Long time no see!

It has been quite some time since I wrote......and, as promised, here are some new pics! My friend Megan came over and took some gorgeous pictures of Rylie in her "element". This went over significantly better than the previous 3 tries at Portrait Innovations and the results were absolutely fabulous! She did such a great job with Rylie, who is not your easiest subject. June was a busy/crazy month for us. My grandmother found out she had an aneurysm and they had to do major surgery to correct it. Praise the Lord! The surgery went well and she is recovering as we speak. She has not been released from the hospital to come home, she will have to stay a few weeks, but she did well and continues to recover. Thank you for your prayers:) On a sad note, my great aunt Marge lost her battle with cancer and we will be traveling to Charlotte, NC for her memorial service this weekend. The family has dubbed it "Marge's Celebration" because she was a person who liked to celebrate all things in life and lived life with vigor until the end. She was a lovely lady inside and out and will be missed. I know that she loved the Lord, so we celebrate that she is in His presence. On a less important note, Houston "McGyver" Fox strikes again. We took him to the vet just under 2 weeks ago to see about a mass on his leg and the Dr. seemed sure that it was a cancerous growth and had to be removed promptly. $$$ later, we picked him up, heavily sedated, with 25+ stitches and a lampshade on his head and took him home to quarantine him for 2 weeks while he healed. The very next day he jumped out of the area in the garage that we had him hemmed in and by the next day had managed to bust open his sutures. We returned to the vet...more$$$...because that is what we as responsible dog owners felt the need to do and his wound was awful. They kept him, removed the sutures and cleaned the wound, gave us antibiotics and sedatives and sent us on our way. A few days later, after borrowing a kennel from Skyler, I opened the door to give him water and he barreled out, knocking me backwards and breaking my tailbone in the process! Curses! The next day was the 4th, so we went out on the boat and came home that evening to find that he had McGyvered his way out of the kennel (not through the door, mind you, but somehow got the side of it off....what dog does that?) and defiled our home once again. If you missed the first episode of Houston ransacking our house, go back to older posts so you can appreciate this. It will be the one with his picture. Anyway, at least the pantry was closed this time, so he only ate what was on the island and in the trash. Fun times! If you are thinking of getting a weimeraner, here's my advice: Go buy one of those cute calendars with the weimers dressed up as people in the photos and save your hard earned cash on the actual dog! I love Houston, but he is HIGH MAINTENANCE!!!

I will leave you with a brief anecdote: Rylie and I went for a walk to Dollar General, which is a couple of miles from our house, just to pick up a few items and get some exercise in the process. At dinner that night, Stewart asked Rylie what she did today and she told him about seeing turtles in the creek on our walk and she said "...and we walked to Dollar Genital"! Stewart and I laughed so much and that made her say it more. The things 2 year olds say without even knowing...hysterical!