Continued Summer Updates

One thing that we seemed to keep doing this summer was finding turtles. We really don't live by any water, but we kept finding turtles traveling up our street. So far we've found six. This guy was the biggest and the mossiest by far. Who knows if they appreciated our help or not, but we took each of them, as we found them, to the lake, or one of the ponds. I don't think that there was even one among them who enjoyed the car ride.

We tried to spend as much time as possible with Wade and Jodie and the girls before they left for California. That wasn't any easy thing considering all of the friends that they have. Lance and I have decided that we are way to grouchy to be that popular. Anyway, one of the places that they we went together was Landa Park. This is Brennan as he let go of the swing. Aiden (busy adjusting his goggles and nose plug), Aubrey and Wade are in the background awaiting their turns.
Daisy came through her heartworm treatment with flying colors. We're still having days where we're left wondering why we thought that we wanted a dog. Yesterday we went out for our morning run and decided to let Daisy off the leash for a while. We've done this in the past, and it hasn't been a problem. It was yesterday. We kept trying to catch her, and she just kept running. We finally managed to corner her, and Lance leaped through the air superman style, and pinned her down. Of course where they both landed happened to be in a fire ant pile. I took her back to the house, and Lance ran another two miles after he had already completed a four mile run. He was so mad, he probably could have run another two. Somehow, all the irritation seems to go away when we see Brennan enjoying her so much. I still think that she's stinky.

She is starting to calm a little, and she's learned a few tricks. She'll eat just about anything, but her favorite food is bananas. She even helped herself to one one day.

Long Time

Okay, so I've been chastised by a few people for not updating our blog all summer. I've been the "Anti-Blogger", and I really don't know why. It could be that we're a computer/camera loving family, and I never seem to get a turn with either device.

One of Sophie's summer highlights was getting her ears pierced. She and her friend Kelli decided that they were both ready to endure the pain, so they did it together. Sophie has really liked having earrings, and excited about changing them out. She's done really well, and only had a couple of painful moments. Sophie and Kelli have played together a lot this past summer. One of their favorite occupations was the "toad game". I didn't know that toads like to play house, but apparently it's at least a tolerable activity for them. I'm not sure that they enjoyed being scrubbed with toothbrushes, but that was probably the worst that they had to suffer. The kids were nice enough to let the toads go at the end of the day, and go and find new toads when they were ready to play again. And to think, no one got warts. Notice the blob on the couch in the background. Is that really the way that Nintendo intended the Wii to be played?

Brennan played in a 3V3 soccer tournament at the beginning of the summer. There are only three players from each team on the field at one time, and no goalie. The halves are only 10 minutes, so it's very fast paced. The team didn't do as well as they would have liked, but it was a good experience. Brennan is #10.

Aiden has been making movies this summer. So many, that he's been requiring Brennan to sign contracts saying that he will help with the movie. Brennan is apparently tired of being bossed around, and sick of being in films that Aiden makes up as he goes along. I finally took the time to sit down with him, and type out the first three scenes of a script. The video clip is one of the scene's that he's filmed. Brennan thinks that there needs to be some scenery other than the piano and the boxes from Sophie's bedroom furniture. I'll make sure the entire movie gets posted if and when it gets finished.

Daisy and her Heartworm Treatment

This is Daisy Saturday night after her treatment.

Daisy started her heartworm treatment on Friday morning. We had to take her to the vet early in the morning, and then pick her up in the evening. They gave her a shot in her hind end that travels through her blood stream, and kills the heartworms. The process was repeated again on Saturday. The injections kill the adult heartworms which eventually dissolve. While the heartworms are being broken down and dissolved the dog must stay very calm and sedentary. If the dog gets too excited or worked up, they run the risk of having a heart attack. We have to keep this dog quiet for six weeks. No walks, no playing fetch, no barking when the doorbell rings. We even have to put her on a leash when she goes out to relieve herself. The injections are very painful, and can make them sore for quite a while. We were initially told that she would be given pain pills that would keep her in a semi-sedated state for about two weeks. I figured that the first two weeks would be a breeze. How hard is it to keep a sleeping dog calm? We were misinformed. She acted like she didn't feel well on Saturday night, but she seems to have made a full recovery. It's going to be a long six weeks.

Out of the Nest

We can't believe how much these little birds have grown. They seem to make significant changes each day. I took this photo on Saturday, June 21st.
Sunday morning Lance heard some commotion, and when he eventually went to investigate, there was only one little bird sitting in the tree's pot. We were worried that something bad had happened, but have now come to the conclusion that the parent birds kicked them out of the nest. The babies have been hopping around the yard eating bugs, and hiding in the bushes. They are really rather noisy. We haven't let the cats out, and probably won't until we're sure that the babies are all gone, or able to fly. There were six eggs, but only five hatched. The other egg was still at the bottom of the nest. It's been a fun process to watch, but I'm kind of hoping that we don't have a repeat performance next year.

Toads

Sophie and Brennan have become awfully fond of the toads that roam freely here. Somehow they found their way into these PVC tubes that are in our front yard, and the kids have kept them trapped there. They do let some go when they find new ones, and somehow the toads survive. They have spent so much time playing with them, that the neighbor has started referring to the kids as "Toadologists".

These are two especially large ones that Brennan named Billy Bob, and Billy Boo. All of the toads have names, but we won't take the time to list them. I will mention though, that one evening Brennan and a friend caught 37 of them.

Eggs Hatched

The eggs have now hatched, so now we have a pile of fuzzy, ugly, hungry, critters in the not so very big tree on our front porch.

Beach Vacation

For our first summer vacation (hopefully there will be another), we went to South Padre Island, TX for a few days. This is one of Wade and Jodie's annual trips that they take with some of their friends. We had a good time getting to know those families, and relaxing on the beach. We passed the time by studying the local sea creatures,
feeding the seagulls,
making a giant sea turtle out of sand (Lance and I didn't help at all),
playing la cross and frisbee (This is Wade and Jodie's friend Julie Gill in action. We now consider her our friend as well.),



collecting seashells,
playing in the sand,
playing in the sand some more,
playing in the water,

and reading, and eating (only healthy fruits and vegetables of course). We also went out to eat a few times, and had fun crab hunting after dark. Regardless of multiple applications of sun screen, we all came home tired and burned. Nonetheless, it was a great time, and we can't wait to go again sometime.