Fun at the river

I'm always on the lookout for places with water that will be safe to take our dogs.  Last week, I found a new one, and took Kenzie and Taylor out to play there.  The photo qualities are not the best, as I was using my cell phone camera AND looking into the sun for many of these.  But -- enjoy anyway!

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Mackenzie's Christmas photo!

Thought I'd share the photo we're sending to friends this year!



Hope you are enjoying a wonderful holiday season!

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Really, Taylor -- did you HAVE to???

Yesterday was absolutely lovely outside -- cool, sunny, breezy, GORGEOUS!! I opened all the windows in the house to air out the place, and I left the sliding glass doors open so the dogs could go in and out and enjoy the weather too.

It was a huge change in the weather. Just the day before, it poured like it almost NEVER does here. We got around 7" of rain, which is absolutely unbelievable. And what I hadn't realized was that some time before the storm, Taylor had dug a hole in the back yard.

I was cleaning up the bathroom in my bedroom when Taylor walked into the room -- and her legs were absolutely COVERED in mud...... sigh..... And of course, she'd walked through the entire upstairs of the house to find me, so there were now trails of muddy footprints everywhere that needed cleaned up..... sigh again.....


Here's the culprit.....  "Who, ME, Mommy? What makes you think I did it??"

How much more disgusting could these paws be??

What a mess.....

The disgusting mess in my tub...

Photo #1 of the crime scene

Photo #2 of the crime scene!

C'mon, mom, stop -- this is humiliating!

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The renovations begin!

Well, the installation of the laminate floors and new foyer linoleum has begun. We didn't get quite as far along as we'd hoped to today, but we definitely got a really good start. We ended up having to do a lot of the cutting indoors because of the heat, so there was a LOT of sawdust generated, necessitating a lot of cleaning up. Here are some pictures from the day:

The first boards being placed

The piano was put in the corner just to keep it out of the way, but I kind of like it there -- it just might stay there!

We decided to let everybody sign the plywood before we covered it with the laminate.  Who knows?  Maybe in 20 or 30 years, the next owner will tear up the floor and "find" us!!

Nelson signed for himself and his wife, Sarah.....

Morgan signed for herself and soon-to-be-husband Solomon.....

We signed for Bryanna and Mike, since they weren't part of this project today......

Mackenzie not only signed, she traced her hand!!

And then Morgan decided we couldn't leave the dogs out, so she "drew" their signatures, too!

A look down the hallway as Josh works on the flooring.....

......and a view down the stairs before work on them began.

Nelson works to set the last planks in the dining room while Morgan supervises!

A view down the nearly-finished hallway.  We still need to do all the trim work and the closet doors still need to be re-hung, but it looks SO much better!

Josh is working on the stairs -- the only part of the project that will be hardwood.  Here's the hard part of all this -- he's putting in oak boards, which still need to be stained and polyurethaned.  This means they need to be kept dry and stain-free until then.  Uh...... with two dogs in the house???  And a rainstorm predicted for tomorrow?  Now THIS ought to be fun....... hah.......  I think we'll be putting plastic over the stairs for the next few days.

Hope you enjoyed looking at our renovations!!  And hopefully, more pictures to follow in the next few days!

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They're "lost" in their own house!

We have been on a major clean-up/remodeling kick here for the last two weeks, and Taylor and Cody are beside themselves. They can't figure out the chaos, the furniture being moved around, the dog crates in a new place, the carpeting being ripped out........ Yes, the world as they knew it is being totally disrupted, and they are NOT happy.

Poor Cody is probably taking it the worst. His crate has always been in Mackenzie's room, from day one. However, he's soooo big that he's now got this ENORMOUS crate, and it was entirely too big to keep in her bedroom -- not to mention the fact that we just re-arranged and re-decorated her room (while she was at camp!!) into a more early-teen appropriate style.

We've moved Cody's crate downstairs to the family room, and you would've thought we were exiling him to Siberia!! The only time he's ever in the crate is when we're going somewhere or when he's trying to escape from Taylor -- so it's not like he spends a great deal of time in there. But he does not like it being downstairs -- I hope he'll get used to it soon.

Taylor -- well, she's just freaking out about everything. The vacuum cleaner has ALWAYS been her enemy, and now it's running all the time. The carpeting being ripped up and carried out apparently is very frightening as well!! All the huge bags of trash accumulating from carpet padding -- those must be barked at and kept under control!! And all the tools and hammering -- she's just jumping out of her skin half the time. Wish the poor thing could settle down and just RELAX!!

So finally, tomorrow, we've got a guy coming to help us install the new wood laminate in the living room, dining room, stairs, foyer and hallway. I'll have to get pictures and post them after the floor's done. I can't WAIT to get rid of the carpeting -- I'm hoping it will make dog hair clean-up much easier!

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Doggie Temper Tantrums....

It's nice outside today -- cool, a slight breeze, not very sunny -- so I decided to take my daughter and our homeschooling friend's daughter outside to do our math lesson. I left Taylor and Cody inside; I knew they'd drive us crazy outside. They sat at the sliding glass door and banged on it with their paws for 15 minutes -- at which point I sent Mackenzie inside and asked her to put the dogs in the crate. This is what she found when she came in --

Can I kill them both now??? Anybody want two used dogs???

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You dirty dog!!

The aftermath of all the snow -- a very muddy yard.  And of course, what else could POSSIBLY be more fun for Taylor to play in??

Muddy paws -- the height of doggy fashion in the winter!

They told me it was good for my complexion!

 

Surely you don't think I planned on tracking mud through the house, do you??  (gotta love that innocent look!!)

 

Taylor's Grand Adventure!! -- Comical!!

This will probably be a bit long, but it's entirely too funny not to share! So, sit down, grab a hot chocolate or a cookie, read, and enjoy a good laugh at our expense!!

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Our family had a lot of things going on today, which necessitated everybody being out of the house for most of the day. We worked everybody's schedules so that somebody would drop by the house every few hours, check up on the dogs (especially Taylor, now 6 days post-spay), and take the dogs out to do their business.

My hubby called me after lunch and said, "Sorry you spent so much money on Taylor's operation -- because I just killed her!!" Uh-oh, not a good way to start the conversation........

He came home mid-day and took Taylor out for a walk (with a retractable leash) around our court. When he got to the end of the court, Taylor pooped in the neighbor's yard. Hubby leaned down to clean it up, and as he did so, the breeze blew, sending a large leaf skittering across the road. Taylor decided to chase it! Unfortunately, since my hubby was leaning over, he was off-balance when Taylor hit the end of the retractable leash, pulling it out of his hand. She ran a short distance, stopped, then looked back and saw the retractable leash "chasing" her!! She took off running again! When she would run, the leash would lengthen, but when she'd slow down and look back, it would start to retract, looking like it was gaining on her -- so she'd get scared and take off again! She ran around the court, then cut across the court and got the leash caught on the wheel of our 50-gallon recycling container which was out on the curb. She was going so hard and fast that she pulled over the container and now was dragging IT along behind her, too!! She ran through the front yard with leash and can in tow, made a hard turn and finally got the recycling container caught on a tree in our front yard, which stopped her!! My husband says by the time he caught up with her, she was shaking uncontrollably, and once he got over being mad at her for not listening, he couldn't stop laughing!!

Oh, my, what I would give to have had a video camera going for THAT fun time!! Now if THAT doesn't pull out her stitches, nothing will!! (And I TOLD that stupid vet she was extremely high-energy!!! I wasn't wrong!!)
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One sad looking doggie.....

Here are some pictures from yesterday and today, after Taylor's spay. If you saw my previous posting last night, you know that she had a more difficult than usual spay, as one of her ovaries was adhered to the kidney lining. She's got a rather large incision, which she doesn't really want to lay on. She kept me up a good portion of the night, because she kept walking around the enclosed area we made for her -- just wouldn't lay down!!

She's doing better today, with the help of painkillers. We've also allowed Cody to come into the room and lay nearby on his mat, and that seems to be calming her some. They were both frantic last night, being apart from each other all day, and then not "re-uniting" after return from the vet. But they're happy to see each other today, and occasionally Cody will go over to the enclosure and they'll lick each other through the fencing -- very cute!!

So without further ado, here are Taylor's sad-faced pictures:

Right after coming home last night --


To keep her from messing with the incision --


"Aw, come on, Mom & Dad -- I look STUPID!!!"


If you look closely, you can see some of her stitches --


Her "home" for the next few days --


Kenzie keeping Taylor company --




Hopefully, she'll recover quickly and easily!
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Forget the "Free to GOOD Home"......

I have a dog AND an adult daughter who are free to ANY home...... they're BOTH in the dog house right now!!

Thursdays, I have to be gone pretty much the entire day every week. My daughter stays home working on college work and supposedly watching the dogs for me. Well, obviously she doesn't watch close enough...... look at what Taylor did to the foot pedals of my 110+-year-old baby grand piano.........




(with culprit lurking in the background......)


I'm going to kill them both.......

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Happy Howl-o-ween??

My husband recently got a new camera which has proven very difficult to use. It tends to take very odd-colored pictures -- but he managed to get these weird shots of evil spirits peering out my living room window...... See if you can figure out what they are.......!!!