Going to Colorado....

I'm leeeaaavingggg ooon a JetPlane... (you're supposed to sing that part!) lol

Whatever.. So I decided that since my friend Danielle cannot make it back to WA for Thanksgiving, that I would go see her! I feel bad for leaving my family behind (and my husband!) but I need to get away, I need to go see my friend and I need the relaxation and non-stress. I, I, I... yes it's all about me. I'm hoping that while I'm there, I can get into some holiday spirit, I will be in cold, probably snowy territory and if that doesnt do it for me, then nothing will. :)

Derek is happy that I am going, maybe too happy.. just kidding! He is going hunting this weekend, leaving Friday and returning Sunday night and then Wed morning I am leaving him and returning Monday night.. We certainly dont need a break from eachother, but I think we'll both feel refreshed once the next 2 weeks are done, somewhat of a relationship flush! lol

I may never want to leave CO, it is going to be so pretty there....

Birthday Card

I got this card for my birthday from my cousin Jennifer this year for my 35th... :) I love the card, I listen to it atleast 2 times a week. Then I realized I should share it, if this works anyways..

Camper & Dogs

I got a few cute pics of the dogs the other morning. We always let them in the bed as soon as one of us wakes up in the mornings, give them an hour or so to sleep in the bed, usually with Derek as I am getting ready for work. Russell knows how to work his way to the bottom of the covers and poke his head out so he is not too hot but his body is still covered. The other morning, this is how they looked... And I did not pull those covers back.

She was being cute here....

When I type on the computer, she almost always is at my feet under the desk, although occassionally, they both hang out there.. she is under there now snoring, Russell is probably on the couch.

So the weekend is almost over now, feels like a very unproductive weekend but I suppose it wasnt that bad.. We spent pretty much the entire weekend dealing with the new camper. We picked it up Saturday morning at 9am, when we got there, she was washing it. It came with tie-downs, the kind that go into slots on the side of your bed, but we didnt have any way to bolt them down to the bed, so we hauled the camper home untied! that was a nervewracking trip! A short drive with only one small uphill, but not fun all the same.. We off-loaded the camper and headed to town to buy some bolts and then dropped by Marc's place (Julies old place) to have him help us drill holes in the truck and he also made us some steele plates that were needed.. Thank You Thank You Thank You Marc!!! So the camper is now back on the truck and secured down. I washed the inside a little, didnt need a lot of cleaning. There was fresh water inside from her washing the exterior, so clearly we have a leak on the one side, Derek bought stuff to re-seal.

Hooked the horse trailer up with the 14" hitch extension that Derek had to buy, works great! We already tested and there is NO way for the camper to hit the horse trailer no matter how far you jack-knife it.. :) Mom and dad came over today, helped us figure out how to turn on the water, what certain things were for, got the stove working, got the heater working, we think we got the fridge working! :) There is no hot water for this camper, so if warm water is needed, it will have to be heated on the stove. No oven or microwave, but we dont need those things. It is very basic and that is exactly what we wanted. From the picture below, you can see when you walk in, is a big open space with seats on both side. I can set the table up and you can get in/out of the seat just fine with the table up. We installed some supports for the 2nd bed area.

The guys have been loading up the horse trailer the 2nd half of the day with their goose decoys for the upcoming hunting trip. I'm pretty sure there will be 4 of them going this coming weekend, Derek Dad Ted & Tyler. My brother was supposed to go, but he and Andrea are heading to Pullman that weekend for the Apple Cup and then Lance was supposed to go, but had to cancel. It should be a fun trip for them, pretty cheap with 4 guys splitting gas too... Derek will let Dad and Ted sleep in the camper, he and Tyler will sleep in the trailer.. brrrrr

That pretty much sums up the weekend. I had really wanted to get my horse and goats home this weekend, because with Derek being gone next weekend, it wont happen then. But there is a lot that needs doing to get them home still and I decided to be the nice wife and let it go so Derek could get ready for hunting but he did promise to help me get the pasture ready Thanksgiving weekend so I can bring them home then. I really miss having my kids here at home!

Well here are some pics.

Oh and I think Danielle will be coming home this weekend to WA to spend it with family/friends for the Thanksgiving weekend. I think she might stay with me for a day or two or who knows how long, doesnt matter to me, I'll keep her as long as she wants to stay with me! :) I havent seen her in what, about 8 months... I think this Saturday her and I will spend the day together, hopefully drive down to see a horse she is interested in and then we'll head to go see Oakley!!

Let's Go Camping!

We bought a camper last night! We've been looking for a couple months, started getting more seriuos lately. It was a little frustrating considering we have a short-bed truck and most campers are 8.5' + so finding a decent 8' or less was nearly impossible. But then Tuesday morning I came across an ad for a 1990 8' camper weighing only 1350 pounds IN Snohomish!! Asking $2250. I emailed right away, the ad indicated she was a horse person and used the camper at shows, so I felt I might have a leg up on this one.. I told the lady I was VERY interested, wanted it for camping with my horses, lived in Snohomish etc.. She emailed back and said she had a LOT of interest but everyone lived kinda far away and that I should come see it sooner than later, but she'd hold it til Saturday for me if I wanted. I said, NO WAY, we are coming tonight, I'll bring a flashlight! So we did..

It is in great shape, she is the 2nd owner, its been tarped the whole time she had it and before her, the previous owners kept it in a shop. The inside does not smell like an old camper. It has a small fridge, 2 burner stove and a sink. It comes with a portable porta-potti that is kept in a cabinet in the camper, we'll probably upgrade to an exterior potti-shower tent that we can get from Cabela's. It has a lot of room inside, I might actually be able to sit at the bench with the table in place.. I'll take pics as soon as we get it, we are picking it up on Saturday morning!

We are sooo excited, it is a nice camper and very light. We gave full price, felt it was worth it. It comes with tie-downs, although they are not the big heavy duty ones, the ones it comes with should work just fine for our truck. We will have to add a plug to the truck so we can plug in the camper and the horse trailer. Derek is planning to go hunting in E WA the weekend of the 22nd, so looks like he'll have something to sleep in instead of the horse trailer like he did last year in 18 degree weather!! :)

I am excited to get it out and use it this next year.. camping, here we come....

Girls Weekend Recap

Derek drove his parents to the airport this morning so it's back to the 60's... and I dont mean the era!

Okay, so now for the update you all have been waiting for...

Girls night! We had a great time. I am so glad we did the roller skating, that was the funniest part of the evening. I had gone into the evening well prepared that I was scared out of my mind to get up on roller skates and I think the other girls all underestimated how difficult it was going to be, which made for a HILARIOUS evening. Now Rachel & Andrea, the 2 spring chickens of our group did just fine, regardless of how much alcohol may or may not have been involved. They were out skating at a decent speed and spending more time up than down. Shana on the other hand, she spent the most time on the ground... lol She was having a great time although she did take a big spill right on her tailbone and from what I gather, she's hurtin pretty bad even still today! Sorry Shana..... Jen, she did pretty good too, she and I were the most timid and reserved. We did NOT want to fall and get hurt. At one point we were skating, hand in hand, AHHHHH.... well she got in front of me a tiny bit, and as I was trying to get even with her, I wobbled, she wobbled, she wobbled some more and I said the hell with this, I'm not goin down with the ship, so I let go just as she went down and I drifted over to the wall to turn and see poor Jen on floor! LOLOLOL. I did try to go back to help her up, but she is still, well she's not still young (HAHA), but she is definatley still.. well lets say limber and skinny and skinny bitches can get up w/o a helping hand even with rollersk8's on their feet! Me, I did not fall once, I was the only one not to fall, probably because I was the only one not drinking :) It was really fun though and a good place to people watch, I particularly enjoyed laughing at the muscled, thinks he's the shit, 35-45 something guy dressed in all black who occassionally skated with another guy all in black, but mostly on his own, doing funky things with his legs, actin like he was all cool, spinning, skating fast! gadar!! lol

We did glow, particularly during bowling. We bowled next to a couple who were very nice and they enjoyed us very much! They were our age, late 30's.. Oh Damn.. when did it become ok that we are approaching our late 30's???? I all the sudden feel so darn old. Anyways, we ALL sucked at bowling except Andrea's 2nd game, she kicked butt with her best score ever. Jen hated the lanes, they hadnt been oiled in 2 days and considering she bowls in tournaments and league, she knows what she is talkin about.. so her game was crappy. I was still sober and since we were just havin fun, I tried different techniques. We attracted different guys at different stages of the bowling. Well okay, Jen, Shana, Andrea & Rachel attracted the guys, I just spectated. lol Actually it was the shirts.. People wanted to know what was up with us, so we told our story a few times that night and it was good.. It was good to be able to do it and reinforce positive feelings about the day and not negative ones. One guy was sorry he asked, he felt really bad. He had approached Shana & I to chit chat, friendly flirting I guess and I told him we were out to celebrate my sister and he just kept appologizing. I told him, if we didnt want attention, we wouldnt have all come out in glowing shirts with glow in the dark writing on them. He was really nice, he was from Omak.

We got home that evening around 2am I think it was. Derek drove us home, Shana had called him early in the evening to ask him to plan to drive us home so I could drink, he had Tyler drop him off at our truck and he slept (well tried to sleep) while we did our thing and then drove us home. Shana thought I would be drinking, I tried, but I wasnt feelin it Saturday night, so I didnt end up drinking, I could have drove us home. Oh well, there is a pic of him with our silly glasses on, he drove with those on all the way to Rachel's house, even kept them on while we went through the drive up window at Jack in the Box! :)

Real quick, I have to get out what all I did on Saturday! Derek got up at 4:30am to go hunting, I slept til about 8 maybe. Dereks parents left around 10 to go to Dawn's for a potluck. While they were gone, I got motivated, not sure what that was about. I did watch a little TV, but then I was bored, so I went out in the rain and nailed up those vinyl roofing pieces to my shed to be the wall, I needed one more, so I went to town with the dogs (mind you I was lookin like a dog myself in a ballcap, no makeup and dirtly clothes!) went to Home Depot, bought a piece of roofing for my wall, drove to the petstore in town and bought Scout a fleece jacket, she was shaking and cold, she gets that way sometimes when she is outside or in the truck, she has no fur! Got home, nailed up the 3rd piece, reorganized the shed I had just put the wall on so that I could also fit some hay into it. When I bring the goats & horse home, I needed to put that wall up so the animals would not get inside the shed. I was going to put up fencing, but could not find the t-post driver. I then decided to move the pile of 2x6 boards from the pile by the garage to the 4x4 pile. We needed to get the wood covered so it does not get ruined. Then I decided I wanted to get rid of the garbage that was outside the house and over by the shop, it bugs me to have garbage lying around and we just hadnt cleaned it up yet, so I loaded up the truck with a dump run load, had to tarp it to be "legal" and then I headed to the dump, really startin to look attractive at this point with my muck boots on outside my ratty old jeans, a shirt so dirty from moving the wood and slingin garbage, arms had dirt on them.. after I dumped my dump load, headed to my parents to throw down a couple bales of hay and feed the goats and horse. I have started feeding once a day now, they all tell me they require it. I decided to then cut sticker bushes for 20 minutes so my horse could have a path to get to the feed tub w/o having to go through the pond which is currently still mostly empty but will be full of water within days I'm sure.. so I cut the bushes with the pruners, OMG my arms by this time were just tired, I could hardly lift them from the hammering, lifting HEAVY wood, throwing garbage, dragging hay bales and then pruning.. I finished up and headed home just in time barely to shower and hit the road to go meet the girls. Somehow though my arms were not dead-weight for bowling, they did pretty good. Although I'm sure Jen would say that is cuz my ball is so darn light a toddler could lift it! Cant say the same for the day after, today is Monday and my arms are a little sore. My legs, they are a little sore too, that roller skating is a work out in a half!! Holly Moley... My back did fine, but my back muscles were used and I could feel them, my thighs were tight.. I have to say though that after all my work on Saturday, the skating and the bowling, my lower back pain thats been bugging me for a couple weeks, is gone! I guess that is telling me to get off my *ss and do more, its good for me. :)

I guess that was a little more than "real quick!" Sunday George, Rachel & Samantha came up for the day to visit. They brought Gus with them, but not Cash. Gus and my dogs all got along so well. Russell turned his nose up just a little, but Gus & Scout were like ol' friends.. they had a good time playing. I tried to introduce Gus to the doggy door and got him through it with the help of me pushing him through, but he HATED it and later when I tried to call him to practice some more, he hid behind George! LOL So we just opened the door for him when he wanted out. It was nice that all our children could play so well together. Samantha, Rachel & I made necklaces from my bead collection. They were supposed to be bracelets, but Samantha picked out so many different beads, that we had to make necklaces instead. Can't say that I will be wearing it out in public, but we had fun making them anyways. :)

I need to find a way to get back to being tired by 11 again. My system is all off, I spent Fri night up til almost 2am, Sat til 2am and I didnt crawl into bed til midnight last night and even then I lied there for a few minutes before I fell asleep... I have to work on getting back to normal..

Oh and Scout, she is my shadow. That dog is so attached to me! Last night I had to leave to go meet Andrea to take her phone to her, Derek said when I left, she ran around whining at the doors, couldnt/wouldnt sit still and was upset. She was so upset she decided to jump on the stool and then up onto the dining table!! There was a table cloth on the table from our craft project thank goodness!!! He threw his hat at her and she jumped off, but she was really upset. When I got home, she was all over me and was happy when I sat down to relax so she could curl up in my arms. When Derek went to bed (at a normal time) he tried to get the dogs to come to bed with him, he called them and they both ran to the bedroom and not 2 seconds later she came straight back to my lap while Russell curled up in bed. I just LOVE this dog to pieces.... I cant even imagine my life w/o her.

Enjoy these pics.. this is a very long post!!


Here is my shirt and our Yellow Accessories



















Proof that we did RollerSk8! :)



























A Couple pics of all us girls.. okay I'm not in this one cuz I took it!



Rachel & Jen after throwing their balls down the lane.. or is it alley..


























Andrea havin a little fun....


























And now for Shana.. The first pic is my FAVORITE pic of the night!!!! I literally Laugh Out Loud every time I look at this picture!!!!! lolololololol
I have to say for wearing White Pants, Shana wore them very well, but guess who's NOT wearing a thong!



























and our taxi driver for the ride home.. Look at what a sport he is. :) Lou U my Person..

Happy Birthday Carrie!!

Happy Birthday Carrie! It's about 1:15am on Saturday morning, not even feeling tired at this point, but I need to get some sleep because later this evening, Shana, Jennifer, Rachel, Andrea & I are going out to celebrate your life in the best way we know how and that would be blacklight roller-skating and blacklight bowling! We'll be decked out in glowing t-shirts, yellow accessories and drinkin a few down in Honor & Memory of you Carrie. We all Miss You Every Day!!!
I love you...

I guess the truck thinks we are made of money..

Of course it was the G-Damned Starter! lol.. what do ya do but laugh. :) My co-workers vehicle had to have a new ignition I think it was put in a few days before my truck had issues. I park next to him every day, i think his SUV had a chat with my Truck and my truck decided to keep up with the Jones's on autorepair! Oh and the truck MUST have paid attention that day I drove it to the bank and got my bonus, cuz the very next day (seriously) it wouldnt start.. there goes that free money.. lol

Bad Truck... Bad Bad Truck!!!

So Mister new Red Truck decided not to start this morning!! Derek called his service buddy at Speedway in Monroe and Johnny said to crawl under the truck and tap on the starter, which worked.. fired right up then. Damn truck... dropped it off at Speedway, they'll check the starter and find out what is going on. Hopefully it is not the starter, that is a $463 part! Maybe for once something will be an easy cheap fix.... yeah right!

Bob & Nouna (Derek's parents) are staying with us now.. We picked them up last night, Mr Red truck drove just fine for that! They'll be with us until Monday morning when Derek drives them to the airport. We normally set the heat at 62, but to accomodate them, we've increased it to 72, which might not be enough, we'll see how they do at that temperature.. It is supposed to be rainy, crappy, windy for the next 7 days, just plain yucky weather. Derek went out this morning to Fred Meyers to buy a coffee maker and some coffee. We've wanted to have one at the house for company, just didnt get a chance before now. We both LOVE the smell of brewing coffee, but dont like the taste, atleast our company will have something warm to wake them up in the mornings! :)

Oh and Miss Scout, she is still causin' business when we are away! Last night in the 1.5 hours we were away, she brought another tiger animal out of the back bedroom but did not chew it, we accidentally left the bedroom door open and she brought out some garbage from the master bathroom, mostly just some TP that we probably used to blow our nose with, chewed up a pair of undies from that overgrown pile of dirty clothes.. oh and she jumped up on our stool at the counter and got herself into the candy dish! She didnt really eat any, just dumped some out of the bowl, just cuz she could do it. Scratched up one of my stool seats, not real pleased about that since they are leather topped, I cant fix them if she pokes holes in them with her nails or scratches them.. We did not get mad at her, just silly stuff mostly. :)

Time to Glow!

Things have been great in our house with our new girl Scout! She is really a GREAT dog and we just love her to pieces. We are very thankful to her previous owners because we feel like we couldnt have found a more perfect fit for us and Russell. We did discover that although we have a BIG yard and lots of room to run, that is not enough for her and when given the chance, she will RUN! :)

It was my fault, I had a friend help me by carrying in a TV out of our garage into a back bedroom. I did not shut the garage door behind him cuz I needed to show him where to take the TV. Scout and Russell followed us to the bedroom, but as soon as he put the TV down, she just KNEW that the door was still open and she just took off... I mean she ran like her tail was on fire.. lol You could just hear her saying whoppy, yeahaw, see ya later folks!

She immediately ran to the road and Brandon took chase and after I found some shoes, I did too. I was trying to sweat talk her and she would start coming towards me, but then that look of wild fire in her eyes and she was gone again. It only took us about 5 minutes to catch her, Brandon finally did. I praised and praised her, I did not want her to think that coming to me was a bad thing. Darn dog, scared me.... I know at her previous house, that was one of the problems was that she would get out and be gone for a couple hours which is NOT acceptable at my place.

So if you come visiting, DO NOT! DO NOT! DO NOT! let our dog out of the fenced yard!

She is quite the character.. We've been leaving the back spare bedroom door open because her and Russell like to play in that room, she darts under the bed and hides from him. Yesterday I came home, Derek was gone as well, and I find 2 of Derek's stuffed tigers lying out in the dining/living room areas. They had not been chewed up AT ALL which is great, they were just lying around. I went to the back bedroom to see if there had been anything else she got into and she had also thrown the 2 huge tigers that are on the bed, onto the ground! I guess she wanted the bed to herself. In our bedroom we have a dirty clothes pile that just sits on the floor (my hamper is full of clean clothes that need to be put away!), yes I am WAY behind on the laundry issue... but anyways, the point is not that I am lazy on my laundry, it is that when we are in our bathroom, she claims the dirty clothes pile as her resting spot and curls up on top of the mound! At night in her crate with Russell, she buries herself UNDER her blanky.. I'm working on getting some cute pics of her.. Still NO poddy in the house.

So this past Sunday the girls (Jennifer, Shana, Rachel, Andrea & I) were going to get together to design some glow-in-the-dark t-shirts for our gathering this coming Saturday. We are going roller-skating and bowling Sat night. See, Saturday is Carrie's birthday. We have decided that the 5 of us would like to go out and celebrate Carrie's life on her birthday. This is a big step for all of us. It is our first time of really acknowledging our new life w/o Carrie and making her a focus of our gathering. We are not labeling this as a "cousins night" but essentially that is what it is and is the first time we have all been ready to do this again. I still dont find myself thinking of the good times with Carrie because that reminds me too much that she is not here, but I also recognize this could be a good step for me personally and I hope it brings about laughter, but I'm sure it will bring some tears as well. It's her birthday...

So in memory of Carrie and in all fun of things, we purchased some basic white t-shirts and the 5 of us were going to decorate them with glow in the dark puffy paint as the bowling alley has a blacklights show while you bowl. The shirts are tied together with a theme that Shana, Jennifer and Carrie started with cups. Jennifer is Jack, Shana is Me, Rachel is Off, Andrea is Bia and I am tch! lol Plus we have our names on them and a few other things that remind us of Carrie. We are accessorizing in yellow because yellow is Carrie's color, we have all sorts of fun things.

So on my way to run some errands prior to meeting Shana in Everett on Sunday, she calls and tells me that Jennifer is sick and Rachel's daughter Jasmine is sick! What the Heck.. so Shana is going to still meet me in Everett and we'll head to Mt Vernon to make shirts with Andrea.. I tell Shana what dogs the other girls are for baggin out! Of course I'm kidding... then a little bit later as I'm still doing my thing, Shana calls and tells me she just threw her back out and is not going anywhere!!! Bitches! I cannot believe all 3 of them dogged out on this.. Of course none of them were lying, it was just bad luck I guess. Which worked out just fine cuz me and Andrea had a GREAT time making their shirts!!! We did some shopping for yellow things, purchased things we probably did not need (she is dangerous to shop with, she loves to shop! lol). It was nice spending time with just Andrea, something I have not had a chance to do yet and I will cherish bonding more and more with her over the years. So long story, long... the 3 bitches as I like to call them will have something "special" on their shirt that is not on mine or Andreas just cuz they were not there to help.. Saturday is going to be fun, but I am very very afraid of the roller skates....

24 hours & a Blanky is all that was needed..

Scout is doing much better today. Not that she was doing badly, but she is settling in very nicely. We had to leave her unattended for about 5 hours yesterday afternoon while we went to Derek's Aunt Karen's funeral services in Renton. We were a little concerned about being gone and what we might come home to. We were happily suprised to come home to the same house we had left behind... no poddy spots anywhere in the house, no chewed up cushions or furniture. :)

Oh and she slept through the night! We did put her blanky that she came with into the crate for her to have something familiar and No whining whatsoever.. okay well not from her anyways.. lol Now Russell has been allowed to sleep in the bed every night for over a year now and he was/is a little upset that he now has been demoted to the dog bed/crate! So he whined at us a tiny bit, I wouldnt even call it whining, it was more of heavy sighing, like he was saying in a discreet way "hooo hemmmm, sure wish I didnt have to sleep in this bed......." "pooooor pooooor me....." He quit after just a few minutes and about 30 minutes later we looked in their crate and they were cuddled up together and sleeping beautifully!

At 6am we were promptly awoken to Scout letting us know it was time to wake up! We opened the crate and then bedroom door and she darted outside. While she was doing that, Russell jumped in the bed and went right for his usual spot under the covers. A minute later, Scout comes tearing back in the house, runs in the bedroom and jumps on the bed and w/o skipping a beat, she immediately starts digging to get under covers! She knows the drill, Russell and her must have had a discussion while we slept and he told her the routine, she just couldnt wait til 6:30 when I normally would have gotten up and then allowed them in the bed, NOOO... she had to wake us at 6! :)

She's such a cuddle bug with me and I cant wait to take more pics of her to post on here, maybe I'll get some in the future of her and Russell playing or sleeping together.

Meet Scout!!

Scout is our NEW dog!!!! As some of you know, we’ve been keeping our eyes open for a new dog for a short time now and on Monday afternoon, I found this girl on Craigslist. By Tuesday morning, the owner had responded and by Tuesday late afternoon, I was driving down to get her…

Derek had to work late so mom went with me to Auburn to go meet Scout and be sure she was going to be a good match for us. She is a 2.5 yr old Jack Russell and is sweet as can be. She was a bit restless on the drive home, confused I’m sure, she mostly stayed on moms lap and slept some.

As we were driving home, Derek called. He and Brandon had taken the front door off our house and were heading to Home Depot to buy a doggy door. He got home just as we did and had the doggy door installed within the hour. It is a nice door, double flaps to help with not allowing heat to escape, but it scares me! lol When the dogs go in/out of it, it is very loud and a noise I will get used to, but a new noise for sure. She and Russell both have experience with doggy doors in the past so they both had the hang of it within a couple tries.

Scout did have an accident on our bed the first night, she was confused. I did not get mad at her, just said NO and took her outside to finish. After that happened, we watched her very closely and made her go outside every 30-45 minutes just to be sure she didn’t have to poddy. She did poddy a couple times outside before bed and then this morning w/o me having to ask her, she ate some breakfast and headed outside and peed on her own w/o prompting. So that is a GREAT sign!

She loves to be outside, she goes in/out that door a lot! Right now she is at my feet while I type with her tail banging on my leg… lol Oh I see why.. Russell is under the desk, so she is whining and trying to get him motivated to play with her this morning.

She did not sleep well last night… we put her and Russell in the big crate bed and she whined for over an hour before she finally went to sleep. We had to turn on a lamp and a radio to get her to quiet down. She did wake up a few times and start whining, but we were pretty zonked, so she finally gave up.

I am really happy we found miss Scout. I think she is exactly what we wanted to find, she just needs a few days to relax and get used to our routine. She is 100% adorable!

I did not get any really good pics of her, she moves so fast! :) These are the only 2 that did not come out blurry...

Now for this past weekend..

Whew life is still so busy right now! I have been getting my behind back in the saddle and that feels so great. I spent pretty much the entire summer not riding because of life in general and probably some lack of motivation too, might have been in a slump. But now I am getting out and it feels fantastic!

I had been contemplating all week whether to ride on Saturday or not. There was an annual Halloween ride in Arlington on Saturday, I've been doing this ride off/on over the last several years. With all the problems with Troy, I didnt know if I would be able to go and it was not until Andrea called Friday late afternoon and we had him put to sleep, that I realized I could go. I called my neighbor friend Molly and told her I was changing my mind once again, and going! I knew quite a few people going on the ride in different groups, but decided to ride with Molly. She had a baby about 9 months ago and I havent ridden with her this year. So I thought it would be nice to get out with her and her friends from Pilchuck Vet.

I was supposed to meet her there as she was getting a ride with someone else, but her horse Dozer who is part Percheron and part Clydesdale, would not fit in the other trailer! Her horse and Edgar are pretty close in size as far as height, but her guy is a little wider and this other trailer was pretty small for a draft horse! Apparently he got stuck at one point and they had to use a hammer to get the divider back open to let him out. I've hauled him in the past, so I drove up and picked her up. We did the ride, a nice 3 hour trail and it was fun. I didnt have time to stay for prizes, so after the ride was over, we loaded up and headed home. I dropped off Molly and Dozer, went to my house, changed my clothes and cleaned up a little, then headed to mom's house to pick her up, drop off Edgar and then we headed to Sultan to Bob's house for a card party that night. Got home from cards at about midnight-thirty! :) Had a fun time.

Toni was in town and came to visit on Sunday to see the house, we went to visit Echo, Briggs & Stratton & Edgar, and my parents.. lol

Derek worked a little more on his boat, he says it is close enough he could use it in the field as it is, but he still has a ways to go to completely finish it. I am impressed, he is doing a GREAT job! for never having built a boat, it is turning out nice. I did ask him how he was going to transport this boat, I didnt know if it would fit in the bed of our truck and he says it should fit just fine. There might not be room for anything else in the bed of the truck though.. Then I asked where he is storing his boat.. he didnt have much of an answer on that one. :) I think he'll probably store it in the shelter that we need to move over to the side of the shop. He'll have his project truck in the shelter and then this boat. Yet another project (moving the shelter and roofing it and putting up some sort of walls) that needs to get finished sooner than later, before winter sets in.

Derek's parents are coming into town tonight. They will be here for 2 weeks apparently, although not staying with us the entire time. I know they will come spend some time with us, just not sure when yet. I'll have to turn up the heat in the house when they arrive, we have the heat set at 62 degrees, which can be a little chilly at night, but we manage. I'm sure we'll have to crank it to 70 if not 75 for them, I'm going to roast! lol I'll have to bring out the tank tops and shorts!

Let's go back a week to what was missed....

With all the drama of Troy, I did not have a chance to tell you about my birthday weekend with the girls! :)

So a week ago (Sat 18th) we had a girls get together to celebrate 4 birthdays. Mine, Debbie's (Andrea's mom), Julie & Jennifer. Friday night I slept terribly, I was having some anxiety about a mission Derek was doing on Saturday morning. His mission was to pay a visit to a couple down in Eatonville that owes us too much money to ignore! His mission was somewhat successful, I guess only time will tell..

So anyways, I woke up WAY too early Saturday morning for a day I would be up all night! lol Mom picked me up Saturday afternoon to head to Seattle. We also had in the van, Julie, Angela, Debbie, Andrea & Andrea's gramma Charlotte and then Rachel on the drive home. A full load!

When in Seattle, we BS'd, ate some food and then decorated these bird houses.. that was really fun. A lady came with all the supplies, you just picked the size bird house you wanted, Mine is the biggest! lol I really like it. I decorated mine to represent mine and Derek's favorite colors and then put our last name on it. I cant wait to hang it up outside. It was a reasonably priced thing to do and it was a lot of fun to watch the creativeness come out in others.. Some that I wouldnt look at as girls that like to do crafts, came up with some of the more creative decorations!

After the houses, we went to dinner at a chinese restaurant in Edmonds and ate more food than our bellies could handle. It was pretty good and more than enough for each person to take home a box full.

Our last activity for the day was moonlight bowling in Edmonds.. it was pretty fun. My only complaint was that my ball stunk!! I'm going to have to wash it.. I dont know if it is the lanes or what, but every time I lifted my ball up towards my face, I wanted to gag... lol There were 13 of us there, with 12 bowling. Me, Debbie (Andrea's mom), Julie, Jennifer, Mom, Andrea, Shana, Dena, Rachel, Debbie (Don's wife), Jane and Angela bowled while Charlotte watched. The picture shows everyone except Jane and Aunt Debbie who left before we could get a picture. Bowling was really fun and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. I think us girls should bowl more often!

The next day, Sunday, my friend Adam invited me to go riding out his back door with him and Tracy. He lives in Snohomish and we rode some loggin roads for about 3 hours. Had some nice views of Mt Pilchuck, saw somewhat fresh bear poop. It was a great day for a ride, a little chilly, but sunny and I look forward to doing it again.

Hmm... what did Derek do while I had my girls day, oh he went on his mission and then spent the rest of the afternoon window shopping at Cabela's down south and I think one or two more sportsmen's stores.. I think he went hunting on Sunday? I am so forgetful.... I know I didnt feel guilty for leaving him all weekend cuz he had plans himself. :)

He did not make it.... sniff sniff :(

Troy did not make it.. Andrea called and his kidneys were shutting down. His bladder could not function because his kidneys were not even able to produce the urine. I told Andrea to put him to sleep as he did not need to suffer.

We will miss Troy very much! He was such a character and such a big personality. He loved to nibble on your clothing any chance he could get and he loved to lick the salt off my arms. But he hated his ears touched and we'd play a game of him grabbing my shirt while I grabbed his ears!

This has been a learning experience for us and we will take what we can and hopefully do more to protect the 3 goats we still have. Troy had some things going against him that didnt help, such as a penis about 1/4 the size of an average penis! This definately is a problem when stones are developed and we'll hope that our other 3 goats have an average or above average dingaling to help avoid this problem. Andrea also investigated after he was put to sleep and his bladder had sprung another leak and was turning black, and inside his bladder were hundreds of stones, one bigger than the original blockage, so it was only a matter of time for this to happen to him again.

The other issue is that typically they can develop stones from Alfalfa hay and grain, but I am not feeding either of these, nor have I all year. He's been on pasture all year with no other feed other than sticker bushes and weeds. According to Andrea, when they develop stones it is generally a calcium-phosphorous imbalance, which is what Troy's stone was and it was most likely caused from a weed in his pasture. So we'll have to research that a little more to determine which weed and probably pull the other goats off the field and bring them home sooner than later as our home pasture only has grass, no weeds.

Here are some pics in chronological order of Troy as he grew with us!

The first 2 pictures were taken the day we brought him home in August 2005.... Echo is his best friend and will surely miss Troy too.

The picture of Troy in the tree was taken March 2006
And the snow pictures were taken March 2007

Then the final picture taken in June 2008

A couple of random cropped head shot pictures..

Not seeing the Stream at the end of the Tunnel yet :(

Troy has not peed yet... :(

Andrea is on her way back from OR, probably will get back to the clinic around 7pm tonight and she plans to put Troy under one more time. He currently has a short catheter inserted in his urinary canal, but no pee has emerged. Which means he is not peeing on his own and the bladder is not functioning properly.

She will go in tonight, put him under and insert a longer stiff catheter that will reach all the way to his bladder. This will allow for his pee to just drain freely on its own, which will hopefully give his bladder a day or two to build those muscles to start functioning. In a day or two the catheter will be pulled slightly out to a point where his bladder must function on its own and if there still emerges no pee, then that will be the final sign that his bladder is not going to recover.

We could go to extreme measures and have another surgery performed to reroute his urinary canal to come out his behind (like a girl goat), but that would be tough on him and we have decided we will not pursue that option. Right now, he is not suffering, he is maybe uncomfortable, but he is doing okay.

So we are still waitin on pee and he's got 1-2 days left to make it happen.... :(

Sex Change Operation a Go....

Troy underwent a second smaller operation this evening to completely remove his Penis... poor guy!

The good news: The bead was successfully removed

The bad news: His bladder needs to function and there is a 50% chance that it will or will not work properly. If he does not pee on his own in the next day or two, it means the muscles are not re-developing to make his bladder function, which means he probably would not make it.

So I never thought I'd say this...... But here's to hoping that my goat will be able to pee once again!

Troy Update....

Andrea called earlier, Troy was up on his feet this morning at 6:30am when she was at the clinic. He was in no mood to eat, he seemed to be wanting to pee, but otherwise looking pretty good. Scott was going to work on getting a Catheter up his urinary tract today to open that up for the bead to come out on it's own.. Doesnt sound like I will be picking him up today, I have not heard yet though. Andrea is out of town tonight, I'm hoping they will let him stay one more night so Andrea can be there when/if he can get picked up Thursday evening.. Would be nice to have my birthday evening to sit and relax at home.. :)

Derek's Aunt Karen

I just received a phone call from Derek that his Aunt Karen passed away last night. She had cancer and was in the hospital down in AZ where she lives. My heart is sad for his family and their loss...

Andrea Saved Troy's Life!

wow.. where do I begin? First let me start by saying part of this may get a little graphic in description and DEFINATELY graphic in pictures a little further down the line!!

So on Sunday (3 days ago) I went out to visit my boys, the goats. Here is a picture of Troy taken earlier this year... (he was itching his belly on the tub!)



Well Troy was not feeling good. All 3 other goats were way back in the pasture eatin the bushes and Troy was hangin out in his stall, looking a little lethargic. I talked to him, but he didnt really answer and tell me what was wrong. I was concerned, but I did see him get up and move around a little, and then he went back to his stall to lie down. So yesterday I decided on my way home from work, that I really should go check on him and my horse. I start walking into his pasture and rounded the corner and there is my horse looking great, but to the right of Edgar is Troy, ON HIS BACK, with his legs sticking straight up/out and his neck bent over himself! It was so sad, I thought he was dead! :(

I went straight to him and rolled him over and he stood up, but seemed in a lot of pain, he was not standing right, then he immediately laid back down and was groaning, breathing heavy and his belly was contracting a lot. I immediately called Andrea as I knew this was probably serious. She was at the Dr's office waiting to be seen, she told me to load him up and get him to her Mt Vernon clinic, it was an emergency. She said it sounded like he had a blocked urinary tract and his bladder could possibly rupture! Wow....

So I called Derek who was home and asked him what we should do. We agreed that Troy was worth the drive/expense to atleast have Andrea take a look at him, so he drove over to my parents, we loaded up Troy in the horsetrailer and hauled him up to Mt Vernon. Eric & Andrea were having Toni & Amanda over for dinner and pumpkin carving that night, so we messed those plans all up! But Toni & Amanda followed Eric to the clinic and we all were there to watch Andrea up close and personal.

Andrea did a blood test on Troy and determined after examining him, she was pretty sure he had a blockage and it was likely his bladder had already ruptured. After talking with Andrea and discussing the only 2 options available, we opted for Surgery (with a family discount!)... we paid $75 for Troy, but he has been and is a great goat, we felt we owed him the chance to live and according to Andrea, if they opened him up and found him to be beyond repair, she would not continue and if they did repair his bladder, he has a very strong chance of being just fine, since he is still young and healthy.

So she got him ready (with Amanda's & my help) for surgery and with the help of Jackie who is Andrea's boss and was DUE to have her own child THAT DAY!! While we readied the goat for surgery, Eric Derek & Toni went to Red Robin to get us all dinner.. The guys returned just in time for Scott (Jackies Husband) and Andrea to open up Troy. Actually Andrea did most of the cutting, all 5 of us spectators were standing right there to watch the whole thing! Scott threatened us that if we feel AT ALL faint or sick, to SIT DOWN or he'd kick our asses! lol Apparently he had a client think she was fine, but then she fainted and knocked out her front teeth in his clinic!!

So we watched as they opened him up and pulled things out. Oh I have to say prior to opening him up and knocking him unconscious, Andrea had me smell Troy's breath and it smelled highly of ammonia! NOT a smell that should come from your goats mouth! :( So anyways, back to surgery.... so as they were looking for his bladder, lots of urine just came flowing out of his belly. Scott was saying that Troy's bladder was a very angry bladder, it was pissed off because all of the veins were showing which is not at all normal... and then they found the leak! Seconds later the bladder hole was sewn up by Andrea! 1/2 of the problem was solved.... Scott did one layer of stitching.. oh let me say the cut they made on troy down the middle of his belly was probably atleast 12-14 inches! So Scott did a lower level stitch while Andrea felt his urinary tract for any blocks and she found it! Yeah... but the bad news was she was unable to push it out of him and did not have the proper tools to do so. Apparently they need to go steal something from another clinic that will work. Basically they have to stick a piece of tubing down his penis and get the tubing PAST the blockage so it opens up a tunnel for the bead to pass on it's own. If they cant get the bead out, then all that work was for nothing..

They put a second row of stitches in to sew him back up and decided that it would be better to work on the bead issue today. Give him time to wake up, the penis is easier to work with when he is awake vs passed out.. Apparently, if they can get ahold of it, basically they are going to cut the end of his penis off! OUCH... The guys at the clinic didnt like the sounds of that, all 3 of them got a little squeemish at that thought.. So we decided that Troy went in as a boy, and is coming out a girl! lol His new name is Troyena! :) We left Troy at the clinic for the night, not sure if he will get to come home today or tomorrow... We are hopefull that he will be okay, we just need that bead to pass so it was not all for nothing.. I know, Troy is just a goat and the cost of surgery seems silly to spend on a $75 goat, but he is a great goat and he is part of our family and he received a great surgery and a great chance at living... It was interesting to watch the entire surgery and process and I think Toni, Amanda & Eric enjoyed it as well. Nobody got squeemish or passed out, so Dr Scott was happy about that.

I am grateful to Scott and his wife for allowing Andrea to do a family member a favor and save my boy Troy's life! Scott said, he WOULD NOT be alive today.. He would have died within probably 12 hours of us bringing him in.

So I left work at 4:30 yesterday afternoon and did not get home until 15 minutes into my birthday! We left the clinic at 11pm last night, Eric had to work today at 7am, so not too bad for him, but Andrea had to be up by probably 5:30 as today was her day to head to OR to make farm calls ALL day today and then all day tomorrow and head back home from OR tomorrow. I hope she is not too tired. I have not heard anything yet this morning about Troy, I'm sure she would call if he had died or was not doing well, it is 9:30 and she is long on her way to OR by now, but I know she had to go to the clinic this morning, so she would have checked on him then. I'll wait for her call and hope Troy is out of the woods..

One funny thing about last night.. okay well part of this is not funny, it is sad, but there was a momma alpaca in the clinic, she was very colicky and probably is not going to make it, but she had a 2-3 month baby with her in her pen. Now the baby was kinda cute, but the ENTIRE time we were there, it made this noise over and over and over.. it just went "HMMM" So what you need to do right now, is (out loud) do that.. go HMM?.. Not an extended hmmmmm, but ya know when someone ask you a question and instead of saying "what" you say "hmm?" Now do that.. common do it... OKay, now that is the exact noise this alpaca baby made! So Derek would go over to his pen and would go "What" and the alpaca "Hmm?" Derek says "Whats that?" Alpaca says "Hmm?" over and over.. it was funny, we all were laughing at that.

As Andrea and Scott were in the surgery, I had said, DAMN I wish I had my camera so I could take pics and blog about this... Then about 5 minutes later someone said something about cell phones, so me, Derek, Amanda & Toni all whip out our phones and surround the surgery and start taking pics! It was like a swarm of papparazzi! lol So here are some not so good, but best I could do pics from my cell phone.. WARNING>>> THEY ARE GRAPHIC, PLEASE DONT VOMIT ON YOUR COMPUTER!!!!

Here he is knocked out on the table..
Andrea's in there lookin for his bladder I think at this point... or maybe tucking it back in after she repaired it... Eric had the responsibility of checking Troy's heartbeat every now/then to be sure he still had one...

Scott's hands on the Right there..

Getting ready to stitch him back up. I think Andrea (on the right) is looking for the stone in his urinary tract, prior to stitching him up...

And this is Scott stitching him up.. the colored thing inside there (it is blueish in color) is placed in there to hold his guts in while they sew him up and just before putting in the final stitches, it is pulled out....

And here is Troy about 30-45 minutes after surgery, he is very groggy, drooling and barely awake. We propped him up against the wall/fence because apparently you want them in this position so he doesnt regurgitate. It was sad to see him in such misery, although I'm sure he was feeling no pain at this point. I love my boy Troy!

One Last Great Weekend..

What a fantastic weekend! Weather was nice and sunny, although not very warm.. I slept in on Saturday while Derek hit the alarm at about 5am something... duck hunting opening day!! I finally managed to get up around 9:30 and decided to go over to mom/dads and finish moving the rest of our "stuff" over. I had a bunch of things to clean out still, just miscellanous stuff that you dont really need. A lot of it is Carrie's things, a lot of it was garbage that was already bagged and then there was just stuff.....

I finished with that, whew. I was never so happy to be done climbing those damn stairs! Up and down, up and down. I unloaded the "stuff" into our garage and well there it still sits! lol Mom came over after I got back home and we made a trip to Bothell to a Country Village to walk around, it was nice but I didnt find anything I couldnt live w/o. Derek worked on his duck boat the second half of the day. This picture was taken just after he finished putting resin on it.
We decided to burn some wood Sat night, invited Steve & Angela to come hang out around the fire. We got another chunk burnt up, spent a few hours doing that, I think we finally went in the house around midnight. I love hangin out by the fire!

I got up to the alarm this time on Sunday morning, 8am. I was heading to Lords Hill for a nice ride with the club. There are some pictures here. Here's my super great horse Edgar before the ride started, he is just such a great guy. He was the babysitter today, there were a couple horses that were pretty antsy and instead of the owner fighting with their horse, they just put their horse directly behind Edgar on the trail and the horse was forced to slow down and relax. :)
This one is of some of our group (just 8 of us today, a perfect sized ride) heading down the trail, Lords Hill is very pretty this time of year.
This picture is of the river that I like to talk about, you can see lots of fishermen in boats. We had a really nice lunch break, we rode for about 4.5 hours today, with about 30-45 minutes additional lunch time. After the ride, 5 of us went to Ixtapa in Monroe for dinner with the horses inside the trailers waiting patiently in the parking lot.
So much for mowing my lawn this weekend! I had every intention of doing so, but I didnt get back to my house until about 7pm! When I dropped Edgar off at my parents, I had to play with the goats for a while and also I had to spend about 15 minutes plucking darn burrs out of the two black ones.. they were full! Probably was pointless, they will be full of burrs within days I'm sure.. It was really funny to see them though all covered. It was too dark to take any pics of them, daylight is definately gone by 6:30 now..

So here I am on the computer, relaxed. Derek spent the day golfing with some church and softball friends. He should be home any time now, it is 8pm. I have the day off tomorrow, Columbus Day! How did I get lucky enough on this holiday... :) So the lawn hopefully will get mowed, the dishes will get done, the TV shows will get caught back up on, the laundry will get washed and put away, the house will get vacuumed........ okay now ask me on Tuesday if I got ALL those things done.. yeah right! See ya next time.