Wednesday, December 28, 2011

First Emergency Room Visit

My poor Gussie. Let me just start off saying that this story includes me bawling crying at least 6 times, so bear with me. 


Yesterday, I was walking my sweet little man in the neighborhood. I had big plans of going to a movie with a friend and I felt bad about leaving him alone for a few hours. Walks usually get him pretty tired so I hoped he would nap most of the time I was gone. We set out on a random route through the neighborhood as per usual. Throughout the neighborhood, the sidewalks are up against the fences of each house. Well, maybe with like 6 inches of grass in between. Gus loves other dogs and people and is always so curious to meet anyone new. He always goes up to the fences where other dogs are to do his usual sniffing. Even if the other dog is barking, he'll go up just to say hi. He truly never barks, postures, or shows any signs of aggressions. If he did, I wouldn't let him get that close! Anyway, we were on the final stretch of our walk when he goes up to this one wrought iron fence with 3 dogs behind it. I think they were all pretty small, I honestly didn't get a good enough look. The next thing I know, one of them has it's head through the fence and has bitten and grabbed onto Gus's mouth. Gus was pulling back trying to get free while the other dog was pulling the opposite direction so I'm looking down at his lip being stretched out in this other dog's mouth. The other two were going crazy and barking while all of this is happening. I reach my hand down to try to get him off but it doesn't work. I finally put my foot through the fence to push the dog off. Gus is freed, he falls back onto the sidewalk. I kneel down at his side and see his lip cut up and that he is bleeding. I burst into tears and try to pick him up. He weighs more than 40 pounds so that was difficult! Plus, he was so worked up that he didn't want to be held. I immediately call Johnny at work who says he'll meet us at the vet. I was still about half a mile away from my car so we had to walk back. I felt so helpless! I called the vet on the way and since they only had one vet in the office at the time who was treating another emergency, they gave me the name of a vet close by I would call. After what felt like forever, I made it to the car and bolted for the vet's office. I called my friend and said I couldn't make it to the movie. Which was a total bummer because I was really looking forward to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo!


On the way to the vet, I tried to get pics but he would not cooperate! The pink on his fur is blood and you can see some of the scratch marks. However, the part I was most worried about was a split at the base of the lip. The skin was kind of hanging off (it was gross, I know.) Please excuse my face in the bottom right corner, I was trying to get a pic!

When we got to the vet, they saw us immediately. The doggie nurse said he would probably need sedation and stitches but that the vet would have to check him out first. When I was telling her what happened, I started sobbing again. She was so sweet and understanding. I was definitely more upset than Gus was. This was a pic from the vet's office. You can see the scratches better and where the split is closer to the center of his mouth. I was also worried about disease but they said the only disease we needed to worry about after a dog bite was rabies and since he was vaccinated, we were fine.

Just as the doggie nurses suspected, he did need stitches. Since he's a dog and stuff, he would have to be sedated. He didn't even need an IV, just a shot. They watched him for a few hours after the sedation to make sure he tolerated it. We picked up a very sleepy little boy 2 hours later. You can see how tired and swollen he is! They said he did very well during the procedure and cooperated nicely. Good boy! He slept from 6PM last night to 5AM this morning. I took him out and he went right back to sleep. 

This morning, he woke up with a vengeance! I guess he had to make up for being so tired yesterday. I took this picture today while we were playing outside. It kind of looks like ground meat. He would never sit still enough for me to get a good shot of the stitches and I did not want to push it.  Now, he has 2 weeks of antibiotics and they want to see him back in 10 days. 

I felt so terrible all day yesterday. I felt like I should have protected him from the other dog. I also felt bad because I am sure he was so scared while it was happening. I haven't decided how I'm going to tell those other owners. Obviously, I am not blaming their dog, he was in his yard and being protective of his property. However, the fence they have is not adequate if their dog can put his head through it. So, we'll see how it goes. 

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Merry Christmas x2

Merry post-Christmas! I hope everyone had a beautiful holiday!


We celebrate Christmas in several stages: big family, small family, couple family. Christmas Eve is always spent with all of the sisters (and their families) at my parents' house. The kiddos are too excited about presents so we start with that.


I got my first registry gift: Juliska plates!

I also got great gift cards and Christmas socks for next year.

Our tradition for Christmas Eve dinner stems from my dad's mom- stacked enchiladas. They are very easy to make and good for a crowd. You need:
Corn Tortillas
Red Enchilada Sauce
Green Enchilada Sauce
Ground Beef
Baked Chicken
Lettuce
Cheese
Pico de Gallo
Pretty much any topping you like on tacos

1. Cook your tortilla for about a minute in either sauce. 
2. Layer with meat. 
3. Cook another tortilla in either sauce.
4. Layer with meat.
5. Add your toppings.
Easy enough?

I worked Christmas Eve so after dinner, I headed to the hospital.

Christmas morning, I went back to my parents for Christmas #2. There, I got my second registry gift: Kitchen Aid Mixer with Ice Cream Maker attachment. So beautiful!

I also got some more gift cards and a Juliska service piece. 

We finished the morning eating breakfast while watching the Disney Christmas Parade. We all spent the day napping, snacking, playing Chicken Foot Dominos and enjoying our gifts. For dinner, we had beef tenderloin with yummy mashed potatoes with green beans. 

Later that night, Johnny and I exchanged our gifts. He got me a great Macy's gift card so I could choose something from the registry. I got him a wallet (brown, tri-fold, lots of pockets as requested), Vinturi wine stand, and an IOU for a new watch. The one he wanted was out of stock online and unable to be found in any stores, naturally. 

How can I forget the best Christmas present of all? Gus! Who knocked over my "Gus-proof" tree stand and broke 3 glass ornaments. But I still love him.

Friday, December 23, 2011

Oh Christmas Tree!

I usually get really excited about Christmas decorations, and this year was no different. The weekend after Thanksgiving, I gathered my goodies and set them out. I only use real Christmas trees so we were going to wait until a few weeks later to get our tree. Then Gus happened. Our four-legged friend took a distinct interest in the faux Christmas trees in the foyer of the complex and proceeded to break an ornament within the first 6 seconds of sniffing. I am not interested in any of my fave ornaments being broken by him so I made a compromise:

Brooke got this super cute metal swirl tree from Crate and Barrel so I rushed to get one. But they were out. And all over the state. And online. Wahhhh! So I headed to Pier 1 and found a smaller version:
I hung a few of my favorite ornaments on our make-shift Christmas tree. From top-to-bottom, left-to-right: 1) Pineapple from Williamsburg when we were at Katie's wedding. 1a) Can you see the hidden pickle? 2) Juliska ornament, gift from the Bartletts for our engagement. 3) Gold ball from Brooke. 4) Red ball from my mom's BFF, Lisa. 5) Christopher Radko UT ornament. 6) Round Top acorn ornament from "Winston." 7) Pink and green "e" ornament from the mommy. 8) Silver ball ornament from Randall's, no joke. 9) Christopher Radko Theta ornament. 10) Christopher Radko "Little Brown Bag" ornament from NYC.

Gus's first ornament! I know that the framed pic is of Winston but pictures of Gus are not here yet.

Our stockings on the "mantle!" I had the green and red stockings already and ordered a coordinating stocking for Gussies from Frontgate. I will have it monogrammed after Christmas. I wanted to be sure it would be here for Gus's first Christmas!

Merry Christmas! I'll post after the holidays too!

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Texans Game

Apparently last weekend was our "Houston Sporting Events Weekend." Because of my crazy fall work and play schedule, Sunday was my first Texans game of the season. My parents have season tickets and are always willing to share. Johnny has been to THREE games this season with their tickets. Now we all know who the favorite is. 

View from the seats. 

Kickoff! 



What a bummer game. When we were down 21-0, I thought to myself, "This is the game I get to go to?" Oh well. Even when we lose, pro football games are always fun. Looking forward to the playoffs! 

Aeros Game

My parents bought tickets for an Aeros game last Friday, and proceeded not to be able to go. Soooo they gave us the tix and we took our friends Katie and Jack. I have never been to a game before but it was so fun! They play in the Toyota Center so all of the seats are great!

Our first hockey fight!


As a promo deal, you can buy these rubber "pucks" to play a game during one of the breaks. The goal is to throw them as close to the center of the ice as possible where they've placed this helmet. It was much harder than I thought! They only went like 10 yards and you only had 30 seconds to throw your pucks, hence no pic. 

I would love to go back to a game! Fun times for a weekend night. 

Brooke's Bday Part 2

For Brooke's "friend" birthday party, we went to Collina's in the Heights for some yummy dinner. This place has amazing pizza and it is BYOB!


For dessert, I ordered a birthday pack from Sprinkles! They have a couple of options of flavor combos, I chose red velvet, chocolate and vanilla. Yum!

Even Winston and Gus got a doggie treat too! 

Happy birthday, Brooke! 

Monday, December 19, 2011

Adopt-a-Family

This year, my Wino Wednesday happy hour group participated in Houston Children's Charity's Adopt-a-Family for Christmas. My friend, Annie, put it together and I thought it was a wonderful idea! I was so touched by the generosity of our group that I decided I wanted to adopt a family of our own. I recruited my family to help.

I contacted Houston Children's Charity and we were given a family with 4 children, ages 7 months to 9 years. When the families apply to be adopted, they have to submit proof of income and government aid. My family brought in less than $400 a month, including government aid. I knew we had to do something great for the family! We are all so blessed and this is really the least we could do. 

After talking to the mom and finding out the kids' interests, we made a trip to Target and went a little crazy. I also went to CostCo and bought packs of diapers for the two still in diapers, as well as a Kroger gift card. We delivered the gifts this past weekend and it was so fun! The family was so appreciative and it felt so good to know they would have a good Christmas. I am definitely going to continue this every season and I encourage you to do the same! 

Brooke's Birthday Part 1

Last week, Brooke celebrated her birthday with several get-togethers. I think I've said this before, but our family likes to extend our birthdays as long as possible. First par-tay, family dinner at Melting Pot. She chooses this as her family dinner every year, and you get no complaints from me! We always do the 4-course fondue feast. 

We started off with 2 different cheeses to pair with breads, veggies and apples.


We then had a salad and moved on to the meats! We got a mix of everything. The pork and lobster were my favorites.


Birthday girl with the desserts!

Lights in the Heights

Today will be blog-a-palooza since I've been a slacker recently. First up: Lights in the Heights! This was the post from last year. To freshen your memory, LITH is a neighborhood festival the second Saturday of December. The city was trying to scale-down the party this year because it became too expensive. They took away the parade (which I never went to), changed the hours (roads only closed from 6PM-9PM), and no vendors (which I never bought from). I think we still had a blast! 

My house is only 2 blocks away from the route so we started there with some drinks and appetizers. 




Katherine had a work Christmas party later that night but did not miss the chance to hang for a few hours. Reason #485 why I love her.


This is a pretty good example of what makes Lights so great! Pretty house, decorated for Christmas, with a band for everyone to enjoy!


Sisters!


Johnny and Kyle made some new friends!

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Ornament Exchange

My mom's BFF, Lisa, has hosted an ornament exchange for the past several years. Sunday, we headed to Lisa's for the par-tay! This year, we dressed up in tacky Christmas gear. Below is the sweater I wore. My mom gets really defensive about this sweater because it was "expensive" and from Neiman Marcus. I actually believe that it is from Neiman's because she still has the box... This pic of the sweater is from a party last year. Eww, my hair is too long. The sweater is 100% sequins and weighs about 20 pounds:

We had some pretty handsome bartenders!

All of the ornaments!

We do the rule of "3rd owner." Meaning, each gift can be opened and then stolen twice. The 3rd person to get the gift is the final owner. Brooke's, my mom's, and my ornaments were all received by the 3rd owner. Meaning, we're good at picking our ornaments. 


Friday, December 9, 2011

Gus!

Move over, Johnny! There is a new man in my life! Meet the newest addition to our family: Gus

Background: Johnny and I have always LOVED English Bulldogs. That is actually how we started talking again after college. On my Facebook profile (remember when people used to read the profiles? Remember when that was all that Facebook was?), my interests included "my future English Bulldog Georgia." Johnny messaged me one day randomly talking about how he liked English Bulldogs too. We chatted back and forth for awhile before he finally asked me out and the rest is history! Anywho, for the past few months, he has been looking up pets online religiously. He'll show me pictures and ask what I think. I was hesitant to get a dog while living on the second floor of our building. I wanted to wait until we were in a house-house to get a dog so that I wouldn't have to get dressed or put on shoes to let him out. Yeah, I'm pretty lazy. 

On Monday, Johnny showed me a picture of an English Bulldog on his phone and asked if I liked him. I said "Oh, he's so cute," thinking it was just him doing his nightly research. Then he responds with, "Well I told the guy that if he was still available on Thursday that you and I would go get him." I was like "What? Ahhhhhhhhh!" I loved him immediately. 

Details: this little nugget is 8 months old from Dickinson. Johnny says that he is a country dog that needs to get used to city life. The family just couldn't take care of him anymore so they put him for sale. I like the idea of getting a young dog, but not too puppy-ish. Puppy teeth are really sharp and you have to train them from the beginning. I also like that he is a semi-rescue. One of the bulldog rescue sites I frequent always has dogs that are literally dumped on the side of the road because people can't care for them. So it's a win-win for both of us. 

This is weird. 
1. I never let myself get too excited because I was afraid it could be a scam. What if we showed up and the dog was sick? Or they wanted extra cash on the spot? Luckily, that didn't happen. We met the husband and wife in the Kroger parking lot in Dickinson (south on the Gulf Freeway, past the Ritz if you're interested), and they were very nice. 
2. What if I wasn't a good Mommy? What if he didn't love me? Well, I think he loves us. Well, he really loves food and we give him food so if A=B and B=C then A=C. 

I mean, how cute?


What we have learned about him so far:
1. He makes a MESS when drinking his water.

2. He LOVES his Kong.

3. He is interested in everything. I was trying to get a picture of him under the table chewing his Kong but he saw me and charged!

4. Did I mention he loves his Kong?

5. He snores... as expected for bulldogs. Because of the anatomy of their airways, they just makes lots of noises.

6. He is very friendly! He loves to be pet and loved-on and for his tummy to be rubbed. He met lots of new dogs at Petsmart and in our building and was so sweet. He is not aggressive at all and just wants to sniff and play. 

We are crate-training him. He will stay in his crate when we are gone and to sleep. When we left last night to go to Celebration at church he whined and it broke my heart! He was so happy to see us when we got home. When it was bedtime, he whined in his crate for about 20 minutes (I have a recording of his pitiful whimper) then fell fast asleep. I woke up at 4AM to go to the bathroom and he didn't even notice, some guard dog! I laid awake for over an hour worrying about him and his life and if he's happy and healthy and if he loves us. I guess that is what crazy mothers do. When my alarm went off this morning, I had to wake him up! He was very excited to be awake with me and gobbled up his food in no time flat. I'll stop babbling like an obsessed parent and leave you with this cutie pic.

His ears flop back when he looks up. I am so in love.




Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Engagement Party!

This past weekend, my parents hosted an engagement party for us. We had a blast! I still had no camera (problem now solved, new camera arrived Monday!) so I am waiting on the Judy to upload her pics. Evan did a post about it so you can see some additional pics. 


We started the evening with tons of yummy appetizers and drinks. Story on the drinks: My mom and I went to Spec's on the Wednesday prior to place our order. They help you decide how much you need, order what you choose, and then they put it all together and chill the cold stuff. You can pick it up whenever you need. Naturally, we nominated Johnny to pick up the order and naturally he nominated me to go with him. When we got to Spec's on Friday and asked for help, the guy said, "Oh. Is this for that really big order?" Yes, yes it is.


For the food, we used Demeris Catering. Demeris is a Houston family that owns a BBQ restaurant and has expanded to large-scale catering. Our family has used them several times before for BBQ catering and this time we branched out to Pasta Alfredo with Chicken. I highly recommend Demeris. They are very easy to work with, always on time, polite, and bring tons of food! Yummy.


For dessert, we did a S'Mores bar. It was a hit! We had:
Graham Crackers: traditional honey flavor, cinnamon, and chocolate
Gingerbread Men Cookies
Chocolates: traditional Hershey's, Hershey's Cookies and Cream, Andes, Reece's peanut butter cups
Marshmallows


The worst part was individually unwrapping every. single. candy.


For the fire: I got a wee bit scared because we couldn't get it to light! (By "we" I mean Johnny, but I like to pretend that me standing 2 yards away giving my 2 cents was "helping.") We had 2 types of wood: 1. Given by a friend and 2. some that we bought from Kroger. "We" started with the donated wood and it (truly) was my suggestion to just use the Kroger wood and it lit! We had previously purchased camping skewers from Target to use. Everyone was able to make their own s'mores bar and it was so funny to see all of the combinations. 


The best part was that we had so many friends come! We had several out-of-town guests and that meant so much! We are blessed to be surrounded by such great people. I am looking forward to all of the festivities to follow!

Friday, December 2, 2011

The Shack

Book of Choice


The Shack
By: William P. Young


Background:
All of my family has read this book and said it was amazing. I only read the first paragraph of the summary so I had NO idea what was about to happen to me. I thought the story was going to be a murder-mystery... it is acutally a religious book. Shocker! It tells the tale of a father whose daughter is kidnapped and murdered and the trouble he has with his relationship with God afterward. He has a spiritual experience in which he meets God (well, the Holy Trinity, really) and is able to ask the hard questions.


First Thoughts:
I was almost scared of the book. How can God answer the hard questions the father had? How can He let something like that happen to a child? I didn't think the book would be able to answer these questions and I did not want to be disappointed. My mom kept saying, "It will work out, just keep reading."


Final Thoughts: 
I was talking to my friend Elizabeth about the book and it's meaning. She summed it up pretty well: "He loves us and He gave us free will, which some people abuse and do horrible things with." Well that still doesn't make it ok, right? I did feel a little more at peace after finishing the book, but not 100%. I guess that will have to do for now. I think I will need to re-read the book when something devastating happens and see how I feel. I also ear-marked some good points of the book that I will share later. Overall, a good spiritual book to read that is not too in-your-face.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Texas Tech vs Baylor

This weekend, we headed to Dallas for the Texas Tech vs Baylor football game. It was held at the new Cowboy Stadium. Johnny had been before for a tour of the stadium and it was my first time. We had a blast! 


I worked Friday night so we hit the road as soon as I got home. Luckily, I slept the whole time while Johnny and his friend did the driving. We got to Dallas around noon and went to set up the tailgate. It. Was. Cold. The actual temperature was fine, but the crazy wind was just too much. The Tech people were used to it from their days in Lubbock, but I spent my college years warm and cozy in Austin.

Luckily, I had my blanket from the car ride up to keep me warm.

Cowboy Stadium was so HUGE and great. I had a really good time. There were about 20 of us sitting together so we were probably not our neighbor's favorite. We were told that because it was a Baylor home game, alcohol wouldn't be served. I thought that didn't sound right.


My only dislike was that they played the bands over the sound system. That is kind of the point of college bands, ya know? To be able to hear them on your own. 

Soooo, the game didn't turn out exactly how Johnny had hoped. Here is a glimpse of his misery. 
Thanks for the free hat, State Farm!

I love neutral-venue games! I am sure there are tons more in the future thanks to Mr. Jones!