End of the year hike

We started 2012 with a hike (that I never blogged about) Millcreek Pipeline trail, January 1, 2012

So we decided to end the year with a hike, Uinta's Yellow Pine trail, December 29, 2012

We were invited snow shoeing with John's sister, Melanie. We took Enna and Makoa, Winston stayed home because of his unsure footing. It was a beautiful day full of sunshine.

Let me rant just a little here. I love taking our dogs with us on outdoor adventures, but I try to follow the rules. When we pulled into the parking lot, a group was letting their 5 dogs run around while they got ready. This made it very difficult to get in without hitting one of them. The rule is to keep your dog leashed up in the parking lot and I feel like this rule should be followed no matter how well you think your dog listens.
It's not a hard rule to follow and following it means that you won't be the one that ruins it for everyone else. End rant.

We let the crazy group get way ahead of us so we wouldn't have to deal with them and then trekked up into my favorite mountains.

There was SO much snow! Most of the trail was packed down from others before us and made for easy walking once you got used to the snow shoes.

John wanted to see how high his shoes would hold him up so once we got to an open field he took full advantage of it. Of course the dogs followed, but soon Enna decided it wasn't her cup of tea and came back to me.

 

When we got to the end of the packed down snow we decided that the view just wasn't good enough and we headed up higher, blazing our own trail.

This is where Enna became unhappy. The snow was pretty deep for her and she HAD to be behind John so the trail wasn't flattened out. She bunny hopped through the deep stuff and would curl up in a ball when we stopped moving.

Not a great picture since my finger was over the camera lens, but you get the idea.

 

At one point we stopped in some pretty deep stuff and she curled herself up onto the back of John's snow shoe. Normally I require Enna to walk. She may be little, but she's tough and has a lot of energy. After this I could tell she wasn't having fun so I broke my rule and carried her a little ways. 

 Mt. Timp in the distance.

 

When we finally stopped the views of the distant mountains peaks were stellar and the blue skies to die for. I made Enna walk down since the snow was packed again. She was happy to not have to hop through the drifts.

It was a wonderful hike and I'm so glad Melanie invited us to go. John and I will be buying our own snow shoes now because we really enjoyed it.

Hulu Plus ... again

You know how a few months ago I was raving about Hulu Plus? Well our opinion has changed a tad. Hulu's service has been having a hard time streaming through our Xbox meaning it stops every few minutes and buffers. I know it's not our Internet speed because Netflix has no problems.

I contacted Hulu to figure out how to get this fixed and they gave me a long, involved list of what to do. One item was even setting my Xbox back to manufacture settings...um no.
We didn't want to give up on Hulu since we really don't want to pay for real TV so we've been watching it on my laptop. The set up is comical to say the least.
It does get to be a pain when I need to use the laptop for Itunes or any other computer related activity, but we're staying up to date on our TV shows (okay we're always a few weeks behind, but they're in our queue!).

So my opinon of Hulu Plus has dropped a little and isn't as fantastic as I orignally thought.

Crock Pot Potato Soup

After my first job I only have a half hour to eat before leaving for my second job so I like to use the crock pot often. Here's a recipe that never lets me down, I always have the ingerdients on hand and is always tasty. Using a crock pot bag makes cleanup a breeze.


Crock Pot Potato Soup
Ingredients
3 - 4 slices bacon
1 onion, finely chopped
2 (10.5 ounce) cans condensed chicken broth
4 - 5 large potatoes, cut in bite sized pieces
1 cup cheddar cheese
1/2 cup Parmesan
(spice measurements are guessed because I never measure spices)
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon parsley
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon garlic powder
pinch of red pepper flakes (too much and it will be too spicey to eat)
1/2 to 1 cup milk

Directions
Cut potatoes into bite sized cubes and place in crock pot. Pour in chicken stock, add spices and cheeses. Layer bacon over everything. Cook on low for 8 hours or high for 4.


Once cooked blend up 2/3 of potatoes (or all if you don’t want any potato chunks) and all of bacon in blender or food processor. Pour back into crock pot and add milk until desired soup consistency. Garnish with more cheese when serving. (Adding more bacon on top will make it very salty)

November's block of the month

I got up at 6:30AM on Saturday to finish this one before my class. It was pretty easy and went together smoothly.

We were told in our class that Floyd & Lizzie's won't be doing block of the month next year. I was pretty bummed until I talked to a girl at work who asked if maybe I'd be interested in teaching my own for co-workers. I have to work out a few details, but I'm looking forward to that. 

Winston - not good news

Over the last week we haven't seen an improvement with Winston. He seems to be losing feeling in his right side. We noticed with his back leg first and over time he seems to be having problems with his front foot. He always hold it up when standing and if something is close to him he will lean again it, usually it being John or I.

We've stopped walking him because he's dragging his front right foot minutes after we start and the top of his nails are getting scuffed up. He was suppose to wear a neck brace for two weeks, but we took it off him after a week because it wasn't doing any good and just causing me grief with potty breaks.

John and I haven't talked about what we're going to do. John didn't want to talk about it over our weekend anniversary because he knew I'd be in tears. We'll be talking about it soon.

We did give Winston a bath the day before we put the neck brace on. I knew it was going to be a fight to get him into the bathroom so it had to be a night when both John and I could do it. John put on Winston's harness and while holding onto the sides or the harness, dragged him into the bathroom while I walked behind Winston so he couldn't backup if he decided.
Then John lifted Winston's front and back end into the tub where I put on his halti and attached him to the tub. We shouldn't really be using the halti, but I needed a way to keep him in the tub and once his halti is on he's usually an angel and won't fight me.
He was just fine in the tub and stood patiently while I bathed him. I changed into a swimming suit because I always end up soaked.

Once done I wanted him to step out of the tub on his own. He wasn't a happy camper about it.

He did eventually step out on his own and seemed much happier to be clean. Everyone else was pretty happy that he didn't stink anymore.

5 whole years

John and I have been married 5 years today. Some days it feels like 2 weeks and others it feels like 2,564 years.
Numbers divisible by 5 are supposedly a big deal, but John and I screwed that up by going to Cancun last year and this year we spent all our money on Winston. Because of this I though that this year we wouldn't do anything major, so I was surprised when John out of the blue one evening started listing off prices for things. We had a little money left in our savings so John thought that we needed to do something.

We talked about going to Vegas to see a Cirque Du Soleil show, but that was vetoed pretty quick when we decided that we didn't want to spend another minute in the car and flying was more than we wanted to spend. Then we tossed about the idea of staying at a nice place downtown, fancy eating out and possibly a show. Finally John had the idea of buying season tickets to a playhouse, something we ALWAYS wanted to do, but never had to money when it was time to buy. We both decided that that was exactly what we wanted, celebrate our anniversary all year long with a nice dinner the night of.

So 2013 will be the year of the shows (as long as the world doesn't end in 6 more days):

• We have season tickets to Salty Dinner Theater, a fun little traveling group that we went to last year. We go with my parents and everyone has a grand ole time. We recommend Joe Morley's if you choose to take in a show.
• At Ballet West we'll be seeing The Nutcracker tomorrow, Cinderella in February and Aladdin in April. We got a good deal where we basically get The Nutcracker free.
• We'll be seeing Les Miserables at Pioneer Theatre (their season tickets were more than we wanted to spend, but we wanted this show) on May 30th with killer seats. So so so excited!
• And finally we bought season tickets for Hale Center in West Valley. We went to South Pacific at the Orem Hale Center to decide which theater we wanted to go to. West Valley won out because Orem is so far way for one and the stage is just so awesome at west valley.

Today we'll probably take in a movie and enjoy some time together at home. After the Nutcracker we're going to go to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse for dinner.

Now I get to brag about how awesome John is, I'm never mushy so you can put up with it for one post:

• John gets up the second his alarm rings so he won't wake me up at 4AM. He then gets dressed in the dark to let me sleep.
• He's unbelievably easy to live with. He's very clean and always puts things away after he's done with them and clothes get put in the hamper. I'm by far messier to live with.
• He's easy to cook for since he likes all foods. Not once in our marriage has be complained about what I made. He always eats it thankfully.
• He makes dinner for me on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays so that when I get home from my first job I can have something to eat before my second job (yes I have a second job, it's not even worth talking about).
• He always puts laundry away because he know it's a hated job of mine.
• He never complains about the never ending amazon packages that end up on our doorstep.
• He loves the pets just as much as I do. When he thinks I'm not looking he'll even cuddle up with the cat.
• He's such a hard worker. Some weeks he'll work 60+ hours and never complain once.
• He's very handy, if he doesn't know how to fix something he'll learn. He's spent many hours with my dad to learn auto mechanics.

How in the world did I get so lucky? I love that man so very much and I'm glad to call him my best friend. No one else would fit with me or put up with me quite like he does.

A couple steps back

The last few times of walks it was just me walking Winston so I wasn't really able to see how he was walking, but I did know that he still wasn't very graceful.
Last night John came with me and walked Winston so I could watch him. His walk is just terrible and I feel like it's getting worse. It's like he doesn't bend his right back knee so he swings his hips very far left to compensate. I will be taking a video and sending it to Dr. Durkes in the next few days.

Because of his walk I went into worry mode and watched Winston like a hawk last night, then finally around 8:30PM I sent Dr. Durkes this email.

Hi Dr. Durkes,


I'm writing the email instead of calling because I think if I call I'll forget to tell you everything that I want to tell you. We got the gold beads done on Winston on the 29th of October and his brace came off the Monday before Thanksgiving. I have seen some results, he stands faster, doesn't slip on the hardwood floors anymore, has more energy and more vocal, but I'm worried about what I've seen with him lately.

He's licking his back feet constantly and when walking he throws his right back leg out so he swings his hips far left to compensate and can't stay in a straight line to save his life. I can send a video of this in the next couple of days if you'd like to see. He also will start dragging his front feet if we're out more than 10 minutes. He still isn't good with the stairs and will need help getting back up, he'd much rather sleep upstairs on his bed anyway. I'm just wondering your thoughts.

I got a reply this morning saying that we need to put a neck brace back on for a couple of weeks (guess I should get that bath done then. I didn't find a place without ramps to the baths and I haven't forced the issue at home yet because I didn't want to jar his neck while he fought with us to get him into the tub. But Winston is stinky and needs a bath badly) and if we don't see improvement in a week then we'll put him on a small dose of prednisone. Mickey had/has to take the medication so I was aware of it and I'm thinking it will come to that.

Winston does have an insane amount of energy when walking so I really hope that that's a good sign. Last night he even charged a wooden fence to bark at the dogs behind it which he has NEVER done. I wasn't a fan of course and it took John and I to pry him away. I'll have to figure out a way to keep him more in control and still be able to use a harness. I'll probably ask K9 Lifeline since they're the ones who trained us with the Halti, which we loved and would still be using if we could.

I'll post the video of him walking soon. I really wish that we would have remembered to record him before the gold bead procedure like we were going to and a week after the procedure I thought I had recorded him, but instead I was just taking pictures.

The picture does show that his hip swings far, but it seems to be worse now and a video is always better.

Last night I was so depressed. Even after all the talk of not getting my hopes up is seems like I have. I was on the verge of tears all night while I watched him. Sleep also didn't come easy to me, but it never does when I have worrying on my mind.

This morning I'm feeling better, but I've talked myself into low hopes again. I just keep telling myself that if he stays stable then everything will be fine. That the procedure was worth it even if it doesn't work because at least we know we tried, I could never live with myself if we just gave up.

Christmas stocking

I started John's Christmas stocking 4 years ago, no lie. I would work on it from October until January until my hands would ache and then I'd put it away until I remembered about it again the next October.

Why all the work? Why not just buy one from Target? Well my Christmas stocking was cross stitched in 1991 by my mother's aunt and I wanted to keep the theme, I just didn't think it would take me as long as it did. Also my stocking hangs left so John's had to hang left (stockings that hang left are a rare occurrence in the retail world, but it does seem like most cross stitched ones do). 

About the second year into the project Sophi ripped up the cross stitch instructions so I had to buy a whole a new kit just for the instructions, so I have a brand new kit available if anyone wants it.

 

I didn't want to do french knots where told so I replaced them with seed beads. I think it looks so much better.

 I have a small kit to finish for the dogs that should only take me a few months :), but I am looking for another regular sized kit to buy ASAP in case it takes me another 4 years to finish it might be ready for when we have a baby. 

Home

I finally found time to finish my second craft I bought at Wood Connection.

 You buy the "H" "M" and "E" separately and then the "O" comes in a pack of 4 months. I bought September, October, November and December. I love Wood Connection because everything comes as a plan piece of wood and you get to craft it any way you want.

 

 All were really fun to do, but I think October is my favorite, I love his little button eyes. Now it's time to buy January - April and get started on that.

Winston day 29

Well I'm sure everyone wants a Winston update. His brace came off 8 days ago and Mr. Scaredy Cat did not like the cutting and ripping of the tape. I (little, tiny me) had to hold Winston's head still while John cut and tried not to stab Winston in the neck when he jerked away from me.

His brace was very thick and I must have been just the right amount of crazy because his skin didn't rot.

I'm not noticing huge amounts of progress, but I have to keep telling myself that it takes time. Winston will now walk through most of the upstairs with confidence and if he wants to stand up (he's a poop in the morning and would just rather sleep) he can usually do it in one try whereas before it would be at least 6 tries with lots of coaxing from me.
He still has his dreaded rooms, the office and bathroom, that I just haven't had the energy to tackle yet. He also hasn't decided that he wants to join us in the family room downstairs and I don't force it.

On Saturday I took him on one of his pre-bad walks, it's roughly 15 minutes and when he started getting bad he'd drag his front feet 5 minutes into it so we stopped. He seemed very happy to be out in the brisk late fall air and had more energy than I've seen in a while.
Winston was still all over the place while walking and probably looked like a gave him some strong liquor before the walk since he weaved next to my leg.
His scaredy cat ways are really draining though and I'm not sure if they'll go away on their own. While on the walk an elderly couple wanted to pet Winston, right after I said that he was very friendly and they took a step forward Winston jerked back. Luckily a truck was parked and stopped him/cornered him and gave me a second to figure out what he was scared of. The lady had a freaking grocery sack (filled with dog treats of all things!) and it terrified him. Once she handed him one of the treats he tentatively took a step forward to the man and decided that the situation was okay. Looks like John and I will have to start desensitizing him or he'll keep embarrassing me in public...sigh...

One comment that a vet tech made while we were getting Winston's ears fixed has really stuck with and bothers me. She asked, "Are you guys sure that you'll want to and be able to keep up with this [wobblers]?" Um...we drove 3,000 miles round trip to Indiana and emptied our savings account for him, yes I'm pretty sure.

Anywho, back to the walk, Winston kept prancing away from me until the leash tugged and then settling back to my side. Never pulling, but having a surprisingly good amount of energy. He did start dragging his front feet once we hit out street again, but that's an improvement to me. Once home he crashed, Winston's not used to any amount of activity so we have to build him back up.

My next project will be getting him a bath which he desperately needs. By the way, does anyone know of a self service place with tubs on the ground? I'm sure a ramp is something he'll be scared of and we'll make a huge scene trying to get Winston up it.

hope chest complete

We started refinishing the hope chest in March and John finally had time to finished it with two clear coats and hardware. It looks amazing!

White was probably a bad fabric choice with Winston slobber.

Winston's ear infection

When I got home from work last night I noticed that Winston's left ear was really red and drippy. I groaned and called the vet to make an appointment for the next day.

Getting Winston into the car was so much easier than it has been the last few months, with John's help it only took a minute or so to get him in instead of five and a fight. Maybe that does mean he's getting better.
Once at the vet he wouldn't move from their mat by the front door. Their floor is white painted cement and very shiny so that meant that Winston WAS NOT going to walk on it so they had to treat him right there.

Winston was not a happy camper, he wouldn't even let them take his temperature. The wobblers has made Winston scared of everything, my usually calm and easy going puppy has decided that we are no longer allowed to touch his ears or feet and the infection was making it worse. I suggested that they muzzle him because it wasn't going to get any easier.
It took 2 vet techs and the vet to man handle Winston into getting his ears cleaned out and putting the medication in. I'm pretty sure he thought we were trying to kill him. 

The medication they have now means that treatment is a one time thing instead of twice a day for a week. I thanked God right then and there. He was so stressed when we left the vet that he was a drooly mess.

 

This is the back seat of my car when we got home. 

I call Dr. Durkes Monday for Winston's three week check-up and to see if his brace can come off. 

October's block of the month

I'm not a fan of appliqué, but I guess this one wasn't too bad. It took longer than it needed to because I forgot to take a picture of the example and had to decipher how it went together from a crappy black and white photo.

It's a good thing that we don't have downstairs neighbors because they would hate us. My craft room is right under the kitchen and while I was in there working John fed the dogs their dinner which is quite the commotion. It sounded like the ceiling was going to crash down on me and I seriously looked up to check for cracks.

Winston alone sounds like a giant walking...BOOM, BOOM, BOOM! He's never going to be light on his feet.

Winston Day 14

Truthfully I haven't seen much improvement over the last week besides Winston being a little more active. We haven't walked him in the last few days because of the snow. His neck brace has to stay dry or his skin can rot under it and I'm being over protective.

Speaking of rotting skin, we've been hit hard by Jack Frost and have at least a foot of snow in our yard. A foot of snow that Winston wants to frolic in with the other pups, he whines and paws the door when the other two are out playing, breaks my heart. But with that neck brace he just can't.

I've tried my hardest to keep the plastic tucked in tight, but even with the few minutes he's out pottying he finds a way for it to come un-tucked. He's just too wild on his feet. He wants to be outside though and I can't get him to come in for at least 15 minutes. When he does finally come in, his brace is soaked under his chin and I shove towels in between it and his skin so it'll dry. I don't smell stinky skin so I hope it's good enough since he HATES the hair dryer.

He does seem to walk around more and we're trying to get him to come into areas he just refused to before. Since blocking the kitchen off he does walk through it with us now and acts like he wants to come downstairs. Mostly he just sits at the top and cries. He's only been down twice since his procedure, but I'm letting him decide when he wants to.
We've now tried the front room and in between the coffee table and couch, he's still not sure about it but will come if we pet his head while we walk with him. Next will be the dreaded office, the first room he refused to go into and hasn't set foot in in about 8 months.

He's also started this bad habit of crying at 2:00AM. The first few days we got up and let him out thinking he had to potty, but instead he just stands in the middle of the yard barking and we have to force him back inside before he pisses off all the neighbors. Now we ignore him and sleep with ear plugs, mean I know, but I don't think anything is really wrong with him.

Next Monday I'm suppose to call the vet to let him know how's he's improving and that will confirm if his neck brace can come off. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Indiana Trip Total

This would have cost less if I did more research and chose another vet to do the gold bead implant, but we went with Dr. Durkes because he's been doing it so long. I figured if we were going to do this might as well go with the best.
When researching the gold beads I found Mickey's blog and her itemized expenses really helped me out even if it is 6 years old so I figured I'd do one too.

Keep in mind that to do the actual surgery you have to have an MRI done and that's roughly $1,600 and the surgery is thousands of dollars, 5 to 10 is what I was told. So what we paid was cheap in comparison.
When it came to food we tried to go as cheap as possible. When hungry we'd stop at a grocery store and picked up sandwich fixin's and stole mayo and mustard packets from gas stations. We ate the free breakfast at the hotel and only ate out twice. We paid all of Ben's expenses since we asked him to come with us. Snack food was bought from the dollar store before the trip and was a really good tip I got from a travel website.
Travel charges from Utah to Indiana
Item                                                                                            Charge
Food                                                                                              $111
Travel snack food                                                                         $25
Car rental 5 days + pre paid tank of return gas                            $442.50
gas $379 at the most expensive, $3.19 cheapest, 12 tanks          $440.46
Hotel - 2 nights                                                                            $148.82
Entertainment (Chicago & Mt. Rushmore)                                 $34
Trip total                                                                                    $1,201.78

Medical Charges
Item                                                                                           Charge
Baytril 136 Chew Tablets                                                           $78
Office visit                                                                                  $78
Chem-profile-major                                                                   $95
Anesthesia                                                                                  $85
Extended anesthesia                                                                   $80
Gold implant - wobblers                                                            $850
GOLD hospital                                                                          $50
Pedicure - nail trim                                                                    $6
X-rays (we got these before the trip)                                        $289
Medical total                                                                           $1,611.00

Complete total                                                                        $2,812.78

If we didn't have to pay the $200 extra on the car rental we would have fallen right into our expected budget, but I'm not complaining. I really hope this helps anyone who's interested in getting the treatment done.

Just FYI we could have gone to an all inclusive cancun resort including flight for a week for the same price.

Winston Day 8

Over Winston's descent with wobblers he develop "security blankets" and now that he seems to be getting better we're trying to shake those blankets out.
When he's in the kitchen he only wants to be by the table and is scared to walk into the middle so we coaxed him with treats and then blocked his "blanket" with chairs.

We then used re-call to get him to cross back and forth over the floor to build his confidence.

I then wanted to see if he'd go down the stairs since the Doc said that that's one of the first things they get better at. I didn't even have to coax him, he went right down after me, but about midway down he decided that he was stuck.

Then it did take some coaxing and reminded me of when he was a tiny puppy learning the stairs.



Coming back up proved to be a little more difficult. I had to follow him and hold up/push his back end, but he did seem to know where he was placing his back feet for once.

We started taking him on short walks around the neighborhood with his harness. I was worried that we wouldn't have good control over him even though he's always been a pretty good walker (he does seem to get distracted when other dogs or people are around), but with a little tug on the harness and he's back on track. He also seems to be picking up his front feet more than he has ever has.

Let's keep hoping for the small improvements!

Enna wants the bone

We bought Winston a big stuffed marrow bone for the trip, but he didn't touch it and we knew our diamond toothed chewer, Makoa, would love it. What didn't cross our minds was how much Enna would want it. Here's a video of how pissed she was when we made her stop chewing and share with Makoa. Turn your sound way up because she's MAD!!

Ignore how I look, I'm wearing sweats, have Saturday not combed hair and no make-up.

After Enna stole the big bone again we gave Makoa Winston's other bone from the trip and he seemed pretty content.

A Winston update - day 5 - He's standing very quickly when we ask him to if he has something to get a grip on and will walk the short hardwood floored surface from our bedroom to the kitchen without as much fuss as he used to give us and not so much sliding. His back legs are shaking when he stands and I take this as a good sign. Wobblers dogs use their front legs more than they should since they have pain in their back end, the leg shaking I hope means that he's trying to shift the weight.

We tried to let him sleep in the bedroom Thursday night, but he was up and all over the place whining so we put him back in the kitchen last night. I'm hoping that he can move back into the bedroom soon, I miss having him next to me.

I hope to take him on a short walk today since Dr. Durkes said that physical exercise is very important for his back legs to get their strength back. 

Coming Home

We got up around 8 so we could pack up, eat the free hotel breakfast and take off by 10 am. We had no plans to hurry and took our time. We wanted to sight see since most of our trip so far had been stuck in a hotel and we drove the 3 1/2 hours to Chicago.

Chicago skyline

We headed to Millennium Park and had to pay $23 to park, but it was worth it. 

 

Photo from Wikipedia, such a cool aerial shot. 

John Pritkzer Pavilion

Cloud gate AKA the bean

 

After Millennium Park we drove to Wrigley Field to take a look.

  They were hard to get a good picture of, but there are seats across the stadium on the houses!

After Chicago we drove the 935 miles and toll infested road (we spent $15 in tolls!) to Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota that my dad suggested. It was a really long and boring drive, everything is mostly flat after Chicago. About 2AM none of us could stay awake and pulled over to a rest stop, which are few and far between in Minnesota, and slept for 3 hours. 

In Wall, South Dakota we stopped at a HUGE drug store. We spent at least an hour there looking at the odds and ends they had there. It was such a cute place that I bought a small ornament to place on a Christmas tree that we never put up to remind us of this adventure. 

Man working on monument.

After the monument we headed the 624 miles on home. After eating lunch at a rest stop after Lusk, Wyoming we really wanted to get home and took only gas stops and Winston potty breaks. We pulled into our drive way at 10:45pm, unloaded the car and crawled into bed. 

It was a good adventure and I really hope that in the end it'll all be worth it for Winston!