Labor Day Weekend 2012

Although I wish we could have been back in Missouri, cruising along Table Rock Lake with my family as I've done Labor Day Weekend from about 1995 to 2010, I can honestly say I had a great holiday weekend here in sunny Florida.

Yes, for the first time since late May/early June, we had an entire weekend full of sun!!  I am hoping we're out of this all day, every day rain crap!  (We moved down here September 11, 2011 and it wasn't like that so fingers crossed that we've crossed that Florida coast-life hump)

Friday was a low key night.  I interviewed for a nannying position, got home pretty late, went grocery shopping and baked to prepare for Saturday.  Nothing exciting.

Saturday, we woke up bright and early (6am to finish baking) and headed to Matt & Jenny's house for our Navy Football party.  Notre Dame is a huge rival of Navy and they were playing each other in Dublin!!!!  We were really hoping to go to Ireland for this game but money and Nick's schedule just would not allow for that.  So the next best thing was to watch it with our closest and best friends down here!
A football party isn't complete unless there's alcohol and a giant food spread.  But because we were playing in Ireland, it meant an 8am start time.  So the menu for the day was mimosas and breakfast foods.....mmmmmm.  The 15 of us (plus 2 kiddos) indulged in coffe cake muffins, monkey bread, cinnamon rolls, some delicious eggs...not sure what they were called but Carlos did a great job with them, fruit salad, quiche, biscuits & gravy, brownies, etc.  Needless to say, my little belly was beyond full!  AND I got to hold the ever adorable little Olivia for quite some time.  Seriously, they don't come any cuter than this girl.  And if my baby fever wasn't already bad enough, I'm now googling nursery ideas and baby names and baby items like crazy.  It's really a terrible, terrible sickness.  The only way to cure it is to think that the baby could look like me, not Livie, and it scares me into holding off.

7am and on our way to Matt & Jenny's house!  Doesn't Nick just
look so pumped for the game?!

In my Navy gear and pretty awake for it being so early!  But then again,
I'm always up for fun with friends!

Nick had a little buddy!  Little Joshua wanted to sit next to him & watch the game.  So cute!

After the game, we headed home.  I took a nap with the pups in the back bedroom.  After waking up, we cooked dinner, snuggled on the couch, and watched "Silence of the Lambs" (I'd never seen it) while I continued to get ESPN updates on my phone about the Mizzou game.  It was the first game of the season, the first game at home, and the first game of our first season in the SEC conference!  We played SE Louisiana and beat them 62-10!!!!  I was pretty pumped!  I know they aren't a great team, and this is probably the only game we'll win this season but who cares!  No team would enter the SEC conference and dominate.  Give us a few years and it'll be an even match against the other teams!  Nonetheless, I am a Mizzou Girl and will ALWAYS support my Alma mater.

You can leave The Zou, but The Zou never leaves you!
Always a Tiger!!!!!

Sunday we gathered at Matt & Jenny's house (again) for a pizza party.  Thankfully it was also a party to let the dogs release some energy.  I don't know about our friends' dogs, but Yadi, and surprisingly Vino, have been out of their minds lately.  No amount of playing, wrestling, running, fetching, etc causes them to settle down.  It was the perfect excuse because Heidi and Rick had been wanting to do this for a while.  They made amazing pizza dough and sauce and Matt & Jenny, Elizabeth & Charlie, and us Oberkrom's provided the toppings.  So we enjoyed some delicious pizza while Yadi, Vino, Bachelor, Shipmate, Kona, and Maggie got to play together.  I mean, it had been an entire week since they all saw each other ;)

Best Friends...the Pensacola Dog Pack (missing Shipmate in this picture)

We spent the rest of the day doing our usual evening routine: hanging out, making dinner together, taking an evening walk with the pups around the neighborhood, snuggling on the couch watching television, playing with and laughing at the dogs, then going to bed.

Today, Sunday, was family time.  It seems we're always out and about with other people and we rarely do things just us.  And we're totally okay with this considering we have some kick ass friends here.  Time at Matt & Jenny's did not help their energy so we knew we needed to do something.  We'd heard from a few friends that you can have dogs on the beach at NAS Pensacola (the Navy base).  Blackwater River, along the Old River Trail, where we normally take our dogs swimming, has been flooded for quite some time due to all the rain we've had.  And we refuse to go back to Bayview Dog Beach since our dogs get sick after every visit.  Which means they haven't been swimming in a very long time.  Probably around 6 weeks or so.  Which sucks because these girls LOVE to swim.  So we decided today would be a great day to set out to NAS Pensacola Beach.
We decided to go just ourselves and not invite friends because this beach is not fenced like our dogs are used to.  It's a LONG wide open beach.  We Yadi would be fine because she won't venture more than 10 feet away from us (WIN for separation anxiety!)  We wanted to see how Vino would do without the distraction of other dogs and people.  She knows her name and she knows the "come" and "stay" and "leave it" commands.  BUT you throw a bird into the mix, and she's gone.  Her hunting instincts negate any training she's learned.  It's as if when she sees a bird, she's suddenly deaf and just takes off.  So we decided to put her on a rope today.  This way, if she took off, we could grab the rope and reel her back in before she ran away.  It worked well for the most part.  She ran off twice...we couldn't grab the rope in time and this girl is faster than a greyhound!!!  Both times she went far....as in more than 500 yards away.  All because a seagull flew over us and then flew down the coast.  She chased it down the beach, then it flew over the water.  She got about 30 feet in before she realized that bird was too far out to sea.  Thankfully this allowed Nick to catch up to her.  So we need to work a lot more on her training  (although I seriously doubt it will work).  As for the next time, we're getting a longer rope and will tie her to giant piece of drift wood on the beach.  This way, she can reach the water, she can roam and run quite a ways, but she can't run off like she did today.
All in all, we had a really good time.  I am absolutely in love with my little family.  My pups are the cutest things ever and my husband is my absolute favorite person. It was nice to enjoy the outdoors, the water, the sun, and togetherness.  I hope we can do this more often now that the sun seems to be a constant thing these days *knock on wood*.
And next time, we'll have invite the Pensacola Dog Pack along with our friends =)
So now, in true Melanie fashion, I'll leave you with an absurd amount of pictures from today:

running away from Yadi with her ball

running away from Yadi with her ball

running away from Yadi with her ball

finally giving her her ball

Yadi launching in after me

always has to be by her Mama

Vino...scoping out the birds

Yadi just enjoying the breeze blowing through her floppy ears

Nick burying Vino

Nick burying Yadi

Vino...and the LONG stretch of beach she just ran down

where we posted up for the day

the girls running along the water, loving their Florida life

Yadi looking at me, waiting for me to throw her ball

my adorable family

Family: check out my latest Facebook album [ Dog Days in Florida {2} ] for more pictures.

Then we came home, and bathed the dogs using their new shampoo.  Not only does it smell delicious (apple-scented), but it made their fur so incredibly soft!!!
And to end the night, we grilled out.  Because what's a Labor Day Weekend without grilling?!

Simple yet fun weekend spent with friends and my little family.  I couldn't have asked for a better weekend =)