Back to School 2013

I really, I mean really, cannot believe this is Grace's last year in elementary school!  I really don't know if I can handle her going to middle school next year.  She is still so young and pure and not at all "beyond her years" like some of the other 5th grade girls are.  She is just a little kid!  I know I'll have to come to terms with changes to that, but I'm glad I still have a year to do it.

Here are our first day of school shots (I usually end up liking these better than school pictures.)

I know my 5th grade backpack was not anywhere close to that big.   I can't believe how much these kids have to take to school every day.  At least Harriet's is still light.  

Here's hoping for great times in 5th and 2nd grade!

David's 20th (reunion, that is), cars, hair cuts, and cousins

Seriously, all these weeks and pictures are running together now.  I can barely keep it all straight.  But, after we got back from camping, we spent the rest of the week hanging with my family, fixing my car (thanks Dad!!), getting Harriet's first brave haircut, and seeing old high school friends at David's 20th Reunion.  

Before we get to the ONE reunion pic, let's take a gander through the cousin shots and related items:

(This is one way I always think of my dad - forever under a car, with bloody knuckles.  He did so much to help me get my Pathfinder driving right this month.)

(before)

Harriet has been asking for short hair for a long time.  I finally decided she should have the haircut she wanted.  I didn't want her to have to keep her long hair just because everyone thought it was pretty and a shame to cut.  I love that she gets brave and does things like this sometimes.  

My cousin, Lauren, cut it at her salon in Salt Lake.  Harriet donated her leftover locks to the Locks of Love program who make wigs for kids who lose their hair to cancer.  

(after)

It turned out SO cute!  

Harriet is loving it and it is much easier for her to wash and deal with in the mornings!

The 5 Mitchell cousins.  These are the squirreliest kids around.  Getting a picture of all 5 sitting still is kind of a big accomplishment.  

I love pictures of the kids at the zoo.  We've been taking pics of Grace at Hogle zoo since she was only tall enough to peek through the bottom two rails.  This zoo day, we enjoyed the LEGO animals as much as the real ones.  

David and his friends from his old neighborhood at their 20th Cottonwood High School Reunion.  

I thought they had a great weekend.  My class is taking notes for next summer.  I was glad I got to go to the dinner on Saturday because a lot of these guys were my friends in high school and college too.  It's cool to see people who were your friends during those crazy years of your life, and even cooler to see that they have turned into mostly productive and upstanding members of society.  I David had taken pictures at the alumni night.  I have this one bad shot of him with his neighborhood friends and that's it.  

Good times, Salt Lake!  Thanks for everything.  But, no thanks for the half dozen viruses you sent us home with.  I've been on heavy duty antibiotics ever since, and that was 6 weeks ago!  Utah germs are the worst.  And, yes, both dogs made it home alive.  

2013 Covili-Chappo-Camping-Reunion (since 2004)

We've been camping and hanging out with the Covilis much longer than 9 years, but it has been 9 years since we last went with them as a family and to this exact place.  In 2004, Grace was one year old and the dogs were much younger (as were we.)  I was cleaning out my e-mail on the 10 hour car-ride home today and came across one from Jared just after that 2004 camping trip.  We were in the thick of making plans to move away to Boston at the time.  Here's one line from it:  "It may sound a bit mushy, but I have been pretty depressed that the camping trip will probably be our last major event for quite a while."  He was kind of right.  But, as old/good friends always make things, it is always extremely easy to pick up right where we left off no matter how much time has gone by, and this summer was no exception.  Since 9 years ago though, they have added 3 kids and a dog and we have added 1 kid and the original kid is now a gangly 10 year-old instead of a toddling 1 year-old.  But, you wouldn't have known a thing has changed since then.  Our friendship is seamless.  We are so lucky.

(both of our families are still driving the Nissans we have been driving since then too... a little harder than before to cram NINE people, THREE dogs, and enough camping equipment and food for 3 days. After a couple hours of careful spatial planning and shoving, we got it all in!)

The beautiful spot on West Fork of the Blacks Fork where we like to go.

 Our kids really haven't spent any appreciable time together.  But, since the Covilis have awesome kids and ours love to make new fast friends, it was a pretty instant friendship.  They were immediately off catching bugs, running down to the river, and playing cards by the fire.

As I mentioned, our dogs really rallied on this trip too.  Now that they are elderly old fur rugs instead of young frisky pups, taking them places is not quite the same.  But, one whiff of fresh mountain air and they were running around, lolling in the grass, playing in the river, and heading out on hikes.  I'm not saying they had endless energy.  They tired out pretty quick, but they were SO happy.

Can I have s'more of that sweetness?  

This girl has the potential to be the sweetest person on the planet if she'd just let herself do it.

We have a picture of us crossing this river 9 years ago in our kitchen.  Now there is a sandbar in the middle.  It's not nearly as much fun as it used to be.

 And, what we thought would be a 20 minute float down the river turned into an all-morning ordeal.  Tara and I went back with the car twice to rescue dogs who couldn't make it and then kids and dads.

Still, I think they had fun for a while.  This is so funny... after the boys gave up, the girls all got in one boat and Harriet took advantage of being the littlest one.

more fishing... they had no luck with the poles

so, they went back the next morning with the nets and caught a dozen little fish.  

Catch and release, of course.

We spent glorious hours reminiscing and laughing by the fire.  One night, Jared tried to start telling scary stories.  Knowing Harriet (and by Harriet, I mean both of us) wouldn't be getting any sleep if the scary stories were allowed to ramp up, we switched to telling jokes.  The kids told the worst jokes ever and the guys got away with some crude ones, but it was seriously fun and hilarious.

Anyone who knows me well knows how much it PAINS me to have photos of my girls holding a GUN.  Yes, it was only a BB gun, but still.  I am not totally anti-gun.  I don't think that we should toss out the 2nd amendment or anything.  I think there are certain people who need guns and certain people who don't.  I can't make decisions for other people and I try really hard (but fail) not to judge other people.  I can only say for sure that my family should not have a gun in the house.  I think that people like police officers, FBI agents, cowboys, hunters, and people who shoot for sport might have a need for a gun, but they shouldn't keep them in their houses.  I told David he can have a gun if he keeps it in a locker at a shooting range.  I don't think there should be a law against having a gun at your house.  I just think people should be smart enough not to keep them there.  Is that too much to ask?  Don't get me started on assault weapons.  (commentary solely Michelle's opinion and does not represent the opinion of all owners of this blog.)  

OK, I guess it's pretty cute to see "Annie get her gun."

These girls are lucky "Uncle" Jared brought a gun for them to play with!

And, we really thought it might be our last shot at a family picture with the dogs, so here's one of us on the last day, looking our grossest.  But at least we were all gross together.

Reality check - everything wasn't wildflowers and sunsets.  Harriet ran a fever the first afternoon and woke up the next morning with her eye completely glued shut.  Luckily, I take a pharmacy with me everywhere I go and had eye medicine with me.  The next day, Grace went on a morning adventure with no water and got totally dehydrated and came down with heat-exhaustion.  Our kids spent a decent amount of time in tent quarantine doing some major whining.   For that, we do apologize.

We're sure glad we got to do this again with the Covili clan.  We hope it doesn't take 9 years to get back to this gorgeous place with them.  But, since I'm still not a totally converted camper, it's ok with me if we don't do it every single year ;)

Cancer dog lives to see another day

I'm really not quite sure where to start describing the last few weeks which included more than 30 hours in the car, camping with best friends, cousins, viruses, haircuts, David's 20 year high school reunion, my dad fixing my car 10 times plus one, more viruses, secondary infections, the first day of school, staying home from the first week of school sick, and oh, the dog chewed off her tumor.  Let's start with that one.  I could have started with the beautiful, serene camping pictures, the adorable cousin shots, or any other number of things that make you think our life is totally awesome all the time.  But, let's start with cancer dog.  (ok, maybe that is a really mean thing to call her, but it is what it is.)

(yes, we are talking about YOU, Velvet)

Velvet.  WHAT are we going to do with her?  As I type, she lies on her bed wearing the "cone of shame" and her abdomen wrapped in an ace bandage covering a sugar-packed half of a tumor.  She's still here for now, for the record.

We headed to Salt Lake about 3 weeks ago for one last fun-filled adventure before school started.  I felt like it was too long of a trip to leave the dogs, and frankly, we kind of wanted to take Velvet back to Utah for what will probably be her farewell tour.  I had no idea how close it would come to a one-way-funeral-trip.

The dogs were pretty great on what turned out to be an 11+ hour car trip, well, most of it.  About 2.5 hours near the end, Harriet said "mom, Velvet's tumor is bleeding."  I thought she must be talking about the grapefruit-sized tumor that is hanging from her front left leg.  Sometimes she licks it raw and it bleeds a little bit.  No biggie, I kept telling Harriet she would be ok until we stopped.  We got out in Price, UT for one last gas and potty run. I lifted Velvet down from the car and stood up to find myself covered in blood.  Holy crap.  She had been chewing on the tumor on her hip!  This tumor, she has never bothered before.  It is also the one we had surgically removed 4 years ago and has grown back with a vengeance this year.  I instantly got sick to my stomach.  She had chewed several holes into it and it didn't look good.  I cried most of the way to Salt Lake, thinking it might be our last night with her... planning to take her to her old vet in the morning for her rainbow bridge appointment.  There is no way to heal holes in a tumor and who would want to?  And, you're not going to do surgery on a 15 year old dog who is filled with them.

No, that wasn't the worst.  We pulled into Melissa's driveway 2 hours later.  As I took her out of the car, I realized the entire external portion of the tumor was GONE.  Like not there at ALL.  Gonzo.  Nowhere in the car.  David pulled Shadow out who seemed to need to use the facilities desperately.  Shadow had diarrhea all over Melissa's lawn and then vomited.  Velvet was bleeding profusely everywhere and could barely stand.  Melissa's face - well wasn't she charmed to have us visit for the next 10 days!  Poor Sean and Kate.  We sealed their fate to never get a puppy.  Sorry kiddos.

Back to Shadow... oh yes, she was sick because... wait for it... she ATE the tumor.  See, blogs aren't always making you jealous of other people's lives!  No chevron throw pillows or photos of a tropical beach here.  Now the doom was even worse.  I was pretty darn sure we'd be saying good-bye to at least one dog the next day, and I had no idea what it meant for your health to ingest a lemon-sized piece of cancer.

What a way to start a trip!

We got up the next morning, and the darn dog wanted to play fetch.  How do you put a dog down who still wants to play fetch?  She seemed oblivious to the giant, festering, disgusting, mess on her side.  Ok.  No vet today.  A vet will just want to put her down or do surgery.  So I headed out to spend a good $100 on wound-care supplies.  We had to at least get it cleaned out and patched up so that we could take her camping in 2 days.  We were still pretty sure - we might have to bury her in the mountains, or make that rainbow bridge trip when we got back.  This really would be her last camping trip.  (Camping trip details are another... slightly better... post.)

(hanging in the basement... V-dog really didn't look good for a couple days.)

Velvet rallied on the camping trip.  I could not believe it.  She has always LOVED camping and the fresh mountain air (or lack of it at 10,000 feet) seemed to be healing.  She hiked (hiked!), she lounged in the sun, she took in all the smells.  She wasn't looking too darn bad, except for that awful hole on her side.

As we brought her back to Salt Lake and kept her in the basement, I started noticing how bad she smelled.  At first I thought it was just old, sick, dog smell.  But wow, the whole basement smelled bad.

Finally, we decided she really ought to see a vet.  We wanted to know what our chances were of this thing healing and, maybe, she probably could use an antibiotic.

The vet was extremely nice, cleaned up her wound, gave us supplies to try to heal it and a 3 week prescription of antibiotics, and thankfully, didn't charge us a complete fortune.  I really hadn't noticed how terribly infected it was and as I put the puzzle pieces together... realized... that it had probably been really infected from the start.  I think that is why she decided to chew it off.  She knew it was going bad.   She wasn't just getting bored and trying to thing of something to do during the last 2 hours of "are we there yet?" in the car.  She was trying to heal herself.  Since then I have read of dogs chewing tumors off of their own owners.

Now that she has been on antibiotics for over a week, I can really see how much better it looks and frankly, she doesn't smell at all anymore.  She didn't need a bath - she needed drugs.  I'm so glad we took her to the vet.  The jury is still out.  We have no idea if this thing will heal, but it looks way better than it did.  It might not ever heal completely, but I'm hoping it will heal enough that it won't be the thing that kills her and will last until something else does.

This crazy dog.  I can't even count anymore how many times I have said good-bye to her, thinking it would be her last night on Earth.  But, here, she still is.  And, she's still begging for playtime and still begging for food and still pretty darn happy about her day (minus the cone of shame.)

We will take all we can get of our awesome Velvet dog.  She is truly one in a zillion.  We know we will never have another dog like her and we are soaking up any number of minutes she will let us have with her.

Shadow, well if we're giving everyone nick-names, "psycho dog", has also lived to see another day.  I thought David would either shoot her or divorce me this summer over her new habit of peeing in the house and her ever worsening problems with thunderstorms.  But, she did not have ONE accident at Melissa's house! Thank goodness.  And, hasn't had one since being home either.  I think with the summer storms mostly over and summer craziness and uncertainty over, she is finally back to her normal self.  Yay Shadow!  I didn't even have to take her to therapy!

We might, just might make it another month with these two old ladies!  I have new found respect for anyone who cares for the elderly or the terminally ill.  It is not a picnic.  I have not slept since May between the kids and the dogs.  Still, I am glad these puppies keep on ticking and we continue to enjoy them and they seem to continue to enjoy life on Earth.

Canjilon Lake Camping

The kids have been dying to camp with our whole family all summer.  Since most of New Mexico was on fire until the end of July, we really couldn't do much.  But, finally, the generous monsoon season put out all the flames and all the fire restrictions were lifted, so that we not only could go camping, we could have a camp fire too!  We had our friend Whitney and his son Elijah tag along with us too.  What a great time we had... after it took us 4 hours to drive there... 6 stops... an exploding sunscreen can... the loss of about $200 worth of equipment... and one last rainstorm to try to scare us away.  (Apparently we missed "hurricane night" in Albuquerque.  Glad it didn't come our way!)

David promised this would be a gorgeous spot and I have to give him credit.  It was worth the drive up there.  Yes, you can find spots like these in the dry NM desert if you look hard enough!  It looks like Utah or Oregon, but it's just good ol' New Mexico - Carson National Forest.

(yep, got it.  don't pack pressurized cans in bins on the outside of the car.)

hanging out in the tent, waiting for the rain to quit

middle Canjilon lake

my favorite hikers - this is always my view, I'm always way behind.

like, best roasted marshmallow ever!!!  check out how puffy that thing is!

 If you look really closely, you can see Grace fishing on the end of the peninsula in the lake.

Super cool foggy morning... the kids haven't seen fog since we left MA.  They were so happy!

My gorgeous Harriet among the wildflowers.  I wish I could freeze her and keep her like this forever.

Whitney trying to teach the girls a thing or two about fishing.

He and Elijah had better luck and caught 2.

Doggies, out on a hike around the lake.  They still love camping and hiking so much.

This totally cute otter hung out with us for a while!

We saw and heard all kinds of wildlife, from the otter to pretty butterflies, hawks, and this great little frog who let the kids catch him about a dozen times. Plus, lots of elk bugles.  

After the morning hike, I took the dogs back to camp to rest.  Velvet collapsed on the ground and had a nap in the sun, completely satisfied and happy.

And, then everyone else collapsed in the car for the ride home.