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Greyhound play date

A few weekends back we had a small group of friends, whom we have met through our greyhounds, over for a play date. Including our four, we had 11 hounds total. This was our third attempt at picking a date, as the other dates got rained out, and even though it was a bit warm we kept the party scheduled as planned. Above is our stack of dog beds, all washed and ready for our hound guests.

Our intended play date turned into a pool party. Maggie was the first one in. The rest soon followed suit.

It was interesting to watch each hound. Some were content to just stand with their paws in the water while others lay down to enjoy the cool water. This was the first time Cueball actually decided to lay down in the pool. Guess it was either hot enough or he finally figured it out. Either way it was cute and he makes the pool look tiny. ;-) Jazmin keeps a lookout for him. If she had a cartoon bubble above her head, I imagine it would say "I've got your back."

Booyah prefers the cool grass. And lil man Dakota was busy checking it all out.

Rumor takes her turn in the pool.

The youngest greyhound fan, Mayrah.

Left to right dogs Rumor (in the pool), Jazmin, Jade, Pippi (laying down) and Dakota. And people left to right: Tinsley, Nicki, Greg, Mayrah and Kerrie.

We took quite a few breaks from the hot weather. Mitch rewards the hounds for their good behavior with treats.

Another view of Mitch giving treats.

Max, Norman, Pippi and Maggie. Norman is quiet camera shy so his mommy coaxed him in for a photo op.

Sera. She loves people!!

Even though they did not do much during the play date, they were still somehow exhausted.

Cueball taking it easy after a fun day.

Pictures above are a combination of my photos, Kerrie's photos and Nicki's photos. =)

Next post we will share our VAGA annual picnic pictures. Will try to get that post up by Saturday. Over the next few weeks, we will be taking it easy until our vacation to Barkwells! We have been on the go for the last 5 weekends and we and the hounds need a break!!

A decade together

On May 18th, Mitch and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary. 10 years sure has flown by! It was a great day! I took the day off from work so I could spend the early afternoon and evening with Mitch. This time of year is very busy for a heating/air guy so we knew a mini vacation away from home two weeks in a row would not be feasible. I pulled our wedding album out of a box (we have lots of stuff packed away since we are on the market and have been for 2 years) and looked back through all the pictures of our wonderful day. I unfortunately do not have the photos in digital version and I do not have a scanner so I took a picture of the pictures to share with you. I will share just a few photos of our special day [don't want to bore you too much ;-)] We were married on a Friday evening at 7 p.m. in front of a fountain at beautiful Parker's Ridge in Charles City County, Virginia.

After reminiscing and shedding some happy tears, I drove out to New Kent Winery to buy some of their White Norton wine. This was the first day this wine has been available since 2009. The birds destroyed their crops so they did not have any to harvest last year. We both love this particular wine, so I stocked us up with 1/2 case. They only have 200 cases in production this year. They are so limited that they are not even allowing tasting of this wine. :) The guy at the winery told me the wine is selling quick so to hurry back before it is gone. We plan to!

When I arrived back home, I spent time cleaning up and also polished our silver from our wedding day. These glasses were a beautiful wedding gift from our dear friends Sherry and Franklin. Each glass is inscribed, one for Mitch and one for Me. The pictures here do not do them justice. We used them for our toast on our wedding day and have not used them since. 10 years seemed like the right occasion to break these out again! We have been saving a bottle of the champagne we had on our wedding day for a very special occasion. I was running around trying to get everything looking great and ready for Mitch to get home from work. I also cleaned up our decanter and wine glasses that were also a wedding gift, so we could enjoy our White Norton. My plan was to cook Mitch a lovely dinner since he is always the one cooking in our household. Thought it would be a really nice treat. Unfortunately, storms had a different plan for us. We lost power for the evening and ended up grilling hamburgers/hot dogs. We went with it. Nothing was going to ruin this day for us! We sat on the back deck, drank our champagne then followed that with our wine. We enjoyed our hamburgers and hot dogs. We turned the radio on listened to some John Prine and danced in the rain. A fun, fun time with lots of laughs!

Although my plan for the day did not turn out quite the way I wanted it to, We both had a wonderful day and shared in lots of laughs! Mitch said it has been the best 10 years of his life, so I guess I am doing something right. ;-)

Mitch wanted to do something really nice for me also and he did! He surprised me and had me in tears (good tears) when he sent me on a scavenger hunt through the house. He had hidden poems of clues in several spots in the house. What a sweetie!! Clues lead me to love notes, chocolate and ultimately a new diamond wedding ring. It is a heirloom diamond and has been around since before they starting using lasers to cut diamonds. I love it! Just perfect and suits me very well! I was shocked, happy and very surprised!! He had been planning this for an entire year! I love my Mitch!! He is such a great guy and I am a lucky girl to have him! :)

Just like any couple, we have had our ups and downs, but through it all we have had each other to lean on in good times and bad. It has been a fantastic 10 years! We're going for 10 more! ;-)

Stay tuned Greyhound Play Date and VAGA annual picnic pictures coming soon!

Grapehounds-VA '11 Greyz and Wine.....What else is there?

Greyhounds and Wine, what is not to love? A great combo and Grapehounds-VA does a great job bringing the two together. We attended the for the second year. We decided to make it a long weekend. Drove up to Leesburg Friday afternoon. We did tasting at 5 of the 7 wineries over three days. Day #1 of Grapehounds kicked off at one of the newest wineries in Virginia, North Gate Vineyard. This winery runs partially on Solar Panels, very cool!! The Friday night crowd was large. The food was excellent and the wines were great!

Back at the hotel for the night, Pippi says "where are guys sleeping?" You can use our dog beds. :) We knew it would be a struggle to get them to sleep on the dog beds on the floor, as they are quite spoiled at home sleeping on furniture, but we got it worked out. ;-)

Day #2 kicked off at Lost Creek Winery, the host winery for the day. I love this Wine tour banner, way cute!The winery was beautiful and again the wines were great! We found so many red wines we enjoyed, which is unusual for us with Virginia reds. My favorite was their Chambourcian.

Lots and lots of barrels. :)

They set up a large Wedding tent for all the vendors. Very nice! Even though the forecast was less than favorable for Saturday, we somehow managed to dodge the rain. It remained overcast all day which was perfect for the hounds and did not start to rain until 5:30 p.m. The event ended for the day at 5 p.m. Yay!!

The VAGA vending tents and sweet Gabby.

Jackson, a new member to the VAGA family. He is very sweet and cute!

Our pups and Judy's pups (Sandy, Allie and Jackson) hung out in the ex-pens for the majority of the day. Booyah is the last man standing. Two ex-pens hooked together made for a great space and allowed for me to help VAGA with clipping nails for donations and still be near my pups. Even though they spent most of the day laying around in the pen, they were exhausted from doing.......well.........nothing.

The Queen in her rightful spot after a long day #2 at Grapehounds.

Pippi, the bundle of energy, was also exhausted from day #2.

Cueball finally got a spot on the other double bed on day #2.

Booyah was the only one who found the dog beds and floor cozy.

At the end of day #2, we rushed to Hidden Brook Winery after helping the VAGA girls pack all the vending items up, take the tents down and load up Debbie's van. It was after 5 p.m., but they still let us taste wine. Luckily, the winery is right next door to Lost Creek, so the drive was easy. =) And since we were right there, we would have kicked ourselves for not making it since we live a good three hours South East of Leesburg. They were only sampling 3 wines. We both liked their Merlot, but did not care for the other two.

Hidden Brook Winery.

Lastly, on day three we had to drag the kids out to Barrel Oak and Three Fox Vineyards to complete our tour. They were slam worn out, so we did not stay long. We arrived at Barrel Oak Winery just as they were opening.

A cutie hanging out inside.

Another cutie waiting by the tasting bar.

Inside Barrel Oak.

Tasting bar at Barrel Oak.

Wish I could have gotten a better picture of this hound. I have never seen a hound this color. Very pretty!!

Cueball wonders when this tour stuff will be over. He was quite tired from all the puparazzi. Several people stopped us to ask if Cueball was Cueball. They recognized him from last year's event. His daddy was quite proud! :)

Pippi could not agree more, time to go home please!

Outside patio area, tasting bar and Mitch walking the boys.

Back of Barrel Oak. The view you can see on Route 66.

The view of the Mountains from Barrel Oak. Exquisite scenery.

Lastly on the tour was Three Fox Vineyards. This is a very quaint winery. Does not look like much from the outside, but the wines were our favorite out of the 5 wineries we visited. We brought home a case of their wine!

The view from Three Fox Vineyards, which is just a short drive from Barrel Oak. We saw a really cool sign at the tasting bar at this winery that read "Wine is bottled poetry." So true!

We sampled 11 wines and one Champagne at this winery. We liked almost all of them! We sampled 8 at Barrel Oak about 1/2 hour before. Neither one us were tipsy, which surprised me. I am usually a light weight.

Guess our tolerance for tasting wine has improved with practice. ;-)

We had a wonderful time!! We look forward to attending next year too! And one year we swear we will make it to Grapehounds-NY!

Stay tuned, we have some pictures from our Greyhound Play Date to share and VAGA's annual picnic is this Saturday!! Lots of pics of hounds to come!!! :)