4th of July weekend

We had a great holiday weekend at the lake house in Michigan! Here are some pictures of Andy and Jack sightseeing out by the water. The weather was a little colder than we would have liked most of the weekend, but at least the predicted thunderstorms bypassed us on the 4th so we could watch fireworks.

Several of the residents on the lake set off their own fireworks, and they put on a pretty good show. Amazingly, Jack slept through the whole thing. I had a fan running in his room to help drown out the noise, but I was sure some of the really loud fireworks would wake him him. Happily, he proved me wrong!

Jack actually slept great every night we were there. He slept until at least 8:00 every morning, which is unheard of for him. I'm not sure if he was really exhausted, or if it was the lack of early morning sunlight in his room. The room he slept in was much darker than his room at home--which is why I promptly went out today and bought some curtains in hopes that he'll continue his good sleeping here!


Lou also got to go out on the water, since we got him a spiffy new life jacket. (I know dogs can swim, but Staffordshire terriers can't swim very well with their thick bodies and relatively scrawny legs.) Lou put up with the life jacket surprisingly well, and it had the added benefit (for us, at least) of slowing him down since it forced his run into more of a waddle. Lou got in the water a couple times and seemed to enjoy himself.


Aunt Lisa, Jack, and Lou on the boat. Jack kept this ticked-off expression on his face pretty much the whole time we were on the boat.


Lou is such an anxious dog, we expected him to turn into a quivering mass of jelly once the boat started moving, but he surprised us. He was a bit nervous at first, but after a while he relaxed enough to lay with Jack and me.


I caught Lou out on the screen porch getting a good view of things.


Jack and I did some practice tubing inside the house.


And this was all the tubing Jack wound up doing. (He's standing up--the tube's hole doesn't go all the way through.) The water was just too cold for him.


Finally here's a shot of the front of the house--now I've learned after being corrected several times that the front of lake houses is the side that faces the lake. You can see Andy and Jack walking down the dock toward the house.