Weekend Recap: Staying In

It's Monday and back to the grind this AM. I am really hoping that this week is an improvement over last week.  I felt like I was in the twilight zone with Eric being gone most of the week. I knew it was going to be rough as we are still trying to get Beau on a schedule, but he ended up being the least of my worries. Both Hawk and Peanut had some pretty gnarly stomach issues which resulted in the house getting cleaned every day last week.....it was rough to say the least. Poor Hawk had his stomach issues on Tuesday and somehow ended up tweaking his bad leg so he was down for the count the remainder of the week.  He was feeling better on Friday and convinced his puppy letter-outer to let him swim, but I am afraid he overdid it so he was pretty pathetic all weekend. Peanut on the other hand was good to go until Wednesday when his issues started, and culminated with a trip to the vet Friday morning.  I'm happy to report that he is feeling much better, but I am not sure he's forgiven me for the gastrointestinal rest (AKA nothing to eat) the vet had him on until Sunday. All he got to eat on Saturday was rice, so by Sunday when I was able to mix in some real food he was ravenous! To be honest , it was so stinkin' hot outside I really didn't mind staying in.

I had some veggies from the garden that needed some attention before they went bad, so I did some canning on Saturday afternoon. I did my favorite Refrigerator Dill Pickles, Eric's favorite pickled okra, and tried out a new recipe for pickled banana peppers.  I'll let you know how the latter two turn out in a month or so.

The fruits...or should I say vegetables of my labor! All from our backyard garden!

I occupied my evenings with movies: Sisters, Inside Out, and Paper Towns. All great movies....what I didn't expect though was for inside out to make me tear up! I know it's a kids movie, but wow it had some stuff in there that really tugs at your heart strings!

L to R: 1) My finger doubled as a fantastic pacifier for Beau taking a nap. 2) Friday night dinner of Champions! 3) My poor sweet Hawk not feeling so hot.

Beau did his best to keep us all entertained, which was not hard to do.  That baby is a hot mess! He had me laughing all weekend. I did learn that he has a very low tolerance for sleeping in. I didn't put a movie on until after 9PM on Friday because I didn't want to be a lame-o who went to bed at 10 on a Friday, so I ended up eventually drifting off to sleep around midnight and turned off my alarm.  Little did I know that a small brown alarm would be sounding at his usual morning going outside time: 6AM. Of course after he came in, he wanted to eat, and then he wanted to play! Hawk and Peanut shared my sentiments of wanting to go back to sleep so the three of us vegged on the couch for another couple of hours while Beau transported nearly the entire contents of the toy basket to the dog bed in the living room....

King Beau and his loyal subjects

Needless to say, we were all ecstatic when Eric got home around lunchtime Sunday afternoon. We were even more ecstatic when a little storm cloud came rolling in and brought us a brief evening of relief from the heat. It was nice enough I took the little dogs on a walk to run some of Beau's excessive energy out! He was still ready to go when we came back so we played fetch in the yard for another half hour....and success! He fell fast asleep in Eric's lap when we came inside!

We capped off our Sunday evening with BLTs (BLPs for me!) and watch the Olympic Trials! I can't believe that the Olympics is just a few weeks away! I can't wait!

Here's to a cleaner, less stressful week!

Meet Beau

I'd like to introduce the newest addition to the Cagle Household.....Beau. He is a 12 week old Boykin Spaniel, and the most precious little mess you've ever seen.  No we weren't looking to add another 4-legged child to the mix, but he came to us by way of one of the other football coaches whose dog had a litter of just one pup and instead of selling him, he was willing to give him away to someone he knew....enter us. Eric knew that if he called and asked me about it I would have said no, so he had the dog brought to our house last week knowing there was no way I could turn this sweet face away!

He's pretty stinkin cute, too! It's been almost a year since we had a puppy around and I forget how silly they can be.  He loves playing in the garden....banana peppers are his favorite so far, aside from a hole that I dug some dirt from that gets just muddy enough to play in when the garden gets watered. He pulled one pepper off the other day and last night he took out an entire plant....he got excited about something and started jumping around like puppies do and snapped the entire plant off at the base.

Waiting for the pepper to play back....

He had me in tears last night after he stole the empty potting soil bag I had been using.  The bag was a least 4x his size but it was empty so he could pick it up, plus it made noise!  He started running around the yard with it so it looked like the bag was just floating around the yard. I tried to yell at him to stop but I was laughing so hard nothing came out. Oh puppy life.

Clockwise from top left: 1)He does have quite a distinguished look when he wants to (and is still for more than .5 seconds). 2) This is the look he gives when you tell him he can't do something....complete astonishment. This is usually followed by barking at whatever you just told him no to after he gives you the look. He spent about 5 minutes barking at Hawk's bowl on Sunday morning because I would not let him eat Hawk's breakfast, too. 3) He does seem to enjoy biting shoes/toes/calves, so I've had to be extra careful with where I throw my shoes....I'm learning just like him. 4) He may be a wild man when he is awake but he sure does give sweet puppy cuddles when he is asleep!

He has actually been a really good puppy.  He goes in his crate at night and after a few minutes of jumping in circles and playing with his bed he settles down and goes to sleep. He usually sleeps all night until we get up in the morning and we are crossing our fingers and toes and eyes that it continues. I am hoping we won't have to crate him at night for too much longer. His little puppy brain is just too curious to stay out right now.

The Chuck-It Bumper is one of his favorite toys....he shakes it so hard he falls over!

Of course he's been checking off his list of Cagle dogs firsts. In the one week we've had him he has swam in the pool, walked the neighborhood, and even had his first bite of ice cream (we had DQ for Peanut's birthday last night). Hawk and Peanut weren't thrilled with him initially but I know they'll come around with lots of bribing and treats eventually.

I feel like this could be a movie cover for The Hangover: Canine Edition...Beau has the Alan roll nailed.

I am sure there will be copious amounts of silly Beau stories to come....so stay tuned!

Memorial Day Week Vacation Part 2: Orange Beach

As I mentioned in Part 1, we (and by we I mean Eric) decided he wanted to change our plans 2 days before we left on our vacation and extend our trip by a few days by heading over to Orange Beach, AL on Wednesday when Mom and Dad headed back home.

It's only taken me nearly 10 years of being around Eric to start keeping up with fishing and hunting seasons, particularly the ones that hit me last minute every year....I've never been an exceptionally quick learner with certain things. Unlike deer and fishing season which are several months long, duck season(s), dove season, and red snapper season are a few of the seasons that can be tricky because they're short and can sneak up on me and are all seasons he cannot miss out on....someone has a severe case of FOMO (fear of missing out), especially when it comes to catching or killing something he likes to cook. I just happened to remember the the super fast 10-day red snapper season usually hits early June, so I looked it up in mid-May. Wouldn't you know that it ran June 1 (the day we were to leave PCB) and runs through June 9 (so if you had intentions of catching red snapper in AL waters this year and are not out on a boat right this moment you're probably SOL), so I had already told my boss that there was a good chance I'd be out for the entire Memorial Day week and did not have my usual freak out when Eric suggested we call his brother and see if we could come over so they could fish for a few days. Like I said....it only took me 10 years to start planning ahead like this. Did I gloat and say something along the lines of I knew you'd want to go!!!? Not on the outside anyway.... =)

We had a fantastic visit in OB. Eric got to go snapper fishing not once, but twice over the weekend which made him a happy camper. And left us with an abundance of delicious fish to eat!

 The 65lb Wahoo!

 Wahoo and Red Snapper

I on the other hand, got to spend lots of time with my SIL and nephew. We spent our mornings at the YMCA getting out workout on, where we got to take a bunch of fun classes: Body Pump, a barre-inspired class, and a really fun class that you get to beat drumsticks on the floor while you do squats and lunges that is my new favorite workout called Pound! And we spent our afternoons on the couch binge watching Netflix shows....I finally got to watch Fuller House and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt! After 5 straight days at the beach, I really didn't mind staying inside and relaxing!

...and of course lots of Disney Channel!  I know I am not the only person in the world who uses children as an excuse to watch Disney movies, right?!

We finally packed up and headed home on Saturday afternoon. As much fun as we had on our adventures it sure was good to come home to our pups! We took it easy on Sunday in an attempt to wean ourselves off vacation life and back into real life. Lucky for me I had Monday off, too, so I had an extra day to recover, which I spent weeding the garden and playing with the pups. It was a pretty fantastic ending to a pretty fantastic vacation if you ask me!


Side Note: Today is the 9th birthday of our sweet, mischievous, drill sergeant of a puppy dog, Peanut! You better believe we will be celebrating with a little DQ ice cream treat tonight!

He spent his Sunday afternoon patrolling the pool from his towel-covered chair....serious business folks, serious business.  

Weekend Recap: It Summered

Yes I realize I made up that word just now but that's the best way to describe what happened this weekend: it summered outside. And in response? We summered right back.

Clockwise from top left: 1) Summer pretties from Costco 2) Spicy Pimento Grilled Cheese on a Hawaiian Roll...aka the most worth it diet ruiner ever created. 3) Baby Knox and I at the birthday party on Sunday....and the giant water slide in the background. 4) Fried okra grown in the garden by yours truly.

After a crazy busy 24 hours to start the weekend: I had dance team tryouts Friday night and hosted my P.E.O. group on Saturday morning (both of which went wonderfully!),  I was completely pooped. Eric was off fishing in a tournament so I decided the best course of action would be to layout/swim in the pool. One problem, it was absolutely, positively miserable outside. I'm talking actual temps over 100 degrees with heat indices nearing 110....in June. You see the weather decided to "summer", like "Dog Days of Summer" that we usually don't get until August....in JUNE. I know I know, the pool seems like the logical solution, but it was just so stinkin hot and I really didn't want to mess with sticky sunscreen that I was going to have to reapply 1000 times because that's approximately how many times I'd have to get in the pool....so I told the pups we were going to stay inside in the AC for a little while and took a nap on the couch instead....they didn't object.

Around 4, when the heat index had gone down to a mere 100 we ventured out.  The sun was just started to go behind the trees in the backyard, so it was perfect.  Eric got home about an hour later and our neighbors came over and we all played in the pool like with the kids until we were hungry.

Hawk in his happy place and Peanut checking out the corn in the garden.

Sunday we were up early, I headed to church and Eric headed over to his friend's house to help put up a fence.  I honestly don't think they could have picked a hotter weekend for it. I stopped by after church and brought them some cold Gatorade and waters because I am a nice thoughtful person and had nothing to do with me being nosy and wanting to see how the fence looked.....promise. While the guys finished up the fence I headed to a friend's child's birthday party, complete with a blow up water slide.  It was awesome. I seriously considered going down it, but decided against it because I really didn't want to have to drive home in wet clothes. I know lame. I am sure it would have been a lot cooler if I had because Sunday's heat was a carbon copy of Saturday's heat.

I left the party dry and went straight home to get in our pool because that's the best way I know how to summer.  Once again we swam until we got hungry. Luckily we had some leftover Boston Butt from Saturday, and some okra from the garden that needed to be cooked. I chopped them up, and we fried them along with some banana peppers and there was not a single okra piece or banana pepper ring left. I am super excited that the garden is starting to produce some veggies! Now if it would just cool off a little I could get out and finish weeding it so I can take pictures of it to share.

Side note: is it okra pieces or okra pods or okras or what? I've asked several people and have no clear answer and it makes for extremely awkward conversations when trying to tell people how much okra I had to use up.

I do have to brag on Eric for just a minute....He and a buddy fished a tournament on a river that Eric hasn't fished in nearly 20 years and they finished 3rd out of 22 boats!

I promise he was excited...I guess he was trying to be a serious fisherman.

So yeah, that's how we summered this weekend.  It was pretty fantastic.  I am hoping we get to do the same again this coming weekend. BTW we replaced our pool liner the week we left for the beach so this is really the first weekend we've been able to enjoy the pool this year! Whatcha think??  We love it!

Just so you know it had not been cleaned in the before picture...hence the booger green color of the water.