i celebrated turning thirty-one over the weekend with some quality garden time, farmers markets, good food, friends, and crafting.  and as a special gift, the pools closing coincided with my birthday weekend, meaning that saturday was dog days of summer!  (we go every year, here are last year and the year before)

the markets are vibrant and lively - you can feel summer coming to an end.

 bella helps with the harvests and then the sowing of cool weather veggies.  it looks like we're going to be eating a lot of pesto this winter.

^^a cross stitch i made for our new nephew, emil.^^  we got out to colorado for a couple of days to meet the adorable new addition to the family, and this project was so perfect for relieving flight anxiety.  i think i'll do one on every trip from now on.

 dog days was a blast, as usual, though belle didn't do a lot of leaping into the water like she normally does.  it's hard to believe she's almost ten.

 ^^my pick for best in show this year^^  must. eat. all of the water!

 we even managed to get some swim time in, ourselves!

 a few nights ago we were lucky enough to spot this cicada molting in our back yard.  its wings came out in ridiculously vibrant colors.  i've always loves collecting their shed exoskeletons, but have never been able to see it happening.  really cool.  a few days later a praying mantis kept following me and trying to land on me.  i'm taking both of these encounters as signs of positive transformation, rebirth, and inner calmness/inner strength.  all things that will be very helpful in the coming months ;)

while 30 was a fantastic year, 31 is shaping up to be miraculous!

it's furlough day 14... we've officially been shutdown for a fortnight!

i think everyone is getting a little tired of talking about the shutdown... the conversation has kind of moved to what people are doing to entertain themselves without the money we're not getting paid.  and our dc friends are getting a little concerned about what's going to happen with the trash and other things that are usually paid for by the state government when the emergency money runs out.

here's a pretty hilarious buzzfeed of people disobeying posted signs to keep out of monuments.

and now, happy columbus day!
i meant to post pups and pilsners a week or so ago, but then the shutdown happened and i forgot.  so here we go.

pups and pilsners is a small beer festival that you bring your dogs to.  we met up with a few of our friends and their dogs to sample craft beers and hang out for the afternoon.

the best part of this thing was watching everyone with their pooches.  so many cute personalities, breeds, colors, ages, sizes... everywhere you looked was cuteness!

let's get the human pics out of the way.  cheers friends!

 first prize for cuteness goes to this baby bulldog.  o.m.g. he was perfect.

 second goes to yoda dog.  the cutest, you are.

 third prize goes to this man.  he is not only carrying his wife's bright orange kate spade bag, the bag has a chihuahua in it.  the man's got confidence.

 obviously people holding their dogs are cute.

 ^^mark and sweet baby yalla are on the left.^^

 ^^i was already being creepy taking pics of everyone else's dogs... why not their kids, too?^^

 ^^tiny killer standing on chad's foot and a huge great dane.^^

^^of course both of the two most beautiful dogs to ever exist on earth were there.  just look at that drool.  love her.^^

dog shaming: the belle and bella edition

i came home yesterday to a lovely mess of 4 boxes of mostly eaten cereal, a sticky/cereal-covered floor, and two very thirsty girls with fat fat bellies.  oh and they also ripped off the cabinet door :)

they were bad girls and they knew it.

dog days is back!  every end of summer, the arlington county pools stay open for an extra weekend for dogs to come swim and play.  it's one of my absolute favorite things to do all year long.

last year was so much fun, the girls had a blast.  and this year was no different :)

bella did her usual thing of chasing other dogs, avoiding the water, and meeting everyone should could. 

yalla, who went camping with us a few weeks ago, was also there and had a great time splashing around with any dog that would play with her.

meanwhile, belle's lab instincts were out in rare form; she was in and out of that water like a fish!

eric would throw the tennis ball in and belle would leap in after it, but she would leap SO high.  you could hear people say "whoa! did you see that dog jump?!"  "man, that dog just got some air!"

it was a proud moment!  she's air belle. 

and because dogs are hilarious, here are two other funny pics i got of dogs being dogs.

^^oh mom, here we go again...^^

^^i'm wearing a hat^^ 

 ^^and rocking it.^^

 ^^what you looking at?^^

 ^^don't need eyes... that's what my nose is for^^

 ^^***poof***^^

^^i do what i want^^

belle has learned a new trick! she's extremely food motivated so you can imagine how hard this was for her.  just look at that intense face!  these girls make me proud :)

Belle's New Trick from Katie Gill on Vimeo.

yay belle! and happy weekend :)

welcome to our blog.

after meeting on match.com and falling in love, we married in the spring of 2013.  as we begin our life together, we thought it would be fun to use this blog to share pieces of our lives with family and friends.

our posts are mostly in washington, dc, where we live, and the coastal outback of western australia, where eric does field research on a population of wild bottlenose dolphins.  and when we're lucky we post about colorado and texas, the places we will forever call home.

we have two beautiful dogs, a basset hound named bella and a yellow lab named belle (had them before we met) and we're those weird people that love love their dogs like they are our children.

^^taken on our second date back in 2010^^

virginia is for lovers :)

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