Happy Birthday Charlie!!

Today is Charlie's birthday. No party hats and cupcakes, though. I guess Marianne only throws birthday parties for her own dog, sheesh. Charlie slept in for his birthday. He kept trying to convince me to give him more food for his birthday, but I didn't. I let him have a carrot though. I told him that he was still too fat and he said, "look who's talking". Not really, Ijust figured that's what he was thinking though.

Church was incredible this morning. Pastor Josh (the youth Pastor) and Pastor Chris were back today from Honduras. They are setting up the mission trip for this summer. I am very excited about going. I am even trying to learn a little spanish before then. I got my passport. It came right at the end of December. I've never had a passport before, so that is cool too. Anyone who wants to contribute to the funds involved in my taking this mission trip are certianly welcome!

In case you didn't already know, Barry is home now from serving in the Army. He has the back bedroom all set up and has enrolled in the Criminal Justice Program at Tri-County Tech. That will certainly give him something to do. I think he has been rather bored and missing his friends. He was looking through his High School yearbook today to see if he could find some of his old friends that might be around by checking for them online. He is going through some transitions. I quess me and Marianne are too. We were spoiled, just having the house to otherselves and our dogs.

Other changes are on the way. Mickie will moving in on February 10. She is coming up this Friday to drop off some of her stuff.

Christmas was good.

We invited Bob over for Christmas. It turned out well. We all had a nice time. We had a delicious Christmas dinner: standing rib roast, fresh green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy. It was very yummy. The dogs quickly figured out the whole present opening thing and the fact that it usually resulted in something fun. We had a really good day. The weather was beautiful. Then we all went to see the movie "Bedtime Stories" in the afternoon. It was good.

Destress in Myrtle Beach before Christmas

Marianne and I out on the beach at sunrise....it was fun....and cold.

A basket full of happy shells we saw at one of the tourist shops. Marianne relaxing and watching none other than The Grinch!

When we came home my Christmas Cactus was blooming....yeah!

Marianne and I took off for two nights in Myrtle Beach with Korolla and April. We left Sunday after church and came back Tuesday afternoon. Barry took care of the homestead and animals for us. The cheapie package deal that we got included the hotel, with breakfast buffet, and tickets to the Dixie Stampede. Although it was a bit chilly on the beach, we had a fabulous and relaxing time. Marianne and April even braved the cold weather to go swimming in the hotel's heated pool....It wasn't too cold until you had to get out and make your way back to the hotel room...brrr. We had a great time and it truly was a de-stresser before Christmas.

They told the real Christmas story with camels, sheep, goats,...the whole nine yards!
Lots of excitement and good food. I'm glad we got to go.

Christmas is Coming

Barry is finally out ot the Army and at home. He helped with the decorations and even put up some lights outside for us to enjoy. I guess we are as ready for Christmas as we are going to be.

Lazy Day Sunday

Sunday was another beautiful day. It was nice and cool in the morning and then didn't get so hot in the afternoon. Kinda like Saturday...made to order. Church was really good. We didn't really do very much. Unfortunately I had some work that I had to get finished before Monday, so I spent most of the afternoon working. Marianne had to entertain herself. The dogs were enjoying the cooler weather too. Kellie and Charlie had some fun together. Gracie was getting in on too, but keeping a safe distance. We moved the horses to the back pasture with our resident deer. Both front pastures are down to bare nubs. Jake doesn't seem to be getting any better. In fact, he seems worse these last two days. The last two day have been record highs. I don't know if that is what has caused the swelling to get worse or not. But either way, it is not good

Fall for Greenville

On Saturday we went to the fall festival in Greenville. There were tons on food vendors so you could try all sorts of different kinds of foods. Downtown Greenville is so pretty. They had a really good turn out as you can see. The festival also hosted several different concerts too. So we got to hear Laura Story and Mark Harris in concert. The concerts were excellent and the weather was made to order. We had a great day.

At the festival, you had to use tickets to purchase foods and such. We came across one of the food booths that was selling shots of cupcake frosting and had to take a picture of that for those that could appreciate being able to buy a shot of frosting.

To The Vet's Office, Again

I skipped out from work early, just as soon as my last class was walking out the door. Then I raced home, changed, and got Jake to the Vet's office. The vet was upset because Jake had gotten worse. So we took x-rays this time, just to rule out any bone chips, fragments, and lameness due to something else that I can't remember. Anyway, it seems when the neighbor's pit bull chewed up his leg last month, one of the dog's canine's punctured Jake's tendon sleeve. This will cause the tendon distress because it will not be able to slide back and forth through the sleeve the way it is supposed to. I did actually learn a lot today, but it didn't make Jake feel any better. Maybe I just should have become a vet anyway. Jake's body is essentially trying to wall off the problem spot, hence the swelling. We are now treating the injury aggressively, but not invasively. The vet was afraid that making an incision for a drain would do more harm than good at this point. So he is on antibiotics twice a day for 7 days, bute twice a day for 7 days, and then once a day for 21 days, and I am using a Furason-DMSO combination to sweat his leg. Then his leg has to be wrapped...with BLUE vet wrap, of course. You sweat it for 12 hours then wash the leg down with cold water, leave the wrap off for 12 hours then do it over, for 3 days. The Vet thinks it will be at least 3 or 4 months healing, more likely a full year. We're hoping to avoid surgery. Worse case scenario, he will never recover from being lame.