One Photo. No Caption and No Explanation.

Swimming?

Our roof is still not fixed so we hijacked Silas' pool from him to collect the rain so it doesn't flood as bad and we hadn't gotten around to emptying it from the last rainfall and yesterday in the 40 degree weather Silas thought it was a good time to go swimming. It was freezing out and the water was like ice water. Seriously?! 

Finally up and running

So right here is where I will be spending all of my free time for the foreseeable future. We have a weeks worth of laundry that needs done. Now you may say thats not so bad but Kevin wears a minimum of 3 outfits a day and I wear a minimum of 2 outfits a day. So lets do a little bit of math 7x3=21. 2x7=14 21+14=35. Now add in my pajamas for the week usually 3 sets and my after shower clothes usually 2 sets 3+5=8 35+8=43 Thats 43 outfits a week minimum then add in towels and sheets and blankets and Silas' bedding and you get a crap ton of laundry to do each week. Can you imagine the amount of laundry we would accumulate a week if we had kids?! It pains me to think about it. 

One Photo. No Caption. No Explanation.

Addicted

I am once again addicted to ebay! I just can not stop bidding! Last week I won 3 pairs of gap jeans each for under $4.00 including the shipping! Those jeans are over $60 a pair and I got four pairs for less than ten dollars total. Ebay is absolutely amazing! However I can't wear any of them until after I wash them and I can't wash them until Kevin sets up my washer and dryer. Anyone want to help out with this project?

Every other Friday we get our green bean delivery and yesterday happened to be our binday!!! I love seeing these bins outside my house! Its like Christmas morning but with vegetables.

We got 3 bins this week!

Bananas, eggplants, mushrooms, and potatoes. 

More mushrooms, more potatoes, green pepper, lettuce, fresh basil, pomegranates, and broccoli.  

Celery, onions, cucumbers, pizza dough balls, pizza sauces, pasta sauces, apples, pears, plums, and a kiwi.

The medicine the vet gave us for Silas' hips has really helped. We have seen a huge improvement in him! He has even been begging to go for walks and to play! He has been playing with his varsity ball for 20-30 minutes at a time instead of the 5 minutes he played before the medicine.

But when his ball stops moving he rips up hunks of our yard.

Or chews up whatever is in the balls way. 

We also have a serious mole and other animal problem. They are destroying our yard more than Silas does!

Silas has recently started to dig at the mole's tunnels. 

And something has been digging little holes like this all of our yard.

I bought some stake things that are supposed to annoy them out of our yard without bothering Silas so I'm hoping they help.

Ooops

So last night I managed to set our dryer on fire. Everyone is safe and the house is safe, there weren't actually any flames but you could sure smell it burning. I was so scared to fall asleep last night for fear it would somehow burst into flames, so about once or twice an hour I would wake up and do a lot of sniffing/air smelling to make sure there was no smoke. First thing this morning I was up searching Craigs List for a new washer and dryer which proved to be a bit harder than I had anticipated. Everyone was selling really nice sets but they were almost all gas or way to expensive. I did however find a set I liked and called to make sure they were still available and set a time to see them and pick them up. Kevin, Mitchel, Melanie and I went over after I got off of work. (Mitch and Mel drove my mom's car since I didn't think I could fit both in mine and we also needed Mitch's muscles) When we got there we went up to the front door I knocked and the guy answered and as I was starting to introduce myself both he and Kevin started to greet each other. Turns out it was Kevin's boss. Seriously, Kevin knows everyone! We can't go anywhere without running into someone he knows. So now I have my new washer and dryer but lack the kit needed to be able to stack them so it is on my to do list for tomorrow because I have a lot of laundry I was unable to get to yesterday.

Good news

Late Friday morning I got a call from our vet. Remember I said she had posted Silas' x-rays to their special website? Well, one of the most well know and very highly recommended animal radiologists personally called her to talk about Silas! How lucky did we get? He said everything in the x-rays looked perfect, there is nothing to worry about. However he has seen cases like this where it ends up being a soft tissue injury and he told her what to look for and how to do an exam. We are going to wait and let him finish his medicine then watch him for a week before discussing if he needs to go back in for the muscle exams. Wednesday I had him groomed at daycare (this was my last free spa day coupon) and they hurt him yet again. Kevin have decided to never have him groomed there again. They clipped his nails too short and couldn't get them to stop bleeding. There was/still is blood EVERYWHERE. All over my car, his blankets, my floors, the daycare's floors it was a mess. I was not happy. Now I wouldn't say Silas is normally an overprotective dog but on Thursday (while Aaron was here) a guy came to the door to drop off a package Silas placed himself outside directly between the doorway and the guy and would not let him come close to coming inside. He was never aggressive and once I opened the door he didn't bark or growl but you could just tell he was not happy that guy was so close to the door. The poor guy kept saying its okay doggie I'm a nice guy. I found it quite funny he was scared of Silas.  

Its okay mom I am only touching his foot.

Silas has to be right beside him at all times.

All of a sudden he has become much more snuggley .

His Halloween Costume

My jack-o-lantern

Kevin's jack-o-lantern

Barkbox!

New chew toy

It doesn't actually glow all that well.

Rabbit chew

Fall flavored treats

Barkbox sent us treats to handout to other dogs for trick or treating on Halloween.

 

Working our way up

Silas passed the first six weeks of training and on Wednesday we started the second six weeks. There is only one other dog in our class. There has to be a minimum of 3 dogs or they cancel the class however the trainer decided to keep it going. Silas has become one of her favorites and the other dog is a female golden retriever about a month or two older than Silas. Want to know why they are in training? Because their dog is terrified of other dogs and this results in extreme dog aggression, upon walking into class this dog immediately started growling, "foaming" at the mouth and tried to attack Silas. The trainer said Silas is the best dog for Bella, the other dog, to be in class with. After a few minutes she was okay with Silas as long as she wasn't too close to her owners and she was initiating the play. The trainer said for the next six weeks we can choose what we want to learn. With Silas we are focusing on things that will be useful in hospital settings and on preparing for the items on the tests. The other dog is focusing on not killing Silas. The next Therapy Dog session isn't until spring so after this six weeks I think I will probably sign him up to retake the course just so we can continue practicing the test items.

Silas problems? Good news bad news.

What have we been up to? Working mainly. A few weekends ago Kevin and I went to Waterloo to conquer  the Andrew Luck corn maze. It was a pretty big maze and we thought it would take forever but it ended up only taking us around two hours. It was broken down into two phases and it was designed so that you couldn't really get very lost. I would have preferred one that was a bit harder but we had a good time.

Charlene has been dropping the baby off at our house on Thursdays and at first he was not a big fan of Silas but now they are best friends and big time trouble making duo. Aaron likes to give Silas his baby toys and Silas chews them up. Silas likes to give Aaron his dog toys and Aaron chew on them. (It is gross and I try to immediately stop them from chewing on each others toys.) They also like to play chase. Aaron runs, well runs as much as a toddler can run, from the kitchen to our bedroom and Silas 'chases' him then they run back to the kitchen. They play this little game for usually about 15 minutes before finding some other way to get into trouble. I am actually amazed at how gentle Silas is with him, he will let Aaron  take food from his mouth mid-chew.

While I am not an overly religious person I believe there is a reason Silas came into our lives. I had been looking at adoptable dogs for a few weeks and I even had showed Kevin some and he had said no to all of them. Then I found Silas. I knew from the second I saw his picture he was supposed to be mine. I sent Kevin a picture of him and he said "I have to meet him first". I was shocked I thought he would say no. When we went to the shelter we instantly fell in love with him, there was no doubt in my mind that he was meant to come home with us. I have said it many many times and others have said it too, he would not get the love and treatment he gets from us from anyone one else. Silas has had a great deal of problems and I am sure there will be many more but I wouldn't trade him for any other dog in the world. I wish I had a billion dollars so I could save more dogs like Silas.

As many of you know awhile ago Silas hurt his knee at the dog park well it still hadn't gotten better so last Friday we took him to the vet, this time seeing the doctor I like. She gave us devastating news. She give him an overall check-up and then really checked out his knees and the way he walked. While she watched him walk she said he look very stiff and uncomfortable. She then checked out his hips and said everything was pointing to hip dysplasia but we would need to bring him back for x-rays to confirm. I was not happy and went home and researched hip dysplasia for hours until I was ready to become a full time drug dealer because I was going to pay $10,000 for Silas to get full hip replacement surgery. Kevin said no to surgery, he said we would let Silas be until he was in too much pain and then we would put him down. Needless to say I was dreading the x-rays because if you know us and Silas we/he can not catch a break and I knew it would come back with bad news. We took him to the vet on Friday where we spent nearly $500 for x-rays, we are the vet's number one customers and she did give us a slight discount. I upped our bill by $80 because I wanted him to have the optional pre-anesthesia testing. The vet called me around 10:30 to say that he was done and recovering and his x-rays looked good. He was finally awake enough to come home around 4 so we went to meet with the vet in person and bring my baby home. She said everything looked perfect. There were no signs of hip dysplasia at all, she said the spine looked good to her, and his knees looked good although they are a bit loose but she said that was okay because he is still growing and may grow out of it. Good news: no problems!!! Bad news: no answers. The vet posted his x-rays to an online vet page where vets talk about hard cases and such. She is hoping someone can help give answers or ideas if not our next option is to pay a radiologist to look at the x-rays. When we got him home he was still all loopey, it was sad yet still funny. Silas has new meds to help with the pain and see if it hels with the stiffness.