Gus' Gang Family Reunion 2009

I married into an awesome family! We have a huge reunion every other year and Scott and I were so excited to go! Last reunion Cohen was a new baby, it is so fun to see how everyone has changed and to spend time hanging out, cooking, relaxing, eating good food and playing games! There were 19 kids and 23 adults (if I counted right) that were able to make it this year! We all met at the Hale Ranch in Capital Reef for 4 days (July 9-12).

At the reunion we got our dogs back!!! We are so thankful to Scott's sister Tracy and his parents for taking such good care of our girls for months while we moved to Boston and back (they kept them for us at their home in California)! They had to do a lot for them (health wise) and we can't express enough how much this helped us out and how much it meant to us! We are so excited to have them back, we really missed them!

We went on hikes/walks, had multiple volleyball games and all the kids loved the motorcycles, trampoline, endless treats, playing together and playing with our dogs!

Scott with his parents!

Cohen loved the soft sand out by the petrogliphs.




Gus was Scott's grandfather! They have been doing reunions for years and started calling themselves Gus' Gang years ago. They have a new shirt each reunion.
Here is the family picture this year!

I wish we all could be California girls!

Our fur babies are going to get a vacation of their own on the other end of the country from us in sunny California! They will be staying with their Aunt Tracy (at Scott's parents home) and we hope they will be good girls and have tons of fun. Who knows, they may not want to come back!
I will miss them so much!!! I only have two weeks left with them until we will be meeting Tracy somewhere in between California and Utah to give her the dogs. Then we will be packing up and Scott will be leaving the next week and the following week Cohen and I will be flying out! It is all coming up quick now. I am going to try and spend lots of cuddle and play time with my pups before we take them on their adventure and try not to think about the 4 months I will be missing them!

Thanks Tracy, Mom and Dad for your willingness to help out! We really appreciate it and hope you enjoy our doggies while you have them!!!

What a beautiful day!

We have a couple different options with the dogs, but won't know what we are doing for sure for another week or two. I am not sure whether I rather take them (which may still be a possibility) or leave them with someone. I know it would be lot easier on me (physically and less stress) with the move and being in Boston if I didn't have them, but I know I will worry about them, no matter who they are with and I will miss them so much! Maybe too much?
At 14 weeks, I am still feeling just as sick as ever. And with the hormone Relaxin that peaks at this point, it is also making my body ache!
I spent the day weeding our huge front flower beds and really enjoyed being out in the sunshine and getting my hands dirty in the mud! After over 4 hours straight, I thought to myself, maybe it wasn't such a good idea. Now my body really hurts! I guess things can always get worse so I have to look at the bright side, this is only temporary and in the end when I am holding my new baby in my arms I will be thankful to have had the opportunity to experience it again, all the aches and pains included.

Can anyone foster Izzy and Lilly?

So we have been unsure the specifics of the new rule that APX added this year of having no pets allowed. We were under the impression that others were bringing their dogs and it would all work out for us to bring ours as well, but it turns out that it is all too iffy on how much they are going to inforce the new rule. It isn't an option for us to get out to Boston and then not be able to keep our dogs there.

If we leave them here we want someone who we feel completely comfortable with. We will need someone for 4 months (end of April to the end of August). There have been other variables that we have been trying to overcome in making this trip to Boston work and this is kind of the last thing, so now I am putting this out there to see if anyone has any ideas for us!
They are very sweet girls, but they do need a lot of attention. They love to cuddle, go on walks and play ball. Does anyone want these adorable pups for the summer or know of anything we could look into?

Merry Christmas from our girls!

(Today I over heard the dogs when they were telling each other about how sick and tired they are about not being featured on the family blog... so this is for them! :))

Lilly recently had her first birhtday! We adopted her from the pound just over 7 months ago and we have just fallen in love with her (although it took a few months)! We are so happy we chose to rescue her rather than buy from a pet store (puppy mill). She has had so much spazzy energy and is such a sweet little girl. She has never had an accident in the house (however, she does have a nervous peeing problem) and is always excited for attention. She is still in the puppy phase though and takes off with random utensils or toys or any other object she finds suitable.
Izzy is a true big sister and gets very annoyed with Lilly. Although we know she really does enjoy her company and they have so much fun playing together. Izzy is almost 3 and loves to sit on her throne on top of the couch looking out the window.
We love our dogs, even though sometimes I wonder why I have given myself the extra work and even after cleaning up muddy footprints throughout the house, half eaten trash spread across the backyard, having to scoop the poop in the yard and all the extra expense of grooming and dog food, etc we are happy to have our fur babies!

Memorial Day Weekend

For Memorial Day weekend we went to Scott's cousins Ranch by Capital Reef. It was so relaxing, just what we needed and thankfully Cohen did great! One of the days we went on a hike and he thought that was so much fun!

We had fun hanging out with Ashley, Regan and Cole and some of their friends!

Izzy and Lilly came with us and just loved roaming the valley, but most of the time they stayed on the porch and enjoyed the view together!

They were really good girls except for when they tried to go after the horses next door and Izzy fell into a DEEP ditch and Lilly almost got kicked!We love the Ranch and always have a hard time leaving! :( We wanna go back!

Our New Addition!

Scott and I have been thinking about getting another dog for a while and after watching the Oprah show on puppy mills (see post below) I constantly thought about how we could give a homeless pet a good home. So I started looking at both of our local animal shelters and also went to the Humane Society in Murray and an adoption center in Salt Lake to see what was out there. I looked on the website Petfinder.com which has lists of thousands of dogs and other animals available for adoption through rescue groups. I also looked through KSL classifieds online searching the adds for people wanting to find new homes for their dogs. There were so many lab, border collie, pit bull and other mixes and pure breeds like these in every place I looked. At first I wasn't sure what breed we wanted, but we like so many things about mixes like Izzy because they don't shed, they are a good size and energy level for being an inside pet and are generally great with kids. We saw quite a few smaller dogs that people had purchased for their kids, then the kids mistreated them by being too rough and the dogs got nippy so then they ended up in the pound. I thought it would take a while for me to find a dog that Izzy got along with, that would be good with small kids and one Scott and I felt good about. I put my name on a couple lists through the shelters to be called if any dogs that met what we were looking for were dropped off. I was really surprised that it only took a couple days to find an incredibly sweet puppy that seemed to fit right in...

*Meet Lilly!*(It is hard to see her eyes in this picture since her hair needs to be cut!)
We adopted her last Saturday from the Lindon Animal Shelter!
She is a 5 month old shih tzu/poodle mix. She loves to play and explore the world! She is a very sweet puppy and is doing well with potty training. She is great with Cohen and she loves to rough house with Izzy!
She has soft black hair, brown eyes and I love how her chin, chest, paws and the tip of her tail are white!

Lilly was surrendered by her owners because the girl that purchased her said she didn't realize how much her husband hated dogs until she got one. (I think they had her less than three months.) Having another dog is a huge responsibility financially and time consuming since I try to take them on a walk everyday and play with them and Lilly has a barking problem and I am trying to train her on basic commands and obedience. I have been watching a series on the Discovery Channel called the DOG WHISPERER and it has really helped, I recommend it to anyone wanting to understand more about dogs. He gives great incite and training advice!
We are so excited we adopted Lilly and we love having her as a part of our family! There still are so many more homeless dogs that would make great pets just waiting to be adopted... It was hard to pick just one! I wish I could bring them all home!

Freshly Fallen Winter Wonderland!

December is here and it brought inches and inches of SNOW! I love surprises like this in the morning! Here is our cozy escape from the winter chill. (If you look closely you can see little miss Izzy gazing out the front window!)

Izzy really loves dashing around in the snow! She would run this way and that way and I had a hard time getting a picture of all the action!

RUN IZZY, RUN!!! (I think she is part rabbit, among other animals...)

SNOW PLOW!

What a face...

The "Fearless" BEE KILLER

Izzy decided to try and kill a bee that was in our house, but instead it stung her on the lip and for some reason she then threw up on the stairs, one of the only areas with carpet in our house instead of wood. Her lip then became swollen and she moped around the house acting traumatized, I think her dignity was gone. She was back to normal a few hours later looking for more insects to dominate!

Izzy's Recovery

Izzy is healing up great! We did have one set back when she chewed out a couple of the staples and then the stitches down inside, (EWW!) but since then the incision has closed up and she is using her leg pretty well. Sometimes she limps or carries it, but most of the time she runs around the house acting as though nothing happened. This poses as a problem since we aren't suppose to let her run. We can't even take her on short walks for another couple weeks. How are you
suppose to prevent a puppy from playing though?
It seems as though the surgery was a success and was worth it, her leg is stronger and straighter than before and that is what we were going for. Now she just better live a really long time to use the very expensive leg for a very long time!

Izzy's "Exciting" Adventure

Our first child, aka Izzy, was in a tragic banana chair accident when she was just a few months old where her left front leg was rolled on. At the time we didn't know it stunted the growth of one bone in her leg by cracking the growth plate. As she grew the other bone kept growing and curved which didn't became really apparent until the last few months. Her leg was weak and would give out and cause her pain. So we decided to do a surgery that would remove bone from the center of the curved bone and then reconnect it with a metal plate and screws to straighten it.
(This ended up costing us more than twice what we originally paid for her, that is an expensive left leg!) One interesting fact about Izzy having a metal plate in her front left leg is that Scott also has a metal plate in his left arm from a tragic trampoline accident of his own. Haven't you always heard that animals resemble their owners?