Me too......Me Too!!!

I know that I've mentioned this a couple times, at least, but this summer Don and I celebrated our 25th Wedding Anniversary. After the first couple years when I realized he wasn't going to remember this date as being anything out of the ordinary, I had to change my mind set so I wouldn't get upset with him every year when June 15th rolled around. It was either be on my own bandwagon of "be angry for an entire day" or be on his bandwagon of "every day is a good day". (Usually)

So, when this year rolled around, we didn't plan anything exceptional either, other than I went back to the Cities and had a nice dinner with him. But, Don's parents were very kind, and bought us a lovely tree for our yard. When we first bought our lake home, we literally had no next door neighbors. There was a two story garage, but it was two lots away, so we lived in total secluded bliss! Then, the first summer up here, the bulldozer pulled in. It actually pulled in too frickin early for my taste, to the point that I was about ready to call the county and complain, but things are done a little different in the country than they are in the city, and I decided I should be neighborly and keep my mouth shut, at least for a while. Before I knew it, I had a big old (new) house sitting right next to me, and I was very NOT happy about it. My privacy was gone. The couple that moved in are certainly nice enough, and at this point they are only rare weekenders from Illinois, but I wanted the privilege of being able to go outside in my jammies in the morning and not have to worry about who is looking at me! So, we started planting trees and lilac bushes like you wouldn't believe. I'm sure the neighbors have questioned many times just exactly what our problem is, but the only problem is that we enjoy the pure peace and quiet, and privacy, that the lake home has to offer.

Back to the gifted tree. So, Don's parents wanted a picture of us with our tree. When they were here to visit in June, we didn't get around to getting that done, and we were having trouble coordinating having someone run over to take the picture, so I set up the tripod and read the instructions for setting the timer on my new camera. In comes Brutus to this story. Brutus doesn't like to be left out of anything. The whole time I'm setting up the "shot", Don is holding his place over behind our new tree. Once I got everything set up, I ran over to the tree and was "trying" to get in the picture before all ten shots went off. Brutus wanted to be in the picture too, and even though we did get a nice picture where both Don and I are actually looking at the camera, below is my favorite. Brutus came running with me, and it was almost like he was saying, "wait, wait, where should I stand?". That boy melts my heart.