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.