i love you, and long walks on the beach

Happy Monday! It's been while since I've written in this little corner of the internet; what can I say, life's been full!

Tim came back from a week-long business trip that hit both Alabama and New York on Thursday night, and Amy's three-weeks with us ended on Friday. So, this weekend was one of recovery, as you can well imagine.

We spent the majority of the time at the beach, as you do.

Saturday we drove to our favorite beach in Carpinteria, a town a little south of us (Which btw is a town we would LOVE to live in someday!). An hour or two in the sand was exactly what the Dr. ordered.

Daisy recovering from her hours of running in circles in the sand; Tim coiling her 50 ft lead. With so many distractions at the beach, we don't take any chances! 

Afterwards, we cooled off at Island Brewing Company just a few blocks from the beach. 

 We had some friends over for dinner and a puppy playdate, which was the best way to end an awesome day!

Sunday, we went for another long walk on the beach. This time, we went to Thousand Steps beach (a misnomer; there's only about 40 steps down).

The weather was chilly and the tide was really high, but the beach was deserted and it was absolutely beautiful.

Normally, when we go to the beach we run Daisy on a 50 foot leash (see top picture), or we'll go somewhere fully fenced in like a schoolyard or dog park. However, we would never be able to train her unless we gave her a chance, and at a beach like Thousand Steps, really where can she go? So, we let her run out in the "open" for the very first time since adopting her, and she did really well! 

 

There were a few times she would just run full-tilt down the beach, but she would always check back in with us. Score! The high tide helped us out a lot too--she'll go in the water only when she can't avoid it, so the high-breaking waves kept her from getting to far ahead of us.

She just loved to go exploring! It was really entertaining, and nerve-wracking of course occasionally when we'd turn the corner and she'd be halfway up a sheer rock-face, jumping around like a dumb little billy goat. Most of the time, though, she stuck close.

We walked down as far as the tide would let us, then tried to get our hopeless dog to play with the ball and frisbee we'd toted with us all the way down the beach. It was to no avail; she'd rather just run in circles around us or sniff kelp. Her loss.

Sunday evening involved going to church and then unwinding watching an old movie. Happy weekend!!