Update

Just wanted to let you know that Caddy is home now. She had to spend the night at the animal hospital with a continuous antibiotic IV drip, but it appears to have done the trick. She's recovering a little quicker this time than she did last time, and fortunately we don't have to inject her with fluids this time either. She still has two medicines that we're giving her and we'll have to do some follow up appointments with the vet, but for now she appears to be on the mend. She is eating on her own, is cuddling us, and is getting some much needed rest in her own room for awhile. (And yes, I am staying in there with her at night!) Please keep praying that she continues to make good progress and that whatever has caused this to happen (again!) will stay away for good.

We're having to modify her diet pretty drastically, and will now be shopping for her food at the whole foods store. Even Patrick and I don't eat this well! (I will say that the food at this store looks incredible though - I will have to try to resist temptation every time I'm in there since it is about twice the price of regular food!)

Caddy's leg is shaved from where the vet had her IV fluids and medicine inserted, so hopefully the fur will grow back quickly. For those of you that don't know, it took her over 6 months to regrow the fur on her tummy they had to shave last time for her ultrasound. I'll try to take a picture of her with her shaved leg soon.

Thank you everybody for helping us through yet another pet crisis. I had a cat growing up that got sick ONCE in all her 18 years. I never knew there were so many potential feline ailments, but we seem to be seeing them all. Thank you for praying for Caddy and for us!

Please Pray

I realize that I have not been blogging at all lately, and I'm really sorry I've been out of touch. If you would not mind saying some special prayers for my Caddy, we could really use them. Yesterday afternoon she started vomiting and within an hour vomited somewhere between 15 - 20 times. We immediately called the vet who instructed us to bring her in so that they could admit her to the animal hospital. They called last evening to tell us that her x-ray was clear (I could have told them that!) and that her blood work indicated increased levels for her liver (again - I could have told them that) which could indicate her pancreatitis is back. She will undergo another ultrasound this morning (I bet I know what it will tell us) and we'll have more answers then. Please just pray for my little girl. She is only 2 and it has only been 9 months since she last went through this. She was able to fully recover last time, and I am clinging to that hope again. I just don't know how much her little body can withstand. Please pray for healing, comfort, and for a miracle for her to fully recover.

Suzanne's High School Graduation

This past weekend I drove up to Blacksburg, VA to help my cousin celebrate her high school graduation. My mom and sisters made the trip up from Raleigh, and it was nice to have the whole family together for the weekend. I arrived at my aunt's house first, and got to spend some time visiting with her before my mom and sisters arrived. As soon as they got there, my sisters and I grabbed our swimsuits and headed over to the pool where Suzanne works as a lifeguard. Of course we thought we would be funny and point and make stupid faces at her while she was sitting high atop her lifeguard stand...we couldn't figure out why she wasn't laughing and saying hello to us until we looked over at the other lifeguard stand and realized that we had been pointing and making faces at somebody else altogether. Whoops! Fortunately all parties involved had a good laugh out of it. Suzanne got to come hang out with us on her break and then worked on cleaning the pool tiles of the deep end so she was still with us for the remainder of her shift.

On Sunday we went to the graduation ceremony and were all surprised that Suzanne got to speak during the ceremony. (Even Aunt Susie was surprised to see her name in the program for that!) The whole group went out for a great lunch/dinner afterwards and then we hit the road to head back home. It was great to get to spend time with my extended family - the 5 of us are the only grandchildren on that side of the family and our families have always been really close since my mom and her sister (my aunt) are pretty much each other's only family. Here are a few pictures:

Suzanne speaking during the ceremony

Suzanne (the baby of the family)...a high school graduate

The 5 girls - Bethany, Carolyn, Suzanne, me, Anna

My Office "Visitor"...Part 2

So I made a rather disturbing discovery last night. And by disturbing, I mean that I may just pack up the cats (and I suppose my husband as well, although when you hear how he handled this discovery you may agree that he can stay here while I take my hiatus from our infested abode) and move!

What you may ask, has caused me to want to abandon ship and relocate? As I was walking from our mailbox towards our front porch area I happened to catch sight of something kind of shiny at the corner of our house…shiny…and scaly! At this point I begin to hyperventilate (no joke!) and immediately punch the code to open the garage door since there is no way I am now walking past whatever is shiny and scaly on our front porch to reenter the house via the front door. The garage door cannot close fast enough and it is then that I realize that the door from the garage to the house is locked. I began having visions of snakes crawling all over me and proceeded to pound (yes, pound…and scream for Patrick) on the door until he comes flying to the door from upstairs wondering what in the world has caused me to absolutely lose my mind (again!)

I yelled something incoherent about there being snakes on me and it takes a second for him to realize that I may have spotted my office visitor again. I’m putting a picture of our house below so that you can envision what I’m describing now. From the safety of the confines of our house, I open the front door and peered out through our glass storm door (without which, there is no way in this world I would have been examining the front porch area!) and what I saw wasn’t quite as scary as the actual snake but may be even more disturbing. It was actually the skin of a snake (I guess they shed those in whole pieces…ewww!) but here’s the worst part – the tail was coming from behind the bushes (which are in front of my office since it is the front corner of our house and beside the front porch area) and the body continued around the corner and went up into the siding of our house.

Yes, you read that correctly – evidently (whether at that moment or at some point earlier in the day) a snake was crawling from the bushes in front of my office, where I am sitting all day, into the siding of my house, which is by the way the exterior wall of my office – where I sit alone all day!!!!!! I guess he decided to shed his skin on this little adventure and when I was walking back up the driveway I noticed the shine of the skin. Now don’t ask me if it was there when I walked out the front door a few minutes prior or if it happened while I was at the mailbox, but in either event my skin is still crawling.

At this point Patrick and I were not sure if the snake was still in the siding or if he looped around and came back out at some point earlier in the day. Here is where my husband turned this whole adventure into a complete comedy routine. He goes into our garage and gets a golf club and then bravely walks onto the front porch. (I am watching from behind the safety of our glass storm door yelling at him to be careful and to please come back inside.) I should also mention that he did not take the time to put on real shoes so he has on socks and grabbed his flip flops that were in our foyer. I just want you to be able to fully envision this scenario!

Patrick proceeds to hit the snake skin with his golf club several times and lifts up the tail portion from behind the bushes and flings it onto the front porch area. At this point about a foot and a half to two feet of snake skin is visible. Holy grossness! He tried to press on the skin with the club to get it to come out of the siding, but decided that he needed a second golf club to help. (Kind of like salad tongs?!) So at this point, if anybody walks past our house they can see me, hysterical, in the foyer of our house, and Patrick, wearing socks and flip flops, wielding two golf clubs wacking the siding of our house to see if he can dislodge the snake skin. I seriously don’t know if the snake was still up there, so he is very lucky it did not come shooting out to bite him.

Eventually the skin snapped in half and so Patrick lifted the two foot long piece of snake skin onto his golf clubs and walked it around to the side of our house to dispose of in the trash can. He then knelt down to look up the part of the siding that the snake skin was originally in and said he could see more skin but didn’t want to put his hand up there to pull on it in case the snake was still there. Finally he decided this may not be the safest of endeavors and came back inside. (I had at this point convinced myself that the skin was still attached to the snake which was why it was not pulling out of the siding easily, and I did not want to have to drive Patrick to the hospital if this thing managed to reappear and bit him!)

At this point I do not know if a 4 foot snake is living in the siding of my front porch. I don’t know if somehow that connects to the interior walls of my home and if eventually the snake could slither into the air ducts and appear behind the air vent in my home…can you see how this is making me crazy?! In any event, there is evidently not much out there that can kill snakes that does not attract them in the first place. I’m not sure if it’s worth putting out snake poison that will cause them to want to come and visit me (although I’m pretty certain that my office visitor did not sail off into the sunset that first day we met since the piece of skin we did find was just the right size for him.) Patrick is now referring to him as Axle (hence he can stay here while I temporarily move!) What a night!!!!!

NKOTB broke my heart…

So remember how absolutely thrilled I was about the New Kids on the Block summer tour (see March's "Exciting News" post) and how I thought this was just the best 30th birthday present I could have asked for? I am crushed to tell you that both concerts in North Carolina have been cancelled (not to worry, my money has already been refunded) and I have heard of no plans for them to come back this direction. Carolyn and I were so excited – we had AWESOME seats and we were going to tailgate with a huge group the day of the event. What makes this news that much harder to take is I don’t know how much longer they will actually be touring so I may not get to see them again. I am so bummed! What’s weird is that their tour dates are jam packed and going on for the next several months. They’re just taking a week off (not too sure why) and the NC shows were two of the five total shows affected by this. I am so sad!!

The note Carolyn sent me along with my now useless ticket

So far every plan I had to make turning 30 a great time has fallen through so I think I might just join the ranks of those that are depressed about it and move on. No big party, no trip, and now no reunion with my favorite group of all time :( The NKOTB show was going to be awesome too – my favorite group from America’s Best Dance Crew is touring with them and Jesse McCartney (who has a couple of songs I like) was opening, it was outside (the BEST!) and when I saw them on the Today show last week they were so great. Carolyn and I thought about trying to go to the Atlanta show but tickets have been on sale forever so we could pretty much only get lawn passes and it’s a bit of a drive to get down there. (And we are totally unfamiliar with the area, so it could be absolutely disastrous!) If I can convince her that we should go anyway we’ll still try to make it, but I’m not holding out hope at this point.

We were planning on bringing our cameras this time (since we followed the rules, like idiots, last time), we have new shirts that we’re ready to rock, and my mom even found our old NKOTB bath towels (did I mention that we were OBSESSED!) that we were going to bring with us to sit on (even though we had seats instead of lawn passes – I guess it doesn’t make too much sense now that I think about it!)

Patrick is pretty excited at the thought of regular music returning to my car. (Since the announcement about the concert, the only music that has been playing in my car was their new CD, The Block, so that I would be totally ready for all the new music too.) I don’t drive too much these days since I work from home, but anytime I went anywhere all I listened to was NKOTB.

I am so sad, but I will “hang tough” and maybe, just maybe I will get to see them again. (I just hope it doesn’t take another 20 years!)

Check out the vintage bath towel and night shirt (that I used as a shirt for my first NKOTB concert experience) along with the new shirt that was waiting to debut at the summer show...Carolyn has the matching Jordan shirt!

Three Years Already

Today Patrick and I are celebrating three years of marriage! I cannot believe it has been three years already – the time has flown by. Today I spent the day at jury duty (again!) while Patrick was hard at work. What a difference three years makes! I remember on our wedding day spending the morning at the hair salon with my mom, sisters, and friends drinking mimosas, eating bagels, and getting nervous about the ceremony. Patrick and I entered into the sacrament of marriage in my hometown church surrounded by our loved ones and my family priest. We both loved the feeling of family that he brought and are so grateful that he was able to marry us (since he left for service in Guatemala shortly thereafter!) We had a very traditional marriage ceremony that meant a lot to both of us and then a super fun reception. I still think that the DJ we picked was one of the best I have ever heard – he kept people up and dancing the whole time! It was truly the happiest day of my life, and everything was beautiful and better than I ever dreamed it would be.

The years since our wedding have been full of happy times, hard times, silly times, challenging times…but through it all I know that Patrick and I are in this together and we remain committed to each other and our family.

Caddy's 2!!

This past week we celebrated our little Caddy's second birthday. I think this birthday was especially meaningful considering just how close we came to losing her this past December. She got very sick with pancreatitis and the fact that she has been able to almost fully recover is truly a miracle. Caddy has been such a blessing in our lives (I have an older post in here about how she came into our lives - a miracle itself!) and we are so grateful to have her. I can't wait to celebrate many more birthdays with my little bear (one of her many nicknames...given because she thinks she's tough stuff!)

Caddy keeps watch over the cul-de-sac

Enjoying a treat from Nana and eyeing her Oreo cake (no - she didn't get any of that!)