weekend update

It's the last weekend before school starts and life gets hectic again, so we tried to take advantage of it. Friday night, Mike and I spent some time out on the patio just hanging out (which we rarely do, so it was really nice) and watching the birds. We got some good hummingbird shots, but even without the camera, it was fun just to watch them flit around from the pigweed and milkweed in the pasture up to the feeder and back.

Saturday morning, we got up early and headed to Potawatomi Wildlife Park, which is only about 20 minutes away in Tippecanoe, but somehow we had never been there before. We were hoping for a good sunrise and some bird sightings, but instead we got a creepy walk in the fog. And since I never mind a creepy walk in the fog, I had a good morning. It felt great just to be outside doing something I like, even if the only bird picture we ended up with was a sparrow. (We did see and hear a lot of birds; they were just too quick for us!)

Then this morning, the grand finale: We decided to take the dogs to the dog beach. We first drove to Grand Mere State Park, only to discover that the dog beach is completely gone as a result of erosion. The water just goes right up to the small cliffs. That's been a huge problem the past couple years on the Lake Michigan shore, so we weren't surprised, but it was still sad to see. We had a backup plan, though, so we took the dogs to Warren Dunes State Park, which also has a dog beach. It's a much bigger and more popular beach, so there was still plenty of sand, but there were so many people, so the dogs had a hard time relaxing and enjoying themselves. We thought at least one of them (probably Pluto since he's a Lab) would enjoy being in the water with the boys, but we were wrong. So mostly they just spent their time getting wet and sandy and barking at everyone who dared step on the beach. Fun times. Oh well, now we know. The water was really cold, but the boys still had plenty of fun until the dogs made it known that they would like to go home right now please and thank you.