Chasing Bluebirds

Miss Maggie

I've had a really rough week, even though I had found the time to load up a few posts that automatically posted... in the real world we have had a minor tragedy strike. Upon returning from our Florida trip we found our dog Maggie had lost some weight (not so unusual but still noted) and after a few days she began coughing with a runny nose. We took her to the vet as a family and during a very light-hearted visit, was given antibiotics for what was most likely "kennel cough." I have had several dogs get kennel cough before, Maggie never has even though she has been kenneled many times over her 3 years with us. Her cough and runny nose were gone within a week but she stopped taking her meds, which I assumed was just her "catching on" to our pill hiding in the food. Since her symptoms were gone, I continued to give her the pills with a hit or miss on actually getting them down. School started up, schedules got busy, we had visitors and Labor Day bar b ques, looking back now it is so easy to see that Maggie wasn't her normal self. On top of everything, it has been in the 90's for weeks on end here, just blazing hot. We are in and out of our little pool all day and into the evening too. After about three days of Maggie not eating much if at all and our "come on maggie, snap out of it" conversations with her she became weak and lethargic enough for me to make the call to the vet. They gave us the next appointment which was the next evening. Here is where all the should of, could of, beat myself up over and over part comes in. I said Ok to the robot on the phone, hosed the dog off assessed her wet nose, fresh poop and pee nearby and went back to my lazy day off. That night during our normal craziness (fans in all the rooms at full speed, attempts to cool ourselves down, rush to get everything ready for the following day of work and school) Maggie refused to go into her kennel which led to a wrestling match (sadly we laughed about this at the time) to get her settled in for the night. I did not sleep well, the heat was annoying and something about Maggie was nagging at me. I said to myself, if she isn't her normal self in the morning I will skip work and take her in. Unfortunately she died sometime during the night. All I can say now, a little over a week later is that her dying was never on the table. It wasn't even the tiniest thought in any of our minds. She was a young, pit/lab mix with a shiny coat and clear eyes, a strong "i love you" bark and wagging tail. She could pull chris around the block on his bike for hours and was the healthiest animal i have ever been around in my life. Big lessons learned here, big time priority straightening conversations and quiet reflective momments had by all. This was a really traumatic event and i am hoping that the eye opening experience we have all had will endure, without the scary nervous dread of death part that we have all felt too. 

I have lost many dogs but all to old age, losing a pet at 3 years old in the prime of her life and blaming myself for just letting it happen has been a nose dive into guilt, regret and grief i have never experienced before. To say i have cried would be an understatement, having a pet means they NEED you and it isn't ok to just do your thing while they may be suffering. I know that having never experienced anything like this i had no idea it could happen, it was tragic and unexpected. I also know now what a huge responsibility having a pet is, that it shouldn't be taken for granted and that their needs should be on the table along with yours. I never knew how much i loved my dog and how important she was to our family. That she was a MEMBER of the family yet not given as much consideration as the rest of us. Lastly, I remember crying for her to wake up and to realize she was gone. Such a final, hopeless, "can't be fixed" moment I will never forget.

Out and about in Utah

Our Utah adventure continued: This year we decided to drive around and see Canyonlands as well. I have never been to a National Park that wasn't well thought out, beautiful in the design of the visitor center, well run and organized. Gosh! If you haven't been to a National Park in this country (please skip the disneylands and theme parks), I highly recommend it. Canyonlands was no exception!

here are a few more of us out and about in Arches:




(i love the outfits lizzie comes up with !!)
always, always clowning around
our long drive back to reality, until next time!!

time warp

having a few more days off, i was ablet to FINALLY go through my iphotos and fix many of the goof ups that happened when i tried to put all of my photos from my old comuter onto the new. for some reason i had random duplicates all over the place, probably 1/3 of my storage taken up by this goof. i still haven't finished, but i have put a dent into it. along the way i came across lots of fun photos so i thought i'd do a little time warp for 2013:

photos of the mountains and our catalina trip from several years ago (that was a pet cemetery we stumbled on during a hike)...plus one of maggie as a puppy. healing up and getting ready to get back to it!

rome

we started our adventure in rome, i chose to do a week here because renting an apartment would be the cheapest way (i found out fast that a hotel room to accomodate 4 is very tricky, most hotels have doubles or triples but for 4 you need to get a "family room" which at a cheapy place can still be 3 or 400 dollars a night). i love to travel slow, really take my time and settle in to a place and a week in rome is very doable. i was surprised at how small rome is and how quickly we could walk from one place to the next.
our first day, checking out the coliseum. i wasn't sure what i would think of the coliseum but i was blown away. it was so ancient looking and well preserved and clean. worries about long lines were alleviated (thanks rick steves) with the purchase of a roma pass and the crowds weren't really that bad.

we enjoyed the hop on hop off bus, there were mixed reviews on trip advisor (we took the green line) which we got lucky to catch without many long waits but they decided to change up their route a couple times which left us stranded. oh well! we learned a lot about where everything was located between the ride and the walking which i love to do on the first couple days in a new place. if you only have two or three days in rome, this bus might not be worth the price. if you have a week? it can help get you around while you get over jet lag and that overwhelmed feeling.
the typewriter or wedding cake
with churches everywhere you look, we stumbled on more than a few weddings. how cool to be married in rome! i love how chris is just walking by and everyone is cheering the couple
out and about, palm trees were a surprise to me
romans built buildings and walls on top and connected to other buildings and walls, it was described to me as one big lasagna. layer upon layer of buildings were built and everything is recycled, nothing wasted. walking around is a architectural feast, even better than i imagined.
i went a little overboard on the shrine photos

i wasn't sure how we would manage eating in rome, with kids and being a vegetarian... just wasn't sure. i bought elizabeth minchilli's eat rome app and this one too. honestly, i wish i used them more but we were so dang jacked up from jet lag and the "american" meal times we never failed to arrive at a place when it was closed. i totally blame myself for being slow to check the days and times the place operated, duh, but once i got hip to checking we wouldn't find a (not to expensive) place anywhere near us when we were all beyond starving. luckily gelato filled in for many a lunch! what was our routine? here goes: breakfast of eggs, leftovers from dinner, cereal and lots and lots of expresso (we bought our own giant one). having ate a huge breakfast, we wouldn't even bother with lunch and instead snack on fruit, cliff bars and stuff like that. we drank about 10 huge bottles of water a day (it was close to 100 degrees in june, whew!) so food wasn't as big a deal as water, water, water. sometime around 4 or 5 we would try and track down a restaurant or pizzeria (here's where i would drag everyone around town to all the closed places on the app) and usually settle for whatever we found was open. guess what? everything STILL tasted great, never had a bad meal in rome, ever. sometimes we had to pay too much, but we always ate well and a lot and it was yummy!
our neighborhood... we stayed down the street from the coliseum a great place to stay as there was two metro stops nearby
shrine love
hanging out... more to come on our rome week, puglia, basilicata and tuscany!

italian adventure

so we are BACK! what a long long long and amazing trip. i could stay forever, but i have to admit it gets hard to really hoof it like you mean it every single day after 25 days. i became somewhat of a zombie by the time we got to istanbul (although the culture shock was exactly what i needed to give me a second wind) i plan on giving out more details of our itinery, in case my huge following is interested so stay tuned. for now, here are a few highlights:

emily at the harem in topkapi palace, istanbul
finding frances mayes house, cortona
pompeii (!!!!!)
trulli's!!!
the kids loved to take their own photos, lecce
recycled art, ostuni
our pad in puglia (dreamy)
so along with the many other things i've got going on, i'll try to get some organized posts together in case you are interested in taking a tour of southern italy. i spent so much time on the research (which i find is half the fun) i couldn't believe how well executed this trip went, there was seriously zero glitches and our expectations were often exceeded. ciao for now!

Olive

feisty little olive left us yesterday, it was a relief but still very sad. she will be missed.

april 2012

its like i need to just put the date up there because time is flying by and my blogging is lagging, geez! right now i am: swimming twice a week, riding my bike almost every day down the river to the beach (in crazy wind with these recent storms) and feeling so much better! when i was younger i could do three or four hard workouts in a week and be down a size no problem. well at 44, i guess it takes more than a few workouts to see a real change but at least i have swung that weight gain pendulum swinging in the other direction a bit. so on my bike ride today (the river runs right through the wetlands) i was surprised to see this at the end of the trail

the most beautiful, lovely sign dedicated to the wetlands we have been desperately trying to save!!! on the other side is a sign about the san gabriel river channel describing it's route and characteristics, also very well done. in other news, lizzie has been taking tae kwon do (sometimes 5 days a week she loves it so much) and she just had her first belt testing yesterday. it was really cool and i enjoyed watching the other kids too, especially the tiny kids getting really high level belts. this was exactly what this kid needed!!

(poor olive wants in) unfortunately we had a loss of a family member this week but the flip side was lots of visiting with extended family bringing us all closer and reminding us how important family is, how fast time flies. jump stated me planning an east coast visit to finally see all those cousins on the east coast and scout out my favorite state: north carolina. happy spring everyone!!
hanging out with aunt heather

xmas countdown

like everyone says, cant believe it's almost christmas again. i love the holidays but it does seem to come up fast each year. for once i started super early and am close to being done with all my shopping. i shopped almost exclusively online on amazon and etsy with my biggest purchase being some special commissioned paintings... can't wait to see them! 

i got a last minute invite to the tree lighting at the colorado lagoon so i rushed home from work and we headed out
it felt good to start our christmas season early this year. work has been slow for me so i have been relishing the time for cleaning the house and working on small projects. i need to get more regular with this blog or it may be time to call it quits. happy holidays!

christmas 2010

just a few snapshots of christmas... we had a nice quiet one, chilly weather and only a visit to my parents house on the schedule... today is chris' 39th birthday and we are all feeling a bit lazy. maybe a trip to see harry potter is in order? dinner out? we'll see.
merry merry!

autumn in the air

so this summer was odd indeed... i never thought i would complain we didnt have enough hot weather, never ever! my biggest fear is we will get a scorching october to christmas, i remember getting new warm clothes that i couldn't wear until january or february because of the "indian summers" in december. anyways, we'll take it as it comes. 
  the weather has been great up at the cabin, warm and breezy. i actually read a bit in our hammock for once, it was so nice out on the deck.
fishing
and lots of movie watching. something about the altitude puts us all in a stupor. not sure if i could live here year round, i fear i would never get out of bed! coming up on the calendar is a wetlands fundraiser (i am hosting the arts and crafts table), camp fire meetings start and we are off to england for about 12 days with my mom. we will be staying in the "isle of wight" for a week, i will post lots of pictures. this will be my first time there, so excited!