Posts from the ‘Personal’ Category

Gone Fishing . . .

I hope that your spring is going well! The pools are open and school just let out for the summer! We have been doing a lot of swimming; and Alex has been doing horse riding lessons, which she loves. Victory is doing well, too. I feel like the days are going by way too quickly! How is the year already half over?

I am taking a break from the blog for several weeks to visit family; soak up our days together; rejuvenate; and just be. (I plan to be back here to the blog sometime next month.) I want to thank you, as always, for being here. Whether you are a recent reader or have been following the blog for awhile, I am honored you take time to read the blog.  I am truly grateful. 

Meanwhile, if you are in a blog-reading mood, you are warmly invited to visit the archives — the links are shown below.

Dog Related posts

Dog Rescue posts

‘Dog-Centric’ Artists Interviews

For Artists posts

Photography posts

Personal posts

Victory Related posts

Alex Related posts

Happy almost summer!

Happy Earth Day!

Happy Belated Earth Day! Alex created some art for Earth Day at school, shown below, along with some of her other art! Alex is very proud of her artwork, and she told me that she is never going to stop creating her art, which is music to our ears!

Happy Monday!

Nationals: Pups in the Park!

This past weekend we took Alex and Victory to Pups in the Park at the Nationals! This was our eighth attending Pups in the Park at the Nationals with Victory, and our second time attending with both Alex and Victory! (You can view our previous trips to Pups in the Park: here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.)  

We had really nice weather for the game. This is the second Pups in the Park game that Alex will remember, as she does not remember going in 2019, prior to COVID, as she had just turned one. Alex was especially in love with the food (and souvenirs), and she had cotton candy for the very first time! Victory was a little trooper and had fun as well. Of course, very little baseball was watched by us, but we have fun memories together! (Unfortunately, with the new rules, I could not bring my camera into the stadium this year.)

Below are several photos from our visit!  We look forward to going back again this fall with our girls!

Happy Thursday!

Spring Break 2023

Happy Spring! I hope you are enjoying the nice spring weather, and I hope you had a nice Easter! It is quite warm here! Alex had her spring break recently, and we went to see the wild horses at Assateague on the Maryland side, where furry family members are permitted! The horses were so beautiful. We also went to Dewey Beach, where furry family members are welcome, and we lucked out with nice weather for April! Alex had a great time, along with Victory, who absolutely loves the beach, and she never wants to leave!

Additionally, my parents visited during this time, and Alex enjoyed having special time with Grandma and Grandpa, which included: time at the beach; sleep overs with my Mom; playing and doing crafts with my Mom; a trip to see the dinos; a trip to the zoo; a trip to the book store; and dying eggs with my Mom for Easter. Alex especially loves spending time with her Grandma, and they both share the same birthday, interestingly! Alex also enjoyed a fun Easter Egg hunt on Easter morning, and the Easter Bunny was kind enough to include dog treats in the plastic eggs for our sweet fur girl, Victory!

We hope you had a Happy Easter! A few photos from spring break and our Easter are shown below.

Photographs: Rehoboth Beach and Dewey Beach Vacation

This blog post is over six months late! There has been so much going on as of late, and, consequently, I have been quite behind with editing our family photographs. I hope to eventually catch up on my editing of our family images and make our family yearbook for 2022.

This past August, we took our third trip, with our girls, to Rehoboth Beach and Dewey Beach. (You can view our first trip here; and our second trip here. And, we cancelled our 2020 trip to Rehoboth Beach due to COVID.)  Doug, fortunately, found another beach house to rent that would allow a small child and a furry family member!  We were not far from both beaches!  Alex loved the ocean and she even found little friends to play with on the beach, as she is so outgoing and social! She also enjoyed building in the sand with Doug! Alex also enjoyed using her boogie board as well, that she got at the beach last summer! Victory had a great time as well, she absolutely loves walking on the beach in the evenings, so much so, she did not want to leave the beach when it came time to leave!

We figured out a rhythm to our days, which went something like this: we woke up when Alex got us up, which was early; we all had breakfast; got our swimsuits and sunscreen on and packed up and headed to Rehoboth Beach where we stayed, and Doug walked to the Boardwalk to get our lunch each day, and we stayed until the late afternoon; then we got ourselves cleaned up and ready for dinner and we usually went to one of our two favorite places — Dewey Beer Co. or the Iron Hill Brewery; then we got Victory and we all went to Dewey Beach for a long walk, watching the sun set, which Victory always loved, along with getting ice cream; then we came home and got Alex to bed; and, then, we rested for a little bit.

We were not permitted to take Victory to Rehoboth Beach, but she could still go to Dewey Beach, thankfully!  So it worked out perfectly!  Victory has been to Dewey Beach several times before. Victory was absolutely in seventh heaven on the beach! And, Victory even let Alex walk her on the beach, again, in the evenings, shown below in the brief video! It was so sweet! We were also very fortunate for good weather on our trip.

Some images from our trip are shown below!  We are really grateful for our time away together with our girls!  We have many wonderful memories! 

Here is a video of our girls at the beach!

Happy Heart Day!

Happy Heart Day! We celebrated Valentine’s Day a little early, this past weekend, with Alex and Victory! They are quite the pair! I am so grateful for our beautiful girls!

I hope you have a great day celebrating with the ones you love.

You can view last year’s Valentine’s celebration here.

“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” —Maya Angelou

Family Photo Yearbooks

Last year, I decided to make family yearbooks in order find a way to keep all of my favorite edited photos organized chronologically, by year, since becoming a family of four. (Printing all of the photos became too cumbersome.) However, I still print photos that I want to frame for our home. Even though it was quite a bit of work, I am so pleased that I made these family yearbooks for our family to enjoy and for Alex to have someday! I refer to these books as a “collection of life.” I used Blurb to make my family yearbooks; and I used archival matte paper with an image wrap. I made family yearbooks for the following years: 2018 – 2021, 240 pages each. In the coming months, I plan to make our family yearbook for 2022, as I am a bit behind on finishing editing family photos from 2022. I highly recommend making these books yearly, and Blurb does a really nice job, and there is a lot of flexibility to create your own templates to create and design a book that will enjoy for years to come. Most of all, it is really nice to revisit and edit the year to capture family memories all in one place, in one book! (Additionally, you can view the book I made of Alex’s preschool art, a way to preserve her artwork, here.)

Eleven Year Blogiversary!

Today is the eleven-year Blogiversary of the blog!  I can’t hardly believe it! It is extremely difficult to believe that eleven years, over a full decade, has already passed by so quickly!  The time moves so quickly, these days, and I often wonder where the time goes. Many things have changed, but some things remain the same, fortunately.  I am grateful for this little space here.

If it were not for our beloved Biscuit, I am not sure I would have ever started blogging and I know that I would not have started my long-term photography project, for which Biscuit and Victory are my inspiration.  Biscuit was such a blessing and gift to us. Biscuit permanently changed our lives in so many positive ways and he sent us our precious little rescue sheltie, Victory, who we adore and love, shown below! And, coincidentally, Victory is the same age (we suspect as she is a rescue dog) as the blog!

Thank you for reading this blog for however long or short you have been visiting!  I truly enjoy creating content for the blog to share with all of you, and I hope that you continue to enjoy visiting and reading the blog!

Thank you so very much!

One Little Word 2023: Joy

I hope you had a nice Holiday! We visited with family, we had some down time with our girls, and we got some sleep and rest, which was so nice. And, I cannot believe our little girl is turning four-and-a-half-years-old this week! She is growing in every way and she loves learning, she is incredibly creative, and she is curious about everything, which I hope never goes away!

It is a new year, which means there has been much talk about fresh beginnings. For me, I keep things simple and I select a word, an intention, for the year, and I try to really embrace the word for the year, which feels like a theme or mantra for the year.

I have reflected on my word for this year: joy.  Last year, I chose the word: present; in 2021 the word grace; in 2020 the word bliss; in 2019 the word embrace; in 2018 the word peace; in 2017 I chose relax; in 2016 I chose present; in 2015 I chose flow; in 2014 I chose trust; and in 2013 I chose the word create.  The idea of picking an intention has worked well over the past few years. 

I have nothing against resolutions (or goals, or plans, or to-do lists), but for me, I have found the most impactful way to embrace a new year is to pick a word — just one word, intention — to keep in mind.

As 2022 came to an end, I know that things were really hectic and busy in 2022, on many fronts. I want to fully embrace joy this year! We have so much to be thankful for, always, and we are looking forward to a new year together. “The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.” —Thich Nhat Hanh

For me, it is an easy reminder to take whatever small steps I can to create clarity and feel better. For anyone similarly overwhelmed by resolutions, I recommend the practice of a New Year’s Word. Plus, since it is so simple, and you can change it at any time.

Happy New Year!