June Vacation

2 Weeks ago, I took a week off from work for my mid-year vacation. This time of year is busy for the A/C business, so it was just me and the pups for the week. Don't get me wrong, I love going places, especially the beach, but sometimes it is just nice to spend a week at home just hanging out and doing......well........whatever you want! So, how did I spend my week? I slept in every morning until 9:00 a.m. Stayed up every night until 11:00 p.m. (hey you may chuckle and say that is not late, but we are normally in bed by 9:00 p.m. since we get up at 5:45 a.m.). I had a list of things I wanted to do during my week off. Mainly painting some rooms in the house. My goal was to paint the Foyer, downstairs guest bathroom and utility room. Completing 2 out of 3 ain't bad. I will get to the Foyer later. =) After all, it was a vacation, so I couldn't spend all my time working. ;-)

Besides painting, Booyah and I practiced sits, stays and downs. Below is Booyah practicing his sit.


The pups got lots of play time outside. This pic is a little blurry, but I still like it.Maggie plays keep away with the boys. By far one of her favorite things to do.
She always wins.
Maggie and I played fetch.
I take time out to snap this pic, I just love Maggie's colors. Gotta love those cow dogs!
Booyah and Cueball play really well together. They are like best buds.

I am not to sure what he is doing here, but it made me smile.

Best good friends Booyah and Cueball.Maggie takes time to explore what lies underneath the deck.
Pippi spent most of her week either doing this......

or this.


I spent a good amount of time doing this:
I behaved myself....I did wait until 12:00 p.m. before I started popping tops. ;-)

Between all the playing with the pups and popping beer tops, I did a lot of painting. This is the before of the utility room. This room had not been painted since we moved in 9 years ago. It was long overdue.

This is the after. The color is grey, but has a hint of light purple. That was not intentional. I was going for grey. Oh...well! This room was a challenge to paint. Painting around the deep sink was loads of fun......not! I also had to pull out the washer, dryer and freezer and paint around the water heater. It took me two days, but I got it done and I am happy with the result.I also painted the guest bathroom. Pictures of before and after coming later. I have a few more last minute touches to do, just some decorating and then it will be complete. I am happy with the result. =)

I took some time to notice how pretty Maggie's white eyelashes are and just how white she is starting to get on her muzzle. My little girl will be 9 in September. I can't believe it has been almost three years since we adopted her. I can't remember what we did or talked about before greyhounds. It is amazing how these creatures capture your heart and life.
Miss queen spent her week hanging out in the pool.
Booyah learns a lesson about why he should not chase birds in the yard. Yep that is bird poo above his eye and on his muzzle. He immediately came to me after it happened. I washed his face off shortly after snapping this pic.
Cueball spent a lot of time working on his tan.


All in all it was a great vacation! It was hard getting up Monday morning to return to work. I quite enjoyed being at home with the kids all week. Next vacation will be in September. We are taking a trip to the beach with the pups for a week. =) I am counting down the days!

Auction for York

This is a pretty heart warming story. Please check out the auction, bid high and bid often!

Please read about York, the greyhound, and an auction at: http://2houndsdesig n.com/cgi- bin/2hounds. pl?category= GBA that is being held to help GPA Greater Orlando with the medical bills that saved his life.

York's story:

It was a phone call like so many others received by GPA/GO..."we have a sick Greyhound, can you help?" He was not even two years of age. Within an hour "York" was at our veterinarian' s office. Thus began an unexpected and unplanned rollercoaster ride, with this boy's life in the balance.

He came to us much sicker than any of us could have imagined, having already lost 23 pounds from constant vomiting. He weighed in at 47 pounds-- shocking we thought...but he was going to get much worse.

The vomiting continued ---and his weight continued to drop--- intravenous fluids kept him alive. After a few days of this decline the GPA vet decided she must perform emergency, exploratory surgery . This decision saved York's life. Expecting to find a mass of some type, instead she found a structural narrowing of the passage from the stomach to the intestine, explaining why he continued to vomit whatever he ate. The surgery was deemed successful, but days passed and he was still not able to keep down anything that he ate. York was on intravenous fluids from the first moment he came to the vet--but he could not continue to survive on fluids...... The weight continued to drop off York and the vet was giving up all hope.....he now weighed 34.5 pounds...we were in despair.
York, however, did not give up! His tail never stopped wagging and he looked you right in the eyes when you got one of his kisses.

A few more days passed ..... we received another call from the vet---she was so excited we could barely understand her--York kept down the liquefied food for the first time since the surgery! The proverbial "corner" was turned! Very, very slowly, he was re-introduced to food, hand offered in very small amounts, many times a day. A weight gain of ounces was a source of joy for both GPA and the vet's office...

York spent 51 days under the care of the GPA vet. She saved his life because she would not give up on him ......because he would not give up! . When he left the vet's office to enter a rehab. foster home, his weight was 58 pounds.....a gain of 23.5 pounds. After ten days in the foster home, six more pounds were gained.

The 51 days of hospitalization, frequent blood work, abdominal ultrasound, surgery, medication administration, and intensive care came at a huge cost to GPA.
One hundred percent of the proceeds of this auction go directly to the medical bill incurred by York.
http://2houndsdesig n.com/cgi- bin/2hounds. pl?category= GBA

From York, a huge "Thank you!"

Bookends and updates

A few weeks ago the girls were playing footsie on the couch. Mitch said they make perfect bookends. I agree! Aren't they cute together? I can't believe how comfortable Maggie has become over the years. It is awesome. She is fine with other greys touching her while she sleeps and shares the couch with her brothers and sister. She most definitely still is and will always be the Queen though. ;-) We have been enjoying the nice weather that we have had recently. Mitch set the pool up last weekend and I put the doggie pools out for the kids. Summer sort of snuck up on this year. We have been busy bee's with completing projects around the house. I am on vacation this week. We are not going anywhere. Mitch is working all week. I just needed a break and have some painting to do around the house. I will also be enjoying the pool some too! ;-)

A couple of months ago as you may recall I took the CPC exam in Roanoke. I did not think it went well. I received my results a few weeks later and this confirmed my feelings were correct. So I retook the exam at the end of May (they give you one free retake. Only about 60% of folks who take the exam pass). It is NOT an easy exam. I continued to study after the first time I took it and was ready to take it again. I felt much more comfortable the second time, managed my time wisely and did not panic. I received my results online on Thursday and...........DRUM Roll please.......I PASSED!! It is a huge relief and I am pretty proud of myself! =)


I have been pretty lazy about taking pictures these past few months, but did take the camera out to snap this silly shot of Miss princess. This is Pippi's smiley, cock roaching, sideways ETS. =) She is a big goof. She is a smiler and loves to roo! An excellent addition to our family.
Miss Zola, who you have seen here on our blog lots over the last year, moved to Canada with her mum at the end of May. They will spend the summer in Canada with family and then move to Boston in the fall. Zola's mum will start her new teaching job this fall and will not have to travel much anymore, which is great news for Zola! We will miss doggie sitting her, she is such a sweet girl.. Here are a few of my favorite pictures of her from her many stays at the Ridlon abode.


Good luck Zola and Mum!! We hope you get a chance to come back to VA to visit soon!

Now that I am not studying every night of the week and every weekend, I should be able to get back in the swing of things and capture some sweet moments of the pups with the camera.

Hope everyone has a greyt week and a wonderful summer!

Uninvited guests, anniversary and NK Wine Festival

Our next door neighbors have been hard at work for the last year making their house a home. Their most recent endeavour was building a Tiki Bar. Very Cool!! They had a Hawaiian party last weekend to celebrate the opening of said Tiki Bar. Fun times! And, we are sure we will be visiting the K&P Tiki Bar again in the near future. ;-)

They also recently bought some chickens. We have heard them in the morning when we take the pups out, but we did not realize they were right next door. We hear and see all sorts of animals out here in the country. We have had uninvited guests come in our yard on several occasions, mostly hunting dogs that have been turned loose at the end of the season and sometimes our neighbors black lab ,Moses, wanders over. But, what we woke up to last Sunday morning takes the cake for being the strangest uninvited guests to date.I am not a big fan of pet chickens. They are kinda smelly and make a mess, but to each their own, as they say. I guess this pack of chickens found something enticing to eat in our yard. The up side is, they have about 30 hens. Which means, we will be finding some nice surprises of baskets of eggs in our mailbox in the near future. ;-) You can't get any fresher than that!

This past Monday was our Eighth wedding anniversary. We celebrated by having a quite evening at home with our fur kids on Monday. We went shopping this weekend for our mutual anniversary gift and bought a new vacuum. I know it sounds so dull and so piratical, but we really needed it. Ours was not working very well anymore. So, we finally got a Dyson. I LOVE it!!! OMG, I never thought vacuuming could be fun! I love seeing how much fur and dirt it sucks up (actually it was quite gross seeing how much dirt and fur my vacuum cleaner was missing) and no more changing nasty vacuum cleaner bags. Woohoo!! It is lightweight and easy for me to carry up and down the stairs. Major score!

Here are some cute pictures of the pups that I took over the last week. We have been spending lots of time chillin at home enjoying the weather.

I think this one of Pippi is really pretty.
Queen of the couch.
Black beauty.
Daddy's sophisticated boy.
We also went to the New Kent Wine Festival last weekend. We had been looking forward to this event for months. We had a great time. They had an awesome turnout!

Below we are driving to the winery going through the round-a-bouts. Beautiful subdivisions are being built to the left and the right of this round-a-bout. There is also plans for a Farmer's Market. AWESOME!!
Pretty vineyard. Is it just me or do the leaves look greener this year? Must be all the rain we have had lately.
The winery and more of the vineyard.
Our view of the band and a great spot for people watching. ;)
Here we are enjoying our day.
We had a great time! NK is definitely one of our favorite wineries in VA.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend.