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.

And now for New Years....I am getting caught up!

I love new years. I also love Disneyland. So this year I decided to put them together and take my little sister with me. Since neither of us drink it didn't matter that we would be spending New Years in a dry location. We both had so much fun. My little sister is about as far as you can get from being shy and so we made lots of friends in every line that we stood in. I put lots of pictures on here to share the good times with y'all.

Here we are on our first day in DL standing in line for Indy. The line was 120 minutes long, but we made great friends with the girl standing behind us and a family that we stood next to when the line bent just right.

Look! We made it inside!!! YAY!

Can you see the Hidden Mickey on the wall? Thanks Christian and Stephanie for the AWESOME book. It really kept us entertained while standing in lines!!

We made it to the Jeeps!! w00t!!

After Indy we went over to Pirates....More Hidden Mickey's to find!!

I know it is hard to see....but the hidden mickey is in the brick wall. All the fog in this ride really made it hard for the camera to get a good shot.

Here is another at the end of the Pirates ride. So much fun!

Grrr....Argh!!

Then we walked around DL to look at all the decorations getting ready for New Years Eve.

Worst ride ever....but pretty shiny lights!

While we were walking through "It's a Small World Plaza" (I didn't know it had a name previous to this trip) it started to snow!! It wasn't even fireworks time! Too much fun!

My self portrait in the snow!

DAY 2!!

Got a snapshot of this Hidden Mickey on our way to Space Mountain to use our Fast Passes.

That was WAY faster than Indy's line!!

So this is on the big space ship that is over the line....how are you supposed to step on here....or NOT step here??

AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

On our way out of Space Mountain we decided to pick up my new boyfriend! I have such a soft spot for the short ones! Plus they worship me!!

We didn't take too many pictures until later that night....

here we are standing in line for the Matterhorn.

Don't let the Yeti get you!!!

We stopped to rock out with "Suburban Legends" before heading over to "It's a Small World Plaza" to bring in the new year with my top 80's and 90's hits!! This band ROCKED!!! We went to 2 of their sets. Here is their myspace link. Check them out! http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=121017

Rockin Out!!

Right before midnight!! This picture was taken by the couple that got engaged on the stage right in front of everybody...too funny. Lauren and I are both anti-relationship right now and so when anything was said about hooking up with the one you loved, both of us shouted that we were happily single and loving it! So when we realized that the couple on stage was the couple that had been standing behind us all night it was pretty hilarious.

Well, I didn't get a New Year's Kiss, but I gave one!!

DAY 3!!

We went out for brunch at Rainforest Cafe. It was Lauren's first time in the Down Town Disney one.

We went to Turtle Talk with Crush on our last day. I swam with Nemo in his reef.

So according to the book I have these qualify as Hidden Mickey's.... I am skeptical.

Our last picture waiting to talk with Crush. We were still exhausted from the night before.

Disneyland on New Years was EVERYTHING I hoped it would be! Going with my little sis totally rocked and I had a blast!! I can't wait to go back!

Wow....time for Christmas update....oops.

wow.... so I just thought "hey I should update my blog, maybe New Years Eve...?" NO! All the way back to Christmas!!! GEEZE!!! So here it goes!

Here is our replacement tree christmas morning....funny story. We typically don't leave the dogs inside when we leave. However, when it is really cold or really muddy out we will leave them in if we are only going to be gone for a little while. So- one fine morning we decided that they could stay inside and they would be let out after a while when one of us came home. Nikki was the first one home quickly followed by Rich. What they found my brand new fake tree (which I hated- fake trees SUCK!) on it's side and with animal refuse all over it. Aparently Ranger decided that we needed a new tree. He got his wish.

Ain't it perty!

And here it is all lit up at night!

This is the big kitty present! It goes all the way from the floor to the ceiling! 4 tiers! Then we sprayed it with catnip spray! Heisman went NUTS!!!

He is such a hussy...

So then we all opened presents and stockings....

we had 12 stockings on our mantle, and only 4 of them were for humans...

Nikki got all the stockings and passed them out.

Nikki's new shirt

Rich opening presents too!

Ok- so here was the highlight of Christmas. Seth bought Nikki tickets to the San Diego/ Colorado (I think) football game. He got her plane tickets and everything she would need to make a trip to San Diego to see her team play. The following pictures pretty much tell the story on their own of her opening the present and figuring out what it was. Classic.

Yes. We know. Best Boyfriend EVER!

It was a great christmas with great friends.