For the past week or so, the weather hasn't cooperated with our picture taking plans. Every time the back yard starts to dry out, it rains again. This has been going on for a while now, so our backyard is a slippery muddy swamp at the moment, making it hard to take any good pictures outside since we can't let the dogs out for their normal running, jumping playtime. Instead, we have been running around the house, which doesn't make for very pretty pictures.
Yesterday, Miss M had a vet appointment for her next round of puppy shots, so all of the puppies got to go for a ride. Since they are all growing so fast, we have to take them all in regularly to get weighed so that we get the right dosage on their heart worm prevention. This time we were shocked. We know Mr. C looked a little bigger than before, but we thought that he might be around 60 pounds. As it turns out, he weighs 71.5 pounds! Miss B went up to 51 pounds, Miss S is already at 49 and Mr. M is lagging a little behind at 43.5. Miss M is over three pounds heavier than Miss S was at her same age. She weighs 16 pounds already- at 10 weeks old.
The puppies were all very happy to visit everybody at the vet's office. They got all kinds of attention. After that, they got to go to Grandma and Grandpa's for a while, where Miss S tried her hardest to convince Grandma that she needed to sit in her lap on the couch. Mr. C took up residence on the kitchen floor- where Grandma always hands out stray bits of whatever she is cooking. This time, she was making chicken and dumplings, which was good for Mr. C since he really likes pieces of chicken.

Miss B decided that she should play with the cat's toys since the cat won't play with her. The cats at Grandma and Grandpa's are very much against all forms of dog, which of course gets the puppies even more excited. They didn't even notice the cat being very quiet on the back of the sofa when they first got there. The cat watched them, being very quiet and trying to blend in with the wall behind her, but eventually, one of the puppies spotted her and they all decided that they should bark at her- except Miss M who was more interested in the puppy toys that Grandma had on the floor ready for them. The four bigger puppies are all more than capable of jumping up on the couch and going after the cat, but they stayed back and just barked. The cat hissed her disapproval at them, and they thought that was the funnest game ever, so they barked some more so that she would hiss some more. It's like an interactive squeaky toy with claws. They don't have any toys like that at home.
Eventually, Grandma rescued the cat and put her outside. Grandpa wasn't in the house at the time or he would have probably waited a little longer to see what the cat would do.

I think the puppies are getting very comfortable with Grandma and Grandpa's house because they used the bathroom more times than they ever have before. Thank goodness for newspaper and poop bags! Mr. M had a good time when he realized he could go up the stairs. Unfortunately, once he got upstairs the first time, he was afraid to come back down. Mom had heard puppy feet on the stairs but got a little suspicious when she didn't hear them come back down again. She went upstairs to see what he was up to, and boy, was he glad to see her. He led her straight to the bathroom (the only room with the door open) and tried to convince her that he should get in the tub to play in the water. (He would have already been playing in the tub if he knew how to turn the water on). She disagreed and led him back to the stairs where she had to work with a little bit to get him convinced that he could go down the steps by himself. Once accomplished he was very proud and went up a few steps again so that he could come back down. It was a good visit.
Sunday morning, Miss M decided she needed to help with the blog to make sure there were pictures of her.

Only in Texas can you sit comfortably in shorts to sew fleece jackets for your puppies for the temperature drop that evening. On Saturday, Mom and Dad had some errands to run. Mr. C has just about outgrown his size M harness- the straps are let out as far as they would go and it is still fairly fitted. Mr. M just barely fits his size S harness. We already had to replace Miss S' harness a couple of weeks ago and decided that Mr. M's harness had seen its last comfortable use over Christmas. So, we needed to make a run to Petsmart. The Petsmart closest to our house however, doesn't always have much selection of collars and harnesses for larger puppies, so we decided to make a little run to the Petsmart in Galveston. (Any excuse to go to Galveston is a good excuse as far as I'm concerned). We wanted to beat the incoming cold front, which meant that we just happened to be there around lunch time. Oh darn. After lunch, we decided that a trip to La King's was in order so that Mom could try out a few of the indoor functions on her camera in a place other than our living room or kitchen. The fact that they have the best homemade ice cream may or may not have influenced our decision to go there. We showed remarkable restraint in not buying any of their handmade salt water taffy, fresh chocolate goodies or ribbon candy. They make pretty much all of their goodies themselves, so trust me when I say that we showed remarkable restraint in not buying any candy. Anyway, here are a few of the pictures from our excursion. I am happy to report also, that we did in fact get the right sized harnesses and they fit very well. So it was a successful trip. We didn't tell the puppies about the candy shop (or the fact that we were so close to the beach).

I think Galveston is one of the only places in Texas where you can get away with keeping Christmas decorations and lights up for a long time without feeling silly. Some houses just take down the wreaths and trees and then add a little bit of purple and green to their lights to make them Mardi Gras lights instead.