Lucy's First Thanksgiving - Our Little Gobbler!

This was our first Thanksgiving we celebrated with Lucy and we have much to be thankful for this year. Here are just a few of many things I am thankful for (in no particular order):

1) Lucy - she has added such joy, happiness, and love into my life. She makes me laugh and warms my heart every time I see her. I know I am an obnoxious parent that thinks everything she does is so precious - the sound of her slurping water, the sound of her chowing down her food, her cute bootie wag...everything is the "absolute cutest thing ever." I know I am annoying, but at least I can admit it! :)

2) A Healthy Family - I lost my Nana earlier this year, which was really hard for me. She was my last living grandparent and I was particular close with her. Nana taught me how to play Scrabble and was a fun shopping buddy. I am so thankful that the rest of my family is healthy this year. I have the best mom in the whole world...we sure used to fight when I was growing up, but now she truly is my best friend. She is the most generous person I know, always thinking of others first. I am also thankful for my dad...he is so giving of his time and spent many weeks this year coming up to "visit" and helping with our home and yard improvement projects.

3) House and Job - with the economic downturn, all you hear about is layoffs, foreclosures, and businesses closing down. I feel very fortunate to have job security...a job I like and in the field I enjoy. I also feel even more fortunate to be able to afford to own my own house. It's a luxury and certainly not a right for someone my age to be able to own their own home. While I do feel I have worked hard to get where I am in my professional career and in a position to buy a home, I definitely think I am blessed and lucky too.

4) Living Closer to Home - I loved living and working in DC, but it sure is nice to be only a few hours from my parents and the rest of my family. It has been good seeing my family more since I moved home from the East Coast.

5) Clark - I am so thankful to have Clark in my life. He is my best friend, my partner in crime, and is EXTREMELY patient with me. At times, I know I can be high maintenance and impatient and his support and love to me are unwavering.

Okay, I could go on and on forever about everything I am thankful for, but I also wanted to share some stories and pictures from our Thanksgiving weekend. We decided to head to Portland this year to spend it with my family. The last three Thanksgivings we spent with each other, but without either one of our families...mostly because we were living on the East Coast and it was too expensive to fly home for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. Anyway, this year I had no desire to cook and just wanted to relax. We were a little concerned about taking Lucy because she is still supposed to be on house confinement, but we got it cleared by the vet.

So we headed to Portland for an extended holiday weekend. It was great...the food was delicious and it was great to see my family. I was even brave enough to give "Rock Band" a try. While I love to sing, I am completely tone deaf, so it was an interesting experience. Apparently being the lead vocal is the easiest of all the different roles (compared to drummer and guitar), but somehow I still found a way to fail - whoops! Those singing lessons that my parents paid for me when I was child certainly didn't pay off! Oh well, we had fun putting on a show for mom, Auntie Carol, and Auntie Cor.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Lucy and Andrea taking a nap on the couch

Napping with Mom's Infamous "Magic Blanket"

Lucy gets to lay on the couch at Grandpa and Grandma Dog's house

What a spoiled little pooch

Lucy sitting like a good little girl waiting for her special Thanksgiving dinner feast

Lucy's Thanksgiving Dinner Feast - kibble with a couple scoops of mashed potatoes and turkey and covered in gravy

Lucy chowing down

Lucy went straight for the turkey first, then mashed potatoes, then attempted to lick all the gravy off the kibble before polishing off the kibble

Lucy licking her bowl clean...a trick her daddy dog taught her!

Lucy is full from turkey and took a post-feast nap

Lucy getting ready for the Rock Band show

Andrea on lead vocals with Bryan on drums

Clark on guitar

Andrea laughing at herself for singing SO out of tune!

Cousin Jordan on Base Guitar, Andrea singing, and Bryan on Drums

Lucy hanging out at Grandpa and Grandma Dog's house...you know she is having fun when her tongue sticks out of her mouth sideways

Continuing our tradition of buying Lucy a squeaky toy for each holiday, Lucy is checking out Henrietta, the Sexy Chicken

Lucy not sure what to think of the weird squeaky noise

Lucy finally gets over her fears and rips it apart, pulls out the stuffing, and conquers the squeaker!

Yummy chicken leg!

Lucy's 1st Birthday

Today, November 8th is our best guess at Lucy's 1st Birthday. When we adopted her from the Humane Society, the papers said she was taken in on January 8th and they estimated her age to be about 8 weeks/2 months old. So, we just said, okay November 8th is your birthday!

Being the over-the-top and obnoxious parents that we are, of course we were planning on celebrating her first birthday with a doggie birthday party in our backyard. All of Lucy's favorite 4-legged friends were going to be invited...Roscoe, Tiki, Chloe, Nina, Buddy, Sacha, Cooper, Aunt Bea, Kirby, Riley, Maggie. But because of her "house confinement" orders by the vet as she recovers from knee surgery, we had to postpone this doggie party. Besides, the weather in November can be pretty bad, so we are going to hold off until next spring sometime and hold a belated birthday party. It will be complete with doggie treats and the whole nine yards. Clark and I don't mess around. Lucy is our baby girl and we spoil her rotten.

So, we had a low-key birthday celebration at our house just the three of us. I went to our favorite doggie store, Lucky Dog Outfitters on 6th Avenue in Tacoma and picked up a dog-friendly chocolate-peanut butter cake, a bday hat, a new squeaky toy, and a candle.

We love our little Lucy and cannot imagine our lives without her. She is cute in every way. Happy Birthday our baby girl...Happy Birthday Lucy!

Lucy sporting her birthday hat

Lucy sitting like a good girl, waiting for her birthday treat

"Will you please give me my cake?"

Lucy licking her lips waiting for her peanut butter cake

Lucy's serious pose

Daddy Dog and Birthday Girl

Lucy and her Mama Dog

Lucy's Birthday Cake

Lucy eyeing her cake

Lucy goes after her cake

Lucy didn't like to eat her cake out of her dish, but rather, picked it up and took it in her crate to eat in "peace and quiet"

Lucy taking a quick break in between bites

Lucy polishing off her cake

Lucy making a mess

After cake, Lucy gets presents. Here Clark is with a new squeaky toy...a stuffed pig

Lucy taking her gift from Daddy Dog

The squeaky pig is a huge hit with Lucy!

Lucy getting to work on ripping out the squeaker and stuffing

Lucy's Knee Injury & Recovery Update

In mid-October, my parents were in town visiting for the weekend and we decided to take Lucy to the dog park and meet up with Sean, Michelle, and Maddy Eagan and their dog, Buddy at Ft. Steilacoom Dog Park. It's one of Lucy's favorite places to go on the weekends. It's a huge, off-leash dog park and she loves running around with the other doggies. After a morning of antique shopping around Tacoma, we came home to pick up Lucy. Lucy saw the leash and her harness, which she knows means she gets to go for a walk or car ride...so she got really excited and started making a beeline for the front door. While most of our house has natural hardwood, our kitchen floor is the laminate flooring that is supposed to look like wood, but it is really slippery...Lucy got a little excited, slipped and then dug her nails in, which only made it worse and she slipped and fell onto her back hind legs. At the time, I didn't think much of it because she has slipped a few times before, limped for a few seconds, and then walked it off and she was fine. I thought she was okay because she jumped right into the car and was excited about the prospect of a car ride and play time at the dog park. We did notice that she limped a little bit at the dog park, but we thought she just ran a little too hard and maybe pulled a muscle. Again, I didn't think much of it because she is a dog that gets A LOT of exercise. I mean, at the minimum she was getting a one-hour walk each day and when I was feeling particularly motivated, I would take her for a 3 mile/30 minute run. She loves walks and runs. Her endurance and stamina is pretty amazing. Anyway, after the dog park we went out to eat so we left Lucy in the car. When we got home, she was no longer walking on her back left leg...she became a 3-legged gimp. Again, I tried not to panic and thought she just pulled a muscle and that after a few days it would heal and she'd back to normal. So we waited a few days...then 5 days and she still wasn't walking on it. So we took her to the vet and unfortunately the vet said she tore the ligaments that hold her patella (kneecap) in place and the only way to fix it was through surgery.

So the following weekend (Saturday, Oct 18th) Lucy went in for knee surgery. She stayed in the pet hospital for one night and we brought her home the following day. It was hard for us, as pet owners as we felt partially responsible for her injury and we didn't want Lucy to be in a lot of pain. The vet's orders were for Lucy to be on "house confinement" for 8 weeks, which means no walks, runs, going up or down flights of stairs, jumping, or playing with other dogs. After 8 weeks Lucy can start going on walks again and climbing stairs and jumping, but should ease back into physical activity, like running with mama or playing with other dogs.

The first week of recovery was tough. Lucy was on three separate medications - one antibiotic, one pain pill, and one anti-inflammatory. Initially we gave those pills to Lucy in peanut butter (one of her favorite treats), but she is a smart dog and quickly learned that if she licked the peanut butter, she could spit out the pills! So we resorted to putting the pills in a meatball made of canned dog food - Lucy LOVES it and she still hasn't realized we are hiding her pills in the middle! She gets a meatball before each meal and it's kinda like her little appetizer. After the first week, she got her cast removed and had a smaller bandage, which didn't end up holding up very well. Then she had one week of her stitches exposed, which meant she had to wear the lampshade collar while we were gone at work and couldn't supervise her. We tried not to make her wear it that often, but she often tried to lick her stitches, which isn't good, so we had no choice but to put that collar on. She really hated us these first two weeks...she didn't understand why she had to wear the collar, why she was being taken outside on a leash when before we'd just open the door and she'd get to run outside to go potty. The good news is that is she able to walk on her leg again. She doesn't put a lot of weight on it, but she does put some weight on it, which the vet says is very good for this stage in the recovery. Every once in awhile she does limp, but for the most part she walks around.

This past weekend (two weeks after surgery) she got her stitches out and her incision wound is completely healed! So that means no more wearing the lampshade collar and Lucy is really relieved! And Lucy's energy is coming back to her and she is starting to get a little stir crazy...she randomly barks and whines at us, which she never did before and we think it's because she wants to play, run outside, or go for a walk. We cringe when she gets so excited and starts running through the house since we are supposed to keep her "contained." We are doing the best we can. Since she cannot climb up and down stairs we have moved into the guest bedroom downstairs for the next two months so Lucy doesn't have to sleep all alone. We have even slept on the floor with Lucy to comfort her since she is used to sleeping in our bed with us! However, last weekend she surprised us both by jumping up on the bed...we didn't call her up at all. We were a little concerned as the jumping motion does require quite a bit of strength of effort from the back legs and knees. We are trying to minimize Lucy's jumping and running, but with a stir crazy dog that has a lot of energy, we are realizing that there is only so much we can do to "contain" her!

And the other major change since her knee surgery is our kitchen. While it is certainly not practical to have a rug in the kitchen, we really had no choice since Lucy slips so easily on the floor. So we have a large area rug and a runner so that Lucy can walk through the kitchen with traction and without slipping. The things we do for our beloved pets!

Lucy goes in for a follow-up x-ray in two weeks just to see how she is healing, so I will be sure post an update then. Until then, Lucy loves getting care packages of treats and toys to occupy her time. Thanks to all of you for sending well wishes!

Lucy in the car on the way home from the vet (Oct 19th)

Lucy with her first cast (it's purple!)


Lucy's first cast slid down too easily so we had to go back to the vet to get it re-bandaged...Clark asked for any color other than purple...Lucy got a red one with a white heart!



Lucy with her red cast and her lampshade collar the first night...not quite sure what to make of all of this

What a dedicated and loving daddy dog...Clark insisted on sleeping on the floor next to Lucy so she wouldn't be scared or feel alone

Lucy is still the cutest dog in the world with her cast and lampshade!

Lucy in her crate when we leave her during the day

Week 2 - a smaller (and purple) bandage

A bandage just to cover the stitches

Even at Week #2 of her recovery, she is putting weight on it - a good sign!

I sure hope Lucy's hair on her leg grows back soon

After her stitches have been removed

Lucy without her cast, bandage, stitches, and lampshade collar - a new slice of freedom!