Monday, April 30, 2018

April Round Up

Happy Easter Morning Basket.  We did not have an egg hunt this year and I think Baylor was OK with that.  He received plenty of nice things in his basket from the Easter Bunny.  


Especially the KitKats! 


The dogs had to take their turn with the bunny ears whether they wanted to or no.  It was mostly a not though. 




They do much better with scarves.  


On Easter Sunday we went to Meme and Pap's for lunch.  Pap let Baylor drive the four wheeler.  He had it in the lowest gear so Baylor could not tear off in the woods or crash into a tree.  It was very hard for him to turn but he did really well and I could tell he just loved it.  


Pap helped him out with the turning and it went a bit better. 


Before we left we all had a turn with the bunny ears. 










Another morning we woke up to snow.  


Which was gone by the time we got home.  Sometimes PA weather just cannot make up its mind.  


The dogs go into their crates when we leave in the morning.  This morning Roxie wanted to join Jake in his crate but I did not think that was a good idea so she had to go into her's.  


The Lower Allen Dog park finally opened and we made it on a nice sunny afternoon.  



Happy to play with some new friends.  


Day care photos of the week.  



And tired pup sharing the couch with me. 


April 9th was our one year anniversary with Jake and while it has had its ups and downs, I am certainly glad we found him.  He is a sweet guy, but has his issues that we either work on or live with.  I love him so much!! For is present I gave him a huge bone and kept him away from Roxie because one of his issues is he thinks she is always trying to steal his bones (which she is but not when he is looking) and he goes after her very aggressively.  He never bites down on here but he is pretty scary.  She usually stays away from him if he has something but I have to keep a close eye out when there is a high value chew around.  Other items they can steal back and forth but if he really values it, he will protect it from even a glance from her.  



Roxie got a bone present as well but she was wary of it because of how Jake reacts and he was already in the living room with the gate up.  She eventually felt safe enough to work on it later in the evening.  


They both ate burger patties with the supper.  



Baylor helped Roxie with her's.  Jake and his big jaws can handle pretty much anything I put in his bowl but Roxie needs smaller pieces.  She is a lady after all!  


Spring is finally showing up in the garden which is great other than I need to get my butt in gear and clean them out!  

Sleepy puppy keeping me company.  

A beautiful morning ended in a rough evening.   I was in the living room and the dogs were playing as usual.  I heard Roxie making a noise which was not normal playing noise so I got up to see what was going on.  Jake's teeth had hooked under her collar and in trying to get free he was twisting.  His twisting make it tighter and was choking Roxie.  I was screaming for Gloria to wake up and help me.  Their collars are slip on collars so there was no way to unhook her collar.  I was going to try to cut the colla off Roxie but it was so tight there was no way to get anything under her collar.  She was choking, Baylor was crying on the couch helpless what to do.  Thankfully Gloria had been working on Jake's mouth and finally freed his teeth from the collar and Roxie could breathe again. She threw up her supper right after that but we did not care.  The collars were off and within a hour new buckle collars were ordered.  


She had blood on her neck but that was from Gloria and I.  We both had fingers bitten and cut.  





















My pinky finger took a good bite.  The nail was broken and the other side was sliced open and bleeding.  Gloria had the same
wound on her thumb.

We had April Fool's Food Day later in the month and I make Kitty Litter Cake.  Baylor loved making the tootsie turds!  


And Pizza Cake. 


And even though I made the cake, it was very disconcerting eating it!! There are cake blobs and tootsie turds under the litter and while it tasted really good, it was weird.  Which it is supposed to be! 


This was not weird at all.  It was delicious.  


Grimm had no part in making the litter cake, I promise.  


New collars arrived this week.  Still martingale but now with a buckle.  And Roxie will not be wearing one in the house.  


Clubhouse photo for the week.  I love when my dogs and their friends make the photo dump for the week. 




Laura posted a sweet update photo of Hubs, such a cutie!! 


I treated everyone to Maggie's on the way home from the clubhouse.  It was a big hit for all! 





Baylor and I ate dinner outside and Roxie photo bombed us.  I love her ears!!! 


Baylor did some photo editing. 


And later, crashed out on the couch...


and Jake on the ottoman.  The best $36 I spend all week.  


I ordered personalized bone cookie cutters for the pups and make them some treats.  So cute!  


This trying to grow grass is a losing battle with both dogs going over on the other side as often as they can.  


Dog park tug with Bean.  I love little Bean, he is such a happy guy! 




We had our first fire in the fire pit.  The dogs loved it! 



So did Kartikey and Baylor.  



Saturday we went to the Fun Fort to play for a bit.  They are almost too big for playgrounds but they need to get outside otherwise they will just sit and play video games for hours.  





I think they had a good time.  


Another fire.  I love them.  


The dogs got bandannas in their BarkBoxes this month.  Baylor added the commentary.  


Somehow staying on their side of the yard.  


Do we like fires? 

Uh, yes we love fires! 




A recipe to keep on file.  They are delicious! 


My guard dogs on duty.  This is the best place to watch out back for intruders or birds or falling leaves. Whatever it takes to get them started barking.  


Today a large hole appeared in the fencing.  I wonder how it got there.  


I think I figured it out. 


All the kids can climb the cellar doors but it is super cute to see the dogs up there.  


The dogs made the photo dump this week.  The clubhouse usually only posts photos once a week and the dogs usually only go on Friday so I am always glad when they make in. 






We got Baylor's DNA back and it is not too dissimilar from me.  



Roxie just loves this red Nerf football and will hog it the whole time she can.  


Sometimes they can share and not fight.  But antlers and Yak milk chews are not as important as bones.  


You are beautiful, like a rainbow. 


Mom's DNA can in and she has no idea where the Great Britain came in!  Her mom is from Belgium and her dad's parents came from Austria.  


A bit down the road from us they sell wood and this pile was only $20.00.  We will have many fires with this!  



Baylor had a report either a timeline or diorama.  He chose diorama on Paul Revere.  Since he remembers Paul Revere from the summer it was something he was interested in.  He told me how he wanted it to look and I helped with the print outs and cutting.  


Roxie made a big friend at the park.  She loved him!  


Loves tug with her brother.  




Sunday, April 8, 2018

Say Good Bye Gall Bladder


On April 6th I reported to the hospital at 6:45 am to prep for surgery to remove my stone filled gall bladder.  But my problems with my gall bladder go back to October 23 around 1 PM when I had mild pain in the center of my chest for about 45 minutes. The last thing I remember eating was pretzels which are not known to cause stones to move.  I called Mom and told her I though I just passed a gall stone.  She had the same issue years ago and told me what to watch out for.  I wrote it on the calendar and was fine the rest of the week until around 11:45 PM Friday.  I had some yummy tater tot nachos that Gloria brought back from the restaurant she went to when we arrived at our room.  We were on our trip to the water park in VA and I woke up in a lot of pain.  It was a 180 difference from the easy stone movement on Monday.  This one included sweating, vomiting, shaking, and A LOT of pain.  I went out to the couch to wait it out and in about 45 minutes it was over.  I called Mom in the morning and told her. I came to work on Monday and called a Gastroenterology office to make an appointment.  They got me in on November 9th and I got started on the process of elimination on what was causing my chest pain.  I had to have an ultrasound on 11/15 which found multiple stones.   On December 6th, I was supposed to go to the heart Dr to rule out heart problems but I had to reschedule for January 4th.  And then I went on February 23rd for an upper endoscopy to rule out hernias, ulcers, and such.  Finally all the results were in and I had gall stones and it needed to be removed.  So we scheduled it for April 6th.  

I warned the ladies that I am a hard one to stick and I was proved right when it took four sticks to find a vein that would not shut down as soon as they got in there.  It really hurt, especially the one highest up on my hand.  Two failed sticks on this hand. 


One failed stick on the back of my hand.  They finally got it going on a vein under my thumb but there was an option to have it moved when I was under in surgery.  They managed to work with it thankfully!   


And surgery went well and I was at home early afternoon to relax for the rest of the day and weekend.  Nurse Roxie kept me company after she got home from day care.  I was surprised that there was really not a lot of pain after the surgery and other than a few Tylenol on the first day, I did not take any pain meds after Friday at the hospital.  It was certainly sore and uncomfortable but no pain. 


From the photos from the Clubhouse, the kids had a good day playing.  



I do love my Friday night day care coma evenings with these two! 


The weekend was also Jake's one year anniversary with us!  I would not have guessed a year ago that we would have two dogs within the year but I am so glad we do.   They only thing they fight over now are fresh bones so we had to keep them separate after this.   





And they had some celebration steak with their dinner.  Do I spoil them? Yes, yes I do!