Summer

I am now officially finished with the spring semester of school. I will be taking one summer class in hopes to get it out of the way. This is going to be a short blog because I really only have one thing to say . . .

I MADE THE DEAN'S LIST !!

(4 A's and 1 B)

I Know - - I Take FOREVER!!

Okay, so I know my birthday was almost a month ago, but here's how it went down.

My birthday was on a Thursday which meant that I got out of class around lunchtime. That was a good thing considering I needed to go to the DMV to get my license renewed. (1. it expired that day and 2. I needed to get the "under 21" taken off). Okay, so I went to to the DMV - no big deal - I was only there for about an hour, maybe an hour and a half, and I was all done - brand new license (no "under 21") and I was ready to go.

So, my 21st birthday - can you guess what I did to celebrate . . . WRONG!!! I studied for a test that I had the next day - some birthday, huh?

(just in case you were wondering - I got an A on the test)

The next day (Friday), Mom and Dad took me out to celebrate my birthday. I had been wanting to go to Texas de Brazil for a long time. Mom and Dad had both been and they loved it and talked about how amazing it was. I really wanted to go because not only do I love food, but I've kinda gotten into cooking lately so I wanted to see the different ways foods could be prepared. A little culinary adventure of my own I guess. Mom got reservations for us to go eat that night and I must say - - IT WAS AMAZING!! First of all, anything wrapped in bacon is going to be incredible. Second of all, mashed potatoes are good no matter what's in them. I tried lamb (not impressed), fillet mignon wrapped in bacon (heaven on a plate), flank steak (melted like butter), chicken breast wrapped in bacon (did I mention BACON!), beef ribs (I prefer pork ribs - cooked by Daddy), and Brazilian sausage (Whoo!). We had a dish of garlic mashed potatoes that we all shared (I was immediately in love), and fried bananas that were supposed to cleanse your palate after each food (I don't know about the cleansing part - but those were some good bananas). We also each got a plate from the salad/side bar that has . . . about a million things on it. Everything from ordinary salad ingredients to roasted peppers to tuna sushi - I tried somethings that I didn't even know what they were. So basically, dinner was AWESOME!!

After dinner, we went over the the Peabody Hotel and sat in the lobby to "people watch." Really we went there because Daddy thought it would be fun for us to have a drinks to celebrate my 21st birthday. So we sat down at a table in the lobby near the bar. One of the waitresses came over and gave us a drink menu. We all decided what we wanted and then she came back and we told her what we wanted to drink (shot of Crown on the rocks - strawberry daiquiri - and then me - Apple Martini). I was reaching into my purse to get my license when I noticed . . . . she had walked away. Our waitress took down our drink orders and then left - SHE DIDN'T CARD ME!! I couldn't believe it, my first day to order an alcoholic drink and I didn't even get to show off my shiny new license. I have to admit, though, I wasn't real upset about it - just kinda surprised.

I guess what I'm saying is that I had an incredible birthday. Dinner was amazing and the Peabody was a lot of fun. It was a great way to "cap off" all the other things I got for my birthday prior to the actual day. Now I'm legal - whoop-dee-doo.

Ugh

I'm sick . . .


and Finals are two weeks away . . .


Ugh!

Rusty - Booh Bear

Some of you may know that we have been taking care of Rusty - Tony, Kristen, and Madison's puppy - until they find out where they are going to be stationed next. Well, two weeks ago (March 1) early Saturday morning, Rusty and Angel (our dog) both went outside and Rusty was hit by a car. I wasn't at home, but Mom and Dad were able to get him to the Emergency Animal Hospital in about 30-45 minutes. It was really scary to begin with when we found out what all was wrong. Initially, we were told that he had a dislocated hip and that was all. Well, later they found that he had a ruptured spleen so he had to have surgery done that day to have his spleen removed. The ruptured spleen leaked fluid into his abdomen so there was a chance that he could get an infection. He also had a lot of bruising on his underside.

--This happened the Saturday before Mom and I were supposed to leave on Tuesday to go to Washington.--

He had to stay at the Emergency Animal Hospital over the weekend and Mom and I went a visited him a lot. He had an IV in, his temperature was low, and his red blood cell count was low. It was a tough weekend. We picked him up Monday morning and transferred him to our local Animal Hopsital. At that point he was doing better, but he wasn't eating and his red blood cell count was still low. We arranged for him to be able to stay a few days extra at the Animal Hospital so that he could get the extra care he needed and so that Mom and I could still go on our trip. We called and checked on him everyday, and we were really confident that he was being taken really good care of. We could tell that he had a great doctor and all the ladies and the Animal Hospital absolutely fell in love with him.

We brought him home this past Monday (March 10). He was so happy to be home, he was able to hobble over to us at the Animal Hospital with his tail wagging like crazy. As of now, he still has a dislocated hip, a fractured pelvis, and a bandaged rear paw. He had most of his staples taken out Friday (March 14), but a few had to stay in to finish healing. The doctors are waiting for his fractured pelvis to heal on its own before they go in and do surgery to fix his dislocated hip. His paw is bandaged due to "dead skin sloughing off," and we have to take him in every other day to have his bandages changed. All of his bruising is almost completely gone, he's almost done with all of his antibiotics, anti-inflammatory medicine, and we found out that his red blood cell count is back up and really, really close to where it needs to be.

He's in really good spirits and he wants to move around and be wherever we are, so it's difficult to keep him from walking around too much. We have to keep him still because the more he walks around the longer it will take for his fractures to heal. Right now we are trying to find a puppy food that he will eat, because he's not interested in his old dog food and until we find something he will eat we have to "force feed" him through a syringe.

I think I've covered everything. He's been through an awful lot the past couple of weeks and he still has a pretty long road to full recovery, but he's doing really good. His doctor brags on him every time she sees him and all the ladies at the Animal Hospital love seeing when he comes for check-ups. He's such a happy puppy it'll be great when he can run around play like he wants to so bad.

WASHINGTON

Okay, so the trip that Mom and I took to Washington to see Tony, Kristen, and Madison went great. While we were there, we celebrated Madison's 1st birthday. Kristen posted pictures of her "wearing" her birthday cake (thedearmonds.blogspot.com).

However, the crowning glory of our trip was Mt. Baker. We went snowboarding to celebrate my birthday early and it was amazing. Kristen and I were the only girls that went, but Tony and a few of his buddies (Dawson, Thor, and Flournoy) went which made it incredibly intertaining. Mom stayed home with Madison so they could have a day to themselves and also so that Madison would have some freedom instead of being cooped up in the lodge all day.

I have always wanted to go snowboarding, it's always been on that list of "Things To Do Before I Die." Well - now it's done. It was so much fun. I used more muscles than I even knew I had (which made the plane ride home a little stiff). I was able to stand up and get going on the board, my only problem was the stopping part. The only way I knew how to stop was to . . . fall. Well, apparently whenever I fall on hard-packed snow I don't just land . . . I bounce - and flip - and tumble. I don't regret it thought. All the pain is gone and I have great memories - I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Those boots are not only hard to walk in but also difficult to get off the board.

That's the tow rope that took us up the "bunny hill." Looks easy, right? No - it's not.

That's me in the middle (the horizontal black line) - flat on my face.

I finally got the hang of staying upright.

But, this is the only way I could stop.

RASCAL FLATTS!

This past weekend I was able to go to the Rascal Flatts concert. I went with Becca because her parents got tickets to surprise her as an early birthday present.

The concert was incredible. Kellie Pickler opened up and sang a few of her songs. I didn't know all of her songs, but needless to say I've already bought a few on iTunes. She was really funny on stage talking to the audience.

Rascal Flatts of course was amazing. They sang a lot of their older songs along with a few from their newest album. It was great because I knew almost all of their songs. I got some pretty good pictures. I was clever enough to figure out how to take a picture with my digital camera through the binocular lens to get an even better shot.

The entire night was great. I already loved Rascal Flatts but now I love them even more, and now I love Kellie Pickler just as much.

Puppies

Here are some pictures of the puppies, Angel and Rusty.

Rusty is technically Madison's puppy - but we still love him like our own.

Daddy likes to get down in the floor and get them both running around like crazy.

Rusty LOVES Angel - she could definitely live without him.

He just looks sad, he's not though. He's really a happy, HAPPY puppy. He LOVES it here.