They say things come in threes

And I think we have filled our quota now for medical dramas!

1. Nick's chin laceration

2. Dad's pulmonary embolisms

3. Abby and the emergency trip to ISU Vet Med-

A little background information- we got Abby 03/31/08 from the Rescue League. She came to us at 105 pounds. At her vet appointment he informed us he'd like her to weigh about 80 as labs historically have hip problems worsened by weight. Since that time we have been trying to adjust her diet accordingly. At 4 cups of food a day (as recommended by the bag for an 80 lb dog) she lost nothing. At 3 cups a day she lost nothing. Now we have her down to 2 cups of food and 1 cup of greenbeans and she's losing weight (97 lbs at our last check) but she thinks she's starving. I can totally empathize with her there... So in the last few weeks, the vet is happy she's finally headed down on the scale, but she's developed a very naughty behavior out of this- rummaging the trash.

On Tuesday morning I woke up to find she had been in the trash in the bathroom. Right outside my door I had the remnants of a Schick Intuition razor. All the pieces were there- except the blade. We scoured the house looking for it, but it was nowhere to be found. Long story short, we ended up at the Doggie ER Tuesday night. They did find a foreign body on xray exam, but for now we are just watching and waiting to see if she can get rid of it on her own. $326 dollars and 36 hours later, she's doing well.

I just wanted to make it public that we have fulfilled our misfortunes that came in "three". Perhaps writing it down will encourage the powers that be to move on from our house. My best wishes that they don't settle in yours.

Counting our blessings this weekend

We have had an eventful weekend. What started out as a weekend of R&R with no plans quickly took a turn for the worse. It's a long story, but the abridged version is my dad was diagnosed with bilateral pulmonary embolisms- blood clots in both of his lungs. This can be life threatening- luckily his clots were not large enough to stop his lungs from functioning. All that I know for sure is, we are so thankful he's still here. And if you are reading this dad (which I know he will)- be prepared! We are most likely going to be pestering you a lot more about doing the things you need to do to stay with us for many, many more years!

Productive night

Today I emailed a friend with a list of all the things I should be working on tonight- it was extensive. So I thought I'd reflect on what things were actually accomplished at our house tonight.

1. Leave work on time. Collect children from daycare.
2. Explain to Bella (again) that no, those people in the country did not decapitate their goat, it is in fact, a plastic deer used for target practice which happens to have the head lying on the ground.
3. Take the wrong route home and be informed of this by Bella. Apparently touring storm damage clean up efforts is against the rules.
4. Pull into the driveway, but not the garage as it is now our temporary shed (see post below). Pull up too far so that I cannot lower the garage door without ripping off my bumper. Choose to leave the door open, regardless of rain.
5. Use fruit snacks to lure Zach past his stroller into the house without a temper tantrum.
6. Sit on couch with eyes closed while children destroy living room.
7. Make children gourmet dinner of hot dogs (no buns) with grapes and lemonade. Basically if they pointed at something in the frig, they ate it for supper.
8. Put away 5 baskets of laundry.
9. Clean Bella and Zach's room, sort of. At least you can walk without getting a Polly Pocket or other random toy imbedded into your foot.
10. Wash dishes. Restrain 2 year old to highchair during this activity.
11. Drive Bella to Vacation Bible School. It is one block from our house, but it was pouring, so we drove.
12. Return home, park in the correct spot so I can close garage door.
13. Pretend I don't know what Zach is pointing at in the garage (stroller) and pick up random object (empty pill box) to distract him once inside.
14. Watch today's Young and the Restless on Soapnet. Turn volume to 24 (typically it's at 9 or 10) so that I can hear it over Zach's screech, I mean, singing.
15. Get hit with a Maglite, twice.
16. Hide Maglite.
17. Change diaper. Give to two year old to throw in garbage, as this is usually a fun job. However, tonight, he reopens the diaper, nearly resulting in disaster. I may have actually accomplished flying at this point averting said disaster.
18. Make supper for adults and Christian.
19. Attempt to practice the parts of the face with Zach. He realizes that his finger fits into his nose. Cancel anatomy lesson for crash course in not picking your nose.
20. Zach goes to bed.
21. Bella arrives home, pleads to stay up later, pretends to be asleep on my lap, but then actually passes out within 30 seconds.
22. Wake up zombie Nick and go to Huxley to clean the clinic.
23. Return home, redress Nick's sutures.
24. Post on blogspot.

Now, according to this I accomplished 24 things tonight. Yet only checked one thing off my to do list. That, is a picture of true productivity.

Wild Weekend

Our house was a crazy place to be this weekend! Saturday Nick had to work overtime, so I was going to mow for him. Of course, that antique tractor pictured below, has done it's last ride. So, it won't start. Nick gets home, works on the tractor, we end up push mowing our enormous yard with... a manual mower- you know, the ones that twirl the blades and have NO ENGINE. At any rate, when we believed our night was winding down- Nick had an accident. I'll spare him the embarrassment and just say- we ended up at the clinic getting his chin sewed shut at 11pm! Thank goodness I work there, otherwise it could have been a several hour trip to the ER.

Sunday came promising to be a better day... right? Heck no. As you may have seen on the news a terrible storm rolled through our quiet town. Again, we were very lucky- our shed went for a fly again and is completely ruined now- but most people fared much worse. It looks like a war zone. Huge trees uprooted, limbs down, power lines down, and even some houses on fire. We did not have power for several hours and that made the storms coming (we had no idea how severe) a little dicey. We are all more than ready for a good nights sleep. The forecast says otherwise, but we may be so exhausted, it won't matter!

Hope everyone else survived the storms safely!

Iowa Storms

This year has been terrible for storms, floods, and tornados. We have felt pretty lucky to be mostly unaffected by these natural disasters. Aside from a trickle in our basement, we have been unscaved. However, last night our luck changed. We had a minor incident. Really, it was more funny than anything. Thank goodness no one was hurt and no property was damaged. I pulled out of the driveway this morning and had to do a double take. Good think our antique lawn tractor didn't get hurt! It's been mowing lawns longer than I've been alive...

Save money on daycare

Hire your dog.

Everyone loves the sprinkler

Well, ok, only Bella loves the sprinkler. Zach decided he was maybe safer to play in his wagon. Of course, his big sister took care of that by pulling the wagon into the sprinkler. Abby, even though she pants immediately in the sun- black coat and all, did not enjoy the sprinkler either. However, she's a retriever so if you throw a ball into the sprinkler zone, she'll do what she does best- retrieve!