This past week was busy as usual. Tomarrow I will be attending a Diabetic Education class as a part of my clinical requirement. We have to follow an alternative nursing role and I am following a nurse educator. Tuesday, I have practice for Capstone. Capstone is the final project of nursing school. Our project is to make a presentation on our given topic, which mine is Nasogastric tubes, and make a powerpoint presentation. Then on the 22nd, all the junior and senior 1 nursing students will come in for a skills day and we will be teaching them how to insert an NG tube and nursing management. An NG tube is a tube that is inserted through the nose and goes down thru the esophagus into the stomach. It is used to decompress the stomach, and delivery of nutrition and medication. Fun huh? ;) We will set up a "booth" where we will present to them then they will do a return demonstration to us, proving they are competent of performing the procedure. Of course, we will be using mannequins but it is still nerve racking for them! I have been there many a times in my nursing school career! It is fun to be the one on the teaching end :) Other group topics include wound care, foleys, iv's etc. I think it will be a fun day. This week its just practice but the following week is the real thing. Im looking forward to it ! On Wednesday, I will be doing a 12 hour in Same Day Surgery. I hear I will be starting iv's all day, whoo hoo! ;)
Cory is working a million hours of homework and he is also preparing for a NATAS (North American Thermal Association Society) - or something like that. He will be giving a lecture at this conference on "The Use of Differential Scanning Calorimetry and Thermogravimetric Analysis for Development of Reaction Kinetics for Aluminum-Iodine Pentoxide Reactions" And because I have no idea how to explain what any of that means, we will leave it at that!
I have some pictures for you, of course. I would like to introduce you to Jack, Cali's brother, her littermate.
Jack is my brother Jimmy's new dog. Its awesome cuz the siblings (my brother and I) have sibling dogs (hes got the brother and I got the sister!) Its fun :) Jack is in love with his new dad and is turning out to be a really good dog! We all adore him and hes such a little lover.
Here are some pictures of the weekend our nephew stayed with us before we took him to his new dad. Click on his name here --> JACK
I also have a pretty decent sized album of pictures from our trip to St. Louis this August. It was so much fun and great to be with family. Click here --> August STL
Better hop it to the homework. Hope everyone is having a great weekend :) Talk soon!
I hope we find everyone doing well. I have sort of neglected the blog for the past month. We spent a few weeks in STL in August and it was alot of fun! We were busy with garage sales, visiting family and I worked some Mary Kay :) It was really great getting to spend time with the family. I miss them so much!
We have been back for a few weeks and back into the swing of school. Cory is working hard on getting his papers completed and he is always researching, researching, researching. I am doing my clinicals at Covenant Plainvew Hospital right here in Plainview and its AWESOME. I am loving it. Small rural hospitals are a great place to work! I have already been offered a job at this hospital which is exciting! Clinicals are for 12-13 hours on Tuesday and Wednesday although I do some extra hours here and there throughout the month. I have to get 228 hours completed for my internship which means I will be done by the beginning of November! I also have class Thursday mornings and I am on the Nursing Pinning ceremony committe which also meets Thursdays. Busy busy! Tuesdays look like 12 hour clinical then Mary Kay meeting, Wednesdays- 12 hour clinical then choir practice, Thursday- class, Pinning meeting. But after the middle of the week is over, its smooth sailing. Cory and I joined our church choir and we are very excited about it :) Today was our first Sunday to sing with the choir and it was a BLAST. We have rehearsals every Wednesday night. We are also preparing for a Christmas special that will be happening December 12/13. The songs are AMAZING! In November, we are making Christmas cds to sell to raise money for a mission trip and will be performing these songs at the Christmas special! Its gonna be amazing. I missed choir so much and it is great to once again be a part of it :) Cory has also decided to join "are you smarter than a 2nd grader?" which is a tutoring group through our church that tutors elementary school students and he will be doing that on Monday nights. We are really happy to be getting more involved in our church and community!
Of course I have some pics to share with yall. :) They have been piling up!
Its been a busy summer! I hope everyone is doing well! Cali has been keeping us incredibly busy as she has the energy for about 10 puppies! My goodness, she is crazy! But we love her ;) She is getting smarter everyday and it is fun to teach her new things. These are the following commands she knows: Come, Sit, Up (stand up from a laying or sitting position), Leave it, Stop (for when she is doing something she's not suppose to, like chewing on something or ...swimming), Bring it here (toys), Drop it, and we are currently working on Stay and Follow. She is doing good with stay about 1/2 the time so that is definately a work in progress. She is also doing good with Follow...I never taught this one to Luna so I thought I would give it a try with Cali. First, she was on a leash and i would tell her to follow and as long as she was staying beside me I would continue in one direction and as soon she quit following me, I would turn and go the other way saying "follow." We have graduated to OFF LEASH! So now she will follow me all over the backyard or the house without a leash, as long as I say that command. I want to teach her this because we like our dogs to not have to require a leash. So we are teaching her to follow us so that she will be able to go in the front yard or other places without a leash...building trust here! Luna didnt require a leash once she got older so that is our goal with this one as well. I like being able to take them out in the front yard with me while I work in the flowerbed without having to tie them up. So we did a test run, Follow to the mailbox. She did great!! She is a smart girl :)
She has officially learned the use of the bells on the back door finally. While it was a great accomplishment, it was super annoying lol. Last Thursday, I decided to completely redo our kitchen and reorganize the pantry/fridge/cabinets. It should have only been a few hour project but it definately turned into an all day event becuase every 3-5 mins Cali was ringing the bells to go outside. First it was to potty, then it was to dig holes. I started using a treat at the door to get her to come to me faster and actually listen (you know puppies and thier selective hearing), so then she started to ring the bells, go outside and turn right back around, like "mom Im coming back in, where's my treat?" Oh my goodness. I couldn't say No to outside cuz it was the first day she rang the bells purposefully, so I had no choice but to let her outside everytime...PHEW! So potty training is definately been progressing. We do take her out ALOT to prevent accidents, but now that she is actually telling us when she has to go out, its exciting lol :) The joys of puppies, eh?
So thought I would throw some pictures up here from the past month. Jimmy came down to visit and hang out with us for about a month. And of course, I have lots of pictures of the summer so...here ya go :)
We are convinced that Cali is confused and thinks she is a lab or some other water dog...cuz she LOVES water...here are a few videos to prove this fact...
And here she is yesterday in the backyard lol
When you hear Cory say "crap" and us laughing, its cuz we were about to get wet and while we were backing up Cory lost his flip flop ;)
More vids and pics and updates to come later this week!
Got a couple of goofy videos for yall as well as a handful of pics of this past week. Cali is picking up on the bells for outside! Potty training is definately in progress! She spends most of her time being a goofball. She is a very happy, outgoing puppy and we adore her :) Here are some videos and pics! Hope everyone is having a great week.
Another day with the crazy one! This morning Cali let us sleep in til 830 ish. The first few nights she slept in the bed with us but once she discovered how to jump off (which just so happened to be a "death from above" attack on June's head), she has been sleeping in the kennel. She started jumping off the bed and not being completely potty trained yet, that posed a problem. She doesnt mind the kennel to much (as long as she can you). She even puts herself in there when she is tired. So for the past few nights we have taken a t-shirt that has our smell on it and put it in the kennel as well as a chewie (cow hoof) and she has done really well. She sleeps very well thru the night and whimpers if she needs to potty in the middle of the night. She wakes us up about 3 times so I say we are doing pretty good.
Yesterday we went to the park to play and I have some pictures of that...as well as just some random pics of Cali (i know i know...i take ALOT of pictures !) Click here for the pics
I also have another video of June and Cali playing. This time Cali decided it was safe and was really playing!! Have a great day everyone!
Well, its been a lil over a month since we lost our baby girl. I am still very saddened over it and I miss her soooo much. She was such a great dog and such a blessing in our life.
Currently, I am back in Plainview and my lil brother, Jimmy, roadtripped back with me. He is hanging out for most of the month and we are having a ton of fun. :) Cory is back to the grind of grad school so he spends the daytime hours at school running his experiments. I am trying to catch up on projects around the house that were neglected because of school (such as cleaning out the garage, closets, cabinets) and I am trying to reorganize different parts of our house. I will also be doing some work in the house as we are going to be moving next year some time so I need to paint our bedroom and change the wallpaper in the kitchen. Those are just a few of the many projects. However, it is quite difficult to get anything done as of late because our new addition came into the home last week. Luna's cousin has made a permenant home with us :) Here she is. Her name is Calypso but we call her Cali (this is whats on her tag as well). My dad came up with this name because she has a black eyepatch on one eye (pirates of the caribbean), she acts like a pirate and Calypso means the "greek titan of the moon" so we can get Luna's name in there too. She looks like a panda bear to me so I like to call her Cali Bear, like Luna was Luna Moon.
She is a riot. Luna was 75% snuggle and 25% crazy and when she was crazy she was CRAZY...now Cal is 25% snuggle and 75% INSANE. When she is awake she is AWAKE and like a blazing tornado thru the house. She is not really food motivated yet so the first few days were spent trying to find something that would motivate her so we can start her training. We are using some liver treats that she seems to like because now she knows "come" and "sit". We are clicker training her and she is picking up on it as well. She is taking a great amount of patience because she is incredibly puppy A.D.D. Luna learned very quickly but she was highly food motivated. Cali wants to play, play play play so she is not learning quite as quickly, but thats ok. Persistance will pay off and everyday I see some improvement as we continue to work with her. I think she is going to be a great dog. She is SOO funny and a complete wild woman. We have also discovered that taking her for a walk around the block with JUne = a couple hours of nap! So we are walking them everyday to help burn some of Cali's energy. This has also helped improve her eating. FOr the first few days, I left her food in the kennel and she could go in and get it when she wanted. Starting Saturday, I started putting her food down at 4 different times during the day and this is helping her know to eat when its put in front of her so she is pickin up on that as well. She also doesnt mind the kennel to much. She isnt a huge fan of being left alone in the kennel but she will learn that its ok. For now, she goes in there to eat, stays in there for a lil bit cuz she usually passed out after eating, then goes outside. At least once a day, I put her in the kennel and leave the room so she cant see me but come back in like 15 minutes. This is helping her know that we will come back. Since its been a while since we have raised a puppy, we are combining what worked with Luna, advice from others, and a mix of Cesear Milan and Victoria (off of Its me or the dog) and I think this is greatly helping us with her. Things that worked with Luna may or may not work with this one who is way more hyper. But I am confident we can turn her into a good dog :) She is a raging tornado when she is awake but she is a lover too and you can tell she is just a happy happy girl. June and Cali are doing great as well. Today they played for the first time. June was snarly at first because she didnt want the puppy near her. But now I think she is accepting her into the pack because when Cali flops and pounces on June's face, shes cool with it. Here is a video of them playing today (more like Cali trying to figure out if its safe or not lol) Its kind of long ...but you never know if you are going to miss something.
Here are some photos of her when she was 3 weeks old. Click here
To see some pics of Cali's first few days home, Click here
We also went on a trip to Port O Connor, Texas for Kristen and Clayton's wedding. It was a blast! Here are some pics of the Trip
Well I better run! I need to work out, do laundry, pick up the house and train a puppy! Thats not even the beginning of the list! I will be trying to blog more this week. Tomarrow is our 2 year wedding anniversary so we will be going out on a date and leaving my brother to babysit the puppy! ha!
Have a great week everyone :)
I want to leave you with a very funny video... Cali is a water lover...enjoy!
I really do not know what all I can say except that my heart breaks today. Miss Luna Moon has crossed over the Rainbow Bridge today.
Last night, she continued to worsen and couldnt breath well at all. She had to sit up to breath because of the fluid and she would fall asleep sitting up but wake her self up as she tipped over, so she really didnt sleep much the past 2 days. Last night she wouldnt eat nor would she eat this morning. Her breathing got increasingly difficult and last nite when we went to bed, I did begin to feel like she was suffering. I also noticed last night that her back legs were edematous, meaning fluid was building up else where in her body as well. This morning when I listened to her heart, there was a nonstop Gallop, I knew this meant things were really getting worse. Her paracentesis continued to leak and we got gauze and an ace bandage and kept it wrapped to prevent infection. For the past few days we were hopeful and how quickly the tables turn. We called the vet first thing this morning and our vet was out of town but reachable so Jennifer (the main tech that has assisted us)called her and Dr. Carol suggested we get a 2nd opinion before we make a drastic decision so they gave us info for a pet hospital in Lubbock that they recommend. So we took her there, expecting that it was our last ride with our pup. Everytime you ask her "you wanna go?" those ears perked up and she was out the door and flying to the car. Not this time :( I sat in the back of the car with her and loved on her. When we got to the vet we just continued to love on her because we were pretty sure we didn't have much time left with her. When we went into the exam room and the vet listened to her, he said her heart was even muffled with the gallop, meaning that the fluid was filling around her heart and you could feel, just touching her sides, crackles in her lungs. What a horrible way to live. So we decided we had no other choice but to put her to sleep :( They took her back and put a catheter in her leg and then brought her back to us. We spent about 5 minutes with her and then they came with the medicine. They connected it to her catheter and I held her head in my arms, wrapped my arms around her neck, kissed her and loved on her while cory rubbed her back. She didn't struggle really, tried to pull away slightly but not to much. It was so fast and she was at peace. We stayed with her for about 5 more minutes and then we left. Cory is taking a final right now, poor guy. Not a good way to start your day before a final. We are having her cremated at the same place Demi was cremated and she will be picked up from the vet today so hopefully we will have her back early this week. We plan to go pick out a pretty something to put her in at Hobby Lobby after Cory's final. We are staying in Lubbock this evening to go see the play Cats which will help take our minds off it for a lil bit. But it sure is gonna be sad when we get home. I have been talking to the breeder through this whole battle and today i called to give him the news. He was so sorry for us and his heart was breaking for us. He has 4 puppies, with 1 left that is unclaimed. They are three weeks old. He told us that shes ours if we want her. So we may go see her tomarrow morning. He said she has a moon mask like Lunas and is black and white like Luna. This may sound silly, but if we decide to take her, it will be in honor of Luna. I by no means want to replace her, and there is no dog that could replace her. But we can still give the great amount of love we have for Luna to another special puppy.
This is one of those things that you don't think you can handle it, you hate anticipating it, but you make it through it. I praise God for the time He gave us with our special Luna Moon. It may have been short but it was very very special. We will miss her dearly. Thank you all for your prayers.
Jack is my brother Jimmy's new dog. Its awesome cuz the siblings (my brother and I) have sibling dogs (hes got the brother and I got the sister!) Its fun :) Jack is in love with his new dad and is turning out to be a really good dog! We all adore him and hes such a little lover. 
