearl, our wily one, ran headlong into the lake water! It was so funny though because I don't think she's ever been in a pool of water before, to where she could actually splash about, and boy did she splash! She stomped around and ducked her head under water, and kept opening her mouth, like she was biting the water! It was hilarious!

Here is a video of it - (After we saw her reaction to the water is when I thought to get the camera, so she's a little simmered down by this time!)

We took several walks around the park. Their beach area was beautiful! Everything was so clean and well-kept. There were several little guys buzzing around on their bicycles and you could hear laughter from the boats on the water. By the lakeside there was a breeze and it felt wonderful to sit at the picnic table and relax.

I would have liked to go swimming, but we couldn't, so we just dipped our feet in the water. (A little ailment of having the puppies with us - dogs aren't allowed in the beach area, so we would have had to tie them up if we went swimming, and with Pearl's barking maniacally, that would have lasted for about .36 seconds.)

Stuart cooked a wonderful dinner of steak and grillin' beans.

Steak tongs compliments of the Great Outdoors...

Highlight of the trip: spending quality, fun time together in the fresh air.
Downfall of the trip: ....remember that video of Pearl pouncing around in the water? Well, not only was it, oh about, 118 degrees in our two-person-sized tent at night with no air moving whatsoever, but throw in two stinky, sweaty, fur-shedding dogs, and well, that's a night that could rival the luxury of our last trip away.... kidding... of course....

Today, I got a new summer do, hairdo, that is!

How is it possible to take a hand-held-self-snapshot without it looking like you're 12-yrs.-old, taking the picture for the sole purpose of your friends on Myspace?
Well, now that I mention it, sort of similar situation here, being that blogs are the adult version of Myspace, (equal amounts of addiction and life-neglecting while perusing the sites), and I took the picture for the sole purpose of showing you all!

...this was the least cheesiest shot...

And then tonight, to top off these fun past couple days, I invested in the Canon 5D!

I'm so thrilled I could giggle! I have a busy week of shoots, and not to mention a wedding this weekend, so she will be broken in quickly!!
Hoorah, indeed.