TETON

We put our dog, Teton, down yesterday. It was unbelievably hard to do. He is 15 years old and has had tumors on his belly and legs as well as arthritis for quite a while. We knew that it would probably not be the best thing for him to move with us to California. The move would be hard on him. In the past few months he has not been quite himself and recently his back legs were not working very well making it really hard for him to walk up the stairs. Even though this was the best decision for him it was really, really hard. He has been such a good dog! He has been in Josh's family forever. They all have lots of memories with him and he was a great running dog most of his life. When we were moving to Buffalo Josh's parents asked us if we would bring Teton with us because they had moved and could not have dogs at their new house. There was no where else for Teton to go so we brought him out to Buffalo with us. I was okay with the idea but not excited about it. We agreed that he would mostly stay outside and he would sleep in the garage. That quickly changed to he could come in the house as long as he stayed on his pillow. That also quickly changed to he could be in the house and he could sleep in the house. Teton quickly became part of our family. I remember one day shortly after we moved here that I was sitting on the stairs crying for some reason and he came over and put his head in my lap. We were friends from that point on. He was such a mellow dog that he won the hearts of anyone who came in contact with him, especially all of Hayden's little friends. Our kids LOVED him! Both Hayden and Brinley's first real words {after mama & dada} were dog. I was worried about how the kids would handle his absence, especially Hayden. It has been about 24 hours and Hayden has not said anything about him yet. We are waiting for him to ask instead of bringing it to his attention. Josh and I have had some emotional moments over the past 24 hours thinking about how weird it is not to have him here anymore. We miss you Teton!

For Real?

It is April 18th and this is what it is doing outside. Enough is enough Buffalo! Let's have some sun and warmth!

Silly Kids

Sometimes we will find Brinley in the downward dog position. Sometimes she is doing it so she can pick something up and sometimes it is just because she is being silly. Hayden always wants to try it too.

Going To School With Daddy

Hayden is always saying that he wants to go to school with Daddy. He helps me put Josh's lunch in Josh's backpack and usually needs to put a lunch in his "packpack" too. It's really cute so we thought it would be fun for Hayden to make a lunch, put it in his back pack and go to school with Daddy. I took him to meet Josh during Josh's lunch hour. They had lunch outside. Walked around the school. Pet someone's dog. Went to the park that is near the school. Hung out, talked and played together. They both thought it was really fun, and want to do it again soon!

The last big hurdle

We found out yesterday that Josh PASSED his WREB licensing exam! He is now licensed to practice dentistry in 34 states! He has passed his licensing exam, part I & II of the dental boards and has just a few more small dental school requirements to meet and then we will be done with dental school!! This has been a tough journey. I'm so proud of you Josh!!

My Daughter

Brinley LOVES chocolate! One night she found a chocolate carmel egg under the counter and played with it and put it in her mouth until she had the wrapper off and could eat it! That's my daughter!!

{this is at the end of the day after dinner, before bath time hence the outfit, or rather lack of, and the nice hair do! :) }

My Baby

Hayden likes to get a baby and wrap it in his ties and sit in the rocking chair and rock it. Some people might think it's weird to let your little boy play like this, but I see nothing wrong with it. He sees us doing it and he is going to be a daddy someday too. I think it's pretty cute!

Bandaids

This little guy LOVES bandaids! One morning I can upstairs to find tons of bandaid wrappers all over the floor and this little man with a toy story bandaid on every finger! I was impressed that he was able to put them on the tips of every finger all by himself. He usually wears them all up and down both arms. He is so funny!

Brinley Is Walking

I tried and tried to rotate this video, but couldn't figure it out. Next time I will just take it the right way. For now this will have to do. She sure is cute!

Our Weekend

This past weekend was a crazy one for us. Josh had his licensing exam {the WREB} and we all got sick! Thursday night as Josh and I were talking and preparing for his exam we realized that it was do-able by himself but it would be easier for him to have an assistant on Friday morning. So I made a few phone calls and sent out a few texts and my good friend offered to watch our kids so that I could assist Josh Friday morning. {no i do not have any assisting experience but he said it would be easy for him to tell me what to do. he just needed someone to suction, blow his mirror dry and chart for him. i can do that! plus then i get to be there to see what is going on instead of worrying from home. } The morning went well and then I picked the kids up and took them home for naps while Josh completed the Endo portion of his exam. After naps I was driving to a few stores before I needed to pick Josh up and Hayden started complaining that his belly hurt and that he needed some medicine. Usually when he says this he throws up shortly after. I told him if it still hurt when we got home that I would give him some medicine. He would walk by me just fine for a while and then double over in pain, crying hysterically that it hurt. I felt SO bad for him! He did this a few times and then by the time we were headed to pick up Josh he was a crying mess. When we got home Josh calmed him down and after he went to the bathroom he seemed to be doing better. Then in the middle of the night Hayden started throwing up. Just when I thought it was over and I changed everything he would start again. This lasted for about an hour and a half. In the morning he seemed better. While we were getting ready for our babysitter to come for the day so I could assist Josh again Brinley was eating breakfast and gagged and threw up on her tray. I thought it was just because she choked/gagged and that she was fine. She showed no other signs of being sick. I took Josh to school, picked up our babysitter, got ready and left to go to the school and everyone seemed fine. We thought we would be done with Josh's exam by 1pm. Things did not go as planned with the patient and by 1pm I called our babysitter to tell her to go ahead and put the kids down for a nap and that we would not be home for a few more hours. She told me that when Brinley woke up from her nap she had thrown up all over. Oh man! I did not expect this, nor did I want her to have to deal with this. She is a super sweet 15 year old and handles things very well so she had things under control. The afternoon at the school was going well, longer than planned, but well. By 3:45 after triple checking and perfecting everything before sending his patient back to be examined before going on with the procedure Josh was confident that he had done everything correctly, but was still nervous because of the weight of this exam. {We paid over $2000 to take it and if he passes then he can practice in any state that accepts the exam as well as receives specialty pay from the Navy. It's a big deal. Hence the pressure! } We sent his patient back to the examiners and waited. And waited. And waited. We waited for 10 min. Josh was nervous. We waited for 15 min. Josh was super nervous and I was getting there. We waited for 20 min. Josh was sick and was making me sick with his anxiety. There were not that many patients back there waiting to be checked and he was convinced that he failed. Then someone from the back came to get the WREB Dr. from the front to come back to see something. WHAT??! We were freaking out! Then after 25 min. had passed the Dr. came back to the front with a yellow paper in his hands and walked right up to us. He explained that Josh had done everything correctly and 2 out of the 3 examiners did not see anything wrong, but 1 of the examiners perforated the tooth with their instrument while checking Josh's work. {Meaning they exposed the nerve} This created more work for Josh and meant that instead of being done on Saturday Josh would have to come in on Sunday morning to fill the tooth. What a mess! We cleaned up and hurried home save our babysitter! We had told Hayden that we would be home before nap time. Then that we would be home when he woke up from his nap and now he was awake and we still were not there. He was missing us! We walked in the door to crying kids and a babysitter that reassured us that it was not this way all day! Then she proceeded to tell me that she had changed Brinley's outfit multiple times due to blow out diapers. Poor girls, both of them!! After the kids were settled down for the night and the babysitter was home {with some cash in her hand to compensate her for the long, unexpected day!} Things seemed fine. Sunday Hayden had diarrhea but acted fine. Brinley had it too but took a nap for 4 hours and we all got some sleep so we felt good. Then Sunday evening I started feeling crappy. As the night went on it was worse and worse and during the night Josh got it then Hayden started throwing up again in the middle of the night. At first I thought that it was something we ate but then I realized that we all had the stomach flu. No one ate for an entire day, if we did we would throw up...especially the kids. It was horrible and I don't remember the last time I was that sick! We are all doing better now, thank goodness!! And we find out the results of Josh's exam in a few weeks!