Picnics and Puppies

The glorious weather makes it impossible to stay inside for even the shortest amount of time, so yesterday -- after an awesome breakfast on the back deck -- Gearry and I packed up the puppies and a picnic and headed to Brown County State Park for some hiking, feasting and playing.

I was super, super sore from my softball game on Tuesday night (we lost... but I didn't suck as bad as I thought I was going to after not playing for four years... although I did get hit in the throat with the ball... that kind of hurt) so the "hiking" part of our excursion ended up only being a little two-mile trail around Ogle Lake. It's amazing how even though I've been triathlon training, I haven't done any sprints, and just the few little sprints I had to do during the softball game have every muscle in my body aching!

After our short (but nice) hike, we spread our picnic out on a table by the water and let the dogs play. Zoey does great off the leash, so she had a blast swimming and splashing in the water. Bailey, however, must stay on the leash, but he still did a bit of wading.

Perfect way to start the day. Pancakes, blueberry syrup, soy sausage, milk and juice on our back deck, overlooking the lake.

Yay for warm weather and sunshine! Let's hike!

Puppies take a swim.

The dogs play in the water while our picnic lunch awaits. "Chicken" (fake) salad, multi-grain crackers, fresh strawberries and cheese. And, of course, in honor of the warm weather, a six-pack of Leignenkugel's Summer Shandy. We even brought out the real, traditional, woven picnic basket for the occasion.

I had to take a picture of our muddy little girl, after she decided it was boring on the leash while we ate lunch and that it would be fun to dig a hole to China. Bailey looks on innocently in the background.

In other random news, I got an e-mail yesterday from IU that let me know my Praxis test scores had been received and -- since this was the last piece of my application puzzle -- my application had been forwarded on to the selection committee. Sooo... I should know relatively soon whether I got into grad school or not! Excited, nervous, excited, nervous. Either way, things will be OK, but I hope it happens.