Monday, May 30, 2005

Wonderful Weekend!

This weekend I took a much needed break from work and enjoyed a 4-day, mini vacation.  On Sunday, we went to the doggie beach with the boys’ life vests and boogie boards in tow.  Since it was Memorial Day Weekend the beach was pretty crowded, but the water was warm and there were plenty of dogs in the water swimming.  It was hot, so the boys were very anxious to go for a swim.

The boys splashed around a bit in the area near the shore and then they hopped on their boogie boards so that we could go out a bit further in the water.  We got out in the water a little bit above my waist and the boys were having a great time just floating on their boogie boards and going up and down with the waves.  At this point, I was really wishing that I had a waterproof camera so that I could get a picture of the boys just relaxing in their life vests on their boards, but I was happy just being out in the water with the boys.

The boys were doing great just floating until Henry caught a glimpse of one of the buoys that was used to mark the swimming lane in the ocean.  The buoy was bright orange in color and about the size of a soccer ball.  It was a very thick plastic and it was tethered to the bottom of the ocean with a cord.  When Henry first spotted the buoy he was about 30 yards away from it.  I saw that Henry was fixated on the buoy and knowing Henry I knew exactly what he wanted to do.  See, Henry has this thing about fetching in the water.  Whenever he is in the pool it is his mission to pull everything out.  He pulls all of his water toys out and puts them on the deck.  He fetches the pool noodles and brings them out of the pool and he even tries to grab hold of the rafts and pull them out of the water as well.  In his mind, he is saving them.

So when I saw him pacing on his board I knew he was about to dive into the water.  Sure enough he did and he was headed straight for the buoy (don’t worry he was on his leash and I was swimming with him).  After a long swim (for him anyway) we were at the buoy and he was trying to bite it and push it back to shore.  I was trying to let him know that the buoy was not a toy and that he could not fetch it, but he wasn’t buying it.  I brought him back closer to the shore a bit, but he was still fixated on the buoy and saving it.  I was so proud of him for being so brave and swimming so far in the ocean and he was so proud of himself too.  While he wasn’t happy about leaving the buoy behind, I managed to convince him that the buoy needed to stay in the water.

When we got back to our spot on the beach I got the camera out to take a picture of the orange buoy, but wouldn’t you know that I didn’t put the battery back in the camera after it was finished charging!  I was really kicking myself, but at that point there was really nothing I could do!

So instead of pictures of the boys swimming at the beach, I had to settle for posting pictures of Henry swimming in the pool today.