Stubborn Old Dog

Last week was a blizzard, today was 61 degrees and sunny. I love the spazziness of Colorado weather!

I decided to take advantage of the warmth to take Max on a walk (yes, in his stroller!). He was content to stay in there for most of the walk. But when we turned onto our street, he got so excited to get out that he almost jumped out of the dang thing.

And then this happened:



I guess it's safe to say this little guy has made a full recovery! Makes me happy to see him so spunky.

PS: Youtube offered to stabilize the video because it was shaky... so I said yes, and that's why the stroller warps weird in the corner there. :)

Blizzard!

Starting last night, Colorado Springs got buried by a good old fashioned blizzard! I haven't been in one of these since 2006. They're kind of fun, actually, as long as you are someplace safe and warm where you can stay indoors. Dad closed his office, all the schools shut down... One of the few downsides of working from home is you don't get to take snow days, dang it.

But I still enjoyed the epic snow piles outside. Here's a picture of the front yard... Note how high the snow is in comparison to the roof.

It's not like this everywhere. Blizzards involve high winds that pile the snow up like this in huge drifts, while in other places, you can still see the grass poking through.

Tomorrow is supposed to be in the 40s and sunny, so a lot of this snow will be gone by tomorrow night! The big piles, though... those could last for months.

Note for Future Stargazing

Tonight for our ward activity, we drove out to a bishopric member's ranch in Larkspur for a hay ride. It was a pretty magical experience. I am a sucker for stargazing, but always disappointed because in this modern world, it's hard to find good places where you can really see the night sky.

Well, add Larkspur to the list! It was a perfectly clear night, and we could see billions of stars (probably :) as well as the Milky Way. I even got to see a falling star so I could make a wish.

Add to that epic stargazing that we were on a hayride complete with old school lanterns (okay, the candles inside were electric). It was one of my favorite ward activities we've done so far. Can we make that an annual tradition?

All Better?

Good news--Max is doing SO much better today, thank goodness! I really thought he was a goner yesterday. In the morning, he was so weak he could barely lift his head. He wouldn't eat. He couldn't walk.

But Shauna had the smart idea to rip his breakfast up into tiny little pieces, and hand feed him. He was able to get that down, just barely. All day he lay in a heap in bed next to me. We'd bring him water and food every once in a while.

By dinner, he actually sat up to eat out of his bowl, and he was able to eat it all without help. A little after that, we carried him outside to do his business, and he actually started walking around. When we brought him back inside, he went straight back to bed. We dragged a mattress upstairs so I could sleep by him and keep an eye on things. A couple times in the night, he actually got up and walked to the door to ask to go outside.

Today, he seems pretty close to normal, if a little bit sluggish. He's been walking around the house again. He is able to walk to his water dish when he's thirsty or his food dish if he's hungry.

I don't know what was going on yesterday. It really scared me. But he is doing so much better today, I'm really hopeful he's going to make a full recovery and stick around for a while longer!!

Saying Goodbye

I think my dog might be dying today.

He's very old--15, and his breed usually lives to only 13. His health has been deteriorating a bit the last little while... His left back leg doesn't work right anymore, and sometimes he falls over. But this still caught me off guard.

This morning, we just couldn't get him out of bed. I gave him his favorite wet dog food, and he licked it a couple times, took a couple tiny bites, and then ignored it. He can't walk at all today. He's just lying in a heap and breathing very shallowly.

I looked up these symptoms online and of course it took me to an article about how to know when your dog is dying. It looks like the only thing a vet could do would be to put him to sleep.

All I can do is stay close by him and pet him and tell him how much we love him. I wish so much that I could do more. And I'm still hoping that somehow, he'll snap out of it, and go back to the way he was yesterday. But I don't think that's going to happen this time.

This is a weird blog post, I know, but writing it out is helping me somehow. Right now it's just me and Max. Shauna and Mom will be back here soon but for now it's just me keeping watch.

At Last I See the Light

Ever since I've seen the movie Tangled, I've wanted to go to a floating lantern festival, and tonight I finally got my chance. Lori and I went to the Lantern Fest held at the Pikes Peak Roadway down in Fountain. It was even more magical than I thought it would be.

Lori thought she was borrowing my camera to take a picture, without realizing it was set to video mode... and caught this cool video of the underside of a lantern as it was preparing to launch.



You can skip to 2:12 to see me and Lori (and hear our excitedness when they played the song from Tangled, "At Last I See the Light". :)

Crossing that one off the bucket list! :D I realized later that was especially appropriate considering my word of the year is Light! What better year to go? Before we sent the Lanterns up, we got to decorate them with markers. I covered mine with the quotes from my word of the year post. And of course, Mormon.org. :) Probably it will just get tossed but figured it couldn't hurt!

Ponderizing: Psalm 37:4-5

So I neglected my ponderizing for a couple weeks, but I'm getting it going again today. :)

This week's verses: Psalm 37:4-5.