Hooray! It's Match!

We kicked off the month of March last Sunday and there isn't much that makes me happier than that.  I love March.  It brings us longer daylight hours, warmer temperatures, and the opportunity to spend more time outside.  And most importantly, it brings us Spring!

The girls and I enjoyed some really nice evening walks this week.  The temperatures topped out in the 20s on Sunday, but the rest of the week we were lucky to have temperatures rise and enjoyed 40s, 50, and even some 60s.  

On Wednesday the weather for our shelter dog walk was absolutely perfect. 

Not only did we have great weather, we also had some really cute dogs to walk.

I think we all really enjoyed the time out on the town with these cuties.  I know that they were happy to be out of the shelter.

After some wonderful weather early in the week, the rain moved into the area for Thursday.  The girls were not happy about it.  It rained my entire work day and the girls refused to go outside, even when I knew Peaches really needed to go out.  But we made it through the day and, thankfully, the rain stopped in time for our evening walk.

We took a different route through the neighborhood than we normally do, and we stopped at Hillborn Park so Peaches could get her fill of sniffing and I could challenge Mina to some fun on the playground equipment.   

I love that she trusts me so much when I ask her to do crazy things.

Then we had a nice walk home.  I was pretty excited to see more of my crocus leaves popping through the ground.  Another thing I love about March.

Friday morning, Peaches had her annual vet appointment.  While she is always happy to see her friends and get treats, the appointment itself causes her quite a bit of anxiety and she did her best to make it difficult for Dr. Jason to examine her.

But ultimately she got all of her shots, got her blood drawn, and let him check her over.  She's doing well for her age and is overall pretty healthy.  The main issues impacting her are arthritis and anxiety, but we are treating them both and hope to keep her happy and comfortable for a long time to come.

Friday was once again rainy, but after her trip to the vet, Peaches was happy to nap the day away while I had a busy day to end my work week.  Mina happily napped the day away, too.

After a long busy week, I debated what fun we would have on our Friday evening.  I had thought about heading out for a hike on the NCT, but some really dangerous weather created tornadoes in areas very near to where we would have gone to hike.  So I decided to stay closer to home.

We had a lovely walk around Old Town, visited Preuss Pets, and then headed home for dinner and a quiet night at home. As we arrived at home, it started to rain, and very quickly after, thunderstorms moved in.  As I sat eating dinner, the storms really picked up and then we all heard what I ultimately discovered was nickel sized hail.  The storm moved through pretty quickly, and we had a nice, quiet evening once it was gone. 

We were up early on Saturday so we could get ready to meet with Vanessa and head out for a day of fun.

We met Vanessa at her house and then we headed North to West Branch for the geocaching Winter Social event and a fun day of geocaching. 

It rained on our drive North, but the rain stopped by the time we arrived in West Branch.  Vanessa and I checked in to the event, then headed into town for a really delicious lunch at The Highway Brewing Co.  A walk with the girls around downtown followed lunch, and then we headed out of town to continue our geocaching fun.

It was still snowy in the woods, but that didn't stop us from our mission of geocaching fun.

The girls were happy to be along for the ride and kept an eye on us as we jumped in and out of the car to locate the geocaches.

It was 60 degrees and cloudy most of the day, but it was still beautiful in the pines.

And the sun tried to peek through the clouds on a few locations.  I just loved how pretty it was.

The girls loved being able to hang their heads out of the window on this beautiful late winter day.  Here they were keeping a close eye on Vanessa while she searched for one of the geocaches. 

We stopped for ice cream before heading home and while we were stopped,  I fed the girls a late lunch.  Then they settled in as we slowly wound our way toward home, picking up some geocaches along the way.

We got home after dark after a day filled with fun.  The girls ate a late dinner, took their evening potty break, and then we headed into the bedroom so I could read for a bit for turning in for the night.  We all slept great after our day of fun and fresh air, and the girls finally woke up for breakfast shortly after 8am.  
 

We had a lazy morning, and Mina enjoyed some time soaking in the sunshine.  While the girls relaxed, I did some cleaning and then made lunch.  We sat enjoying the quiet sunny, Sunday for a bit.  What a lovely start to our Sunday.

Finally, around 2pm, we headed out for a nice walk along the NCT in Marshall.  It was just too nice outside not to take advantage of the day.

We had a really nice walk and finsihed at 3.1 miles with a very pooped Peaches.  We are now at 25.3 miles on the trail for 2026, which puts us ahead of pace for the year.  Peaches really prefers the cooler weather for her hikes and even 60 degrees was a little harder for her.

I'm hoping to get several more miles this month, while it is still cooler, to keep us ahead of pace.  I'd love to be at 50 miles by the end of April so we can avoid hiking in the heat of the summer.  I guess we'll see what we can do.  As long as Peaches is happy to keep going, we'll continue to get out with her.

After we got home I did laundry while the girls spent some time out in the yard, enjoying the lovely day.  Then we had dinner, celebrated the first post daylight savings time sunset of the year, and settled in for another quiet evening. It was the perfect end to our perfect Sunday.

Happy March! The world is waking up and I'm ready for it!