Pacific Northwest Corgi Picnic

Last year we missed the corgi picnic but we made it this year! There were over 150+ people who RSVP’d and brought their corgis. Can you even imagine what it is like to have 150+ corgis in one spot at one time?! Corgi chaos and it is amazing! Think of all the little low rider, herding critters bark-a-larking (that’s what we call it in our house) around a huge fenced area while their humans mull about trying to capture photos and converse over the loud barking of their little beloved Corgis. That is what it was like in a nutshell. 🙂

The picnic is held every year at a private home in Woodinville, WA. It is a get-together for Corgis and their corgi-fanatic uprights (humans) as well as a fundraiser for CorgiAid, Inc., a financial organization that raises money to help out corgis in need. Over $2000 was raised in donations alone! This year was the first year of the event being catered by the Dogfather Catering out of Woodinville. What a perfect name!

This beauty is Dagmar and belongs to the hosts. I suppose this would be one of the hosting corgis! 😉

This was Fitz’s first official corgi outing and he had a blast! Gwen mingled and made friends but Fitz, he gathered a following! Fitzy is OBSESSED with water. I can’t water the flowers, let alone turn on a hose, with him around. He goes nuts and barks and bites at the water. When the pool is full he goes in and won’t jump out til you make him. It was no different at the picnic since there were two little kiddie pools set up for corgi enjoyment.

Gwen in the pool before “little brudder” took over…

Photo by Elizabeth Roth. Fitz in the pool. I love this shot!

Fitzy and his water buddy

The “ferocious” water corgi-beast!

Every bit the gentleman!

Fitz likes to try to steal the show. While he was being a goof in the pool Gwen was schmoozing the humans with her Pink Lady friends. I tried to pick a fabric that was bright and pretty so I could find her in the pack and it turned out some others had similar ideas! I thought the fluffy to Gwen’s right was one of the prettiest there. Look at that fluff!

The Pink Ladies

Fluffy corgi pants!

And lest we forget the Corgi Jail! Yes, there were a couple of pens set up in case any corgis were naughty or needed a time out. At one point there were over 10 corgs in jail! A few were youngsters that were in there just taking a nap, but it did offer them a nice little refuge from all the mayhem. Though there were some who refused to stay in the pokey…I witnessed a Cardi hop out of jail!

Gwen and Fitz made a bunch of friends! We even met some of the local celebreties, Sherlock for example!

We also met Devyn but did not realize it was her until afterwards! Devyn, if you recall, is the Corgi that I think looks like Gwen’s twin!

Gwen, Bella, and Cappy

Fitz

The event was so big that it even received coverage from the local news station! Here is the link to that! Try to find Gwen and Fitz, they’re there! 🙂

I also recommend checking out the write up on Devyn the Corgi’s blog page about the Picnic! She did an awesome write up with some awesome pictures. Of course there is an absolutely adorable one of Fitzy in there that you should check out. 🙂 Here is the link to that one.

And last but not least is the “Official” page detailing the picnic and how you can get on the email list to be reminded of next year’s picnic if you are looking to attend! Here is the link for the 2014 Picnic aftermath (photos, etc.). I am also including the link to the Corgwyn website as I believe you should check out that for the full low-down (pun indended!) on the picnics, past and future. 🙂

If you are in the Seattle area or Western Washington and are looking for a great way to meet up with other corgi owners or looking for other fun events like this one, you may want to checkout and join the Corgis-R-Us meet up group on meetup.com. There may even be meet up groups in your area, who knows!

Cappy

Best of all, we made new friends! We are looking forward to next year and are so very grateful to Leo and Kathy and their Corgis to opening up their home for such a great event!

All photos are property of Elizabeth Roth. You may share these but please give credit to the photographer.

This is Gwen’s excited face.

This summer seems to have been packed full with things to go, do, and see! Yet sadly some of us have to work during all those fun times. 😦 I missed out on a lot of fun things in July because I always seemed to be working the longest hours during the days of the Lavender Festival, the 4th of July, the Sailboat Race Week back home, and a few other things. I also missed out on a lot of quality time with Gwen and Owen (my horse). Now that won’t be too much of a problem anymore since I will have more free time since I am leaving my current job to pursue other opportunities.

When we moved up here I was looking to see if there might be any Corgi clubs or any Corgi events planned and I did find one in Renton (south of Seattle) which of course was written on the calender right away! Just this last week I found out about another Corgi play day through one of the Corgi pages I follow on Facebook, The Daily Corgi. They had shared a link to the 2013 Pacific Northwest Corgi Picnic to be held in Woodinville (also close to Seattle). The picnic is this weekend on the 10th, but alas, work thwarts another afternoon of Corgi fun… 😦 I was really hoping to meet some new Corgi owners in the area too. If you visit the PNW Corgi Picnic link that I posted you can find out how you can join in some of the other events in the area!

I joined a Corgi Event mailing list and also RSVP’d to the Corgi Fun Day happening at the end of August (31st). If you are a Seattle-area Corgi owner, you should really come! (Info in the previous linky.)

Gwendolyn and I are certainly looking forward to going to some Corgi Events and meet some more Corgi people. Mainly I just love seeing a bunch of Corgis all together! It’s just so adorable!!!!

The Non-Corgi/Navy Wife Life Section:

As you know, husband is at sea. Before he left I made up and sent along with him a half-way package to open on their half-way night (pretty self explanatory: celebrating half way through their patrol). I told my friend Corgi Mum, also a Navy wife and Corgi fanatic, about the way I packaged his halfway package (ages and ages ago it seems). I’m including it here because 1. I’m proud of my craftiness and 2. because I told Corgi Mum that I’d show her pictures and just have never done it. (shame on me, I know.)

At one of the FRG (Family Readiness Group. Basically it’s the PC way of saying “wives’ club”) meetings another wife from the boat told me some good ideas and about the size of what to send since space is obviously limited for the guys on a submarine. Since we weren’t supposed to be able to send them anything we were encouraged to send their half-way package along with them before they left. I took this as an opportunity to Corgi-ify mine, of course!

I used a gallon ziplock bag, decorated using a couple pages from last year’s Corgi calender, and filled it with some goodies. I put in a couple goofy cards, one of which was a Hoops & Yoyo SINGING card, a cross-words book, and some candies. Here’s a couple of them…they’re ransom note style! 😛

I also sent along some cards that I made (some I did buy) with dog pictures and goofy sayings in them. Those I put “open when…” on the envelopes. The one that says to open on June 29th was for Gwen’s Gotcha Day. We have received a couple rounds of email (we get a bunch when we do get emails) and Andrew said that he is really enjoying opening the cards and he especially liked the one with baby Gwen on it. 🙂

Recently, some things have changed so now we are having a mail drop and are able to send things to the boat. So of course all the wives are frantically putting things together and sending them to get them by the due date! We have certain limitations as to what we can send. A large, non-padded manilla envelope or a gallon sized ziplock bag; that is the size that we are working with. There is not a limit on the amount we can send, we just have to keep in mind that a sailor is going to have to carry ALL of the packages, cards, and mail down a ladder on his back. In other words, you cannot send a million things but you are not limited to one thing. I was shooting for 2 packages and ended up with 3…I wasn’t the only one who sent three, a couple of my friends did too! I Corgi-ified one of them too. 🙂 Below is a picture of both sides of Corgi-awesomeness:

I covered the addressee info since I didn’t really want that plastered all over the interwebz. It almost looks cuter with the stamps/stickers from the collage maker app! I really hope husband likes what I sent him… I sent him the History Channel old school style: history magazines!!, a car and a shooting magazine, some more cards/notes, and some candies. I sent Nerds, Gobstoppers, Sour Patch Kids, some little granola bar thingies, and I saved the best for last: Princess fruit snacks! It’s amazing what you can fit into a couple envelope/baggies! I told him to share with his friends if they were not as well off in the mail department. Sharing is caring! I also sent him another stick of deodorant so he wouldn’t offend anyone by being smelly. Officers need to smell good.

For those of you that know my husband, did you notice a theme in the candies? Nerds…Gobstoppers…he’s a nerd and he likes to talk a lot…I doubt he’ll get it but that’s okay, I did that mostly for myself. 🙂

I found this when I was looking for some clipart to end with. Thought it was cool. I don’t know what “America’s White Spot” means. If you do, please enlighten me!

[EDIT:] I did some googling and came across a webpage that said, “In 1938, as the nation struggled to emerge from the Great Depression, a series of advertisements in Time magazine promoted Nebraska’s business climate to attract more commerce to the Cornhusker State. The ads, paid for by the predecessor of the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce & Industry, proclaimed that Nebraska was “America’s white spot” thanks to its unique and positive qualities — low tax rates, a strong manufacturing base and top-notch labor force, and a balanced budget.” Source: http://www.omaha.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101121/NEWS0802/711219967&template=printart So it all comes down to taxes. Good to know.