More updates

It is official! Belle is being adopted! Well at least semi-official. Garrett put a mass email out at the law firm and has had a few people show interest. The goal is to give her to another family before we fork out another 30 dollars for dog food. I am going to do phone interviews first (seriously, I am). Garrett said he put in the email all of the things Belle does and needs..like how she digs holes or how she needs property to run around on and dogs to play with. One gentleman lives around the valley here and is a hunter with other dogs on the property. A woman lives in Eastern Oregon on a ranch. Garrett has told me about another person but I forgot what they were all about. At any rate, that is about it on Belle. She will definitely enjoy being in the wide open spaces and not cooped up in a little backyard (we are on .16 acre...pretty small).

Lets see. Oh, Reagan has decided to potty train herself. I never actually believed people when they said that their kids did it, but she seems to want to do it. Yesterday, for example, she would say "poop," grab our hand, walk w/ us ro the bathroom and then go. I think she is amazed at the peeing part (maybe b/c of the noise?) at any rate, she finds it pretty cool. We went and bought "big girl" panties today. I couldn't find the really thick ones that we used w/ Maddie, but we still have the plastic liners to put over the panties, so we should be okay. The regular underwear won't be as absorbent, but seeing as she tells us when she needs to go, I think we will be ok, though I did buy a ten pack so there will be plenty to use.

We grandma-sat this weekend. Garrett's grandma lives in an apt. and we get paid to take care of her. It is a really boring job, but pays well and the money is nice to have, especially while Garrett wasn't working at Cabelas!

Maddie is learning sign-language at school and is really good at it. I didn't even know they were teaching it until she spelled her name and showed me the different signs for colors like green, orange, and red. I figure it must be the preschool b/c I certainly don't even know the signs for the colors. If anyone in Boise is looking for a preschool, Small Hands is awesome. I don't know if they have any spots left for this coming Fall, but it is worth a try!

I leave for Miami in about a month!! I am soooo exccciiittteeeddd!!!! I may miss a Mother's Day Tea party w/ Maddie, but I am sure Marsha (she is helping w/ the girls while I am gone) would love to go. Garrett took the first two days off that I am gone so Marsha and Maddie could go if I am not around. My friend Kristin is graduating from Med School at the Univ of Miami. I have wanted to go out there since she moved there Aug 2004 and G suggested I go out for her graduation. Of course I said yes and thankfully have been given a job of watching Grandma every other weekend which has paid for the flight. After Kristin's graduation, her family is going to the Keys and I was invited to go!!! I am going to start going tanning this week so I don't fry while I am down there. I also have to save up for some cute clothes b/c I am not going down to Miami looking like an old frumpy housewife! (Note: Kristin will be in Sacramento/UC Davis for her residency and I told her if we end up there she can deliver my next kid :-))

G is happy at work and ready for the move (I think...). He already put his last day as Aug 1st and we will move the following Monday.

TTFN!

Updates

I haven't written anything in a bit so I thought I would let you all know what's going on. We took Belle in on Monday to the vet b/c although we had tried to "fix" her e-collar so she couldn't get to her bandage, it didn't work. On top of that, we noticed the guaze directly on top of the sutures was yellow. I called the vet and spoke to a tech who said we HAD to come in b/c it was probably an infection. Of course I had to drag not only a crazy dog but two kids to the vet w/ me. The vet looked at her paw, said it looked fine and of course I was thinking why in the world the guaze was yellow. Now before I put in the next part I must tell you that we had actually never been in the room when they bandaged her up AND the last time they did it, they charged us fifteen dollars. Well this time, I was in the room when they bandaged her up. I am watching how they do it in case I need to change it again (I personally had done it three times prior) and guess what...the doctor SPRAYS A YELLOW ANTI-BACTERIAL SPRAY ON HER PAW before putting the guaze down. So not only did I have to deal w/ two kids and a crazy dog, I get a fifteen dollar charge for him doing it when I could have easily done it myself!!! We then got a bigger e-collar (it is HUGE). When checking out, they tried to charge me twenty-five for the bandaging and I informed them I was only going to pay fifteen like in the past. GGRRR...

Ok, so on to law school. G has been waitlisted at two schools (Chapman in Orange Co and Univ of Idaho in podunctville Moscow) and accepted at TJSL. I am really hoping he doesn't get a later acceptance to Idaho (which would be a slim possibility anyways) and so to say the least, can't wait to move to CA!!! His parents know about the whole situation now and thankfully seemed mostly excited about us living in San Diego. His mom told me today that they would love to sail from San Diego Harbor (they are big sailors) and would "visit quarterly" were her words! That makes me excited b/c I don't want them to think I am trying to run away from them or anything. I will definitely miss having them around. We won't have family nearly as close as we do now (in reference to the Maughan side), but I am definitely ready to move to year-round sun. Don't get me wrong, though, b/c I will miss the snow, but we will be back in Boise for Christmas and can always go to the mountains in So California (I know they have snow somewhere...Teddy about killed himself twice snowboarding).

Maddie is definitely getting more "emotional." I try to ignore it as much as possible but in the car it can get overwhelming. If anyone out there reading this is a child psychologist, please leave suggestions! She is diligently working on her lower and uppercase ABCs so she can get a new webkinz. She gets pretty frustrated at times and if she doesn' tknow what the letter is, she gets kind of "turned around" and then doesn't know any of the others.

Reagan has worn a bathing suit for two days now. Marsha got them both really cute suits for Easter. They are the ones from Costco I think. Maddie's is the Ariel one and Reagan's is Tinkerbell which is PERFECT for Rea especially b/c it has the tulle around the bottom of the suit and looks like a ballet outfit. Reagan loves to dance and it was really funny last night when I came home from the gym to see Garrett putting his ballroom shoes away. I asked him why in the world he had them out and he said he and Reagan watched Dancing w/ the Stars and danced along. Reagan is really good at watching someone do some sort of dance move and then mimicking it. She is always surprising us!

BELLE

I would like to tell you all a little story about a dog named Belle. Belle was a digger. Now the owners of Belle would like to blame it on the back neighbors' dog, but that wouldn't be honest, so we will all just have to say "she's a lab." Last weekend sometime between the hours of 3 and 6pm this said dog sliced up her paw in two places. Garrett (the owner) calls his poor wife (the innocent one) and tells her Belle has cut up her paw, there was blood EVERYWHERE, and he was going to take her to the vet.

Over $500 later, the Maughan's have a drugged up dog (only for about 4 hours [unfortunately only 4] after giving her a sedative) that still seems lucid enough to have figured out how to gently untie the bow that holds her "dog bag" on. (The dog bag is an IV bag w/ the top cut off to keep dirt, moisture, etc off the bandage).


The amazing thing about this dog is how she has figured out how to take the IV bag off by untying it instead of what she had done before by just ripping it up. At least she is saving the Maughan's ANOTHER trip to the vet to get a new one! Of course, the vet didn't believe it when told that Belle was able to get to her bandage (by taking the said bag off), but once seeing the evidence, the vet believed the story.

I hope you feel sorry for me! :-)

Law School Update

Garrett was accepted to a law school in San Diego yesterday!! I think I am more excited that he got accepted anywhere at this point. It has been a long haul and we are so grateful that it is really happening this time! (for those of you who don't know, he applied to a few schools our Senior year at BYU) They have some great concentrations you can do like Int'l Law and Intellectual Property. I think they even have things like Sports Law and Entertainment Law. Of course, I would absolutely LOVE to be back in California. I told G the house would be much cleaner b/c there would be a regular stream of sunny days and an average temp of the mid 70s year round would save on our utility bills! We will see though in the next bit where else he is accepted. We will miss everyone in Meridian and Boise, but this will be a great opportunity and of course a dream come true for our family! The school also offers part-time evening courses which means I could possibly fulfill my dream too and get a law degree. Of course it would be hard to finish one if I was going part-time but at least it would be a start. Yeah!

Ode to Courtney P

So our lovely dog Belle discovered how to turn our backyard faucet on. After discovering a flooded yard (and Elizabeth initially being blamed) it was eventually decided that Belle had in fact done the deed. Not only did she turn it on Saturday, but again Monday, Tuesday, and twice today. Luckily for me, I have an awesome friend who I was complaining to about it and she told me how to fix the problem. I am going to let you know how in case you ever have a crazy dog who figures it out (or construction workers using your outside faucet like in the case of Courtney). All you gotsta do is unscrew the handle (there is a small screw in the center of it) and wahla the handle comes off and there is nothing there to use to turn the water on! Yeah for Courtney! Now the only thing I have to be concerned about is losing the handle and screw (I totally will at least lose the screw at some point...).