10 Things Every Dog Lover Should Do This Summer

This post is sponsored by Evite. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

Meet Bella, our beautiful freckled tongue dog. She was adopted into our family shortly after my husband and I were married and has been one of our best friends ever since. She's officially turned us into dog lovers!I've always loved dogs, but adopting one pushed my love into over drive. We got her when she was about 6 months old from a shelter. A few months later, we ended up welcoming our first little boy. Our dog went from our family pet, to our family protector. She was always looking out for our little boy. If he would cry she would even start barking and push us into the room!Five years and three kids later our dog has become the family dragon (when the kids decide she's no longer a dog), protector, best friend, comforter, and family member. Needless to say, we love our dog!

10 Things Every Dog Lover Needs To Do This Summer

Head Over To Your Local Doggy Park

Check out your local doggy park and bring the whole family! Your dog will meet new friends and get a change to socialize. By socializing your dog you help promote good behaviors by providing them with the opportunity for other dogs to show and remind them what to do. Dogs with good social skills also tend to be better trained and better family dogs overall.

Go On A Family Vacation

Book a pet friendly hotel or go camping with the family. Then you can bring your dog and enjoy your vacation together! Hotels are becoming more pet friendly over the years and encourage you to bring your pets along!

Throw A Pet Themed Party

Throw a pet pawty and invite your friends like we did! We decided to throw our son a Paw Patrol party for his third birthday and it was a hit! The evening was full of pet themed snacks, silly animal music, delicious Paw Patrol cake, and paw print decorations!

Doggy Friend Meet Up At The Park

Invite your friend's puppy pal along on your next play date at the park! Most parks are designed to bring your animals as long as their on a leash and you clean up after them. Kids look for our pup at our local park and run over when they see her!

Teach Your Dog A New Trick

Teach your dog a new trick this summer! Our kids decided to teach our dog the "vacuum trick." The whole week our kids decided to purposely drop things on the floor so our dog would come and eat it. Our kids thought it was amazing and our dog loved being spoiled with treats.

Go On A Family Walk After Dinner

Clean up dinner and then take the whole family for a walk around the neighborhood. It helps everyone get some exercise, gives you an opportunity to talk about your day, and helps everyone wind down before bed.

Adopt A New Family Friend

Head over to your local animal shelter and adopt a new friend! There are so many dogs looking for a loving home like yours! Afterwards you can even throw your pup an adoption party! Invite all of your friends and their pups to celebrate your new family member.

Set Your Dog Up On A Doggy Date

Do you have a friend with her ow doggy friend? If so, plan out a fun doggy date. You can invite them to go to a local hiking trail, meet at a dog park, or even a regular park. It helps your dog get out of the house and helps socialize them even more!

Set Up A Doggy Water Station

On our recent walk around our neighborhood we saw this! A little girl decided to set up a dog water station. We caught her while she was filling up the water bucket. She put out a little sign and reminded families to keep their pups hydrated while on walks! Set one up and invite the dogs around the neighborhood.

Host Your Very Own Pet Olympics

This final tip is for the ultimate dog lover! Are you up for the challenge? Invite all of your friends and their pups to their first dog olympics! Set up an obstacle course, make a fun little award, and getting the party started!

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#PawtyPeople Photo Contest

Is your pet a pawty animal? Prove it! Enter our #PawtyPeople Photo Competition. To enter for a chance to win, just follow these steps:1. UPLOAD a photo of your pet being a summer pawty animal to our contest form or yourfavorite social media platform by 7/25. Make sure to use #PawtyPeople so your entry can becounted!2. SHARE your photo submission like crazy with all your friends so they can help vote starting7/26!3. VOTE every day from 7/26 to 8/11 to increase your chances of winning! *Limit one vote per person, per entry daily. Submission period ends 11:59:59 PM EST on July25, 2016. Voting period ends 11:59:59 PM EST on August 11, 2016.

Enter Now 

How Can Evite Help Make Thanksgiving Easier?

Are you hosting Thanksgiving this year? Is this your first time hosting or has your place always been the place to be for Thanksgiving? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then Evite is here to help you! I’ve partnered up with them this month to show off some of their gorgeous new holiday designs. Their designs are easy to use and perfect for invitations and thank you notes! This post is sponsored by Evite. 

Holidays In Our Blended Family

Starting a family means you are embarking on a life full of new adventures and traditions together. My husband and I have been able to show each other our childhood family traditions. He has shown me Indian traditions and customs he grew up with. They were all new for me and I jumped on the chance to learn. Since his family moved to the US shortly before he was born, he had a unique opportunity to discover new American traditions with his family. Thanksgiving was a new holiday for them and they started to create new memories and traditions together, including his mom’s famous lemon pepper turkey!

While I didn’t have any new customs to share with my husband, I was able to share some of our holiday traditions with him. My family loves fall because it means we get to celebrate one of our favorite holidays, Thanksgiving! I don’t have one memory growing up of my family apart on Thanksgiving. We have always come together, made way too much food, and spent the day laughing.

  

Our First Time Hosting Thanksgiving 

I couldn’t wait to spend Thanksgiving together with my husband. After we were married, we had spent most of our Thanksgiving’s with his side of the family. One year we decided to throw a special Thanksgiving dinner of our own. We stayed home and invited all of our friends. We deemed it our “Friend’s Thanksgiving.” 

 

Hosting an event as big as Thanksgiving can be quite intimidating. We decided to make the turkey and a few other dishes. Our friends each chose a side or two and prepared them at home. My husband and I looked up turkey recipes all week. We were excited and terrified to make our first one. 

 

We woke up early in the morning to get the house ready and have enough time to prep the turkey. We debated over who had to clean out the turkey, rubbed it down with delicious spices, and then tried to figure out what to tie the legs with. We didn't realize that was part of the turkey making process and used the only thing we had...yarn. I took pictures of every step to show off our beautiful turkey. Unless we botched it, then we’d destroy all evidence of the turkey fiasco. 

 

Our friends started to arrive and the smell of our delicious turkey filled the house. It was a success! All of our hard work and fussing over the turkey paid off and we couldn’t wait to dig in. Our friend’s thanksgiving is one of our favorite memories. It was a chance for all of us to do something new and start a new tradition together. I love that we were able to come together and make it happen. 

 

Hosting your first big holiday is scary, thrilling, and exciting. I love that we were able to do it with all of our friends.

How Can Evite Help You This Thanksgiving?

 

Evite is here to make it a little easier for you. All you need to do is sign up for an account. Then you can design your own invitation or thank you card. The best part is there are so many beautiful designs to choose from and it’s easy!

 

They’re even giving all of you a FREE GIFT! All of you, my lovely readers, get 15 free “Thank You Cards!” All you need to do is go here and use the code BMTHANKYOU15

 

Make sure you take a peak at Evite's new designs.

 

What did you think of Evite's new designs? Let us know on twitter. 

 

[tweetthis display_mode="button_link"]@evite @almstindianwife[/tweetthis]

 

 

“This post is part of a sponsored campaign on behalf of the South Asian Bloggers Network for Evite and I have received compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.”