Pug Life Birthday Party

Alyssa went to a Pug party and had a great time! Everyone got a Pug Life shirt and it was super cute! The local Pug rescue brought about 12 pugs for the kids to play with. Pugs everywhere!

Fun Day 12/21/16

After all these years, we finally made it to Duck Commander and pretended to be tourists! Not much to see there. Later we went to the museum with Erin, Parker, and Mila. What a treat! It was their annual Winter Wonderland and the kids loved it! They visited with Santa, decorated cookies, played in the snow, wrote a letter to Santa, and played on the huge inflatable slide. We opted not to ice skate this time. Broken bones over the holidays can't be good!

Christmas #2 Louisiana

Christmas #1 Texas

Early Christmas with Grams & Pappy in Texas!

Limoncello

It's been so long since I've updated the blog. I'll try my best to put the upcoming posts in order! There's so much to add!

Another great harvest from the lemon tree and a delicious batch of Limoncello! I doubled the recipe this time (12/16) and had plenty to share with everyone.

School Christmas Parties 2016

The girls enjoyed their Christmas parties! 

Breakfast with Santa 2016

It was another great Breakfast with Santa at school! 

3rd Grade Spelling Bee

Addison was in the 3rd grade spelling bee! Only 23 out of 130 made it through to the grade-level competition. The first word was 'shrill'. The second word was 'subtracting'. The third word was 'priority'. She misspelled that word and got disqualified. It was still a win for her being in the top 23! We are so proud of her!

Fall School Pictures 2016

At this point, I'm not surprised that I never blogged about school pictures! Here they are!

Family Pictures Finally

It's been many years since we've taken family pictures! One day I saw a photographer had an opening and I jumped on it.

Tattoo Day 10/1/16

The big day finally arrived. It couldn't have been at a worse time. My appointment was at 4pm and I debated up until 3:30pm whether or not to go. It was a struggle to pull myself together. The distraction would be welcomed and nobody would know if my tears were from Buddy or the tattoo pain! 

Two of my dear friends went along to support me and I couldn't have done this without them! Once we finalized the drawing, it took about 2 hours to actually tattoo. There was probably a good hour of breaks I took too! We were there for a very long time! It hurt, y'all. It hurt a lot. And there were a few times they asked if I wanted to stop and come back another time. Hell no! If I stopped, I'd never go back! lol

Buddy (9/30/16)

I've started this blog so many times. There are a million thoughts in my head, but my fingers won't type them. Friday September 30th was going along fine. We were all excited for the weekend and ready to relax. Around 5:00pm we all loaded up in the van, including Buddy, to go pick up dinner. He was so excited to go and it was a treat for him when I let him make a quick trip with us. We got back home and ate dinner. Buddy ate too, just as he did every single time. Seriously, Buddy always ate at the same time we did. Afterwards, I let him outside. He went to the bathroom and then laid down on the patio as he has done a million times. I gave him a few minutes and then called him to go inside. He didn't move. Called again. He didn't budge. Called again. His eyes looked at me, but no movement. At that moment, I knew something terrible was wrong. I went and got a treat, which always got his attention. He wasn't interested. I called Blake to see where he was on his way home. He was about an hour away. I called the on-call vet, who said to take Buddy to the ER. 

I tried to stay calm for the girls sake. I didn't want them to be alarmed. I sat there for a minute on the patio with him trying to figure out how to move him to the van. He was 46 solid pounds and if there was something internal going on I didn't want to make it worse or hurt him. I called my friend and she was here in less than 5 minutes. She helped me load Buddy in the van and then took the girls to her house. Blake and I arrived at the ER at the same time. The ER staff was waiting for us and immediately took Buddy in to be checked. A tumor had ruptured and Buddy was bleeding internally. The vet explained the type of cancer was very aggressive. We could opt to do chemo/radiation and prolong his life by 1-6 months maximum, not knowing the quality of life he would have after surgery/during treatment or we could make the call. How could this happen? His last well-check was August 9th. He got a clean bill of health. The vet explained there would be no way to detect unless an ultrasound was done. Many times the cancer goes undetected until it's too late. I suppose just like in humans. I often think back and wonder if I missed any signs. 

We made the decision to let our sweet Buddy go to sleep and feel better. He was 13 years old. He lived the best life a dog could ever wish for and we had the best dog a family could ever wish for. One in a million. I went to pick the girls up and they asked about Buddy all the way home, but wouldn't tell them anything until Blake was with us. When we did tell them they cried and cried and cried. 

Our hearts still hurt daily and the emptiness is so great.