Monday Road Trip

Hi everyone!

I hope you all had a good weekend. We went to a pug meetup at our local off leash park on Sunday morning. It was raining steadily and only two other families showed up. We all had a fawn and black pug, so there were six pugs and Honey Puppy. We stayed for about twenty minutes and went home to dry off.

On Monday I rode along with Hubby while he drove some cars to eastern Washington. We took all the doggies along too. We woke up at 4:00 in the morning and were on the road by 5:30. Yikes! While it was dark all the dogs slept together in their kennel. Hubby and I had coffee and cinnamon raisin bagels with cream cheese. Yummm!!

We had to cross over the Cascade mountains and drove through the snow covered passes. The sun started to come up while we drove through the snowy hills. It was so pretty, all the trees were covered in fresh snow that had fallen during the night.



We started seeing a lot of road flares and finally came across this accident. A huge truck had jack knifed. That would be a frightening experience! Hubby is a very safe driver and has never crashed. At least not accidentally.

We took our first bathroom break at a dam along the way. They had a really nice rest area and some beautiful views of the river and the fruit packaging plants.

Eastern Washington is well known for apples and cherries. Chances are if you have ever had fruit from Washington, it came from here. All the orchards were snow covered. Here are the fruit boxes all lined up waiting for the next harvest.




We drove along the Columbia River and saw some magnificent scenery. The river is really wide, it looks more like a lake in some places. The water was so calm and smooth, the reflections were stunning. You can see how I was taking the pictures in one of these photos. I use the zoom feature on the camera to avoid the window and mirrors. But sometimes I can't zoom fast enough to get the shot as we are moving along at sixty miles per hour!







The pups had a nice ride and really enjoyed being with us. As the day went on, they came out of the kennel and slept on the top. Pug Pile!! Honey preferred to sleep on her own at my feet.








Ollie also got in some quality time with dad. Lots of ear rubbing and head scritching. This love fest includes a lot of adoring looks and puggy kisses from Ollie. I tried to get a shot of that too, but they are all blurry.








It was a long day, but we all had a good time. Hubby is on his own today with his charming assistant, Charlie. Honey, Ollie and I are just lounging at home.

I will be posting our Mango Minster 2010 entries soon. I am counting on you all for your support and votes in the People's Choice awards!
talk to you soon!
hugs,
puglette
:o)

Fun in the Oregon Dunes

Hi everyone!

I hope your week is getting off to a good start. We had dinner with hubby's mom on Saturday. We brought Charlie along since grandma has been out of the country since the end of November. Little Charlie was so excited to see her grandma, she piddled! We were excited to see hubby's mom too, but did not piddle. ;o)


I have another family story to share with you today. This happened during the same vacation that daughter went over Rainbow Falls. This is about one of our adventures on the way up the Pacific Coast from California.


The Oregon Coast is a beautiful place. There are miles of beaches, old growth forests and lovely small towns to see. The Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area is a beautiful portion of the coast. The sand dunes are huge and stretch for miles. There are many ATV and dune buggy rental and tour shops.

We decided to stop at one of the dune buggy tour locations for a fun tour of the dunes. Yay!! Family fun!! HA!

There are many choices of vehicles at these places. Large, multi person open air buses and smaller sand rails. We chose a four seater, the three of us and a tour guide. The weather was warm and sunny so we had on shorts and sandals. The tour folks recommended closed toe shoes so we all changed into our tennis shoes. We get securely buckled in and handed a helmet. Good so far, lots of safety precautions.

Off we went, driving along the lovely dunes. Up hill and down, through small patches of trees and along the water's edge. It was lovely! It was about this time that the driver started to speed up. And it was also when my loving husband told him "go faster, don't worry if my wife starts screaming...it just means she is having fun!"

The driver took off like a shot! We started zooming across the sand. Retracing our tracks, we went back to the water's edge and this time we had a spray of water behind us. We were going so fast that my head was whipping around. And boy howdy, was I screaming! The weight of the helmet along with the speed was giving me a huge headache.

But the worst was yet to come. Instead of going up and down the hills like on a normal road, we began spiraling down hill as if in a vortex. I was on the side closest to the center or bottom of the vortex. I was petrified! I was sure that the heavy helmet was going to pull my head down and hit the sand. I could not believe the pull of gravity! I was in non-stop scream mode!

I was finally able to release my death grip on the cross bar in front of me to smack my husband on the knee to signal my distress. He let the driver know we ( I ) had had enough and were ready to stop. We finally headed back to the parking lot and were able to stop and get off that crazy ride.

I was literally shaking. I was a combination of frightened and furious. I had a mouthful of sand from screaming. My mouth and chin were coated, yuck! I stood up and dropped at least ten pounds of sand out of my shorts. Needless to say, I stalked off and headed to our camper to cool down. What an ordeal!

I can still imagine that feeling of trying to keep my head off the sand. I was sure I was going to end up like Isadora Duncan. I finally stopped being angry and hubby and daughter stopped laughing at me...well at least not so boisterously. I am not ashamed to say I am the wimp of the family.

I would love to go back to the Oregon Sand Dunes. It is a beautiful part of our great nation. I would even take another tour of the dunes. But next time I will be in the big bus, with all the other chicken old ladies!

until next time!

hugs,

puglette

:o)

The Little Green Boat

Hi everyone!

Happy Friday! WooHoo! I hope you all have some fun weekend plans.

As promised, today I will share another Puglette and Hubby adventure tale. This is another story about our little green boat. I first introduced you to our boat in this post. Today I thought I would tell you about our very first exciting adventure in the little green boat.

Hubby bought the boat from a former co-worker many years ago. It was exciting to have a boat, we have many small lakes around us. At that time hubby was really into fishing so the little boat would be a great addition.




He brought the little boat home and we decided to try it out on a local lake. Now I am not sure why we did not go to the lake that is about three blocks away from home, but we didn't. We went to a lake about ten miles away. It may have been because we needed to visit his mom...but I digress.

The boat was small enough to shove into the back of our SUV. It stuck out a bit, but was definitely manageable. Off we went to test out our boat! We were so excited!





It was a lovely summer evening. We are fortunate to have daylight until late into the evening during our summers. We were happily drifting along, just put putting slowly with our one horsepower, electric motor. It was so nice, quietly sailing along with the sunset turning Mount Rainier pink.




As we were calmly cruising the lake, we suddenly hear a boat engine in the distance. No big deal, there was enough room on the lake for everyone. Until we see the motor boat speeding along...straight for us! And the motor boat driver was not looking our way, he didn't see us!

We were sitting ducks. There was no way we could out run a large, expensive motor boat. I started screaming and waving my arms, hoping to catch the driver's eye. Hubby started moving us out of the way as fast as possible. But let me tell you...one horsepower versus 300 horsepower, well you know who was on the losing end of that equation.




The motorboat driver did not see us, he was still looking away from us. We both thought we were about to crash and started to stand up, ready to jump overboard. But phew! the motorboat turned away from us just enough at the last moment. We were almost swamped but just rode out the swells from his passing.




As soon as we knew we would be safe, I said these infamous words to my husband "Get a bigger motor"! He could not believe his ears! I was actually telling him to make our boat go faster! Me, the woman that squealed every time he went over the speed limit! Go Faster!! Well, that's what being a sitting duck does to you. You say goofy things.

We did get a bigger motor, five horsepower! And we continued to have lots and lots of fun in that little boat. But we did have a few more exciting adventures...but those will have to wait for another blog post.

Have a great weekend, my friends!
hugs,
puglette
:o)

Yummy Treats!

Hi everyone!

I have been asked by DogTime Media to review three dog treat samples from VitaLife. And I have to say that these are wonderful!

We received three different treats to sample. VitaLife Duck and Sweet Potato Twists, VitaLife Chicken and Banana Wraps and VitaLife Healthy Hips and Joints. We were sent full size packages.

VitaLife Duck and Sweet Potatoes were just that. A piece of dried duck wrapped around a real sweet potato stick. The three dogs were each given one treat after their regular dinner. I knew the pugs would gobble these down as they love fruits and vegetables. Honey is not a huge fan of either. However, they all loved these!


Later in the evening after performing some easy obedience work we tried the VitaLife Chicken and Banana Wraps. Again, the ingredients were easily identifiable. A piece of dried chicken wrapped around a banana chip. All of our dogs like banana chips so these were quickly eaten up.

Just before bed we gave everyone the VitaLife Healthy Hips and Joints treat. These are strips of chicken that have been supplemented with glucosamine and chondroitin. These treats look like chicken jerky, fairly large and flat. I am really happy to try these treats as both Honey and Ollie have joint pain. I have personally used a glucosamine and chondroitin supplement and felt some joint improvement.

(This is the image I was sent, but the product received was the Healthy Hips and Joints. The chicken strips look the same.)

All three of the products we tried are free of added salt, glycerin and preservatives. You can really identify the ingredients. They all looked like something we could eat. Good quality ingredients.


Our three doggies loved each of these treats. Their review is three wags up out of a possible three wags. :o)

I have not received any compensation to write this review other than the free samples. DogTime Media asked me to review the product and I agreed. I looked at the VitaLife website before I agreed and what I read impressed me. I would definitely buy these treats for our dogs again.

If you would like more information, including where to buy these yummy treats please check out http://www.vitalifemadewithlove.com/.

Thank you for taking the time to read my product review. Tomorrow more true tales taken from the adventures of puglette and hubby!!
hugs,
puglette
:o)

Vicious Pug Attack!!

Hi everyone!


Happy Friday! I hope you all have wonderful weekend plans. My plan is to stay home and recover from a wild pug attack!


Yes, I was attacked by a pug! And it was my pug, Charlie, the sweet innocent puggie you see in the header photo. HA! Looks can be deceiving.

Last night after dinner I was sitting in my comfy leather recliner playing a computer game on my laptop. Ollie jumped up to join me and we snuggled up together. I was playing a hidden object game and sometimes I need to use my reading glasses and hold my laptop kind of close to my face. So there's the setup, me and Ollie all snugly and my laptop on my chest / lap, all warm and cozy. So cozy, I started to doze a bit.

The next thing I know Charlie had jumped on my lap and starts zooming up my chest and shoulder to sit on the top of my chair. And she needs a nail trim! Owwie! Now remember, Charlie is an agility dog, so when she wants to jump and run she can really pour it on.

Charlie made it to the top of the back of my chair, but with her full speed momentum she caused the chair to get out of balance. The recliner started to lay back and just kept going. Ollie is flying, my laptop is flying and worst of all, I am flying backwards! Charlie jumped off the chair when it started to go over but Ollie landed on my tummy...Ooff! My laptop landed on my face, with the corner going right into my eye socket.

I screamed and hubby jumped up to help right my world. I handed him my laptop while hollering "My eye!" "My eye!" "My computer poked my eye out!" Poor hubby was trying to calm me down and get the chair back on its feet. I was flat on my back with my feet up in the air. I was looking up at my pink slippers thinking "How the heck am I going to get back up!?" Do I roll over and off the chair? But my sweet hubby had other ideas and started pulling on the arms of the chair and got it and me back up.

Back to my eye, I was still freaked out that I really had hurt my eye. It was all blurry and sore. Hubby informed me that the blurriness was due to the blood running out of a nick and a blood blister. (Sorry if this is too gross!) After cleaning up the blood and a good look at the damage, all I had was a small cut and the blister. By the time I woke up it had calmed down to a lovely bruise in the outside corner of my eye. It looks like I went a bit heavy on the dark purple eye liner.

Charlie and I made up later in the evening and even resumed our normal night time snuggling. However, when she tried to jump up on the back of the chair again, she was soundly told NO! Hmmm...now that I think about it, I think she tried to attack me again while I was trying to fall asleep! I remember she stuck out her paw and tried to poke me in the eye...again! She sleeps on my pillow every night. Maybe she is hatching an evil plot???

Have a great weekend everyone. And don't turn you back on your pugs!

hugs,

puglette

:o)

The Terrible Tale of Rainbow Falls

Hi everyone!

As you all know, I really enjoy Lolcats and Loldogs. I love the animal pictures and some people are so very clever with their jokes. This one today reminded me of a family vacation. And in this story I am not the one that falls!





About ten years ago we bought a very old motor home. We had so much fun with that old thing. We went camping and fishing all over Washington and Oregon. One year we drove down to California to see my family. We drove up the coast towards home, stopping to camp along the way.


The last place we stopped was fairly close to home. We still had some time left on our vacation so we stayed out one more night. We stopped at Rainbow Falls State Park. Rainbow Falls is a fairly small state park but it is in a lovely old growth forest. This picture is from the park web page, but is several years old. Last year we had severe flooding in this area and the bridge was washed away.




So, here we were, parked in a nice state park, just two hours from home. The weather was exceptional for Washington, nice and hot. The river was slow and looked inviting. Daughter wanted to go swimming so I sent hubby to keep an eye on her. I stayed behind at the campsite to read so the rest of this story is hearsay.


Daughter got down to the river and started splashing about. She was thirteen at the time. Hubby was walking along the bank and joking around with daughter. He asked her if there were any fish in the water and should he get his fishing pole. She started looking around and was swimming and floating and joking with her Daddy. She was having so much fun that she did not notice the approaching waterfall.


And you guessed it, swoosh! over the falls she goes. Now remember, this is the middle of summer and the water level is low. And Rainbow Falls is not a very tall waterfall. It's really just some large boulders in the river. But is surprised daughter and bumped her around a bit as she was not prepared for her trip. Her dad was watching her and did not feel alarmed by her trip over the falls. Poor daughter, however was frightened by the event.


The next thing I know is here comes daughter, bawling at the top of her lungs and her Daddy following behind laughing. Pandemonium ensued. Accusations flew. "Daddy let me go over the waterfall!" "I nearly died!" She was furious and shocked. (It was really kind of funny.) Of course I had to settle her down and listen sympathetically. I put a bandage on her scuffed elbow and we sat and had a cool drink. Hubby explained that he didn't think the waterfall was too high and that he thought she intentionally went over. It was something he would have done at her age.


Now you may think this was the end of the story. That after calming down and relaxing that daughter could laugh about the experience. That she and daddy could share a chuckle over this misadventure. Well, you would be wrong.


This is the one family story that is sure to get Dear Daughter sputtering and twitching in anger to this day! She still holds a grudge that her daddy did not stop her from going over the waterfall and that even worse, he does not feel sorry for her. So of course, when I saw this Loldog today, it reminded me of this tragic tale. And of course, being the loving mother that I am, I sent it to Dear Daughter with a note asking her if it made her twitchy. :o)

Talk to you soon!
hugs,
puglette
:o)

Happy 2010!

Hi everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. We just stayed at home and had a quiet day. It is so nice when the holidays give us a three day weekend.

I have some old photos to share with you, but I need hubby's help with scanning them. Just wait until you see these! I look so funny!

Take care everyone!

Hugs,

puglette

:o)