this girl loves her dog . . .

My daughter has always been an animal lover. Me? Not so much. She spent years begging for a pet. A cat. A dog. A Guinea pig. There's a whole Guinea pig story to tell but I'll save that for another time.

Anyway, the girl wanted a pet in the worst way and I really didn't. She played the "only child" card and said that if she could have a pet she would at least have someone to play with and talk to. She finally decided that it was a DOG she wanted, and she was relentless in her begging. I even got a Power Point presentation emailed to me at work explaining her reasoning for wanting a dog and listing all of the things she would do for me if only I would get one for her. She was GOOD.

So, for her golden birthday, when she was 9 years old, I got her a DOG. A Golden Retriever to be exact. I have to admit, it was probably the best decision I ever made. 11 years later that dog, Hunter, IS still her best friend! She is home from college for the summer and has spent countless hours hanging out with that dog. They go on walks. They go swimming. They lay in the yard and read.

Because Hunter is now 11, he's slowing down a bit and we've had several discussions about the fact that for a dog, he's getting old. She does not want to discuss. At all. But she did decide that we really should do a photo shoot, a girl and her dog. One day last week we walked down the road a ways to a beautiful spot with two rows of trees - our photo shoot location. We took lots of photos of them walking, running and sitting. Here's one of my favs:


He loves her just as much as she loves him. Pretty cool.

e + h. forever.

Summertime is grand!

Because I don't consider myself a gardener I'm pretty proud of this garden in my front yard, known as the Love Garden. Everything you see grows "automatically" which I think a real gardener would tell you means that these plants are perrenials. I just think of them as pretty things that grow without effort, which I love!

I'm especially proud of the clematis that grows on a post topped with a birdhouse. It's especially pretty right now, full of purple flowers.

They just started blooming this week and I happened to be outside yesterday afternoon and thought I should get a picture. I noticed that it was cooler than it had been for days, and the wind was really picking up. Within minutes of this photo it got dark and started to rain really hard! My daughter had just gotten home and went to the back yard to let her dog, Hunter, out to run around. He doesn't like the rain, so he went straight to the garage when the rain started. He's a bit spoiled, and doesn't really like sitting on the garage floor so he usually looks for a rug to sit on. Yesterday he must have decided he deserved better, because he found a chair and made himself comfortable.



Emily, my daughter and his favorite person on earth, quickly grabbed my camera and snapped a photo, although there was really no rush because he stayed there for a long time. Once the rain stopped he was ready to go back outside.


We've been enjoying the nice, hot summertime weather, especially after a really long winter. I hope that your summertime is grand as well!