Here we go again!

Well, Aida is at it again. I suppose it's not her fault that her delicate little feet are no match for the hot pavement. Last night Ben and I took her on a short walk to find some poo bags. Upon our return I noticed that Aida had something stuck on one of her back paws. When I got close enough, i realized that both of her back paws had torn similarly to that of her front paws a couple weeks prior. Unfortunately, the circular tear was larger on both her back paws. So we cleaned and wrapped up all four of her paws. We have been looking into getting her some booties especially for her trip to Luray, but you would not believe the cost of those suckers. To get good boots, that aren't known to falls off or wear through in one use, you are looking at a $55-$60 purchase....plus shipping and handling. Don't worry, we didn't purchase any boots for her...yet. We probably will eventually, but for now we are pricing around.

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As for the other things going on around these here parts.....it is still very warm outside. Ben has been working a few extra shifts as we are trying our best to pay down our credit cards. We have Aida all set up for the next 7 months with new heartworm and flea/tick medication and we're crossing our fingers that this preventative keeps those nasty ticks away. I have been baking a little more lately, and Ben seems to really enjoy that. I made some cinnamon rolls from scratch the other day (shown below). They turned out really good....they didn't last long. :)

The other day i went out with Aida for her morning bathroom break and underneath the back bumper of the highlander sat two baby morning doves. Later on when I came out to go to the store, the baby birds were still there probably trying to escape the sun's heat. I snapped this picture of the one baby, the other one had hopped out of frame. I must be a magnet of morning dove babies, as you may recall, Ben and I had two baby morning doves hatch in our window box planter at our old apartment. Anyway, I thought they were cute.

That's about all the news for now. Hope all is well with everyone. Looking forward to Luray in July and the Ohio trip at the end of July!!!

Our Little Tennis Champ...

First off I would like to apologize for the numerous posts I have added today. Feel free to peruse the 3 following posts as they were also added today.

Ben and I had this brilliant plan to take Aida up to a tennis court and let her run around and catch the balls we were hitting back and forth. While, in theory, this was a good idea, we did not take into account the hot asphalt and her little paw pads. Aida had a blast catching the balls and running around. Once we got home, however, Ben discovered she was limping while she was out back. He looked at her paws only to find that she had ripped a dime sized shallow hole in her one front paw and did the same to the other front paw except the piece of paw pad was still hanging on. We felt really really bad and we made sure to clean her paws and give her lots of TLC.

Here are some pictures of the good times at the tennis courts:

And now for the "Awwwww, poor Aida!" moment.........

She's fine now. We wrapped up her paws and she has left them alone for the most part. Hopefully she won't need the booties come tomorrow but we will keep an eye on her. Until then, Ben was pretty happy to have found cute girly bootie socks for her. And of course, once "grandma" heard about the ordeal she promptly picked up a new toy for her. So she is still very well spoiled. :)

Happy Father's Day

For Father's Day the boys went to the shooting range down on Front Street while mom and I got stuff ready for dinner. These are just some pictures from Daniel's camera. They said it was a lot of fun....Enjoy!

Happy 1st Birthday Owen!

Owen's 1st Birthday Party bash was a big success. Caleb was feeling much better from the day before and the birthday boy was just as happy as could be. We had a lot of fun seeing the Lima family and of course Aunt Martha and Uncle Larry. And luckily we got to visit with them two days in a row! Owen got lots and lots of clothes (Jenn was very happy) and he loved the couple of toys he got (Caleb liked them too!). Overall, the party went very well, and we were so happy to be involved in our Godson's birthday. :)

Howl at the Moon

On Friday night Nate, Daniel, Liz, Ben and I all went up to Cleveland to go to a bar called Howl at the Moon. We met Matt and Cat up there which was a lot of fun since we haven't seen them in awhile. The bar was a dueling pianos bar where you can make requests of different songs from Snoop Dogg to Classical and the two pianists sing and play the music. It was pretty fun. Silly me didn't take any pictures of the performers though....i'm not sure why. Oh well. It was a fun night though. Matt and Cat got a big party drink for us to share (see the middle picture above).....it was good.....very good. I drank more than my share i think.

Living in an Oven

Yesterday morning the outside temperature tipped the scales at around 85 degrees....at 8AM. We took Aida to the vet for her Lyme Disease booster vaccination appointment at 10AM with temperatures reaching the low 90s. By the time we got back around 11:30AM Mother Nature turned the thermostat up to almost 100. The temp did reach 100 that day with a heat index of 110 degrees.

It is the weirdest feeling to step outside and feel like you are standing in an oven. The air is so thick you can hardly breathe. We have been pretty much running our air conditioning non-stop and keeping the blinds shut all day.

Luckily, the Excessive Heat Warning is supposed to be lifted come tomorrow. Because the cold front is moving in of course that means more Severe Thunderstorm warnings are being announced. Currently the temperature is 97 with a heat index of 107. The storms are supposed to bring icy cold 89-90 degree temperatures....but we'll take it....it's better than 100 degrees.

We are looking forward to coming back to Ohio to see everyone and to enjoy the more seasonable weather. :)

Race for the Cure

First off, Ben and I would like to thank everyone who donated money for the Race. We really truly appreciate all your support and hope that you all know that you made a difference. Last time I checked, this Race ended up surpassing the 3 million dollar goal. So thank you all again.

Here is Ben and i towards the beginning of the race. Luckily the sun wasn't out at first. It was, however, very warm and muggy. Once we got to the third mile the sun decided to pop out.

Here's the finish line!! Whoohoo! It took us about an hour to finish the entire 5K. We probably would have gotten done a lot sooner, but the massive amount of people set the pace.

You can tell how muggy it is here in this picture. The Capitol Building is in the background covered in a humid haze. This picture was taken by another race participant after we finished. As we walked back to the metro, there were still hundreds of people walking the race. The amount of people participating in this walk was both massive and inspiring. It's nice to see so many people getting together for such a worthy cause.

*Just a funny tidbit: On our way to the metro station I heard a *pop* sound and felt a wetness on my left calf. I looked down and realized I had Ketchup splattered up my leg. I stopped to figure out where it came from and what i should do. Ben said he had felt a pop under his foot. Here there was a ketchup packet a few feet back that he had stepped on thus splattering the condiment up my leg. We thought it was funny.*

Our most heartfelt thanks, again, to everyone who both donated money and took the time to read about the cause.

Celebrate Fairfax

Ben and I went to the Celebrate Fairfax Fair this evening. It was still nice and hot and muggy, but the festival was nice. It cost us $7.50 a person to go and we got to see a concert by Ok Go! . If you haven't heard of them by name, you may have seen or heard about their music video in which they perform a choreographed treadmill routine. They were very good live, but i have learned that I am too old for that kind of stuff anymore. The loud music made my ears very mad. We were in the front row right up against the speakers. I know, that was our first mistake...but we eventually moved back.
This is Ok Go! Their video is pretty fun to watch. They said it cost them $5 to make and they originally posted it on You Tube and it turned into this huge sensation. You can follow the link below to You Tube to see the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv5zWaTEVkI

This picture is for Dad. Ben thought you would like to see this motorcycle they had on display at the fair.

Well, we are off to bed. We have to get up early for the Race for the Cure!

Hot as H-E-double hockey sticks...

Well, the mercury in the thermometer reached into the 90s today. And thanks to the great Capital of the country being built on a swamp....the humidity made this day even that much more enjoyable. To add to it, there is another small wave of storms a movin' in tonight. Luckily for us, the storms aren't supposed to be nearly as ferocious as yesterdays.

Two tornadoes touched down somewhat near us. We are in Loudoun county and one of the tornadoes touched down in Fairfax county, which is the county we used to live in (just south of us). But let me tell you, Mother Nature dealt us quite the thunderstorm anyways. The trees whipped back and forth as if they would easily snap in half. The rain was coming in so hard and fast banging against our windows. Once the Tornado warning came up for our area, we retreated into the bedroom, away from the many windows in the living room. Everything turned out okay though.

Hopefully the strong storms have subsided for awhile. We are looking forward to our weekend. Tomorrow we are planning on going to the Celebrate Fairfax festival. It is supposed to be another hot day in the low 90s but that's nothing compared to our Race for the Cure day on Saturday. I received an email from the Race headquarters warning the participants on the heat advisory on Saturday. It is supposed to be mid to upper 90s. Yippee. Luckily the race is early and we probably won't be hanging around much afterwards.

That's about all the news for now. Just wanted to let everyone know that we are well and happy and hot. :)