Dedicated to our Lily Pie

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:40:29 -0500

Today was the last day that we were able to enjoy having Lil in our lives. We had to make the incredibly tough decision to let her go. Lily did not regain her sight this week (read post from July 24th to see what caused complete blindness). The blindness was challenging for her and did not allow her to live with the quality of life that we desired for her. She was a wonderful dog. She was smart, affectionate, sassy, and a truly awesome companion. Lily, you will be greatly missed by Ben, Lucy, and I.

Update

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 20:46:44 -0500

-Our little Lucy (video on the left) is so goofy. We love her, but there are definitely days when she feels more lab than poodle. She loves fetch and is always happy to finish her sister’s meals.
-Our little Lily (picture on the right): Lily is not doing so great. She went blind in her left eye (now completely blind) on Thursday morning. She developed an infection in her eye (typical of dogs with glaucoma). She is currently on medications that will bring down the inflamation caused by the infection. If the inflamation disappears, but she fails to regain her sight by the end of the week, unfortunately she won’t gain it back. This will be an emotional and long week as we wait and hope that she regains her sight. In the meantime, living with a blind animal has been challenging. She prefers the outdoors. I think it is because the smells are incredibly distinct, whereas in a house there is the smell of paint, carpet, food, etc. She is still able to go on walks, but she limits her movement quite a bit inside. Keep your fingers crossed for us and we will keep you updated this week.

Random Updates

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 08:42:35 -0500

My mom’s visit: My mom left on the 7th. It was so wonderful to spend a solid 3 weeks with her. The above pictures on the left are of a concert that we attended. Ben’s parents always get tickets to Music at the Zoo (located at the Minnesota Zoo). They bring in some pretty big acts. We saw The Cherry Poppin Daddies! They were awesome! People were swing dancing and it was so much fun to see the energy that the group has.

Our 3rd anniversary: Ben and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary together on the 14th. The picture in the top right hand corner was created by my brother Daniel using charcoal. He is really talented. I asked him to do a picture of us as a surprise for Ben. I had it framed and I think it is just awesome. We had our official anniversary date yesterday and celebrated by spending time in the outdoors in 90 degree weather.

Weather: Speaking of weather...we have had crazy weather the past few weeks. Tornado sirens, sometimes several times per day. However, last night was the craziest storm of them all. We were out driving and had just exited a store. We looked up to our left and saw this huge, looming, swirling cloud. Ben’s parents called us (right at that moment) and said that a tornado had touched down in a nearby town and it was heading straight toward us. We obviously hopped in the car quickly and headed for home. We could hear the tornado sirens going off from the car and Ben was doing about 90 mph to get us home. The video above is of the rain that came after that cloud passed...the hail was about the size of a nickel, but I don’t think it is super visible in the video.

The House is Finished (Updated pictures in the House Album)!

Fri, 2 Jul 2010 22:22:27 -0500

We are done with painting! It took 2 weeks of painting from about noon to 9:30 pm (only because it got dark) to paint the house. It was a daunting task, but it is done. The house looks like new. It has been so funny because our neighbors will drive by and yell “beautiful” out the window or “looks great.” I would like to give a shout out to a few people for making sure that our house was painted. My mom worked day and night with me. She did most of the prep...which I hate! She was the positive one when I was too tuckered out to care if the house was even scraped of the old paint. My awesome husband painted all of the high spots, which would have killed my neck. My mother-in-law painted some of the back of the house so that I was able to get the house back under normal working conditions. We were all quite the well oiled machine. Our well oiled machine even included Lucy, she was covered in paint by the time we were finished. Lucy did a good job cuddling with her sister when she had her cone on.
Quick Update: Lily saw the vet again today. Her eye is healing as expected. She is on a topical medication for 2 more weeks in her blind eye. Her good eye will continue to receive drops for as long as the pressure stays low. She seems completely normal and is compensating beautifully. She chases balls and isn’t running into anything :).

I’m Dreaming of a Painted House

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:58:37 -0500

Above is a video of the painted portion of the house that has two coats...we are loving the color! You can see the grey above...that is the old color :(! Here is our painting process thus far...
-Thursday, June 17th: Pick up paint and supplies (Three 5 gallon containers of Blue and One 5 gallon container of White)
-Friday, June 18th: Prep on the front lower portion of the house and painted the overhang of the house
-Saturday, June 19th: One coat of paint on front lower portion of the house
-Sunday, June 20th: 2nd coat of paint on front lower portion of the house (Done!)
-Monday, June 21st: One coat of paint on left edge of house
-Tuesday, June 22nd: Raining...movie day!
-Wednesday, June 23rd: 2nd coat of paint on the left edge of the house
-Thursday, June 24th: 1st coat on the back of the garage
-Friday, June 25th: 1st coat on the peak of the house...raining...time to go to Costco