Goodness

Where does the time go? It's been over a month since I updated last!

We went to San Diego for a few days around Thanksgiving and had a nice time. We participated in the Father Joe's Thanksgiving Day 5k which was really fun and a nice way to start out the day.

As soon as we got home, Aaron HAD to decorate the house for Christmas.


Then, two weeks ago, we got these little boogers to foster.


They are two lab mix puppies (almost 9 weeks old). Aaron named them Samantha (left) and Maxwell. They are super cute but puppies are such a pain in the butt! They cry, they poop everywhere, they chew everything! We took them to foster because they were too young to be fixed, so they couldn't be put up for adoption. They should be going back to the shelter soon, and they'll be gone-gone-gone to their forever home after that.

Other than that, it's business as usual. Our Christmas home vacation starts next week, so we'll enjoy hanging out at our house with no work to do!

Who Knew

Married life is awesome.

That is all.

A quick photo update

We went to a Punkin Patch!
Joe's such a handsome little devil!

Ellie Mae and Penny Lane. And yes, that IS Ellie's costume.

Bunky Raffit!

Cecil is helping Aaron work on the computer.

Meet Charlie

Charlie is a 6 year old Dutch rabbit. His owners surrendered him to our friend's vet clinic because they couldn't afford to pay for his medical treatment. He had an injury and a skin infection.


He's healing well, and acting like a good bunny should.

Problem is... bunnies have a life expectancy of 7-10 years. Charlie needs a home that is willing to accept this, but still give him the life he deserves.

Enter the Heilbron Zoo.

Charlie will be flying from Fargo, ND to Indianapolis on Sunday to become part of our family.

We're excited to have a bunky raffit!

The Local Flora and Fauna

One of the things I love about living in Indiana is how lush and colorful it is. There are TONS of trees (which should start changing colors soon, YAY!), grass, shrubs, flowers, you name it.

Of course, with all this flora, you get some local fauna too. At the old house we had a family of raccoons that would come visit in the middle of the night. I had to go out in the morning and stomp on the deck to scare them off before sending the dogs outside.

We haven't seen any raccoons at the new house, although we hear from the neighbor that they're around. Apparently they've eaten through her garbage can lids! However, we have seen a few of these cuties:


They may be cute, but we hear possums are nasty. We're not going to meet it to find out.

We also found one of THESE in our yard - YIKES!


It's a dreaded PennyMonster!

New Floor & New Dog

We figured out about two months ago that the little cat had decided the basement was her giant litterbox and was peeing on the carpet. YUCK. Cat urine is the worst - and it's near impossible to clean up.

We finally gave up and ripped all the carpet out. On a tip from Heather, we bought TrafficMaster Allure vinyl planks which are (relatively) inexpensive, waterproof, super durable and really easy to install. So easy, a dog can do it!


Joe really loves to help with home improvement projects.

Here's the floor, partially installed. I'll have to upload the finished pictures when I get home on Thursday.


Speaking of Joe, Penny has decided Joe is the model for how to be a good house pibble. See for yourself!

Hamburg(er), PA

Heather and I went out to Hamburg, PA on Friday to be bridesmaids in Rachael and Chris's Vow Renewal Ceremony.


We left Philly at 3:30PM and arrived in Hamburg about 3 hours later. It's supposed to be a 1.5 hour drive, but we got stuck in downtown Friday afternoon traffic. That is one thing I DO NOT miss about California.


Don't we look lovely? We clean up perty well, if I do say so myself.

I have no idea what's going on here. All I know is that my head hurt this morning. A lot.

Penny

Apparently we aren't done fostering after all. This little princess made her way to our house yesterday.

Our neighbor's coworker found her over the weekend running in the streets. They fell in love with her, but their two Jack Russell terriers wouldn't let her stay. They took her to their vet and she's not microchipped and it looks like she's littered recently. They mentioned it to our neighbor, who knows that we do pit bull rescue... and one thing led to another.

We're calling her Penny. Joe seemed to think she was pretty great, but of course, that could be because she isn't spayed. We'll be getting that taken care of next Tuesday (thank you Spay Neuter Services of Indianapolis!).

I guess she felt pretty comfortable at our house. She climbed on the couch and fell asleep next to Aaron. What a sweetie.

Woah

It's been almost a month since I updated last, and that was a pathetic attempt at best.

So, here's our summer, in pictures.

Insanity

I've been meaning to post about the gazillion things going on in our lives, but... there's a gazillion things going on in our lives.

Quick recap of the last 6 weeks-ish:

• Nichole helped rescue a dog from a high kill shelter. His name is Carter and he's hanging out at HSI until he gets adopted. BEEN ADOPTED!
• Our foster dog tried to eat Joe. Joe is okay, but we've decided not to foster any longer.
• We did a Community Pet Day where Aaron talked to people about neutering their dogs and Nichole gave vaccinations.
• Nichole turned 30!
• Nichole fell in love with Pilates
• We went to New Orleans for the second time
• Aaron volunteered to help organize our church's Habitat for Humanity home build

I'm sure there's other stuff I'm forgetting. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. Pictures when I get home... in 1.5 weeks.

Happy Birthday United States... and Aaron!

On July 4, we celebrated the birthday of our great nation. We also celebrated the birthday of my great husband.


Our friends, Ryan and Danielle, and I had been planning a surprise party for about a month. The plan was for Ryan to take Aaron golfing that morning, and when they got back there would be a bunch of people ready to cookout and eat cake with Aaron to celebrate.


Of course, someone *ahem* had to go and get knee surgery, so golfing was out. Never fear, Ryan is a great liar! He told Aaron they were going out of town for the 4th and would we be able to come check on the dogs around 2pm?

They did a great job surprising him. The house was quiet, the dogs ran up to greet us at the door. Everyone was in the kitchen. As we approached the kitchen Aaron could see Danielle, but she just stood there until he walked forward a bit and everyone could yell "SURPRISE!".


It's not often that I get to surprise Aaron, because I'm a terrible liar and he usually needles me until I give in and spill the beans. I was super happy that he had no idea!

A bittersweet day

I spent a couple of hours at Humane Society of Indianapolis today. I love hanging out with the doggies.

I spent a lot of time with a good looking pibble named Rocky. Rocky was in the shelter about a month ago when I went to pick up Dex. He could be Dex's twin brother, but with a bigger head. Rocky was adopted a few weeks ago, but was returned on Tuesday because he "knocked over" the adopter's small child. An energetic, 60lb pit bull? Of course he knocked him down. Did he bite him? Did he growl? No. Annoying.

As I was leaving, I stopped in the Intake area to find out when Dex would be ready to come home. He went up to HSI yesterday to have another heartworm treatment and they kept him overnight to give him another shot today.

There was a family in intake that was bringing their old, sick lab in to be euthanized. The whole family was in tears as the vet tech took the doggie. I cried on my way to the car. The old boy was obviously well loved. My prayers are with that family tonight.

I had to run back to HSI around 4 to get Dex. As I parked out front, I recognized Rocky in the greet area with a big family. I just had to stop and talk to them. I chatted with them for about 20 minutes, and they decided to put an adoption hold on him. The gal who was adopting him is about 23, and was IN LOVE with the big lug. She will be moving tomorrow to a farm outside the city where she'll be training horses. I talked to her a lot about pit bulls, and it turns out she'd done a report on them in school. I couldn't have asked for a better life for this guy. He's a great dog with a lot of energy and love to give. He'll get to live on a big ol' farm with horses, pot bellied pigs, and a female dog to keep him company.

So tears of sadness, and joy.

Look who came to visit!

It's Kennie Rosebud Duck!

Kenya's family went on a much coveted vacation (they went west to Vegas and to volunteer at Best Friends - sooo jealous) so she came to stay with us for a few days.

She misses her family, I'm sure, but fell back into the rhythm of our house with no problems. She's such a sweet, sweet girl. Her family LOVES her, they've been emailing me updates on their trip and asking for updates on her. What a lucky girl.


Dex is going for his first heartworm treatment tomorrow, so he may be leaving us soon. I love the booger, but he needs a family who can keep him and love him and take the abuse on THEIR doors, windows and carpet. He's a bit of a wild one.

Other than feeling like we're running a dog boarding facility, things are good. The weather is decent, we're pretty happy, Aaron's knee is getting better. Can't complain :)

Swimming!

For the past two weeks, Heather and I have taken our dogs down to Marott Park to let them go swimming in White River.

I wasn't sure that Joe would go in because we'd never taken him anywhere with water. He was a little hesitant at first, but Heather's dogs went right in. You could see the thought process in Joe's mind - he stood at the edge of the water, staring at Hermoine and Ripley plowing through the creek, and he just made up his mind and went for it.

Last week I brought along some tennis balls. We lost one quickly in the river portion as the current is decent, and Joe didn't get the concept at first (well, and Mom's a dingaling and threw it downstream). I started throwing it upstream and Joe LOVED it.


I'm pretty sure he's smiling.

We're going to take Ellie too when Aaron's knee is a bit better and see if she'll go in. I'm betting no, but I've been surprised before.

Influence

I can't decide if Aaron is a good influence on the neighbor kids... or a bad one.



I don't think Griffy's mom knows either.

Sliced n' Diced

Aaron had knee surgery on Wednesday morning.

The surgery itself wasn't a big deal. He tore his medial meniscus, the cartilage that keeps the femur and tibia from rubbing on each other, a long time ago. The edges of the tear were frayed which caused him pain. They went in and shaved off the frayed edges. He was in and out in less than an hour, and the doctor said he knee looks great.

Of course, in true Aaron fashion, he had to overdo it Wed and Thursday so he's hurting a bit.

It's unfortunate that codeine makes him wired, rather than knocking him out like a normal person.

I'm trying very, very hard to be the patient wife. *grin*

Oh Dexter

Dexter should be renamed Houdini, because he's somewhat of an escape artist.

The first night we had him, we put him in his crate before we went out to run errands. When we got home, there was Dexter, just chillin' with the 2 other dogs. The bugger had managed to push his crate apart enough to collapse the side.


We got out the industrial strength zip ties to hold all the corners together so he can't do that again.

On Sunday, we got home from church and our neighbor came out to tell us that he'd found Dex laying in the grass front yard. Aaron had put him in the crate upstairs and shut the bedroom door.

The little bugger had unlatched the crate door at the bottom, squeezed out the tiny little space, RIPPED A HOLE IN THE WINDOW SCREEN AND JUMPED OUT. Thankfully the dumb dog wasn't hurt in his trip down the roof.

Dexter - YOU ARE A BAD BOY!

Alice, er Lucy

Aaron spent 2+ hours on Sunday driving around, posting signs and talking to people that live in the area where he found Alice. His efforts paid off. Her family called around 1pm.

Turns out Alice is actually Lucy, and she's well loved but just OLD. She was such a sweet girl, I'm glad she got back to her family. They were so grateful that we picked her up.

Dog Days of Summer

Friday we picked up our new foster, Daytona, from the shelter. Aaron immediately decided to rename him. We went through all the names we could think of, but Aaron was insistent on Dexter. I liked Elvis, personally. We're calling him Dex for short.


He's attached himself to me for some reason and follows me around the house. It's cute. He warns Joe a bit, but for the most part all the dogs just ignore each other. We're still keeping the two boys separated for the time being.

Yesterday, I did one leg of a multi-state dog transport to bring a little dachsund, Andie, from SC to IL where she was going to her forever home. Some kittens hitched a ride through part of the transport. I picked Andie up in Seymour, IN, which is about an hour south of Indy, and handed her off here in Indianapolis to the next driver.


Andie wanted to ride in my lap the whole way. Annoying, but cute.


Then last night Aaron calls me around 8:30. He's found a dog in the middle of the street about 4 blocks from our house. She's got a collar, but no tags. We drove her to the 24 hour clinic to see if she had a microchip. Of course not. So she stayed overnight with us too. We'll be putting up posters in the area today and hopefully her family will claim her... although Aaron may not let them since she's not well taken care of at all.


We're calling her Alice.

Good heavens.

Can't resist Cupcake

We got a new cat yesterday. Her name is Cupcake, but we've decided to call her Cici for short. I saw her Saturday while volunteering at Humane Society of Indianapolis. We went back yesterday and she took to us like a fish to water. She's already settled in, just hanging out and being cute.

Here's some pictures of her from her Petfinder profile.




I wish I had better pictures to share, but the camera cable is in my suitcase in the closet. The stupid doorknob fell off and we can't get it open. Gotta love old houses!

Joe Doodle

Joe went to see Dr. Durkes yesterday to have an "alternative medicine" procedure done. He has hip dysplasia, arthritis and straight hocks. A typical vet would have suggested surgery for him, but we wanted to exhaust all options before we went that route.

Dr. Durkes implanted gold beads around his hips to force the hip joints to work properly and also to reduce his pain.

Joe has no activity restrictions, but he is relearning how to do certain tasks because now his hips work differently than before.

Aaron said he's already bending his legs properly when he walks, as opposed to dragging the right leg, and he's getting himself around just fine.

Hopefully this procedure will help him stay pain free and reduce the potential for future issues.

Aaron's House Remodel Part III

I'm afraid I won't even recognize my house when I get back there on Thursday.

Before:


After:


His newest effort - he ripped up this stupid piece of wood that sat at the base of the deck. It was wobbly and water just pooled up underneath it whenever it rained. The wood wasn't even attached to anything, just lying there. Underneath it he found a bunch of cement pieces that match the little planter to the side, so he used those and filled it in with pea gravel.

He also fixed that first step on the deck that was uneven too.

I'm not sure what's gotten in to him, but maybe I should start a list.

Boys

You leave them home alone for ONE weekend, and this is what happens:



He cut his hair into a mohawk.

Sigh.

I love my husband!

Serenity Pond

Aaron decided to build a little serenity pond in our backyard today. HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!

He got a little plastic pool, dug the hole (4 feet deep he said!) and built the fountain and backdrop with paver stones. He finished it off with river rock. I can't wait to see it in person!!!

It was supposed to be a surprise for me, but as usual, he couldn't wait. Not only did he take a picture of it with his phone, but he called me to tell me to check my email. That boy is instant gratification personified.

All the grass around it is Aaron's doing too. The back 40 used to be all wood chips. About 2 months ago he raked up all the wood, laid topsoil and seeded. He's been lovingly tending the lawn, and it's almost hearty enough to allow the dogs on it. I'm very impressed. It's like a little oasis in the corner of my yard!