The Little Mermaid

Summer has officially begun!! It's 90+ today and the pool water is warming nicely. Yes, the quik-set pool is up and being used.

The school year ended well. My youngest was in the school play "The Little Mermaid." Yes.....she was the lead role. The names of the characters were changed for Disney's copyright reasons, but she was Annabelle (or Ariel for you Disney followers). She did a beautiful job! My sister showed up for the Friday night performance and took the two pics I've included. She wouldn't dream of standing still for us, but for Aunt K., no problem. :) We were very proud of how she handled being the "star" and so happy for her, because as you know, confidence and dealing with stage fright are not things that can be taught. You either have them or you don't and she definitely has them. The girl who played Odessa (the evil witch) had an aunt who brought both girls flowers. So in the one pic, my sweetie is holding her flowers with a basket. (Wish I had thought of flowers. )

My oldest turned 14!! She wanted a manicure for her birthday, but I told her the fingernails are a waste of time because they chip too quickly. So we had a "party" of Grandma G. and her sister and her mom and her at our hair salon/spa and got pedicures. WOW! That was a real treat and they loved it. Of course, she got other things as well, mainly clothes, but the pedicures were the highlight. So there are a few pics of her first thing on her birthday. She also got highlights again! She loves getting highlights in her hair. I learned a thing or two since last year so this year, they turned out really really well.

We have had our disappointments this month and our rejoicings, but overall, the summer is off to a good start!

Video Clips from Sp. Olympics

These are just two of the video clips I have. I was filming the 400 race and the batteries were dying and I didn't know it. I was too busy cheering! So I have about 5 secs. of the beginning race and 5 secs. near the end. If y'all want to see the 5 secs., just let me know and I'll try and post them.

MAY DAYS

Wow! May starts off hectic! We had Science Fair last night for the youngest. She had to burn candles to see which wax burned faster. (FYI - soy wax burns faster).

Then this morning, we were awake by --- I was awake at 5:30 to meet an 8:15 time in Grand Rapids. My oldest daughter - who suffers from undiagnosed cognitive issues - participated in Special Olympics for the first time ever! She was in Track and Field events - the 400m, 200m and Softball Throw. She ended up winning 2nd in the 400 and 3rd in both 200 and the Throw in her age division/heat. Guess we have a long distance runner and not a sprinter!

The weather was beautiful and we all had a blast!! I am putting up pics and video. The sun was shining so brightly and it was hard to see what we were filming and taking pics of, so some are a bit odd. Enjoy anyway!

FYI - We are in Area 16. She's standing right here beside me telling me to put Area 16. :) They did have an opening ceremony parade and I have some video and pics of that.

Birthday!

Wow! My baby is 10 years old! I realize this post is a week or so late, but I know you'll want to see the few pics so far. She had a small party at a paint your own pottery place with a few friends. Everyone had a blast! I don't have those pics available yet because they're on her camera!!!

Yes, she wanted a camera for her birthday. That was her gift! My oldest, of course, got her a Webkinz and Grandma got her a Nancy Drew game. So she had more than one gift to open. I did wrap the batteries so she had to open that first. The look on her face when she saw batteries was quite funny. "Batteries!? You got me batteries?" And it was all said with such a tone of disbelief and the thought that her parents had lost it. :) Needless to say, she had a good birthday.

I have a new pic of her with her dog. It's been so rainy here lately, and Coco is so depressed. He wants to be outside, but it just keeps raining. So he begs us to hold him and of course, we do because he's a spoiled dog. Enjoy the pics! When I have a pic I can post with the party, I will. I'm not posting pics of the party goers out of respect to the parents, just of my two having fun!

Father/Daughter Day

Happy Valentines Day!!

My last post about the dog stated he got into poison. Well, he recooped just fine. Did spend the night in doggie hospital with several IV's. When we picked him up, he refused to look at us. Instead, he sat on the seat looking out the window. Would not acknowledge us at all.

OH...LIKE WE WERE THE PROBLEM!!! :) But he is back to normal and being a brat. I did tell the dog that the next time he decides to eat poison, it had better be something that will kill him and not a "oh, the poison won't kill him, but the complications of it will." How do you tell the vet no with a prognosis like that? But as I said, he's normal again. Chasing a vole outside right now. Digs them out and then plays with them until he accidentally kills it and then pouts that his "playmate" died. DOGS!

My youngest daughter is in a girls club at a local church called GEMS . They had a Father/Daughter night and so my hubby took her. They had so much fun building a potato car. Yes....a potato car! They raced him on a pine derby track and out of 6 races, my daughter lost only one!!!!! WAY TO GO!

POISON!!!

Stupid dog!
Nearly ended this blog!

That's as poetic as I can wax tonight. Coco is in the hospital tonight (1-12-09) because he decided to jump on a chair and take the asthma inhaler! I didn't know that he had done it and the next sound I heard was a clink and a whoosh of air that I initially thought was water. I thought he maybe got a water bottle somewhere. Instead, I found the inhaler with a tooth puncture in it.

Needless to say, albuterol is poison to a dog. This 12 lb. brats heart started racing. Then about 40 minutes later, he starts vomiting. The vet decided to send us to the vet hospital. Guess what? His potassium levels are low, but his phosphate levels were so low they didn't even register! So he had to stay and get IV treatments for both things, as well as a heart drug to slow the heart which was going 230-275 beats per minute.

He responded very well to the heart meds and the heart is back to normal as of this writing at 160 bpm. The rest will have to wait and see. We have an estimate on the bill for the hospital stay and both of us wondered how much euthanisizing him would cost comparatively. BUT since our youngest daughter is crying herself to sleep tonight, I think that is out of the question.

I will say I am thankful we took him in. A racing heart in a dog leads to heart arrest (heart attack in humans) and sure death. I would have hated to wake up and find a dead dog. That trauma on my youngest (and my hubby) I can live without!!!

Anyway, the vet says he'll be home tomorrow. We stopped by to visit him tonight before bed and he has an IV in his front leg and a HUGE collar around his neck. He's acting like himself and just looked at me as if to say, "You have got to be kidding! You can't leave me here to look like this." Wish I had had my camera!

Now for a little different news....For those of you who know us, you know we changed churches 3 years ago because our old church went Rick Warren on us. Well, our new church has finally created a web page where you can learn about our pastor and you can download his sermon series. Since he is a systematic preacher (meaning he goes through a whole book of the Bible), you can download his whole sermon series on almost any book of the Bible. His series on Revelation was excellent and that is available online to download! When we first started at Texas Corners Bible Church, he was just beginning Genesis. It took us just over 2 years (105 messages) to finish the book.

You are welcome to check out the web page at www.texascornersbiblechurch.org