Summer of Travels

I spent Memorial day weekend up in Dallas helping my sister move, and then as soon as I got home, Matt had to leave for a week to drive up to the lovely town of Sherman, Texas. Then he was home for a week, then I took of for San Francisco with my best friend Kate for a wedding in Napa. I've know John since 2nd or 3rd grade - we took piano from the same teacher and played duets at the state competitions several years in a row.  He flew to Texas for my wedding and to Louisiana for Kate's wedding, so we were happy to make the trip out to California for him!  It was a fun mini-girls weekend, especially since Kate is moving from Baton Rouge (5 hours away from me) to ORLANDO! Although I'm thrilled to have free room and board at Disney World, I will miss having her close enough for a long weekend trip.

The Golden Gate Bridge

Castello de Amorosa Vineyard

Me assessing the wines. Sweet like apple juice, or gross?

The lovely wedding reception

Christin, John, me, and Kate

While I was gone to San Francisco, Matt got an urgent call from work - they needed him back up in Sherman by Monday morning, and I wasn't getting home till Sunday evening, so Matt's sister came over and watched the kids for a few hours so he could get on the road. He was gone another week, and during all of that, I was getting ready for our big road trip to New Mexico to visit my brother for a week. However, Patrick's town was in the line of some forest fires, so we waited and waited until he finally had to evacuate, which effectively cancelled our trip. Matt came back home and, since our vacation got cancelled, we took an impromptu family trip to the Exotic Animal ranch west of Austin. We toured the Blue Bell creamery on the way and stayed in a cabin at the ranch, where animals were just roaming around. We petted kangaroos, buffaloes, deers, etc. The kids swam in the pool and that's where Addison just took off with her swimming, floating on her back, and treading water. It was amazing. She has gotten better and better every day and can swim 25 meters all by herself without stopping, as well as tread water perfectly and jump off the diving board at our pool. I am so, so proud of her! The next morning we took the safari around the ranch and got to feed lots of animals. The kids really seemed to like it, and Addison cried when it was time to go because she wanted to live in the cabin forever. She got a stuffed camel named Suzanne and Ryan got a Zebra as their souvenirs.

Outside Blue Bell

Inside Blue Bell

This deer kept sucking the swim water out of Ryan's swimsuit

Big red kangaroos

This was a very clingy deer. Matt grabbed its snout.

The zebras were slightly aggressive

Gross buffalo toungue

On the safari ride

Suzanne the camel

 We had fun over the weekend of the 4th, enjoying time at home and then going to a pool party with l0ts of friends and celebrating that evening with more friends. No fireworks this year, due to the drought. Which is still in full effect by the way!

Turns out that Patrick and Erica were able to get back to Los Alamos on Monday the 4th, so after much rearranging and last minute decisions, we decided to go ahead and head to New Mexico, since there would not be any time to go for the rest of the year.  We were bracing ourselves for our first super long road trip and split the 16 hour drive into two days.  The kids were amazing in the car, much to our relief. They watch movies, listened to tons of music, and played a lot with their toys. We got them a new Etch a sketch and a Travel Aquadoodle as their special toys for the special trip. Both days, Ryan got a little bit fussy for about 30 minutes at the end of the day. We didn't have to stop a whole lot, and we ate sandwiches that we brought in the ice chest. We stopped in Childress on the way and the kids were very excited about the Super 8 hotel we stayed in.  The next day, we drove through the barren plains of west Texas and New Mexico until we finally got into some hills and then the mountains, which we could see smoking.  We got to Pat's around 3 or so on Wednesday. They don't have air conditioning there, and there were still fires burning, so during some of the times the smoke was pretty bad and we'd have to close the windows, so it tended to get stuffy. Usually the mountain air is cool and nice!

The kids had a blast with their cousin Sarah, who they haven't seen since last summer and before that, she was an infant. She is about 3 weeks younger than Ryan, and they all played beautifully.  And noisily, I might add. They ran around the back yard, played in the rooms, ran around singing loudly, etc. We went to the pool (COLD!) and library music time and just had a good time spending the days with each other.  When the kiddos are a little older, we'll head out there for Christmas when there's snow everywhere and go sledding. 

At night you could see the fire burning and Patrick called it Mordor

Addison, Ryan, and cousin Sarah

Most of the time they played really well together

Uncle Patrick and Ryan

The kids were wiped out after our long trip

 We headed home the next Monday and the drive home went pretty well too.  We stopped in Wichita Falls this time, and then got home on Tuesday afternoon. We were all ready to be home!
However, we had some bad news awaiting us. Our friends Sarah and Shane had kept our dog Casey while we were gone and told us that she had been having accidents in her crate every night.  We had noticed her peeing and drinking excessively  for many weeks now and we had started leaving the dog door open at nights so she could go out. She'd also been eating like crazy and getting into the trash, which was very out of character for her. I took her into the vet that Friday thinking she had probably a urinary tract infection. The results were negative, so they tested for diabetes, which was also negative.  The vet seemed surprised, so she asked more questions and I mentioned the excessive eating and getting in to the trash.  She immediately suggested Cushings disease, but wanted to do some (expensive) bloodwork. I agreed, and it came back showing elevated liver levels, which is a red flag. The vet said that to narrow it down, we'd have to run more tests, so I brought Casey in the next Monday. On Tuesday, the vet said that the results were negative (which was good), but that she was still pretty convinced it was Cushings and even called the lab to double check the results. She said she would call a specialist and consult, and then let me know what she found out. By Friday, she called back and said that the specialist asked if the dog was a Rhodesian Ridgeback, because he had seen in a small percentage of Ridgebacks specifically that the test gave false negatives.  So our vet was even more sure that we were dealing with Cushings, which can be treated but not cured. We'd already spent nearly $500 just on tests, and we'd have to have another $400 test to be sure before we could start medicating. The medication alone would run us probably $80 a month and she would need to be carefully monitored during the first few months and have frequent retesting to check levels. 
Matt and I talked a long time and came to the conclusion that we didn't think we could do what it would take (financially, mostly) to start the treatment.  We have started speech therapy for Addison and have expensive dental work ahead for her (starting now, plus braces later), and we are going to be traveling so much this fall that we don't know what we would do with Casey during this initial treatment phase. Also, Casey would turn 10 in August, and the lifespan of Ridgebacks is 10-12 years on average.  It was a hard, painful choice filled with lots of guilt and second guessing, but we decided that it would be best for our family and for Casey to have her put down.  We told the kids, and Addison at least understood what it meant, although the implications didn't really sink in.  Our friend Sarah watched the kids while Matt and I took Casey in.  The night before, we'd bought a turkey leg, since turkey was Casey's huge food weakness, and let her devour the whole thing. I brought the rest of her dog food and let her eat it in the office. The vet gave her a tranquilizer and we held her as she laid down and then went sound asleep. She was snoring loudly and we petted her and cried, and then when the vet came in with the other injection we left.  It was pretty horrible.

Baby Casey - the first of our babies to sleep on Daddy's chest

In her prime at the Rhodesian Ridgeback National Specialty in Dallas

At the vet clinic, almost 10 years old. We love you, Casey.

Soon after that it was August and we actually had one weekend at home together with nothing to do! We moved Ryan from his crib into a big boy bed. I haven't really redone his room yet, but we have bedspreads with cars and trucks, so we're using that for now. I'm also going to paint the downstairs bathroom, so I took off all the wallpaper and need to texture and then paint down there. Then I want to do the kids' bathroom (in my spare time). I drove to Dallas on August 3rd to drop the kiddos off with my sister, and then I flew to Nashville for the MOPS International convention with 5 ladies from my group. It was tons of fun! Good speakers, beautiful hotel, and lots of ideas to bring to MOPS this year. The kids stayed two days with my sister and niece, then two days with my mom. I came back Sunday night and drove home Monday, with my niece Camryn in tow. Matt had flown to Alaska the Saturday before with his dad and brother in law for a fly fishing trip, and he got home just this morning (Wednesday). Caitlin came down here last Wednesday and we went to Galveston with all the kids on Thursday. The waves were big and the kids had a blast, and then we went to Rainforest Cafe, which is always a hit. We did the River Adventure Ride too, and that was a hit as well. Friday we went to the Childrens Musuem and Saturday we went to the pool at the YMCA. They left Sunday since Cammie starts school. This Friday, we're leaving for Huntsville, AL, for nearly two weeks so Matt can get some training and put in some face time with his colleagues, and go to meetings for some projects he's been working on for months. The kids and I will see friends all week. I"m really looking forward to seeing the town and the people since I haven't been there in over three years. Then I'll come home with the kids while Matt stays three more days. Then things will slow down a little in September, although I'll be kicking off with MOPS pretty soon, and once October hits, we'll be sprinting to the new year. Yikes!

At a cousin's wedding in June

At the wedding, after the chocolate fountain