The Surgery is Done

Well, we went ahead and got Rex the surgery. I went back and forth on what I should do. It all came down to: I didn't feel good when I thought about Rex NOT having the surgery. So we bit the bullet and had it done. Here is a picture of the stitches. Pretty yucky looking if you ask me. He is already trying to hop around and so for the next few days (it is supposed to be 10) we have to try and keep him down so that he can heal. He is such a sweet dog and doesn't complain!

Getting closer!

Dave and I have committed to run a half marathon (13.1 miles) on October 25th. I am working on thinking that I can actually accomplish this feat (you have to remember I never ran anywhere just over a year ago). Last week I told Dave that I was scared to death. This week I ran on my own with a goal in mind, not a time goal this time, just a length goal. I ran 10 MILES!!! I did it! Now I am closer to the goal of accomplishing the 1/2 marathon. I may not run it in record time, but I know that I can finish it now!

Lindsay's Pink Eye

I forgot in the midst of my despair last night to write down the funny thing that Lindsay said at dinner. We were talking about the fact that she has pink eye and she turned to Amber and said something like, "I hope that my pink eye turns brown again soon like my other eye." It took me a minute, but then it just cracked me up! She keeps us laughing!

What a day!

I am so happy that this day is almost over and I can start again tomorrow. First things first. Paige's one month old glasses broke this morning so we started out the day with more tears. Then I cut my thumb trying to help Kent open the box of fruit leather for his lunch (the cut is not bad, just in a really hard to heal or bandage spot). I started the laundry, got the kids off to school after a lot of encouragement with little success, but just wishing the whole time that they could just be self motivated and take care of themselves. I tried to "organize" some of my junk piles, but because I have yet to figure out what I need to keep and what I need to get rid of, I barely made a dent, or rather I just shifted the stuff from one pile to the next. I think it is a very efficient system:)!

I called the vet and got an appointment for Rex to get checked out. He still was not walking on his back right leg at all. When Lindsay got home from school (oh yeah I did finally get in a shower at one point), we took Rex to the vet, where we found out that the poor little guy weighs a whopping 7.5 lbs and has a broken hip. The vet took two x-rays and at the time I just wished for a time machine to take me back to Saturday so I could do it all over again and leave better instructions for my kids so that this "little" mishap hadn't ever happened. The verdict: SURGERY! It is not that I don't care for this cute, little fellow, it is just that anytime an unexpected expense comes up it throws me for a loop. Today's visit was $173 and the surgery will be another $1000. What do you do when it's family???

As you can imagine the day just kept throwing things at me. While we were with Rex at the vet's, I was talking with Lindsay and I could see some goop in both of her eyes. I looked a little closer and (this is where having worked at a childcare center and being the mother of 5 makes me almost a doctor because there was no doubt as to what I saw) yep, you guessed it: PINK EYE! Fortunately, I had some medicine from the last bout of pink eye and home and we started treatment immediately. I then sat down with Kent to help him with his homework (all the while changing loads of laundry) and promptly lost track of time. I got a call at 5:10 from my friend Jen who teaches my kids piano lessons and realized immediately that Amber was late! Now, whenever Amber is rushed there is sure to be some toxic fallout and sure enough she came home in a very bad mood (sorry Jen) and said that she had a terrible piano lesson to go along with her terrible, no good, very bad day (and I am sure that I was not the only one who thought Australia was looking really good!).

Paige finally got home at 5:40pm (she left at 7:30 am...had piano lessons and a long practice for a primary program strings number she is involved in). So you can guess how tired and grumpy she was and I needed to get her to the eye dr.'s office by six to have them order her a new pair of frames to replace the ones that I had just bought for her last month (and paid a lot for unfortunately) and broke so easily (mind you this is the first time with these particular glasses with metal frames, but her last pair broke (with plastic frames) 4 different times in exactly the same way. The poor lady that helped us at the office got a piece of my not so happy mind. I keep trying to learn this law of attraction: whatever you send out comes back. Well I must be sending out some bad stuff because it all came back to me today! I keep trying to tell myself: everything happens for a reason and there is always something to learn...even from the trials!

We finally had dinner at 7pm after I rallied the troupes to help out and now I need to finish up the laundry and go to bed!

Traumatic Animal Issues

We have had a traumatic week this week. It all started early on Sunday morning. Amber was the first one up. She was up early and went downstairs to eat breakfast. The rest of us were mostly asleep still. She runs back up the stairs crying something has happened to Moonlight (Paige's gerbil).

So we all quickly jumped out of bed. It was easy to see that something was definitely wrong! She wasn't moving her back legs...it looked like she was paralyzed on her bottom half. Amber had found her on the bottom stair on the first floor. She lives in Paige and Amber's room in on the second floor in a cage. We could not figure out how she had gotten out and made her way downstairs. I had been up and let our dog Rex out about an hour earlier and hadn't seen anything. After interviewing everyone and not figuring out the mystery, we turned out attention to helping Moonlight be comfortable. We were pretty confident that she had broken her back and were pretty sure that there probably wouldn't be much we could do for her. Paige stayed home from church and cried and took care of her. We thought perhaps she would pass away quickly, but she didn't and it was just heart breaking to see her suffering. This was just the beginning!

The next event happened as we got ready to go visit my parents in Strawberry this weekend. We decided to take both Rex (our dog) and Moonlight with us. Saturday morning my parents had a missionary meeting that they were speaking at and Dave and I decided to go on our weekly run. We thought all would be well with our kids while we were gone. After all they seem very responsible, most of the time, except when they decide to do some strange things, which I guess is what happened this day. When we got back we had another traumatic animal experience.

My kids have made friend with my parents neighbor, Myndi. They go help work with the horses, cleaning etc. and then she will give them a ridding lesson. Well she had a couple of big, friendly (to kids) dogs along with her 3 horses and lama. Well, from the best we could figure Amber decided (on her own, and nothing was holding her back) to go and visit the neighbor and see if she had any work for her. Lindsay decided to take Rex outside and Paige thought she was just out in the front. She on the other hand had decided to take Rex on a walk to the neighbors. I think that she just thinks since she loves animal that all animals must love each other too. To make a long story short (and because we don't really know exactly what happened...a five year old is not the best at details all the time) Rex was attacked by Myndi's dog.

The skin was not broken, but Rex was traumatized and wouldn't walk on one leg. He hardly ate or drank anything for almost 24 hours. Mom has some other neighbors that are EMT's and work with animals as well, so we called and she took a look at Rex and said that she thought we should give it a little time. It didn't look like his back was hurt and because he was holding up his leg, not dragging it it probably wasn't broken.
This a picture of Rex just shortly after the attack, we just wanted to make him comfortable.


Below is Rex this morning, feeling a little better, even getting around a little bit!














The last straw (at least for Paige) was when we just couldn't stand seeing Moonlight suffer any more, so we asked the husband of the woman who looked at Rex and is a dentist, if he could help us humanely help out Moonlight who was suffering more each day. So he helped put her to sleep on Saturday night. Paige cried and cried and is still trying to come to grips with losing her friend and companion. In the end, we had an opportunity to talk to our kids about being responsible and thinking before acting, and all about the plan of salvation and what we believe happens when we die. It was an emotional, learning week!

Lindsay's Birthday

We have had a water party planned for Lindsay's birthday since the beginning of summer. I knew just what we needed to do and had everything ready. Putting on birthday parties is not one of my favorite activities so I thought that this one would be easy! So Wednesday morning dawns and it looks like a winter morning (even though it was still 90 degrees out there) with the rain and dark clouds. Oh no I thought, now what do I do. I now have to plan a party for kids INSIDE with games and everything!!! I had planned the party to last an hour and a half because it was all outside. Lots of thoughts went through my head, like...I will just tell the parents that it will only be for an hour, maybe I could cancel and reschedule...and similar things. Then I just relaxed and told myself that everything will work out! Sure enough the sun came out and it was hot and muggy...perfect for a water party birthday!

A month ago Lindsay had invited her primary teachers to come and they came!!!
So we had a great time and I am glad that it all worked out!

1st day of School!

We flew smoothly through the first day of school. Everyone was pretty happy. Here are a couple of fun shots of the kids before they left for the day. There is the serious and then the not so serious! But the one that cracked me up the most is how happy Lindsay was to be at school.