Amusement: Dog Swimming

I love taking my dogs for swims.  They also love going for swims!  My largest one Bubbles, the lab mix, is the only one who would prefer to stay home rather than swim.  Unfortunately my little JRT, Cailin, hurt her back this last week besides having to drop fly ball for some time, she also has to stop swimming for a while also.
Today I took just Mr. Puppy (Opus) to the local dog pool.  Yes, I did say DOG POOL.  The dogs just love it, and living in a climate that's freezing half the year its nice to have a fun place to exercise inside!
I also took along my camera.  The dog's have a blast, and it is fun to get some shots of them swimming.

Blogs are always better (IMO) with lots of photos!

Opus has the turtle!

B and her ball!

S has to get all the toys!

Everyone in the pool. 

Opus looking for the penguin.

S jumping on in!

B after another penguin. 

B getting her ball. 

Opus looking like a basset in this one!

S bringing in the Frisbee. 

Opus reminding me quite loudly to throw his toy!

Happy S collecting the toys!

Bis having a great time!

The dogs love swim time.
Thanks to Four Star Wellness!

Adventures in: GRILLING!

Today was another food adventure day.  Last night the local grocery store had bratwursts on sale so we got a "few."  Ya-know like three dozen.

I like beer bratwursts, but I don't have beer at home.  I do however have wine!  So J and I decided to try wine marinated grilled brats.  They turned out delicious.  

So I don't have exact measurements for this, but its a marinade so make it to your tastes.

• About 1 cup of shredded cabbage  (had left overs from my white cabbage rolls)
• 1 chopped onion
• large pinch of chopped fresh parsley
• 1 minced garlic clove
• a dash of vinegar
• and roughly half and half mix of a random Pinot Grigio and a dark red wine I had called Tempranillo 

I placed all the ingredients in a large zip lock bag, added the bratwursts and then filled till covered with the two wines.  Mixed everything well and marinated in the fridge for about 4 hours, flipping every few hours.

Yep they turn pretty purple... 

Pull out the brats, toss them on the grill.  Nice and purple on the grill.  Those non-purple ones and just plain ol' hot Italian brats. 

Next drain the excess wine from the bag.  Put the onion/cabbage mixture in a foil packet and toss that on the grill with those brats! 

And this one is for J, he wanted everyone to see his grill smoke. 

All done, don't they look yum?

Nice purple toppings for the brats. 

And done! 

PANCAKE WEEKENDS!

I love the weekends.  As long as there is an hour in the morning J and I get up and make pancakes at least once a weekend.  Usually I use the cheater baking mix box stuff, but then I experiment with what ever I find in my pantry.

Had to start the morning with basic pancakes.  Need to know where I am starting from, right? 

Next was the closer to failure of pancake morning was the blueberry swirl pancakes.  Had some nice blueberry syrup that I though would make a good pancake.  Tasty? Yes.  Pretty? No. 

The winner of pancake morning?  Chocolate chip cookie pancakes!  Why have just chocolate chip pancakes when they can be chocolate chip cookie! 

These turned out great.  

Pretty simple to throw together.  

I tossed a handful of chocolate chips in my magic bullet and chopped them up a bit.  Last time I put chocolate chips in pancakes they sank to the bottle of the batter bowl. 

Put in a few large pinches of brown sugar. 

A dash of salt. 

And mixed together. 

Finally folded it into the pancake batter.  Remember to not over mix the batter, makes tougher pancakes.  

To top off a great pancake morning, some fresh squeezed orange juice by J. 

A bit on the dogs.

So far I have done nothing more than post on food and recipes.  It is something that I love to do!  What I also love is dogs, and specifically MY DOGS.  Yeah I think my own dogs rock.

I have two dogs in particular that I have in training classes right now.  Cailin my little Jack Russel Terrier (JRT), otherwise known as "Little Girl," is my fly ball dog.  She has been in classes for a while, but until recently has not progressed much.  I got some at home help from J and she gets better each week.  I may get her into a trial yet!

I moved her jumps outside since it has been summer hot here.   I am hoping with outside distractions she can learn to still focus on "Get Ball!"  Cailin loves her "Get Ball" time!

Bubbles the lab beagle mix, is my other class taker.  She is currently working on Agility.  Yep that would be jumps, ramps, weaves, and all that jazz.  She is doing great on her weave polls, seems to actually like them!  

Bubbles is also starting to get that whole "jump" thing too.  Right now her biggest challenge is to actually learn to play tug with me!

Training time ended with a 4 mile hike at the Dunes of which 2 miles were along the Michigan Lake shore. All 4 pups went, and got to have a good play in the water.  Nothing like an 87 degree day in March to spent with dogs at the beach.