Spring Vacation

Phillip finally had a week of vacation, so we took the opportunity to head down to Florida to spend a few days at the lake and a few more days at the beach.  Warning:  the following post is mostly pictures of our puppy.  If you like cute puppies you’re in luck.  If not, well, better skip ahead to Banana Pudding.

We were not sure how Watson would do on the 7-8 hour drive from Charleston to Phillip’s parents’ lake house, but other than an incident during a bathroom break involving some burrs, Watson did great.  He was happy to finally be able to get out of the car and run in the grass though.  He was especially glad to have so many new people to play with – and it seemed like everyone was nearly as happy to play with him too.

Watson loved the big porch where he could toss and run with Yellow Dog for hours.

So peaceful in the mornings.

We weren’t sure how he’d feel about the water, but as long as there weren’t waves from passing boats, Watson loved the water!  He figured out that it was a great way to cool down.  Phillip confirmed that he could in fact doggie-paddle. Incidentally, although Phillip was off for the week, I was not.  But when you can set up your office on the dock, it’s really not so bad.  And Watson enjoyed hanging out with Phillip in the nearby hammock.

We loved taking our nearly nightly pontoon boat cruise around the lake.  The weather that week was perfect.

On Wednesday evening, we packed up our things and drove down to the beach.  Watson wasn’t as thrilled with the sandy beach since 1) dogs aren’t technically allowed on the beach, so he mostly had to stay in the house and 2) he was afraid of the ocean waves anyway.  But, he did enjoy watching all the happenings from the porch. 

I made our favorite beach meal, Carolina Crab Cakes (let me know if you want the recipe), and we also tried a new Strawberry Lemonade Sangria (2 lemons, thinly sliced; 2 cups strawberries, sliced; 1 bottle white wine; 1/2 cup rum; and 6 oz frozen lemonade concentrate – mix together and chill for at least 4 hours), which turned out to be delicious.

On our last night at the beach, Phillip’s family came down and we had a picnic supper on the green before enjoying a fun concert by a local band.  We took Watson (who slept nearly the entire time despite the loud music), but not the camera, so we don’t have any pictures from that.  It was the perfect way to end our vacation!