Life In The Dog House

April 8, 2017 · 08:18

Guess who is 16 years old today?

It may be grey and dreary outside but our lives are filled with sunshine today. Our beautiful golden boy is 16 years old today. The average life span for a golden retriever is 12 years…..we are incredibly blessed to have shared our lives with this amazing boy for 16 years. He had a delicious birthday breakfast of fresh ground turkey with pumpkin and fresh berries. Then he got to lick the empty pumpkin can. We have a long standing tradition of using Timbits (Wally’s favourite treat) to celebrate the big moments. On birthdays he would get one Timbit for every year and when his puppies were born he would get one for each baby. When he started getting into double digits we had to start cutting the Timbits in half. Later today he will get his 16 Timbit halves.

Bdaypumpkin

We had an early birthday celebration at Patty’s acreage on Thursday. We had a lovely lunch and nice walk on a beautiful, sunny spring day. We even managed to avoid Wally rolling in the horse and cow poop which he loves to do (as you will see below in the picture from his 11th birthday celebration at Patty’s).

16Bday2

Wally, Boomer, Stark, Hope, Spirit and little Tilly

To commemorate the big day I put together a series of images of Wally from 12 weeks to 16 years old.

Wally16years

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March 12, 2017 · 20:51

Canada 150 Mosaic

On Friday morning I went to the Enjoy Centre to paint my tile for the Canada 150 Mosaic Mural for St. Albert, Alberta. Our group was tasked with painting a tile for the blue background. I decided to use this picture, from our recent trip to Jasper, as my inspiration.

Can150Inspiration

It has been many years since I played around with watercolours but I’ve never used acrylics. There were some very talented artists there so it was a little intimidating to say the least. Here is my finished tile.

MyTile

I went back this afternoon to see the finished mural. I was amazed to see how it all came together to make this beautiful 8′ x 12′ mural.

Can150

Canada150-1

I searched and searched but I couldn’t find my tile. I thought to myself oh no….it was so bad that they couldn’t use it. But alas, I finally found my tile. It is 14 rows up and 7 rows in from the bottom right hand corner.

Can150Tile-1

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February 26, 2017 · 14:35

Another Hypo Half

2017hypohalf

On Friday I went to the Running Room to pick up my race kit for today’s Hypothermic Half Marathon only to find out that they had no record of my registration and they were sold out. On one hand, that wasn’t so bad because I had not done any training, but I had friends that were doing the race.

Yesterday Spirit and I spent almost 2 hours kick sledding and I was exhausted…but I still had this nagging voice in my head that said I really should do the half. To make a long story short, I got my butt out of bed at 6:15 this morning and met my friends at the start line. It was a cold and windy day but we toughed it out and finished. Since I was a bandit (non-paying participant) I wasn’t allowed to attend the brunch afterwards but I was more than happy to jump into the car and crank the heated seats to maximum to try and warm up. I hit the closest Timmies on the way home and then had a nice long soak in the hot tub. I’m sure my body will hate me tomorrow morning but I’m glad I did it.

My Golden Valentine

Now and then……..I can’t image a life without this amazing boy. He is my heart dog!!! (He looks so serious striking a pose in both pictures.)

15 years 10 months old

10 months old

As a thank you to my Golden Valentine we went for a walk (just Mom and her boy) to Tim Hortons to get him his favourite treat. He usually only gets a Timbit but today we went for the whole donut.

walvalentines2017

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January 25, 2017 · 20:01

The beauty of winter

I can’t say that I am a big fan of winter, but sometimes I just have to stop and appreciate the beauty. We live in the prairies so we normally have very low humidity. For the last several days we have had lots of fog and hoar frost. Each day the frost gets thicker and thicker. Here are just a few pictures I took of the amazing ice crystals:

hoarfrost7

Diablo Ninebark flower cluster

Hydrangea bloom

Rose hips

Rose hip cluster

Jackmanii clematis bloom

hoarfrost2 hoarfrost1

And last but not least, hoar frost on my big girl Spirit during our walk this morning. She looks like she has giant white eyebrows.

frostspirit

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January 1, 2017 · 12:22

Resolution Time Again

Before…..

After….

We just finished the annual Running Room Resolution 5km race. We’ve been doing it for about 5 years now. It is a family friendly, non-competitive event that helps us start our new year off with health and fitness in mind. Of course the pancakes and sausages at the end are always a big hit with the skinny guy.

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December 19, 2016 · 14:33

Sweet Gentle Soul

McMullin snuggling in the kennel

My beautiful, gentle old man Wally. He is almost 16 years old now. Over those years he has shared our home with more foster puppies and four-legged family members than I can count. Without exception, each one has gone to him to cuddle and seek comfort. He has always obliged. For an intact male he is truly amazing!!!!

Just a few more pictures to tug at your heart strings: