an all outdoors weekend

it's amazing to me how many people bitch and moan about living in a freaking tropical paradise. i promise i am not one of them. take this weekend for instance- it could not have been finer. the weather was drop dead gorgeous. to celebrate this fact, we spent it pretty much outdoors the whole time. saturday there was a stichin' betty dog park outing that was SO FUN! Chi Chi & Esme stayed for over 3 hours playing with other dogs o' knitters and generally behaved. (Whew!)

it was so much fun meeting new dogs and they were all close to the same size, so they really had a good time together. (See below for more awesome pictures by Dutchess's mom!)

Sunday we were at a huge, beautiful new park in Fort Lauderdale for an all day picnic sponsored by my buddhist organization. March 16th is a historic day for us- it marks the day in 1958 when President Toda (2nd president in our organization) gathered around 6,000 youth in Japan and asked them to make working for peace and happiness their mission. This year our youth division sponsored this picnic to celebrate and it was so fun- reggae, delicious food, a water park, sports, and a beautiful pavilion and facilities. The weather was so wonderful and there were a couple of hundred people there. Nate was a grilling machine, he grilled HUNDREDS of hamburgers and veggie burgers and hot dogs! Our Japanese buddies brought delicious homemade sushi- YUM! Did I mention I was on the food committee and got to "take care" of this delicious sushi? It was a great day, we came home and collapsed with some Ugly Betty (I am so hooked on that show now!) & I got to work knitting my second reasonably hip hat for a friend's birthday. Now to get off the computer and get back outside before I go back to work tomorrow!