The Big 7-0

Here are some pictures from the last minute b'day party we threw (literally) together.

Everyone came from near and far to eat some ice cream and cake and look at old pictures of Dad. Mom even found his football jersey he wore in the Shrine Bowl over 50 years ago.

Aunt Linda, Uncle Tom, and Aunt Wanda.

Our far travelers, Aunt Rosie and Uncle Tony came from Marietta and Aunt Audrey from Mt. Pleasant.

Dad's Sunday School class mates and friends.

Andy, Donna, Rachael, Jenny, Ed, and Tucker.

Dad and Aunt Mable

The whole Rhoden gang.

For Dad's birthday, he actually got something he really wanted this year. He never says what he wants! I think we made him one happy 70 year old when he...

opened his new...

...set of irons.

Mom, Terri, and me all went in to get him the best birthday present ever!

It will probably be the best Christmas present he's gotten too!

Happy Birthday Dad! I hope you had a great day!

More Mountains

Here are a few more pictures from Mom's camera during our mountain vacation to TN.

Black Bear Cabin

Terri on the chair-lift at Ober Gatlinburg
DollyWood

Hunter waving from the second row. He tried to tell Sydney this ride only had one upside-down loop. We found out (as we were riding) it really had 3!

I think this is my favorite picture! I cracks me up every time I look at it. We rode this new "kiddie ride" called River Battle. You basically ride around and shoot water guns at everyone else on the ride and they shoot you. I makes me laugh because none of us thought we would get has wet as we did. No one had a dry spot on them!

Will in the giant rocking chair in Gatlinburg.

I think this sums up our trip and how Hunter felt after 5 days with my family.

We had a great time. I hope we have many more family vacations together!

Winny Update

Since Caroline always posts her boys and baby #3 updates, I thought I'd give a Winny update. I took her to the vet last week. We talked about everything from house training, food, vaccines, etc. Here is her visit in a nutshell:

Weight gain: 4 pounds (16 total)...only 30-40 more pounds to go

Height: haven't officially measured, but we can tell she is taller by how she tries to jump on the bed. When we first got her, all we could she was the top of her paws on the bed. Now she can get her paws on the bed and her head is above the mattress.

Length: As you can see, this little girl is all legs!

Shots: 3...and she did cry with one of them. How could you hurt this sweet face?

House training: That's a touchy subject. Some days she does really well, then she'll act like she has never peed outside before. We are crating her while we are away now. The first vet said she wasn't old enough to be crated for such a long amount of time, but Dr. Tim (the other vet in the practice that's Lucy's vet) said she will be fine and we need to find a toy that will entertain her for the long day. Any suggestions?

Food: We had a long conversation about how fast she eats. I didn't know this until now, but when you have a tall dog, their stomachs are really long and can twist if a dog eats to fast and gets a lot of air trapped in their stomach. This can cause an emergency situation and the dog can die if surgery is not done within 2 hours...Scary! The breeder told us to add water to her food so she wouldn't inhale so much air. I had never heard of this since I've always had short dogs. Come to find out this issue is more common than I thought: A guy Hunter works with had to put his dog down 4 months ago and Terri's boss lost her dog about a year ago. So we can have to stomach tacked to her body wall when we have her spayed and we are doing the water thing. Also, another thing we have done is get a different dog bowl for her. I never thought this would work, but it does. This is her new "Slow Down" dog bowl. It makes it more of a challenge for her and she eats A LOT slower. So if you have a dog that can clean a bowl in 3 minutes flat...this may be for you!

All in all she is doing well and Lucy is still adjusting, but I think they like having each other. We are taking Winny out on a check cord so we don't have to visit the neighbors 14 times a day. I hope she will learn her boundaries until we can get that fence!