Yesterday, my friend Jenny and I went to Raleigh to see the Carolina Hurricanes game.  Here are some pictures from the game:

 

The Canes played the New Jersey Devils.  Those of you who are North Carolina natives will guess that there were a lot of New Jersey fans in the crowd.  

Here's our captain, Eric Staal (#12) waiting for a faceoff.  

It was Stormy's birthday so he invited a bunch of his mascot friends to celebrate.  They played a hockey game.  Here you'll notice Chubby (from the Checkers) chasing after the Durham Bull:

 Chubby even made the Sportscenter highlight reel on ESPN for a hard hit he gave one of the other mascots. 

Who knew Sir Purr of the Panthers and Rufus of the Bobcats could ice skate?  Actually, I've seen them skate at the Checkers' games before.  They are quite talented!  The mascots also played musical chairs. 

After all of the chaos was over, Mrs. Wolf from the NC State Wolfpack had won:

Even though it was a tough loss, Jenny and I had a great time.  I can't wait to go back next year. 

Turkey Trot

In order to guiltlessly stuff ourselves on Thanksgiving Day, Jenny and I got up that morning and did the Turkey Trot 5K with 10,000 of our friends.  There was a 1 Mile Race, a 5K walk, and an 8K race.  We did the walk.  Here we are standing in the crowd waiting for the 5K to begin:

We did get a little bit wet!

Here we are at the START:

I should have taken a picture of some of the many people dressed up as turkeys.  I even saw a few pilgrims and I also saw one of the runners dressed up as spiderman.  If you don't believe that we did the 5K, here we are crossing mile #2.

To my surprise, we saw a lady walking a Great Pyrenees down the sidewalk!

A little wet and a lot hungry, we crossed the finish line:

Here's our time:

I was very impressed, inspired and frankly a little depressed by all of the very young children that actually ran the 8K.  Who knows, maybe next year we will run the 8K. 

After I got home I had to hurry and shower so that I could go celebrate Thanksgiving in Shelby with some of Scott's family.  We had a wonderful time.  Scott's family is so very nice.  And....I was able to stuff myself - guilt free!  Happy Thanksgiving to all! 

We actually went out and bought our Christmas tree today.  Time to go decorate! 

Dog Show

This is my Jenny.

Jenny and I have been friends ever since high school.  You know, a couple of decades years.  Anyway, last week at the sheep dog trials, Jenny suggested that we go to a dog show this weekend.  We had a blast!  Don't tell Scott but I met a boy named Tony with beautiful brown eyes.  It was love at first sight. 

 

Isn't he dreamy?  I think he felt the same way about me....

Tony looks just like our Sadie did...well, just like our Sadie did right after I picked her up from the groomer.  Check Tony out in the "ring". 

The other breed I was most excited to see was the Newfoundland breed.  I've hearted Newfies for a long time even though I haven't had one...yet.  The Newfies were "shown" at 8:00 am so we missed their group but I did get to see about 10 of them backstage.  Here's a picture of one of the Newfies.

I wish I had gotten a better picture but there you have it.  While we were in the Newfoundland section,  I overheard a very young boy tell his mother to "Look at the bears!"  I just love gentle giant dog breeds.
There were hundreds of dogs and many different show rings busy all at the same time.  Here is a picture of some Pointers being judged.

Also, in the arena area there were two different agility competitions going on.  Here is a picture of one of the agility courses:

We had a lot of fun watching both of the agility competitions...it was very interesting.  We just barely made it back in time to see the Herding group competition:

Check out the Old English SheepDog.

Other than finding my true love...the highlight of the dog show for me was to get to meet a Komondor in person.  Check him out....I bet you can't tell which end his head is on.

It's actually right behind the blue water bottle.  Check out our Komondor "Charlie" as he struts his stuff in the Best of Show competition:

Charlie didn't win Best In Show but he had a very successful day.  Here he is at quitting time:

By the way, his handler told me that he weighs 140 pounds.  I was actually surprised that it wasn't more.  The winner of this dog show was a standard Poodle named....?  I can't remember his name.  :-)  As soon as they announced the winner, Jenny said, "Of course".  That's when I was reminded that poodles seem to dominate dog shows.  Jenny has a poodle herself - along with several other dogs & cats.  She also has a beautiful Black & Tan Coonhound named Annie. Years ago we were at a dog event with Annie.  When Annie started baying....it got EVERYBODY'S attention.  I don't think city folk are used to that sound!  It was AWESOME!