I am bit backed up on posts.  🙂  This week I plan to get caught back up.

Back on September 19th we celebrated Cueball’s 4th Gotcha Day.

 He is a dog who loves sunshine.  He lives to lay in the sun!  Probably why he loves our beach trips so much.

He is my most muscular and most active hound.  He romps in the yard daily and still has huge hammies even after 4 years off the track.

We get the most compliments on his ears.  I do think he has the best ears of any hound I have seen.  They are quiet unique. 😉

No hound loves blankets or this chair more than Cueball.

From day one Cueball stole his daddy’s heart!  We are very lucky to have such a fun loving hound to share our lives with.  We hope for many more wonderful years together!!

Recently we celebrated three big days in September.  I will share two of them in this post.  Stay tuned for the third big day in a later post.  🙂  September 14th marked Maggie’s 5th Gotcha Day and September 27th Maggie turned 11.  Hard to believe our little Monkey is eleven years old.  Time sure has flown by way too quickly!

I thought it would be neat to step back in time and share some of the photos some of you may not have seen before.  It was fun for me looking back through these old photos and a great way to celebrate the Queen!  🙂

Below is our adoption day picture (9-14-06).  We had no idea how much our lives were about to change!

Maggie getting settled in and getting the royal treatment.  Her first week in her forever home. Poor girl came up from the rescue kennel in Florida in heat so they could not spay her until her cycle had ended.  She was in a foster home for a week then came to our house for a couple of days then to the vet then to another foster home for an overnight.  She had a whirlwind first couple of weeks.

The only toy that has survived through the years is the frog who is laying flat in the above picture.  She brought a tear to me eyes when she started playing with this toy on her 5 gotcha day.  🙂

About 6 months with us.  Look how black her face was!

About 1 year with us.  Not only has she long ago stolen my heart, but now she starts stealing my seat on the couch!  She is quiet clever about going about getting a seat on the couch.  She will bark for no apparent reason to get the other hounds up off the couch and down the hall investigating her recent barks.  While they are busy she picks her prime spot on the couch.  She also is a drink thief.  She will drink right out of my water glass.  While I get up to get a new glass of water, she swoops in and steals my seat on the couch.  She has out smarted all of us a time or two.  🙂

About 2 years with us.  Starting to show more white in the face.

About 3 years with us.  Still spunky, still sweet, still inquisitive.  🙂

And at about four years with us.  The tribute post to her would not be complete without a picture of her with her favorite toy……Cuz.

It is no secret that Maggie is my favorite.  She is my heart dog.  I do love all our pups, but Maggie and I share a very special bond that is hard to put into words.  So you may be wondering just how this special girl spent her two special days.  She did what she loves to do the most.  She played with toys lots!  She also got lots of extra attention/love, and treats throughout the day.

We are hoping for many more wonderful years together!  We love our queen dog Miss Maggie Mae.  🙂

We made our annual trip down for Beach Bound Hounds a week ago.  This is by far one of our favorite Greyhound events.  Grapehounds is our other favorite event.  This year we spent the majority of time just hanging out on the beach with the pups.  The weather this year was cooler than last year so the pups got to spend lots of time with us on the beach.  I managed to finish two books on this trip, yay!!  Mitch kept his daily exercise routine with morning walks on the beach and did sets of stairs too.  🙂  Above and below are just some of the cute pics of the pups enjoying their time on the beach.  We rented chairs on Friday so we would not have to lug our’s around and so we would have an umbrella.  Well worth the cost!!

Our view from our 6th floor beachfront balcony.

With an airport so close by, we saw lots of planes.

The fur kids made theirselves right at home while in the hotel room.

Although our forecast looked horrid, the weather held out for us for most of our week.  We have a few T-storms, but they did not last long.  Nothing quiet like sitting out on your balcony on the beach watching a storm roll in.  Mitch took these shots while I was in the shower.

Of course after the storm, the beautiful rainbow appears.  Look closely, it is there, although it is a little hard to decifer.

The sun was soon back out again.

We did a little bit of shopping on this trip.  Mac, the greyhound, was too cute to pass up (below) and besides the pups needed a toy since I failed to pack one.  😉  His collar has “We Remember 9/11” on it.  We also got two new collars.  We are working on getting NFL and College collars for our pups.  So far we have Colts, Patriots and Steelers.  On this trip we picked up a Florida Gators collar and an Ole Miss collar.  The Ole Miss collar was a lucky find!  I have been looking for over a year for someone who has made or would make an Ole Miss collar.  When we walked over to look at what the vendors had on Saturday, I wasn’t expecting to walk out with an Ole Miss collar, it was a pleasant surprise.  We stopped by the Happy Hounds Design booth saw the Gators collar and a few other college/NFL teams.  The two ladies at the booth had their sewing machines set up and were working on making bandannas.  They both asked if we were looking for something in particular.  Mitch said, “Do you have any Ole Miss collars.”  Lynne said no, but I have the fabric and can make one.  At this point, we were both thinking we would be getting the collar by mail.  Nope, she showed us the fabric and said she would work on making the collar and to come back in a few hours to pick it up.  Awesome!!!  When we went back over to pick up the collar, Lynne told us that last year a woman came by her booth with a friend.  Her friend purchased three University of Georgia collars.  Lynne asked the woman if there was a collar she was interested in and the woman said yes, but you won’t have it.  Lynne was intrigued and asked what team it was and said if she could get the fabric, she would make it and could mail it to her.  So Pippi’s new collar is only the 2nd one she has ever made.  Kind of cool!  Oh and her collars are priced fantastically.  $15 for one or $25 for two.  So long as she can find the fabric, she will make whatever collar you want.  🙂

Pippi’s new collar.  Go Ole Miss Rebels!!!!!!

We spent most nights with friends drinking wine/beer on the big patio and hanging out with the hounds.  Below is Trina’s Cali on Auntie Kristen’s lap, which I understand is one of Cali’s favorite places to be is in someone’s lap.  🙂  More pics of BBH can be seen at Trina’s blog (just click on Cali’s name above for the link).

Back on the beach, Maggie uses Booyah as a head rest.  Beach life is so good!!

So many of our friends attended BBH this year.  Newcomers to the event were Matt and Mindy with their hounds below.

Meet Norman.

Max.

And Sera (she is the one buried in the sand).  Talk about Beach Bums!!

Of course another great thing about the beach are the lovely sunrises we enjoyed from our balcony each morning.

It is always so hard to say goodbye to the beach!  I have said it before, but I really am a beach girl!  I could live the beach life every day!!  Until next year, BBH!!  We hope old and new friends will join us at BBH 2012.  If you haven’t been to this event, we highly recommend it!!

Stay tuned, Maggie’s 5th gotcha day and 11th Birthday post coming soon.