Sunny Sunday

While John took Denver, John Robert, and a couple of friends to an air show in Rome, Georgia; Spencer and I stayed home with the dogs and enjoyed a leisurely, sunny Sunday.

Spencer and I enjoy a quiet day
together.

After brunch at IHOP, we loaded up the dogs and went for a hike at Charlie Elliott.  It was a perfect, brisk, leaf crunching day.  Spencer and I rarely get to spend time alone together, and we enjoyed sharing our thoughts and hopes on the quiet, wooded trail.  We saw heron and egret, and too many squirrels to count.  

The highlight of our hike came while I was throwing the ball for Jake near the pond.  Embarrassingly afraid of water, I hadn't been able to get Jake to step foot in the pond though I had been making every effort over the last two months.  Even with his beloved tennis ball at the edge of the water, he would walk up and look at the water, then leap back as if the water itself was going to get him.  Some labrador!

This afternoon, however, he was in a frisky mood and was very excited about his ball.  I threw the ball just a couple of feet out into the pond.  Splash!  He leaped in and grabbed it before he had given himself a chance to think.  On the next throw, I sent it out a little farther.  Just a moment's hesitation, and then Sploosh!  In he went.  By the fifth throw, he was leaping and swimming as if he'd been doing it for years.

Spencer noticed Audrey looking at Jake's water-loving behavior as if he was crazy.  In contrast to his dripping, muddy body, Audrey stood primly on the shore and took little drinks from the pond.  We laughed and continued our hike around the pond, noting the beautiful patterns made by the breeze across the water.

A quiet, sunny Sunday.