Rough Day for Maddie

This afternoon I decided to go for a four wheeler ride. It was a beautiful day and I had been cooped up in Chemistry labs all day, so I wanted to get out and burn off some steam. Maddie gets so excited when she sees me load up the four wheeler, she knew exactly what we were about to do. For the last 5 months, everytime we would ride Maddie would be right behind us, having a blast. Well today was different, about half way through our ride I noticed that Maddie wasn't staying as close as she normally does. Didn't think much about it until after we were done riding. I noticed some blood on the ground, and then I say that she was favoring her front legs. After closer inspection, I realized that she had completely torn off her "pads" on the bottom of her feet. She had been used to running on "soft" ground up in Arkansas, lots of grass, dirt, mud, etc. Texas has a lot more rocks and "rough" terrain, and her feet took a beating. I felt horrible. We took her to the Vet, and they had to sedate her and then perform minor surgery to remove the damaged pads, so that they could heal properly. She has these huge bandages on her front paws, but the Vet said her pads should grow back in a couple weeks. While we were at the Vet, we discovered that she is also having a false pregnancy! Basically her body thinks that she is pregnant, when she actually isn't. We noticed that her "mammory glands" had become enlarged, but knew she wasn't pregnant because she had no interaction with any male dogs while she was in heat. Once again didnt think much of it until the Vet started "milking" her on the table. She told us that we needed to get her spayed ASAP, because she would not be able to handle true pregnancy. She said that she would carry the litter full term but the pups would be dead at birth, and Maddie would become very susceptible to getting cancer. Trisha and I had been planning on bredding her next month. We were obviously dissappointed but we dont want to do anything to risk losing Maddie. We also found out that she is having an allergic reaction to something down here in Texas, and it is causing her hair to start falling out. So long story short, Maddie had a rough day. She has all kinds of medication to take over the next week, so hopefully she will get better. She is sedated, so she cant feel any pain. I felt bad about her feet but I am glad that we found out about the false pregancy and skin reaction, because the long term effects of both could have been worse. The Vet said they had the same problem with their lab, so they put "booties"(a.k.a. doggie shoes) on her feet and she has done much better. Pray for Maddie over the next couple days she is going to need it. Hope all is well, see ya soon.

(Maddie sedated, Lilly wondering what is going on.)


(Lilly winking for the camera.)

First week of work

Hey guys. Just wanted to let you know that Trisha started her job (Dillard's Corporate) this week and she absolutely loves it. She has an incredible boss and she loves the work that she is doing. I know that lots of you have been praying that everything will go smoothly this week, and it has. Thanks for all of the prayers.

Summer Time!!

We'll sorry it has taken so long for the latest post. We had a blast on our cruise. If anyone has not had the experience of going on a cruise I highly recommend you do! I was not affected by the "motion of the ocean" you hardly even felt the movement. You are treated like kings and queens for an entire week. Everything is paid for up front. You put your dirty towels in the floor and when you come back clean ones are hanging up in the bathroom. 3 course meals every night at dinner, all you can eat buffetts for breakfast and lunch. Live entertainment nightly and then of course pools and sun decks to lay out and relax. It was one of the best vacations I have ever been on and Trisha and I are already planning our next cruise.

The last few weeks have been really busy, I started summer school and Trisha has been trying to get as much done in her last week before she starts work. We absolutely love being back in Fort Worth, and being so close to our family. I am playing on the Pleasant Ridge Softball team this summer with Caleb. We had our first game tonight, we absolutely smoked the other team. It started pouring about the fifth inning, and didnt stop until the game was over. Trisha and Audria were the only "true fans", all the other wifes left early but the troopers stayed until the end. It has rained on and off for the past two weeks, I barely had enough time to get everyone's yard mowed. I guess we are still considered to be in a drought so we need all the rain we can get...it just gets depressing after two weeks of very limited sunshine. Here are some pictures from the cruise. Hope all is well.

Here is our picture from formal night.

We liked the cruise ship with the State of Texas.

Here is us with our sunburned faces.

Here is a random picture I found on our camera but I thought it was cute.

We're going Crusing!!!!

Hey guys we leave early tommorrow morning for our cruise through the Caribbean! We are so excited! David and Daina got us a week long cruise as our Graduation present, and we have been looking forward to this week for over a year now! This will be my first cruise and I am anxious to find out about these all you can eat buffets! Trisha says she is more excited to see me get rid of my Arkansas farmers tan (lol). Caribbean here we come!! We have our camera and we are ready to take a bunch of pictures so be expecting some good shots. Hope all is well.

Back in Fort Worth

Hey guys, sorry it has been so long, the last couple weeks have been crazy! We finished up with school for the semester. Trisha finished her other dresses and they look great. I will try and put up some pictures the next couple days, I am updating from Audria and Caleb's computer because our Internet at the new house is not set up yet. Trisha graduated Saturday and she is finished with school, FOREVER!!! Trisha recently accepted a job offer for Dillards corporate! She has an awesome job working as the Assistant Product Coordinator, working at the Arlington Corporate Offices. Basically she will be in charge of Dillard's private label making sure everything goes smoothly. She doesn't like to brag but it is an amazing job and not many people I know get the exact job they want right out of College. I finished my crazy semester of 20 hours and I am ready to get my summer of Chemistry underway. We packed up all of our stuff and we have moved into our new house. You guys are welcome to stop by and check it out any time you want. Just give us a call. We are looking for some help deciding on a new name for our Blog, since Adventures in Arkansas doesnt work anymore. We want to have something catchy. If you have any great ideas write them in your comments. I will try and get our internet working that way we can catch everyone up. Until then, hope that all is going well with you and your family! Hope to hear from you soon!

One Down Two to Go!!!

Hope everyone is doing good. Trisha and I are down to our last two weeks of school. We have had lots of projects and presentations but we are ready for the summer. In one of the Fashion classes Trisha is taking, they have been creating there own line of clothing. This has been a semester long project, which basically they have had to create and plan out there own design, make up patterns, and now put the clothes together. Trisha decided that she wanted her line to be evening dresses! For the non-fashion savvy like me, evening dresses are much harder to make than typical jeans and t-shirts, which is what most of the class decided to do. Trisha has been working really hard all semester to make these dresses look good. The other night she finished her first of three dresses. This picture was taken at 2:00 in the morning, after a long night of sewing. Let us know what you think.

Maddie turns one!!

It has been kind of a boring week, not much going on. Trisha has been in Atlanta at "Apparel Market" with her class. She had a good time and she got lots of great deals on clothes and jewelery. Since Trish was gone for four days I spent most of my time in the woods. It was opening weekend for spring Turkey, and it seems like I was out there for a couple days straight. I ended up not seeing anything...but most likely this was due to my long naps I was taking in the blind, what can you do? It was fun to just be in the outdoors. Maddie's first birthday was on the 15th! Mom wanted to see more pictures of her so here they are. Keep checking, hopefully I will have some pictures of a big "gobbler" on here soon. If you haven't seen our four-wheeling videos that Caleb made you need to go to his blog and check them out. I think he has a couple videos up, they look really good. (His web address is highcampmedia.com/blog ) Hope all is well.

(8 weeks old, about 5 seconds later she was trying to rip the ducks head off! Such a good dog!)

(8 weeks old, retrieving)

(8 months, eating bones with Lilly at Christmas)

(8 months, wishing she was playing with the kids outside)

(10 months, Dreaming about killing ducks)