Happy Valentine's Day

Today was the one-year anniversary of Eric's proposal. Here's a pic of us holding the picture of us from our dinner at Como Park Conservatory last year. It's a picture in a picture. Next year, we'll take a picture of us holding this picture, so it'll be a picture in a picture in a picture... Admit it, you're jealous you didn't think of it and are now secretly planning your own pic in a pic. Do it!

To celebrate, we actually didn't do anything super romantic or give each other gifts, but we had a nice day. This morning, we slept in, Eric did some homework and I read and did yoga.

Then we took Indy to the dog park. It was a nice wintery day with fresh snow - too bad I forgot my camera in the car!

Then we went to my mom's house to help her with her new computer and visit with Indy's valentine, Buddy.

Our one festive activity we did today was decorate Valentine's Day cookies (special thanks to the Valentine Cookie Decorating Kit from Target - best $5 I ever spent). Here are some of our masterpieces...

 

 

What did you do to celebrate Valentine's Day?

Happy Birthday, Indy!

Happy birthday to my sweet 4-year-old chocolate lab on her golden birthday. Indy has had quite a year! The good stuff: she got a new dad, and she got to be in our wedding. The not-so-good stuff: she had 2 seizures. We hope that her 4th year brings her improved health and lots of good walks, treats, bones and play time outdoors.

Here are some of Indy's highs of the year:

 

 

Buddy

Meet Buddy, my mom's new dog!

He is the bigger (weighing in at 85 pounds - 20 pounds more than Indy), calmer Indy. He's 3.5 years old and came from a great home where the family was sad to see him go, but they just discovered that one of the kids is allergic to dogs. So my mom, Indy and I drove up to Forest Lake to meet him, and we took him home with us. I think Indy's energy kinda freaked him out a bit, but they got along pretty well. He is going to make a great companion for my mom. And hopefully he and Indy develop a good friendship. :)

Welcome to the family, Buddy!

Give your pets a squeeze

Here's Indy supervising us as we hung the Christmas lights last weekend. This was last Saturday.

A week ago today, last Sunday, Indy had a seizure. It was so sad to see her so vulnerable and scared as she lost control of her body for about 5 minutes. Fortunately, I recognized the signs of the seizure pretty quickly (since Taffy, my childhood dog, had seizures when she was alive). So we just tried to make sure she was safe as she was going through it and we tried to calm her down by petting her and talking to her.

She made it through it and then slept for pretty much the rest of the night. The next day, I took her in to the vet, where she had blood drawn to check to see if she had any liver, kidney or other infections. Thankfully, she doesn't have any crazy infections. But the vet did say that Indy probably has Epilepsy. She may or may not have more seizures during her lifetime - we will just wait and see (and keep our fingers crossed that she will not have anymore!). They don't recommend meds right now. They say that the side effects of the meds are really not worth it unless she is really having a lot of seizures (like multiple seizures per month). So we will just wait and see what happens and hope for the best.

We love this dog. She is pretty much the greatest ever. We let her sleep in our bed for a couple nights in a row after this incident. And just about every day Eric or I tell her to not have anymore seizures.

Right now, she is curled up between us on the futon while the Vikings game is on. Life is good. And Indy is back to normal - earlier she stole half of my Twizzler, chewed off the end of a spool of thread, happily played with an empty 20-oz bottle of coke, intimidated a squirrel in the backyard and pranced around with a bone in her mouth.

So tonight give your pets a hug and an extra treat! What would we do without them?

A week of cold weather

This is what happens at our house when it's cold for about a week and winter seems as though it has already arrived even though it's only the first week of October:

Simple pleasure of the day

Taking Indy for a walk through our neighborhood and noticing the cute little doggy water dish outside someone's house on their sidewalk. They had drawn on the side of a 3-quart soup pot a doggy paw + water = heart.

That made me happy and also quenched Indy's thirst.

Thank you, random neighbor on Albert St.!