Watching the sunrise

We were up and out the door by 6.00 am yesterday so we could go to the beach and watch the sun rise at 6.27 am and it was AWESOME! Mom said the sun looked like it came up out of the water and that she could almost hear it sizzling. It was an amazing orange glow right across the sky that eventually turned to all shades of pinks and purple. It was nice and cool (only 70 degrees) and there was quite a breeze blowing but we loved it and if you watch the video - you can see we had the whole beach to ourselves.

Bacon and Fozzies Shopping Around the World for May

Okay - we nearly forgot our 'Shopping around the world' post but here it is. Bacon asked us to do a five ingredient salad - now Mom is taking a liberty with the meaning of "5" here and is assuming it means 5 ingredients per person :) :) :)  Sorry Bacon - we just couldn't do a mere 5 ingredients in one salad. This is enough to make at least 4 meal sized salads with some things left over but to make just enough for one person Mom has added the amounts in brackets. Now our Mom loves some crunch and sweetness to her salad so although she uses the same basic ingredients she also swaps it up with taco strips or potato straws, different types of nuts, dried craisins or dried blueberries and yummy mandarin segments.

So lets start - Momma's Crunchy Sweet Salad

1.Chopped salad kit that has a variety of lettuce and a wonderful sweet onion and citrus vinaigrette - it is all one packet so it counts as 1 item - $3.30  (1 1/2 cups)
2. Italian 5 cheese - $2.50 (1/4 cup)
3.Mini Cucumber $2.14 (1 chopped)
4.Honey roasted pecans $2.49 (2 tablespoons - chopped)
5.Matchstick carrots $1.29 (1/4 cup)
6.Sunflower kernels $1.49 (2 tablespoons)
7.Mini corn nuggets $0.99 (6 pieces) - Mom normally puts Craisins in but she had run out those.
8.Celery $0.79 (1 stick chopped)
9.Tomato's $2.49 a pound (1/2 a tomato)
10 BACON - $4.47 for 1 1/2 pounds (Don't look at this ingredient Bacon!!!) (2 slices cooked until crunchy and crumbled over the top)

Mom says YUM

We say make it an all bacon salad - with a side of bacon

Wordless Wednesday

Memorial Day

Mom and Dad went over to the Jacksonville Navy Base (which is on the other side of Jacksonville from us) to look around the 'Remembrance Garden'  and give thanks to all the fine Military who have served in the past and who are still serving today. The Jacksonville Base has been there since 1940 and is HUGE!

In the remembrance garden there are sooooo many different types of planes and helicopters and Dad was super duper happy to see his beloved P3 plane on display - this is one he flew for many years as a Commander in the Navy. The helicopter is like one of the many we see  flying around us daily at the Mayport Navy base (the one closer to where we live). And of coarse Dad loved seeing the F-14 jet like they used in 'Top Gun' he says this is still the best and meanest looking jet ever built. The last picture of the little jet a T-2 Buckeye trainer was most poignant for Dad for it is sadly like the one that one of Dad's good friends lost his life flying. (Please forgive Mom is she got the names of the planes wrong - Dad reeled them off so fast and there were so many Mom couldn't keep up - she says he was like a kid in candy store seeing them all again)

So today on Memorial Day - we would like to say a BIG thank you to all the military and their families past and present - we salute you and thank you for service and sacrifices - we will always remember you.

Dad and his beloved P3

One of the small helicopters

The F-14 Tomcat

T-2 Buckeye trainer

Our Sojos Winner is Sarge

We are so sorry - we got so caught up with our adventuring we forgot to say who is our Sojos winner. We entered all the name in random.org and our winner was Sarge - congrats big guy - can you email us with your addy so we can pass it on to Miss Kira. We will get Miss Kira to send you a bag of the Wild Boar - we are sure you will love it - we sure do. Oh something we found with this new 'wild' sojos - it is much chunkier and isn't as mushy looking as the other types of Sojos and we love that!

Dog Park Day

We headed off to MY Ed Austin Cowspotdog Park this morning - they have a proper dog park there that is entirely fenced and we can run free and meet up with new friends - only there weren't any there when we arrived but we stayed like 87 gazillion hours and eventually they came but it gave me plenty of time to check and the pee mail and catch up on all the latest news. Dweeb of coarse wouldn't leave Mom's side - he was sure there was monsters hiding behind every tree (it was actually just squirrels but you couldn't convince him of that). As you can see there are lots of trees in the dog park so it was shady and cool.

One thing that impressed Mom is how perfectly clean it was - the people that use this dog park really do pick up after there dogs and we didn't see a single poop anywhere. Mom also spotted a huge eagle nest up on top of a power tower and was super happy when the eagle swooped into the nest with a mouse and she could hear baby eagles chirping for it. Dweeb decided this hole under the bench Mom had been sitting on was the perfect hiding spot - he liked it so much Mom had to drag him out from it when it was time to leave.  Finally I got to meet some new friends (Dweeb was still hiding in his hole and tried to be invisible). I met Monty the beagle, Mia and Misha the Siberians, Rambo the crazy pit-bull (he tried the lick and slobber everyone's faces) and Cookie the spaniel who is deaf. It was a pawsome morning indeed !

Checking out the pee-mail

I am protecting Mom - you go ahead Reilly

Still protecting Mom

We will just wait under the palm trees

Mom has to get one good picture

Eagle Nest

You can't see me - I am hiding

Mom - have you seen Dweeb

Hello Monty - nice to sniff you

Monty, Mia, Rambo, Misha, Cookie and Reilly

Loving Life - #FuelTheCure

This is our last day for joining  Oz and Sugar's Loving Life - #FuelTheCure - which is helping to raise money for cancer research into Dogs and Cats thanks to the wonderful support of  Zukes. We have LOVED being part of this and LOVED getting to explore and share some bits of information about the places we have found.

We think we have saved the best for the last as today we went to visit the Jacksonville Arboretum & Gardens which is one word is PAWSOME and which of coarse I  have renamed the Jacksonville Cowspotdog Arboretum and Gardens (I have pee'd there - therefore it is under my Bark Ranger care)  There are lots of wonderful trails to follow and today we just did one - the 'Lake Trail' which was so cool as there are little lookouts all around it and some very cool art in the park displays. Mom says she can't wait to see when all the water lilies are flowering (we just missed it) as well as others areas of the park that are full of flowers. We have lots of photos taken at different vantage points around the lake - just click on them to see them bigger.

Lots of bridges - Mom loves bridges!

Denny- Do you hear some giggling and dancing Reilly?

Lots of pretty areas to rest

Another view of the lake

Mom says we look like a pair of Guard Dogs

This art was made for pix axes

Lots of little paths to follow

On the hill over looking the lake

Mom - this rock is hissing at me !!!!

A roving rock :)

5 Days of Photo Challenge - Day 5 and Loving Life - #FuelTheCure

We are doing double duty today with our day 5 of the Photo Challenge and also joining  Oz and Sugar's Loving Life - #FuelTheCure - which is helping to raise money for cancer research into Dogs and Cats thanks to the wonderful support of Zukes. Please think about joining in as Zukes is donating $5.00 for each post. You can also win some Zukes and we all KNOW who totally yum those are - so what ya waiting for?

Today we went to see a little teeny tiny 'strip' park (and no we didn't take ours furs off!!!) The park, which is called the Helen Cooper Floyd Park - has now been renamed the Helen Cooper Cowspotdog Park because I have pee'd there and  it now comes under my Bark Ranger protection. The park itself in on the intercoastal waterway also called the St Johns River and we always see a lot of people swimming and fishing there on the weekend.  It is about 30 foot wide and about quarter or half a mile long (Mom is terrible at judging distances :).  Sadly when we got there we saw signs up saying it is closed between Summer of 2015 and Winter of 2016 for repairs (it looks like it had some serious storm damage some time ago) but there was no work being done and we decided to use our selective blindness (which allows us to blindly not see anything we don't want too) and go explore anyway :) Obviously the peeps that visit on the weekend also suffer with it :) Now the end half of the park is actually a 'marsh land wildlife refuge' and the signs there said it is "forbidden" to enter and we decided to abide by that as we didn't want to disturb any nesting birdies in that area.

So what did we see on the half that is normally open to the public - well this area of the intercoastal waterway is very much a marsh area so there it a lot of  herons, cranes, sea eagles or hawks and lots of small birds some of which we have never seen before.  There are also lots of fish and shrimp and we even saw some turtle tracks (it is actually to start of the egg laying season for turtles here now). The first picture below shows us on the left side of the 'strip' and the next one shows ME on the right side having a run on the sand. The right side has a sandy beach whereas the left has a rocky beach.

Here is one of the big blue herons we saw - he was having a feast on baby fish. And lastly - this poor fishy has obviously been dieting way to much as it was just bones!.  Mom said someone had caught it and fileted it then had thrown the remains back into the water (she thinks it is what they call a dolphin fish - not a real dolphin but a fish named after them for some odd reason). It doesn't show up well in the photo but is was actually about 3 foot long.

5 Days of Photo Challenge - Day 4 and Loving Life - #FuelTheCure

We are doing double duty today with our day 4 of the Photo Challenge and also joining  Oz and Sugar's Loving Life - #FuelTheCure - which is helping to raise money for cancer research into Dogs and Cats thanks to the wonderful support of Zukes. Please think about joining in as Zukes is donating $5.00 for each post. You can also win some Zukes and we all KNOW who totally yum those are - so what ya waiting for?

We were off for another "Loving Life' adventure and headed over to the Fort Caroline Timucuan Preserve again - only this time we took a different path - one we hadn't been along before. Even though it was hot - along the path under the trees with the breeze blowing - it was actually just perfect. Crazy Mom decided to stop into the Information Center and pick me up an official Bark Ranger Bandana - trust me - this is the first and last time I will wear it - I don't do clothing Mom - remember! Apart from that we had a pawsome walkies and we even got to scare some squirrels!

Just a bit of information we found - The Timucua were an American Indian people who lived in Northeast and North Central Florida and southeast Georgia. They were the largest indigenous group in that area and consisted of about 35 chiefdoms, many leading thousands of people. The people suffered severely from the introduction of Eurasian infectious diseases, to which they had no immunity. By 1595, their population was estimated to have been reduced from 200,000 to 50,000 and thirteen chiefdoms remained. By 1700, the population of the tribe had been reduced to 1000. Warfare against them by the English colonists and native allies completed their extinction as a tribe soon after the turn of the 19th century.

5 Days of Photo Challenge - Day 3 and Loving Life - #FuelTheCure

We are doing double duty today with our day 3 of the Photo Challenge and also joining  Oz and Sugar's Loving Life - #FuelTheCure - which is helping to raise money for cancer research into Dogs and Cats thanks to the wonderful support of Zukes. Please think about joining in as Zukes is donating $5.00 for each post - that is $20 if you do one each day it is running and the only thing you have to do is post pics of YOU loving life! You can also win some Zukes and we all KNOW who totally yum those are - so what ya waiting for?

Now one thing we do - is truly love life and we are loving it more than ever since moving to Florida and having so many amazing new places to go and visit. Today we went to check out Ribault Monument (which is actually just half a block from where we live)

Located on one of the highest points in the Jacksonville area, the Ribault Monument is a silent reminder of the years when France battled Spain for control of Florida. The column is a reproduction of a monument placed at the mouth of the St. Johns River, then called the "River May," by the French explorer Jean Ribault on May 2, 1562. Just check out the view - pretty cool huh and we must admit we LOVED sitting up there in the shade with a cool breeze blowing watching the world go by below