Smokey's DNA

saw this sitting  in my drafts...


I'm not sure when it happened, but this has definitely become a doggy blog.....he's way more fun to write about than much of my daily life (need to remedy that).

We've always wondered what our little mutt is made of.  He looks like a lab, but has some traits that are very NON-labrador (hatred of water being one).

We saw that we could do a DNA test to find out his history and so we ordered it.

Toughest part was getting the cheek swab from him.....K had to hold him down while I swabbed away, we mailed it off and a few weeks later it showed up in my inbox.    I knew I wanted to look at it with Kevin so I resisted reading it until we were together, and boy am I glad I did...it made for a very fun dinner conversation that night...

Its a pretty extensive report (14 pages), but the main thing we needed to know was right there on the front page...

Smokey is a Cocker Spaniel, Australian Cattle Dog, Chow Chow, Doberman Pinscher, Labrador Retriever, Pekingese Mix

We were way off...only things we had right were lab, and some sort of herding dog (he herds kids, toys, us).....no idea he had those other pieces...but it was fun to read it, and did explain many of his special traits...it also opened up a whole new world of nicknames for him...

If you are wondering we used the Wisdom Panel, bought through amazon.

this post is not sponsored, just wanted to share what we found out.

July

This month has been a [fun] blur for us.  A few highlights (mostly for myself):

• spent 4th of July with niece and nephews and had a cookout at their house -- complete with sliders on hawaiian rolls...we didn't see any fireworks (we did hear some from our house), but had a great time visiting and even had patriotic dessert thanks to sis-in-law

• visited my brother in Austin and packed a LOT into one day:   I finally got to go off-roading (even drove a little), we found a great natural spring pool to go swimming in, AND we even added a couple of other items onto the day (the first two were what we hoped to accomplish) - found a winery to enjoy, and even brought a bottle to a BYO BBQ nearby.   great trip, and so fun to see my brother and not have to work on our parents' house 

• went to the beach with brother-in-law, his wife, their 3 older kids (baby stayed with grandparents) and 2 dogs.....that many people and creatures made for a chaotic, but fun, weekend.   you know its gonna be a busy weekend when you have to bathe the dog within 2 hours of arriving -- he found something awful to roll in; we also broke in our new pop-up tent at the beach and had it FLIP on us, not major damage and we were able to get it righted, but it was quite a sight - our nephew's reaction, write SOS in the sand!   On our last day we celebrated 2 birthdays with a tye dyed cake.....

• went to our first ever Escape the Room, and actually escaped!!!

• helped my sister unpack her kitchen in her NEW HOUSE!    

dog teeth cleaning

Smokey is getting back to normal, but had a rough (ruff, haha) day yesterday.  This photo makes it look worse than it is, it was just a teeth cleaning, but for a dog that means sedation (can i sign up for that for my next dental appointment?).  Poor guy did have to go without food from 8pm the night before.  The vet's office left the IV bandage on him when we picked him up and it just made him look so pathetic I had to snap a picture......I call it, "our unwilling patient".....the procedure went well, no extractions needed and his teeth look great.  Wish me luck on a weekly treatment I will need to start giving him...

blueberry day

I made my annual trek out to pick blueberries yesterday.    The season opened a couple of weeks late due to the all the rain and flooding we've had this year, so the blueberries were plentiful and plump (and there were tons on the ground, from the rain or just so plump they couldn't hang out)

I brought a coworker with me so we could chat while we picked and I picked just over TEN pounds in under 2 hours.

This time of year I'm like Forrest Gump with shrimp but with blueberries...blueberry smoothies, blueberry muffins, blueberry pies....mmmmmm

what is your favorite blueberry item?

PS - went on my first ever girl's long weekend, and had a great time!   hope to do a separate post for it.

Girl's Weekend

We finally made our girls weekend, aka Ladycation, a reality and it was such a success!     We've been talking about doing it for years and finally made it happen the first weekend in June, and the crazy weather couldn't stop us!  Houston had bad weather the day we were headed out and while we were gone, but we were actually very lucky with the weather.

There were 6 of us, and it went so well - no drama, and even sharing 2 bathrooms worked out really well.

We hope to do it again next year,  we may even stay at the same house!

Lots of chatting, laughter and just fun with friends was just what all of us needed.

Fredericksburg is known for wineries and so of course we had to tour and taste - we used a driving services so we were responsibly and none of us had to be DD.....

I'd hoped to do a full recap but the time got away from me....