The Five Dogs of Christmas

This Christmas, three of David's four siblings and their spouses gathered in Central Florida at the home of their youth. One sister came from South Florida, another from Chicago, and of course, we came down from God's Country.

David's mom bought all of our favorite cereals and drinks. She planned all of her children's favorite meals. She fluffed the pillows in each bedroom and put candy dishes on every table. Sue Anne and Foy Daddy were ready...ready to spend Christmas with their beloved children.

But no one could truly be ready for what was to come.

You see, with each of those lovely children came a furry dog or two.

And because they like to keep things interesting, Sue Anne and Foy Daddy adopted a 1 year old lab puppy from the pound and brought him home on the day that all of their children and granddogs arrived at their house.

And to really top the whole thing off, the pound put a gigantic cone on that clumsy puppy's head.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Five Dogs of Christmas:

Cooper is Sue Anne and Foy Daddy's new pride and joy.

Parker belongs to David's sister Amy and Winston lives in Chicago with David's youngest sister, Sarah.

Jack and Lady are old news.

Because the dogs nearly out numbered the people during our holiday together, we decided to load up all of the critters and take them to a nearby dog beach, which is a secluded stretch of beach where your canines can run wild and free.

Unfortunately, Cooper had to stay home from the dog beach trip because of a little procedure he had done at the pound that rendered him impotent and cone-headed.

Not a super good day for Cooper.

Jack's a dream on a leash. Can't you tell how well trained he is? Mmhmm...I know. We're really proud.

We've taken both of our dogs to another dog beach and we were excited to go back. They both loved it. Jack loves to swim more than anything in the whole world and Lady gets her kicks from chasing other creatures and snooping around, so the beach is really the perfect place to go to make them both so happy.

It was a cold but beautiful day. I couldn't resist taking all of these sunshiney shots, so please just bare with me and all the sun flares...it was too perfect.

We had the beach virtually to ourselves. We spent the afternoon laughing at the dogs and walking along the beach together.

Beachin' it.

Fetch.

 

Good Boy.

Lady (aka Lawrence of Arabia) was busy exploring the sand dunes.

Jack (aka The Flying Nun) spent all of his time in the water.

It was a really fun day.

We took a family picture to commemorate our fur-filled Christmas.

 

Many thanks to Sue Anne and Foy Daddy for opening their home to six extra people and five dirty dogs.

The dogs really added a lot of excitement to the holiday, not to mention a lot of fertilizer to your lawn.

Mel