Seafood Festival

(Dave and I sitting beside our booth)

This past weekend was the Ruskin Seafood Festival. (you can also call it the Tomato Festival and the Manatee Arts Festival... all three are exactly the same :)

Our Puppy Group always has a booth at these festivals to educate the public about Guide Dogs. Specifically Southeastern Guide Dogs.

(Dave sits nicely while I hold his leash and a really nice, very curious man pets Dave. The guy had some great questions about the school and the guide dog process. You don't raise 5 guide dogs and not learn a thing or two :o)

(Dave lays down nicely while watching people wander by. He did great at not getting too excited about people... but he really liked the greyhounds at the greyhound rescue booth :)

As well as seafood, there are animals, health and wellness screenings, homemade goods, art, jewelry, and contests.... like this one...

(Dave sitting in front of a hot pink smart car. The smart car fits only two people -or a person and a dog- and is the perfect size for a semi truck tire to squash it. I would freak out about driving it on the highway!)

Raffle to win a pink smart car, a golf cart, or $25,0000. I'm not so much a pink girl, but hey it's a car right?
Can you just see Dave and I riding around in it? Nope. Me neither. But hey, it's a car. And I haven't won it yet. The car or the cash.

Here is Dave with the ponies. Poor Ponies. I'm sure they would much rather be frolicking in a large grassy field somewhere, but they were hear to entertain kids. And Dave. Although he wasn't so much entertained as you can see in the picture.

(Dave sitting in front of the ponies waiting to be ridden by small children... Dave is looking over his shoulder at me with a very bored expression on his face)

Here is Dave with a pig. The pig is almost the same size as Dave which tickled me pink :)

(Dave and the pig, which is in a gated area, are standing almost side-by-side. Dave like the smell of the pig)

And there is no such thing as a seafood festival without some pirates!

(Dave with 6 pirates -wenches- they told me they took a picture the day before with a chocolate lab... these handsome boys sure have a way with the ladies :)

Dave's Halloween

Our family doesn't celebrate Halloween.   -What no candy?!?-
We used to. My mom loved dressing us three kids up in coodinating costumes. Like one year, when it was just Collin and I, we were "Mary had a little lamb" -Collin was the lamb- but my lamb kept running away leaving a trail of cotton balls that fell from his outfit (my mom glued every one of those cotton balls on his outfit by hand) so I then became "Little Bo-Peep lost her sheep".
One year (once Kaitlyn was in the picture :), the three of use were "The three blind mice". If our scanner worked I would post that picture. It was probably my favorite.
Another I can remember just because the face mask was so very irritating cute, I was "Cat in the Hat" and Collin and Kaitlyn were "thing one and thing two".
Waaaay back when I was an only child, I was a bird. But we won't go there.

Anyway. One year, my then 3 year old sister, freaked out about a house that was decked out with flashing lights, bloody walls, zombies, ghosts, you name it. She even refused to go near the house. We had to cross the street and go clear around it. So the next year when mom asked if we wanted to go, we all said no. That was when the special treats, candle light and movie night developed.
This year we got some candy at the store and played Uno in almost complete darkness. Who needs all that candy anyway right? :)


But something that is still fun to do is carve pumpkins :) I don't know why I didn't think of this with my previous guide dog puppies, but this year, Dave had his own pumpkin.

(Dave in front of the pumpkin patch)

(Dave's pumpkin in between Dave's legs. The pumpkin is spray painted Southeastern Guide Dog coat blue and the school's symbol scraped into it revealing the pumpkin's orange color. The school's symbol is the profile of a guide dog's head with the blind person's hand holding the dog's harness.)

(Close-up of Dave's pumpkin)

We did go to Walmart and show Dave the gross rubber masks, let him sniff the fake hair, and even showed him a couple full out costumes. Did he care? Nope.

Home Depot

My family and I went to Home Depot to price privacy fencing. Dave of course tagged along.

It's not even Halloween and the Christmas decorations are out. Almost in full force. Trees, lights, garlands, lawn ornaments (yes the blow up, looks like a snow globe kind!), and even jack-in-the-box sock monkeys with Santa hats on...


The video above is of Dave watching me crank a jack-in-the-box. "jack" pops out and Dave jumps!


We priced wood fencing

(Dave sitting in front of stacked wood fence panels)

And also vinyl fencing...

(Dave sitting in front of stacked vinyl fencing)

And looked at wood because it smelled good...

(Dave decided to lay down in front of the rows and rows of plywood panels)

The paint isle is our very favorite!

(Dave sat nicely for a picture in front of all the paint samples)

We even found Dave's favorite color... Sorcerers Hat.

(I'm holding a bold blue paint sample which is in the shape of Mickey Mouse's head and the color of Dave's working coat! The guy behind the paint counter said he could could color match Dave's coat for us if we wanted :)

Tomorrow, Dave and I are going shopping for a special project. We'll be sure to do a post as soon as we're done!

Just hanging'

It's been nice just hanging around the house this weekend.

We celebrated Collin's 14th birthday (help!) Dave of course, was a huge help opening presents :)

(Dave helping Collin open his present)

Dad, Collin, Kaitlyn, Dave and I attended Southeastern Guide Dogs Walk-A-Thon kick-off party. The theme was Hawaiian and Southeastern even hired someone who sang and played a steel drum...

(Southeastern Guide Dog's sign stating when the up coming walk-a-thon is... March 3rd!)

(The sign showing where to pick up your walk-a-thon kick-of party t-shirts and dog bandannas)

(The many people, and dogs!, who showed up... the party was held under the gazebo)

(Dave and I beside the man playing the steel drum)

 The walk-a-thon kick-off party was also a great time to catch up with out of state friends... many Area Coodinators were in town for the annual AC meeting. As well as many familiar faces, we also saw Ellen Cox... she raised Eve's brother and is now raising Austin, Eve's nephew! Austin is a white lab, isn't he adorable?

(Austin sits nicely and looks up at the camera)

(Dave in front of Southeastern Guide Dog's stone)

 Dave went to his second soccer game. He loved watching the kids... and eating grass.

(Dave looks off in the distance while Collin's soccer game goes on behind Dave)

(Dave and I pose, sitting on a blanket, for a photo op :)

Dave will be turning 10 months in a little less then a week! He seems to have grown up so fast.

Bye Bent-man, hello Dave!

Something we have done while Bentley was here is hum the old "Batman" theme song... you know "nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah BATMAN!" but instead of saying "Batman", we would say "nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah BENT-MAN!"... so here, check this out, but as you listen think "Bent-man"...

Bentley accompanied us to the Library (helped me pick out pride and prejudice... oh yes!) and our first soccer game of the season!

(Bentley sitting in front of the library shelves which are half full of books)

Bentley did very well at the soccer game. He sat and watched the ball being kicked back and fourth. A couple times the ball came close and once, Bentley almost joined the game, but he settled nicely and watched from the blanket.(the team's tied 3-3... it was a tough game!) The weather was perfect... we're almost in plain donuts and apple cider weather! (I posted that for someone special... you know who you are! :)

(Meagan and Bentley sit on a blanket while watching the soccer game)

(Bentley watches the soccer game)

Today was a puppy meeting at The Big Top Flea Market. The weather was pretty near perfect while in the shade. Today was also the end of puppy camp for Bentley and Dave! Saying good bye to Bentley was a little sad. He was a sweet and happy-go-lucky guy....

(I took a picture of Dave and myself while at the flea market... I'm smiling while I hold Dave's blocky head in my lap)

But it sure is good to have my little man back :)

Bentley

Ben-Man

(Bentley standing in the kiddie pool looking up adoringly at Kaitlyn)

 Bent-Bent

(Bentley and Sadie in the kiddie pool)

Ben-ah

(Bentley sleeping all twisted in his crate)

Ben-a-Boo

(Bentley sleeping in the passenger well of the car with his head up by the gear shift)

Ben Ben

(Bentley laying down with a rubber heart-shaped toy in between his paws)

Bentley is his name... so don't wear it out.

Cracker Country

(Dave and I stand under the Cracker Country sign)

Saturday my family took advantage of the free admission passes to Cracker Country. Once a year certain museums will open their doors free to anyone who has printed passes from a website. One year we went to the Ringling Brothers Museum of Art. So we decided this would be a great outing for Bentley.

(Bentley looking through a wood fence at the Cracker Horses)

Cracker country is a walk-through museum that consists of houses the first Florida settlers built (around the 1900's). Many of them are one-room and all of the buildings are made of the original structures. There was a church, dry goods store, school house, post office, printing company, a professional cracker and many others. And many stairs. Which Bentley did very well at sitting at the base and top of the stairs every time, but towards the end, he was DONE! It was a very hot day, but thankfully most of the walk was shaded by large oak trees.

(Bentley and I sitting in front of a large replica of train tracks that ran through FL)

(Bentley laying in front of an empty furnace... much too hot out for it to be running!)

(Bentley and I standing at the top of stairs which are beside a caboose)

(Bentley looking through another fence at very noisy geese)

(the geese were not impressed to have Bentley sticking his nose through their fence... they kept hissing at him!)

 Bentley was quite worn out by the end of the day. Finally :)

(Bentley sleeping in the car)