Dumb Dog

What an emotional weekend we had! It started off great with Nate and I going camping Friday night in the beautiful Rocky Mountains where we were constantly reminded of why we are happy to be back in Colorado. Saturday was spent catching up on sleep, then mowing the lawn and getting things ready to be donated while Lisa and Austin spent a large part of Saturday at his season-ending basketball tournament in Denver (his team finished on Saturday with a 2-0 record and avoided the consolation bracket!). That evening the boys went with their friends to the movies: Ironman (Austin and friends) or Prince Caspian (Nathan and friends). While they were out Lisa and I loaded up the van with the items to be donated. Unfortunately, we left the front door open a little too long and off went Leo! It couldn't have been more than 10 minutes until we noticed that he was gone, but that is plenty of time for him. He is a runner with high anxiety levels and is very curious. He's been on several walks around our area, but we feared that he may get too far away by the time his curiosity expires and he is looking to return home. We proceeded to look for him, starting in our neighborhood and eventually encompassing a large part of Broomfield until it became dark and we had to head home and file a report. We were worried, sad, etc... and we still had to tell the boys when they got home.

Sunday was spent at the conclusion of Austin's basketball tournament which meant that we had to call all of the shelters and various animal control units in the Denver metro area while still cheering him on through hours of games and waiting between games. He did a phenomenal job and his team came in 3rd overall. That is very good considering how many teams particpated. However, as time went on it was harder to have positive thoughts about our dumb dog and where he could be. Is he hurt? Hungry?

A large part of our time was spent checking in with the shelters and animal control agencies on Monday. We called each shelter numerous times, dropped off flyers of our missing, dumb dog, and posted "lost" ads on Craigslist and on some of the shelters websites. We also posted "Lost Dog" notices in our neighborhood. I don't consider myself a pessimist, but I really thought that by monday that that dumb dog had found a way to get himself run over, injured, or lost miles away. I really didn't think the "Lost Dog" notices in our neighborhood would amount to anything since he is very difficult to catch. However, on Tuesday there was a phone call from a neighbor two blocks away saying that our dumb dog had walked into their house Saturday night at ~11pm and started eating out of their dogs food bowl. They had kept our dumb dog ever since!!

Of course we are very pleased by the way things turned out. I must say, though, that these people had called a majority of the same shelters we were talking to over the 2 previous days and were telling them that they had found a yellow lab (a dumb yellow lab may have been more accurate). Why didn't this information ever get passed on?! The people calling about a lost yellow lab live 2 blocks from where people are calling about a found yellow lab and that gets missed?!

Finally, to end on some more positive news, Austin has landed a job working in a concession stand for the summer at the local waterpark and baseball fields (owned by the same company). Both of these locations are nearly visible from our house! He is excited about being a working man. His new boss said that he could eat while working, but I think that that may change once they see how much he can eat!

Happy Mother's Day!!

From the looks of this breakfast you would think that we didn't want Lisa to be around for many more Mother's Days. In truth, this mother needs a power breakfast such as this in order to keep up with us boys! Thank you Lisa for all you do and the love you constantly bring to our family!


Lastly, happy Mother's Day (and birthday!) to our distant mothers as well. We are thinking of you too!

Taking Out The Trash

Last Tuesday (4/29) Austin was being helpful around the house. He went to take out the trash and smashed his middle finger in the back door. OUCH! I was still in bed, and only heard the door slam. Then I heard running up the stairs. Austin came running into my bedroom. He was saying "I can't look, I can't look at it. Tell me if it's bad!" Well, it was bad. His finger swelled up to three time it's normal size and throbbed with pain. It looked like it was going to pop! We did everything we could to make it feel better, but by Thursday it was just too painful and the swelling hadn't gone down. We headed for the Children's hospital. X-rays told us that it wasn't broken. The doctor told us she had a way to make it feel much better. She took out an instrument that worked like a soldering gun. She then proceeded to burn 3 little holes in Austins fingernail to relieve the pressure. She then proceeded to squeeze the blood out through those holes as if she was getting the remains from a tube of toothpaste. Needless to say Austin's finger was on the road to recovery when he decided to play basketball, and his finger is now again looking like it did on the first day of his injury. Time to warm up the needle!

Happy Birthday Austin!!

14 years!! What can I say except STOP!!!!

We had a nice time with our teenager as he took one step deeper into teenagerdom. (The spell checker just put a red line under teenagerdom. It just did it again. teenagerdom. teenagerdom. teenagerdom. ok, I'll stop.) On Saturday we were able to walk nearby our teenager as he shopped for stuff in the mall. He made sure to call us over when he wanted our wallets around. On Wednesday, his birthday, we went out for some Mexican food (no surprise there) and had a good time. The waiters brought over a large hat worn by at least 5 million previous birthday victims (am I spoiling the fun of it? Lisa says I do that sometimes.) and sang a song to him in Spanish that sounded somewhat like Happy Birthday. Here's a picture:


We actually got him to smile when the waiter said "21 now?"