OMG!!! There is a shark in my sink!!!!

Ya that is right!  There is a 3 foot long lepoard shark in my kitchen sink!!  It is really pretty!

Isn't it cool!!!  My roomie caught it and is cooking it for dinner tonight! I am so excited!!!

Here he is getting ready for dinner!!

Have a great day!!

Finally got some birthday pics... ;)

So, for my birthday in Januaury my totally rockin friends threw me a surprise birthday party!  I know, you wish they were your friends - but too bad. They are already mine.  They surprised me at Hard Rock Cafe in Sactamento (one of my favorite places to eat) and then took me ice skating!  I have been wanting to go for the past 2 or 3 years and no one would go with me....well this time everyone that I love was there!!!  of course there were a few that couldn't make it, but is was all good!  It was so much fun!!  Here are the pictures from Mark! Thanks bud!

The whole group! I am so loved!!

Still in a little shock....

Nikki, Chris and Rachel at Hard Rock

HONK!!!

Me and Mark

At Hard Rock with my Cinderlah cake!

Nikki, Rachel and Mark

Nikki, Me, Rachel and Chris

Me and Nikki

Nikki Cruizin!!

Nikki and Mark

Me and my BFF's!

Me and My Boy Clay!

Go Chris! Go!

Me and My Roomies -1.....

Me with the guys!

My other roomie!!

End of the night group!

I had so much fun kickin it with all my friends.  Thanks so much for all the love guys!!

days off in the middle of the week....

This is a new thing for me...I am used to having Saturday and Sunday off every week. So this having Wednesday and Thursday off in the middle of the week is kinda unusual for me...  It is hard getting used to.  

anyway...yesterday morning I was sleeping in when I got a text from a co-worker, Miguel.  He needed a ride to work and so I jumped out of bed and helped him out.  When we got to Wal-Mart I remembered that I had to pick up my prescription from the pharmacy so I stuck around for a while (45 minutes) and decided what I should have for breakfast with the help of my new friend Dan.  I decided on apple juice and cinnamon rolls.  it was a great choice.

That night I went to my friend Clay's house and he made me shrimp scampi with linguine for dinner (with garlic bread of course) and then we watched Kung Fu Panda. Well, I watched part of it. I fell asleep on the floor watching it.  I woke up to Clay's roommate walking out of his room being pretty excited that I was awake so he could play Resident Evil....the new one on PS3.  I told him that he could have just kicked me and told me to go home and sleep.  But both of Clay's roomies told me that would just be rude and that they were fine with waiting until I woke up.  I was also invited to sleep on the couch if I was too tired to drive home, but I know which video games I need to avoid watching.  Resident Evil is close to the top of that list.  So I left and enjoyed sleeping in my own bed.

Then today I met an old friend that I had lost contact with for lunch.  Ok, so it is a little more dramatic than that... The old friend is Richie, Chloe's dad.  We haven't seen each other in person for a little over 7 years and just recently started talking online and texting.  Well, we went out to lunch and it was great.  I was worried that it would be awkward, but it wasn't.  We just ate and chatted.  Nothing big, but nice.

Then I came home wrote a paper for my psych class and chilled for the night.

Good times, good people, and putting the past in the behind.  (HA!!)

Work, Mid-Terms and Birthdays!!

I am on my 2nd week working at Wal-Mart and so far having fun for the most part.  I have decided that working retail is one of the easiest jobs that I will ever have.  After working with my autistic kids every single day, consistantly learning new techinques and writing and presenting new behavior plans and reports, and dealing with difficult parents and funding sources....retail is almost brainless!!!  I spend the day stocking shelves, answering questions, cleaning racks and fishing lobsters out of the tank.  Not much brain work is required to clean and stock....and the lobsters are fun to chase down.  (and there are a few cuties that I work with....)  ;)

I am currently studying for my marriage and family psych test that covers 4 chapters..... I am not too stressed out about it, but and reading the material just to be safe.  I just took my anthropology mid-term and got an 88% on it....I got that going for me, so that's kinda nice....  (HA!)

Last night I went up to Merry's house and celebrated Lindsay and Tommy's birthdays.  It was very nice.  I met John's (Merry's husband) parents.  They are very devout catholic and when we passed out Merry's Jesus coasters his mom was slightly offended that we would be putting a glass of lemonade on Jesus' face.  She kept saying that is was disrespectful and that his face should not be used as a tool.  Well, I must be hanging out with Tommy-John too much because I said "No way man! It's like he's got your back! He is there for you no matter what! If you need him to forgive you, he is there. If you need him to protect your table from your glass of lemonade, he is there.... there is nothing too small for him!"  I don't think that she took that too well cuz she didn't talk to me much for the rest of the night.... I thought it was clever.

Lauren and John

Chug!!!

Ariana and Tommy

Tommy and Lindsay

Again....

Lindsay and Mom with the coconut cake!!

Lauren and Tommy and the german chocolate cake

AAAAAHHHHHCHOOOO!!!!

Also- here are some pictures of Sasha.  She is back to being her puppy self!! Rowdy and all over the place!  The most awesome thing is that now that she has recovered from Parvo she has the antibodies in her blood.  So once she is old enough and weighs enough she can be a blood donor to save other puppies that contract Parvo and are at their last try recieving blood transfusions.  I think this is so awesome!!!  What better way could you show your gratitude for a healthy, happy pup then by saving someone else's pup?!?!   Simply rad.

Travis and Sasha

Sasha and her monkey

Happy and healthy again!

Seriously- The Longest 2 Weeks EVER!!!

Ugh...It has been such a long 2 weeks.  I am hoping that it is finally over though. 

 Just in the past 2 weeks the following has happened in my house:

-Brought Sasha home to potty train her.

-Sasha brought Parvo virus to my house to share with all the other dogs

-Took Sasha to the vet and spent 3 hours in isolation while the vet taught me and my mom how     to put in her IV. (There is a reason that I do NOT want to be in any sort of medical profession.)

-Went home and bleached every wall, door, window, counter and hard surface in the house

-Rented a carpet shampooer and cleaned every carpet in the house

-Gave all the animals a bath- that is 4 cats and 4 dogs.

-Started 4 adults worth of laundry - including all bedding.

-Watched smoke billow out of the dryer

-Raided a laundry mat

-Took Cassidy to the vet to get her update shots

-Put the house back together

-Took an ice flavored shower and watched my leg hair grow back as I shaved it

-Called the repair man for the water heater who came out, said it was fixed, left and left behind a   broken water heater.

-Had my car broken into and my GPS stolen

-Went to a friends house to take a heat flavored shower

-While at the friends house recieved a call from a stranger to let me and Nikki know that the           dogs got out.

-Arrived home to a toppled gate and no dogs.

-Searched the neighborhood for 3 run away dogs

-Found the dogs and fixed the fenceb

-Went to court to file more divorce papers

-Found out that I have to go back to court tomorrow to file more papers....

and in the midst of all that I started a new job at Wal-mart.  WHEW!!! What a couple of  weeks!

BUT- for those of you waiting to find out about Shasha-  She started eating and drinking yesterday and was running around the house today!  I don't want to say she is cured- but she is definately feeling better!! 

YAY SHASHA!!!! 

and Great work Mom! She couldn't have made it without all your hard work!

Finally A Parvo Free House!!

So- since poor Sasha was diagnosed with Parvo we asked the vet what we needed to do to insure that, even though our dogs are all vaccinated, none of them would get Parvo since it is highly contagious.

We bleached all the walls in the house from the floor to shoulder height- no joke.  My and my roomies fingerprints are burned off and the tips of all our fingers are split from dealing with bleach directly.  None of us thought to use gloves until all our fingers were done for.  Then we washed everything that could have directly or indirectly come in contact with the puppy.  After that we started to wash all bedding, clothes and toys that could have become contaminated.  Let me tell you that is a lot of laundry with 4 people and 4 dogs.  While laundry was being done one load at a time we vacuumed and shampooed the carpets.  All this was done between noon on Friday and 5 on Saturday.  At about 3pm on Saturday however my dryer exploded.  Lots of smoke, electrical burnt smell, burned rubber smell....it was awesome.  I just about broke down... What a crazy, stressful week.  

So we bagged up all the laundry and stuck it in the back of Nikki's truck.  This morning at around 11 we headed to the laundry mat.  We descended upon that laundry mat like a hoard of locusts.  It took 24 machines to wash all the laundry and 22 dryers to dry everything.  Luckily, there were very few people in the laundry mat at the time so we used all the machines at the same time and finished washing and drying all that laundry by 1:30.  It was CRAZY!!! 

So- now our house is Parvo free and all our laundry is completed- but I don't have a dryer anymore.  Good thing I start my job on Tuesday!!

Sasha the Cutie!!....Parvo the not so cute.

So my Ex-Step mom (whom I still call mom) got a new puppy and was having trouble potty training it. Enter Super Julie (not-unlike Super Grover) to save the carpets!! I offered to take her home for a couple weeks to get the training under control.  Here are a few pics of her so you can understand just how cute she is!!

Here she is in her crate just waiting for her potty time.

Outside on a potty break!

Yay!! Another potty break!

I brought her to my house on Wednesday afternoon.  So she was doing so great with the crate training.  However, on Wednesday night she vomited all her food that she had eaten that day.  Now I have been around dogs all my life and know that it is not necessarily an emergency if a puppy vomits.  Wednesday evening she wouldn't eat any dinner- also not an alarm since she went from a 2 dog household to a 4 dog household and from free feeding to a set schedule.  She still wouldn't eat on Thursday morning when we fed all the other dogs and stopped taking treats for successful pottying outside.  Mid Thursday she developed diarrhea and I was concerned, but still not hyper-alert.  Puppies always have issues especially when environments and schedules change.  Thursday night she still didn't eat and continued her vomiting and diarrhea.  Now I was was officially worried but decided that I would wait to see if she would eat on Friday morning.  No such luck.  That is when I noticed that she also had blood in her diarrhea.  I immediately called my mom and told her the news.  I then called the vet and told them the symptoms.  The informed me that it sounded like Parvo, but not to worry yet because it could be any number of things.  YIKES!!!!  So I took her into the vet and they admitted her into an isolation room, stuck a Q-Tip in her behind and then tested her for Parvo.

The test came up more than positive.  florescent blue is what the vet tech said. She definitely has Parvo.  I started to cry. She is such a cute puppy.  Parvo is very close to deadly in puppies under 5 months old and Sasha is only 3.5 months.  So without getting in to what Parvo is and how it attacks the pups body I will say that it is extremely painful for the puppy and that vaccination is the best way to prevent this terrible virus from getting your pup.  Sasha is currently at my mom's home getting sub-cutaneous re-hydration along with the anti-biotic every 12 hours and an anti-vomit med every 24 hours.  My mom says that while she hasn't eaten anything yet she remains in semi-good spirits and my mom is hopeful that she will pull through.  Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.  And PLEASE vaccinate your puppies so that they don't have to suffer through this incredibly painful and highly deadly virus.