Ava can be pretty wary of the water, but on this day she wanted nothing more than to jump out of the canoe and go for a swim!

As we’re finally moving from winter into spring, it’s nice to look back on some of our previous outdoorsy trips and begin making plans for this year.  One quick trip that we really enjoyed was a weekend camping trip in Julian Price Memorial Park, located in northwest North Carolina near Blowing Rock.

On day one, we hiked the Green Knob Trail.  It was a short, easy hike and we were able to start in the late afternoon and finish before dark.  It had beautiful, sunshiny fields and shaded woods.

It was a quiet trail, so we were able to let Ava walk sans leash for parts of the hike.

On day two, we went to the Moses Cone Manor.  This is a huge estate with several miles of old carriage trails.  We took the Flat Top Road past the Cone cemetery and up to a lookout tower.  Part of the hike is through pasture land with cows and rolling green hills.

As you get closer to the lookout tower, the trail becomes more wooded and steep.  Here is a shot of Ava and Mike waiting at the bottom of the tower.

On the way back, we tried to take a shortcut, but got lost in a magical-looking woodland.

As Mike was riding his bike home from work one day, he nearly hit a small kitten!  He stopped to investigate and this is what he found:

Pretty cute, huh?

At first Ava, didn’t even notice Amanda carrying the kitten around the house, but when she did, she had to investigate.  Based on her reaction, we don’t think that Ava would do well with cats.  We followed the city’s rules for reporting animals, and the kitten appeared to be picked up by a rescue two days later.

Our family loves to go hiking.  One of our favorite spots is Eno State Park here in Durham.

Eno is close to us , has a wide variety of terrain, and there are a number of different access points.  Today, state parks across the country host “First Day Hikes” as a way to celebrate the new year and nature.  Ava and Amanda decided to brave the mud and water to participate.

We volunteered to watch our friend’s dog, Sophie, for three days over the holidays.  Sophie and Ava have not been great friends, historically.  They both like to lie in the same places, chase the same bugs, and play with the same toys.  All this can lead to the occasional disagreement involving some barking and snapping.

While we did deal with several of those episodes during our three days together, it was also exciting to see them briefly play together and hike side-by-side through Eno State Park.  Going outside and giving them some space really seemed to help diffuse any tense moments.

For the past couple of months, we have been considering fostering with a local border collie rescue organization.  Mike found days one and two with Sophie to be quite stressful, so we’re not sure if we’re up for fostering just yet, but we hope that more and more positive interactions will help Ava to be more welcoming, and that we will see Ava and Sophie’s friendship to grow.

Ava was very excited to see Santa at the vet’s office.

Today we visited our vet’s office for their 1-year anniversary celebration.  Ava got to meet some new dogs, bob for hot dogs, and get a caricature drawn by Char Reed of Pet Pics.  Just look at those ears!

Sometimes Ava gets into “wild-dog mode” and we’re able to capture it on film!