Dog Church

We didn't have church today; twice a year we have what's called "General Conference" where the entire church watches a broadcast via satelite or Internet given by the general leaders of the church. Because of the time difference, it doesn't start for us until 1:00 in the afternoon, so we took advantage of the morning and went out to the Lagoa, a lagoon a block away from our house, to check things out. Since we were all going together I decided to chance it and take the good camera; I figured the large group of us might deter someone from ripping it off my neck as they rode by on a bike. I got lucky and am still in posession of the camera (and my neck).

The big kids rode their bikes which was slightly traumtic for Juan Carlos who just learned to ride this past summer. You can see how many people were out and about:

As far as I know, as a group we only caused 1 near accident. Not bad.

As we approached the dog park, we noticed a lot of commotion and we figured it was some kind of dog competion. We pulled over to check it out:

Lots of dogs. Lots of people. They all seemed to be in a line waiting for something.

Turns out it was a religious service for animals, with what appeared to be a priest and everything (everything including a guy with a blue dog ears hat and a microphone):

"Blessing of the Animals":

While the priest individually blessed each dog, the blue-eared man was screaming into a microphone about why we should buy a particular brand of flea medication. Over and over and over.

It was all very interesting.

Have I ever mentioned how much the people around here love their dogs (ummm....obviously)? There are dogs everywhere. And not just any dogs. Lots of purebreads. Not a lot of mutts in these parts.

They get to drink cocounut water straight from the coconut after their walks:

Here's a couple walking 4 of some kind of Yorkie. We thought her tatoo on the back of her calf was also a Yorkie which would make her some kind of serious Yorkie freak, but unfortunately, it was just a scary looking cat (click the photo if you'd like to see for yourself).

These little whippets are all over the place. They always cause me a little bit of menal grief because every time I see one, the first thought I have is about how easily I could snap their little legs in two. I have never and would never hurt an animal, so this always bugs me. There's just something about those little teeny legs...:

We finished with the dog services and headed over to the dock where we feed the fish all of our old bread:

Today there was this cool bird their fishing for our fish. He (or she) had quite a lunch catching the fish that were gathered to eat our bread.

On the way home we saw a little pick-up baseball game:

...and really good water skier:

and then the kids climbed their favorite branches:

I hope your your weekend was wonderful. :)