Stupid, Stupid Dog!

Unbelievable!! Jo-Jo managed to get herself stuck under the porch! There is maybe a 5" space, covered by lattice no less, and she managed to squeeze herself under the porch and wasn't able to get out! Of course it happens on a day when Mike isn't around - and the only other person I would call is Pat, who was with him! :) I figured I'd give her an hour or so, then maybe go get a shovel and dig out a space for her to squeeze back under... it was maybe over an hour, but she thankfully did manage to get herself out... I just hope she realizes what a bad idea it was and doesn't attempt it again! Crazy!!!

Just another day...

Duncan is doing much better, his fever has stayed down for almost a day now. He acts like he's feeling much better - ready to run around and play, but still not wanting to eat much. I'm just going to keep him from being too active today, if that's possible at his age ;)

Mike and Pat went to a conference on wild rice - they are going to convert most of the cranberry beds into wild rice beds at the marsh. They left yesterday afternoon and will be back somewhat late this evening. It just feels weird not having Mike home at night... Of course I thought I would get a lot done - maybe stay up late and do the dishes... but who was I kidding? :) I think I made it up until 10:30! Being pregnant I'm just so tired (exhausted is more like it) all the time! I ended up just doing a lot of relaxing with Duncan all night. The baby was super active, really kicking and moving! Probably because instead of running around trying to get things done I was just hanging out babying my sick boy :) The funny thing is that I'm always so busy, doing a little of this and a little of that, kind of always doing something, but never really accomplishing anything! It seems like I never get anything done! I just wonder how that's possible when it seems like I'm always doing something.

At least now with the fence, I don't have the chore of walking the dogs ten times a day! :) And they are just really digging the yard! I swear
Jo-Jo smiles every time she gets out. Is she not grinning from ear to ear in this picture? :) (click on it to view the larger pic, then you can really see that smile) She's too funny, she runs circles around Sally until she gets her all mad, then every time she gets close to Sally, Sally will try to jump up and bite her - Sally gets so bent out of shape! Of course the only downside to Jo-Jo running free in the yard is that now she never wants to come in.

First Small City ER Visit

Duncan seemed to be doing better, his fever seemed to be down and he was busy playing and such, but during dinner his Tylenol must've worn off... he started looking flush and wasn't eating anything. I checked his temp and it was 103 across the forehead and decided to check him rectally to make sure, which was 102.7 - and it was obvious he wasn't feeling well when he didn't put up a fuss and didn't seem to mind having his temp taken that way! We called the hospital and they said to bring him in.
I knew that the hospital was pretty small, my Dr's office is in a clinic connected to the hospital. There was only one other person waiting in the ER. But when we were on the way there about 5 emergency vehicles passed us - police, fire and an ambulance... so of course by the time we got all checked in and everything they were bringing in someone from a car accident. We got there probably around 6:15 or so. We filled out the paperwork and had to wait maybe 10 minutes before the nurse came to get us and said that she would check his vitals, then would send us back to the waiting room because it may take a while with the car accident coming in.
Right after the nurse checked most of his vitals and was running around trying to find a smaller finger thing to get his pulse and heart rate, a big storm blew in and the power went out (for all of about 30 seconds, but seemed like forever) - all the computers went down... luckily when they came back up they still had his info. His fever was back down because the Tylenol we gave him before we left had kicked in, so we were thinking that if it was going to take a while we would just take him to his Dr in the morning... but the nurse went ahead and took us back to the ER.
It was the absolute smallest ER I've ever seen! I think they had 3 or 4 curtained rooms all crammed into a really small spot... probably the size of 1 or 2 normal hospital rooms! And it was horribly hot in there! We could hear the lady from the car accident give her statement, heard her insurance claim number... luckily she wasn't really injured, just had lots of glass on her hands and in her hair. She was on her way home from exercise class and her eyes left the road for a moment while she put her ipod in her bag...
Anyway, of course it took forever in the ER... and they just didn't do a good job of cleaning - there was dried blood on the floor! So we were all afraid to touch anything! The Dr finally came to check him out and saw that his throat was red, so did a throat culture - man did that make Duncan mad!! He just hates anyone messing with his mouth! It's always a major ordeal when I check him for incoming teeth! He amazingly tolerated everything else, didn't fuss for the armpit temp, barely even noticed the prick on his finger to draw blood to check his white cell count... I would have thought he would have thrown a fit at the prick on the finger and 5 minutes of squeezing it to get enough blood... but he just didn't care. By that time we were all sweating our butts off and his fever was started to creep back (probably because it was so damn hot!). They gave him some Motrin... I think we had to wait until about 8pm for the throat culture and blood labs to come back - the lab was all backed up due to the power outage and computers going down... but everything checked out OK - but since his throat and ears looked a little red the Dr wanted to give him an antibiotic.
We finally got out of there around 8:30 - then had to stop at the store to pick up some more Tylenol and some ibuprofen... so we didn't get home until a little after 9:30... then discovered that we'd locked ourselves out of the house! Long story... long night... luckily we left in such a hurry that we forgot to take the fan out of the porch window, so managed to get in through that window...
I have to say that I really do not like that hospital. It just seems too small for the population that they serve (especially considering that the population doubles during the summer with all the vacationers). I just really hope that their labor and delivery rooms are much better than the ER!! But amazingly, they do have pretty much the latest technology - they had the touch screen computers, which is one thing in their favor... and they actually have the 3D ultrasounds.
Anyway, so that's the long story that was our night last night.... things have calmed down today and Duncan seems to be feeling a little better - actually ate a fruit bar for breakfast :) we'll see how he eats lunch! :)

Baby Update :)

A little over 2 months to go! :) For those of you who haven't heard, we are having a girl. Her name will be Beatrice Rae. Beatrice after Mike's Aunt, and Rae is my mother's middle name - after her Grandfather Ray Charles Hampton. Her due date is August 11th.

She is a swimmer!! Duncan was little kicks and nudges, little movements. This one is doing gymnastics in there! She is big kicks, which involves her head and hands, and I swear she's doing somersaults in there! She is constantly on the move! At every Dr.'s visit, as soon as the Dr. finds her heartbeat she swims away and the Dr. has to chase her around! :) I may be in for some trouble! :) Poor Duncan's not going to know what hit him! :) I pat my belly and tell him there's a baby in there, then he pats his belly saying "baby" - it's too cute! He's a little too young yet to know what's going on. Poor guy has trouble getting comfy with my big belly these days. One night while he was trying to get comfy to go to sleep he had his head on my stomach and she really gave him a big wallop of a kick! She loves Doritos, Cheetos, Orange Pop and Ice Cream! Those things get her going more than anything else.

I crocheted my very first baby blanket! It's a pocket blankie with a bear! It turned out pretty cute :) I wasn't sure whether I was going to make the pocket and bear or not, but gave it a shot anyway, and am pretty pleased with the results! I'm now making a smaller version for Duncan, more of a cuddle :) and I'll probably make a monkey for the pocket :) His best buddie these days is Curious George. George has to go everywhere with him!

Aren't they just adorable together? :)

Recouperating from the Holiday Weekend

Hello and welcome to my new blog! I've talked about doing this forever (almost did it a month ago) but never quite seemed to get around to it! What finally pushed me into it was seeing my sister-in-law Anne's Blog http://cyclonelane.blogspot.com/! Since some of us have spread out so far from where we were, it seems like a great way to keep up with each other. I really enjoyed seeing pictures of Josh and Hadley and their new house in Colorado. So, here it goes...

What a weekend! We finally got our fence finished! What we thought might be a weekend project turned into a week long ordeal! :) Ok, it wasn't that bad. But it was tough going with pretty much only one person doing all the work. I helped where I could, and Maria helped as much as she could. Luckily, Mike's nephew and friend helped out a couple of times and it was them that really helped get the rest of it done fairly quickly. They helped get the close to last 8 or 9 posts and panels done on Friday, then Mike was able to finish the last 2 posts, last panel and finally the gate on Saturday morning! Just in time for our Memorial Day picnic on Sunday! One of Mike's brothers thought we were having the picnic on Sat, so he stopped by and Mike put him to work helping put up the gazebo and mowing the yard = the finishing touches :)

Here's Mike working hard!

The first weekend of fence building was cold!! That first day it was over 70 in the morning, but in the afternoon, within half an hour the temp dropped down to around 40!

Maria surveying the job thus far :)

This was the first weekend's progress, got around the first corner!! :)

Can't remember if this was after day 3 or day 4, but it was a day of major progress, Mike's brother Pat helped with these post holes.

Finally finished! :)

The Yard! :)

It's amazing how much a fence and some lawn furniture can really change the face of your landscape!

The day of the picnic actually turned out pretty nice. It was a little cloudy and chilly in the early afternoon, but by around 1 or so the sun started coming in and out and it got maybe close to 65-70? It felt hot when the sun actually came out, but then it would get chilly when the sun went behind a cloud. And of course it couldn't make up it's mind ;) But really, it was a gorgeous day! And we all had lots of fun playing yard games and roasting marshmallows!

I think we ended up spending the whole weekend in the yard! It was so nice to let the kids out to have the run of the yard without having to worry about whether they were headed for the highway, and the dogs were just in heaven, being able to run free! :) The fence was really well worth all the effort!

But of course now, being Tuesday, we are all feeling all the work we did over the weekend. Even though we spent all day Monday just relaxing outside... Duncan ended up running a fever and was up half the night :( He's still a little feverish and feeling crunchy today. And our poor outside dog, Brutal, ended up coming down with Lyme's disease. He must have gotten bit by a tick before we got his collar on - which we put it on as soon as we started seeing ticks (they are everywhere now!!). He was limping on one of his front paws Friday night, by Saturday morning he couldn't even get up - couldn't move his hind end. We thought for sure that it was the rhubarb that he'd been nibbling on - the leaves are poisonous and can cause paralysis, but when we called the vet, he said he would have vomiting and the runs first... and said it sounded like Lyme's disease, which has sudden onset lameness which goes away after a few days and then will recur if you don't get them antibiotics... Well, he was right - yesterday Brutal started sitting up and getting around a little more, then by last night he was back to running around and beating his dish up after being fed. Phew! We really thought he wasn't going to make it for a while. He's actually the best of the 3 dogs, and sadly he's the only one that really can't come inside. :( He's too much of a big oaf!