Good-bye dear girl…

"He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, and his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion."

We feel we were worthy of her unconditional love this morning when we made the decision to say good-bye and take her pain away.  Lucy was diagnosed with bone cancer in her right rear leg almost a year ago.  She’s so stubborn and such a tuff girl, she fought it off all this time.  For the past month or so she bravely carried that leg and went right on with things the best she could, but we knew by her behavior that she was in daily pain.  We didn’t want that for her anymore.

It’s been such a sad day today.  Our hearts are broken and we already miss her like crazy.  Lauren has asked about her a few times today and we have tried our best to explain that we had to let her go to doggie heaven so she can run and play there like she couldn’t do here.   

 

Good-bye, dear Lucy, we love you so much.  You were a constant source of light in our house for many years and we will always remember you. 

Blog Publishing

I promised to tell you about a cool program for publishing to your blog without even going into Blogger.  It’s called Windows Live Writer and you can download it here. 

Once you download the program, you will enter your Google user name and password and let it know which blog you want to publish to.  Once you do that it will recognize how your blog is formatted and give you the perfect amount of writing space to fit your blog.  Uploading photos is a snap and you no longer need to worry about the order of uploading, like in Blogger.  You can resize your photos quickly without messing in the HTML coding and also crop them and add effects.  Also, like any Windows program, you can always “undo” something with a click of a button before you save it.  Also, you can tilt your photo, like I did below, make it look like a Polaroid and easily add a watermark selecting from a gazillion different font choices. 

As you’re typing your post, you can just drag and drop the photos to different locations.  Oh, you can add tables, insert a photo album, insert a map of a location…the list goes on.  I think you get the message…it’s just SOOOO much easier than Blogger. 

Oh, and if you create your first post in Writer and then get this error message when you try to publish: “The remote server returned an error: (403) forbidden", then do the following.  I don’t know why it works, but it does.  Don’t question the computer Gods. 

1. Go to http://picasaweb.google.com.

2. Log in using the same Google account you use to post to Blogger.

3. Create an empty album called "Windows Live Writer" (without the quotation marks).

Now go back and try to publish.  Works like a charm!  Have fun and come back and thank me later!  ;)  

PS…thanks again, M3, for introducing me to Writer!

PSS…Writer is supposed to work with Windows Live, WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, SharePoint, Community Server, and many more.

Reunion Trip…

We are just back from our bloggy reunion to Park City, Utah and I wanted to post some of my favorite pics.  I first met up with these wonderful ladies back in August 2006 and this time I got to meet Catherine and sweet little Hannah too.  It was so great to see everyone again and meet all the kiddos. 

Our trip had it’s ups and downs.  We got in on Thursday afternoon and had a great night hanging out with everyone at the house.  Friday we had a fun day at Park City Mountain Resort, followed by dinner and relaxing at the house while the kids played.  Friday night I didn’t get any sleep and spent most of the night in the bathroom with the stomach flu.  You get the picture…it was NO fun.  By mid-day on Saturday we had two kids sick and another mom feeling queasy.  So Saturday turned out to be sort of a bust, but we had a great time up until then.  Now on to the pics…

Here’s Lauren mesmerized by the iPad.  Wow, that thing is super cool and can keep kids entertained for days!  It has tons of apps for kids and you can download movies too.  I’m sure it would make a long car or plane ride seem much faster. 

It was so much fun to finally meet little Ro & Ree after watching all their antics on M3’s blog.  They are the sweetest little girls and Lauren seemed to really look up to them. 

Here’s Lauren with Eliza, Sollie, and Maisie.  Eliza is so sweet…she asked me my name about 5 times and then after that, EVERY time she talked to me she said my name first…very cute.  Sollie is super cute and full of energy.  I don’t how how Tiffany does it with both kids as a single momma, but she does an amazing job with them.  Maisie is a little gymnast.  She was proudly showing us her backflips and is getting ready for a gymnastics competition soon.  She is also as smart as a whip and a real cutie pie to boot. 

I love this pic of little Sollie.  Just look at those gorgeous eyes of his…

Also love this pic of Tate.  She is as cute as a button and very chatty in her sweet little voice. 

Here’s Lauren with Hannah, who was so cute running about at the house trying to keep up with the bigger kids.  

It’s amazing how much entertainment can come from mixing bowls, spoons and measuring cups…

Here’s our attempt at a “red couch” photo in age order from right to left. 

Here we are trying to re-create our photo from the 2006 trip…

and now add in the kiddos…

Maisie and Lauren had fun “rock climbing” at a nearby park.  I think they both have a good sense of adventure…

Here we are at the Park City Mountain Resort.  Skiing in the winter and rides in the summer….

We’re next up for the alpine slide…

It was a long ride up to the top of the mountain…

and then winding all the way down…

on this little slide.  It was SO much fun!

Just some random cuteness…

M3 took the girls for a walk and snapped this totally cute pic.  LOVE it! 

All in all, we had a great trip and it was so much fun to see everyone!  I’m looking forward to years ahead of get togethers like this and watching all the kiddos grow up! Julie, I missed seeing you and Tess and look forward to seeing you on your next trip to Phoenix.

By the way, if anyone is wondering why my pics look so much bigger than the usual tiny pics that Blogger uploads, it's a slick Windows program that M3 showed us. You actually create your post there and publish straight to your Blog. Let me know if you'd like the info. It's SO much easier than Blogger posting!  

Heading out for a trip...

Tomorrow morning Lauren and I are taking off for an extended weekend trip to hang out with some bloggy friends in Park City, Utah. Here's the great ladies we'll be seeing...

Lisa and Tate
Tiffany, Eliza and Soloman
Lisa and Maisie
M3, Ro and Ree
Catherine and Hannah

It should be a blast since we're all staying together in a 6 bedroom rental house. There will be 6 of us and 8 kiddos...think we stand a chance? ;)

We bought Lauren her own small rolling suitcase from Target complete with a cupcake name tag holder. Last night I told her I was going to start packing and she ran into her room and rolled it on out. Then I said we need to pack our clothes and off she ran back to her room. She came back with a bunch of stuff from her bottom clothes rack that are all too big and shoved them into her suitcase. All done, she announced. It was so cute.

Holiday weekend...

Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend! We started out Saturday by taking Lauren to her very first movie. We saw Toy Story 3. Here she is proudly holding her tickets...



We had breakfast out right before the movie, so we didn't hit the snackbar. I did bring some Red Vines though. A movie wouldn't be complete without them. She did great during the movie and sat through the whole thing. We purposely went to a regular showing and not 3-D. I thought that would be way too much for her right now.


Saturday evening we met some friends and their kids for dinner and ice cream. We all had a really nice time and the kids got along so well together. Sindy, I wish we didn't live so far from you guys!


We didn't do much this year on the 4th. We actually had kind of a lazy day, which totally worked for me. We did throw some burgers on the grill and had a nice dinner just the three of us. We didn't feel like dealing with the heat this year for fireworks, so we copped out and watched the display over the Hudson River in NY on TV. Actually, with all the lights off in the room it was really pretty and they had some fireworks I've never seen before.