Scott and I took in a very fun Timberwolves game on Valentine's day. They trailed the entire way until the last couple of minutes when they pulled ahead for the win. Very fun. The only thing that would have made that night better was if Clare hadn't gone psycho on the poor 15-yr old sitter. She (Clare) started crying the minute we left and didn't stop until she was put to bed at 7:00 - wouldn't eat dinner, wouldn't let the sitter change her diaper or get near her in any way. Poor Katie (the sitter). And poor Clare. That had to be a little traumatic for her being in the throes of her stranger anxiety stage. She was happy as a clam when we got home and put her in her PJs after giving her a substantial midnight snack. Went right back to sleep too.
A few days after that, Scott and I took a marriage seminar. We (I) try to sign us up for one of these every year or two just to make sure we're on the same page and have a venue for venting any unsaid frustrations. Turns out the seminar was kinda lame. But we came to the conclusion that we don't have any major issues. The only thing we could come up to talk over was our ongoing dispute over the TV and I think we got that one pretty much figured out.
We had a scare with Attley in late February. I was sitting next to him on the couch and noticed that he was really licking his back foot on what is supposed to be his bionic leg. He had licked all the hair off of this one spot and when I went to touch it he licked me a lot which is his way of saying, "Ouch, please don't touch that spot." I thought I felt a lump there but the whole foot/ankle of a dog is very lumpy so I wasn't sure. We tried to get him up and it was obvious he was highly favoring that leg. I was instantly depressed assuming that the cancer was back in a new spot. And since dogs aren't meant to be bimodal, I was convinced that we'd be putting him down towards the end of the week. We took him to the vet the next morning where they took x-rays of his foot and of his lungs. Lungs were still clear but there was definitely some mass near his foot but it didn't look like it was bone swelling. They advised us to bring him in the next day to have a biopsy of the area. I felt so bad for him. If this was going to be his last week on earth, should we really be putting him through the pain and the anxiety of a biopsy?? But, we had to know. So in we went the next morning. The doc who was going to do the biopsy gave him a thorough exam and determined that it wasn't a mass at all. It was just swollen tissue from either a strain/sprain or, more likely, he had plantar fasciatis which is an overuse injury. Relief flooded through me as I realized that he did not have a life threatening cancer on his foot. The doc said a biopsy wasn't needed and recommended that we put Attley on a diet to alleviate the amount of weight that his legs had to bear. Since then, Attley spent a few more days laid up on the couch but then started walking fairly normally. He's pretty much back to normal, has lost maybe a pound (which is like 5 lbs for us) but is still favoring the foot a bit. Hopefully we can get him down another 5-6 lbs which would help out all his joints.
And that brings us to this last weekend. Scott was on top of his game and did all the booking for our ski trip out west. We were all set to fly out on Frontier on Thursday March 1st at 7:45 pm. Yep, that was the big snowstorm day. We were pretty apprehensive as the week started knowing that this big storm was coming. Not only were we worried about not getting a flight out, we weren't sure that Scott's parents would even make it up to watch the girls even if we did get a flight out. Knowing that the weather was going to get started on Wed afternoon, Scott decided to drive down to Waterloo on Tuesday night to get his mom. They drove back up here on Wed morning. So now we had childcare, we set our sights on getting outta dodge! We were fairly certain our late flight would be cancelled so we headed to the airport at 11:00 am in hopes of flying standby on the 2:00 flight. Cancelled. Then our late flight was cancelled. Then they started cancelling Northwest and Continental flights. Over 400 flights were cancelled that day. But miraculously, Sun Country was still flying. We got a refund on our Fronteir flight and bought two tickets for the 5:00 pm flight on Sun Country. We made it out without any problems. Sun Country just gained two new loyal customers!
We made it! We went skiing (Scott boarded) at Loveland on Friday in blizzard-like conditions. The biting wind, zero temperature and extremely low visibility was making us second guess our decision to ski. We prayed for warmer weather the next day and God was good. We skied at Copper mountain under sunny skies, light breezes and beautiful temps. That was about it for me though. My legs were like stumps the next day so I did some shopping while Scott went riding under even more beautiful conditions. It was about 50 degrees at the base of the hill. Gorgeous. We drove back to Denver on Sunday night and were able to meet up with some friends of Scott's from high school, Joe and Robin Hockey and their two kids, Nicholas and Jessica. They took us to this really great Italian buffet, Cinzetti's, where we gorged on all kinds of scrumptious pasta and italian fare. The Hockeys were great company, I felt like I had known them for a long time. Monday we caught our flight back home. Just in time, because we were both missing our little punks. They were a sight for sore eyes. They had just as much fun being spoiled by grandma and grandpa (who showed up on Saturday) as we did playing and eating like grown-ups do.
And that brings us to today. Back at work. Back at cooking and cleaning and blogging. My next big adventure? Painting the bathrooms. Yee Hawww!
