Puppy Snuggles

This past Friday I found myself playing with adorable black and yellow lab puppies. Someone my mom knows from church had a dog who had a liter of seven puppies 6 weeks ago.

We visited the puppies two days after they were born, that being the youngest I have ever seen a puppy. I got to hold the little guy and he fit perfectly in the palm of my hand. The puppy’s eyes weren’t open yet and they could barely hobble around enough to find their mom to eat.

The next time we visited the puppies they were 4 weeks old. Instead of being the size of my hand, they grew into the size of a loaf of bread. Their eyes we open now and they romped around the kitchen. Soon they wore themselves out and they huddled up to each other to fall asleep. I picked up the yellow male and he fell asleep in my arms. I am obsessed with a puppy’s tiny paws, short crinkly muzzle, and tiny floppy ears. But, most of all, I’m obsessed with their snuggles.

Two weeks later, I got to see the precious little pups for the last time. We walked up to the house and the owner lead us to the backyard where the puppies were playing outside. I walked through the gate and all seven puppies instantly surrounded me. A couple started to chew on my boots and others were trying to climb up my leg. When I bent down to pick one up, they then started to try to grab my hair. So, I sat down and let them climb all over me, loving every minute. Eventually, some of them became uninterested in me and began exploring the backyard again. I played with a couple of them and they flopped all over me. I have always love dogs, and anything to do with them, so I was in heaven. After the puppies had played for not more than 15 minutes, they had tired themselves out, and one by one started to curl up and fall asleep. I picked up one of the puppies and he fell asleep on me.

Usually, I would be trying to convince my family to buy one of the puppies, but this liter was different. The owner has puppies for the sole purpose of giving them all up to become leader dogs. This past Sunday was when they had to give them to the leader training organization. I think using dogs to help others is awesome. And someday I hope to help out in someway.

Grand Rapids Weekend

Last weekend my best friend and I went to Grand Rapids. Our main reason to travel there was for a concert on Sunday night, but we decided to make a weekend out of it. On Saturday we drove two hours to the city. We spent the whole day shopping at three different malls, searching for fall clothes and bargains. On Sunday we left our hotel to go downtown Grand Rapids and walk around to the Art Prize. The Art Prize is an exhibition of contemporary art. This was my third time going to the sixth annual Art Prize. Every year there are different pieces of art submitted and I find it inspiring to walk around downtown gazing at the art. The artwork is scattered throughout downtown Grand Rapids. Some of the pieces are in an upstairs of a restaurant, while others are in the Grand River, on the bridge, outside courtyard, or in the Grand Am hotel. The Art ranges from 3-D sculptures, repurposed items, paper cut thinly into a huge detailed eagle, and 2-D drawings. I love walking around exploring the downtown discovering pieces of art. This year in the Grand River there was a sculpture in the water of two men in bunny costumes. I have no idea why someone would make a sculpture of that, and at first glace we thought it was actually real live people in the water. It just shows that art is totally up to the imagination and is not limited, and that’s what I love about it. After we were done seeing the Art Prize, we knew our concert would be starting in a couple hours and our feet were already tired. Knowing that we would be standing for the rest of the night during the concert we decided to chill in our car before getting in line at the venue. The band I saw is a country artist called Dan & Shay. If you listen to country music you would most likely know them by their first single “19 you and me”. They have been one of my favorite artists ever since my friend got me hooked on their album. Their songs of innocent sweet country love make girls swoon. When we finally got let into the concert venue, my friend and I made our way as close as we could to the stage. We were able to be about three squished people back from the stage. Close enough that if we really pushed hard enough, we would have been able to touch their hands. After their opener who was a spunky curly blonde hair girl finished, Dan & Shay finally came on stage. We sang along to every word of every song. Their voices were incredibly crisp and were just as good, if not better, in person than on their album.

Adventures of Fishing in Ludington

One early morning of this past July, my family woke up at 4:00 am to go fishing in Ludington. One of our friends’ Grandpa lives in Ludington, Michigan and is an active fisherman. He owns his own boat and at least ten big fishing rods with all the fancy supplies. He has taken my brother and dad out once a year for the past three years. This year I was persistent on wanting to go out too. Therefore, I found myself giving up a day to sleep-in and instead going out on a fishing boat at sunrise.

Our friends’ Grandpa asked us to bring only one thing, a dozen doughnuts. So, as soon as we made the two-hour car ride to Ludington our first stop was to Wal-Mart to buy doughnuts. Once we purchased the necessity we drove to where his boat was docked. Before loading onto the boat, we bundled up for the cold air and all took motion sickness medicine. My brother, dad, and I have only gotten motion sickness a couple times, but we decided to be on the safe side and take the medicine.

Finally, we headed out onto the beautiful blue Lake Michigan. We were all excited and hoping for a good successful day of fishing. It took awhile to get to the spot in the lake where the grandpa felt it was best to fish. Once we got to the certain location we started setting up all the rods and let the lines into the water. All the instructions were given if a fish was to start biting. We had six rods set up projecting on both sides of the boat. Now, all we had to do what wait for a fish to bite. We set up some chairs to sit in and started to eat the doughnuts.

After about thirty minutes, and not having one fish bite, we decided that we should move to a different spot. Feeling discouraged, we brought all the rods down and prepared to start the boat up again. As we drove even further out into the lake all of a sudden I couldn’t keep my eyes open. My eyelids felt like there were weights on them, forcing them to shut. I figured it was just from waking up at 4 am. I fought the urge to sleep for a while, but soon the rocking of the boat from the waves put me to sleep. Every once in awhile we would hit a big wave and I would jerk awake but quickly fall asleep again. I noticed my brother and dad were having the same struggle as me, having a hard time staying awake.

Before I knew it we were at the next destination. Hoping for better luck this time we set everything up and sat in our chairs waiting. After about ten minutes of the lines being the in water we got our first bite! We all scrambled out of our chairs and my brother picked up the rod. As he started to reel his fish in, another fish started to bite on another line. My dad quickly grabbed the rod and started reeling in. I stood back and watched the chaos continue. Yet, to my surprise my dad started handing his rod to me, wanting me to be the one to reel the fish in. Hesitantly, I strongly took ahold of the rod and started to spin the reel. The fish struggled, trying to swim away, but I kept the line tight so it couldn’t release itself from the hook.

While I was constantly reeling, my brother soon got the fish on his hook to the surface of the water. Our friends’ Grandpa took a huge net and scoped up the fish bringing it safely into the boat. Once I finally got my fish in the boat too we all looked at the fish we had just caught. My brother’s was an eight-pound Steelhead and mine was a five-pound Coho Salmon. Our adrenaline was at a high. For the next couple hours we had the rods in at different places hoping for more fish. We ended up catching two more fish. Another Steelhead and a Lake Trout.

When we started to head back to mainland, I sat in my chair again I felt the sleepiness start to come over me once again. I looked over to my brother and he was already asleep, suddenly I realized that our motion sickness medicine we took was the drowsy kind. The medicine is what made us fall asleep every time we sat down. I soon told my dad and brother what I had just realized and we all laughed about it. They joked about never letting me give them medicine again.

When we got back to the dock we hooked up the boat and unloaded our four fish. We took the fish to the gutting station and cut them up and put them into Ziploc bags. That evening we got home and my dad grilled the Lake Trout to eat. It was some of the best fish I have had eaten. I think it tasted even better knowing that we had just freshly caught it too. Overall, it was a fun day fishing and quite a new experience.

Jeeping in Colorado

Summer of 2013 my family and our close friends traveled to Colorado. The friends we went with are like family to me. Our parents became friends when my mom was pregnant with me. They have always been apart of my life and I have grown up with them. They are a family of four just like us, with one boy and one girl around the same age. There are countless memories from the 10-day trip we took with them to the state of Colorado. It has by far been one of my favorite trips and was filled with lots of laughter.

My favorite memory from our Colorado trip was the day our parents surprised us with renting Jeeps for the day. All eight of us were packed in one of the Suburbans we rented for the week. None of the kids were paying attention to where we were going until we pulled into a Jeep rental place in Durango, which is supposedly the Jeep capital of the world. We were so shocked and excited as we piled out of the car.

We rented one orange and one gray Jeep Wrangler. Now, we didn’t just drive these jeeps along a highway for the day. We took them off-roading, like what they were made for. We went over rocks, streams, and bumpy dirt roads. As we made it to higher elevation it got colder, but we still kept the top down. It was thrilling, riding through the cool fresh mountain air with the wind in my hair. The roads were on the very edge of a drop-off as we zigzagged up and down the mountains. Every once in awhile we would come up to sparkly blue lakes or abandoned houses. For the whole day we had the tops down and the music blasting while off-roading and it was one of the most fun-filled days of my life.