"Mom i'm gonna go to sleep now"

Since Avery was a very little baby we have read her books before bed. It has been apart of our bedtime routine. There have been times when she has been stuck on a book for months and we read it. (I have Pout Pout Fish memorized I think for the rest of my life). Recently, when I read her books she picks out two and then we read each of them twice (or more) and since there are times I don't want to read the book AGAIN, we have started to sing songs.. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, ABCs, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Spider man (which I don't know the words so I sing Spider Pig from the Simpsons Movie).. anyways.. this has been super fun. I enjoy listening to her little off pitched voice sing along it is more than cute and it makes my heart very happy. She has even made up her own song called "Ladybug" where she says/sings the word then adds someones name and then she laughs uncontrollably. Her favorite is "Ladybug Evan" 

BUT...

 

My sweet, little, cute, smart, funny, stubborn.. and sassy girl the last two night has turned to me after we have only sung one song and she says "Mom, i'm gonna go to sleep.. shhhh" 

alright, Avery

I had at one point been an ok singer.. sang in the school ensembles, state competition, and church.. I must have lost something in the last 13 years. dang it..

Bat Crazy

Over the past two years I had toyed with the idea of restarting this blog and after last night I think it needs to be documented. I am not going to change the overall name of this blog because I think Rick and I are still living a Key West Adventure - but we now live in Iowa. I think we are still the people that would rather jump on our beach cruiser and head to Smathers with our fresh Old Town ham and swiss croissants than do any type of outside yard work. Also we have had another life change and we welcomed our second child - Camden Joseph into our lives. I look back on Avery's first two years and wish that I would have wrote down more stuff to remember all those milestones that someday she will ask me. There is that Facebook post that has gone around many times regarding starting your child an email and sending notes to it so when they are old enough you give them the info and they can go read all about themselves. Great idea - haven't done it yet. So we will start here and see where it goes or how it goes in regards to time available to blog.

Here we go...

Like I stated above we welcomed a wonderful, handsome, first two weeks easy baby into this world. His name is Camden and Avery loves him. Which is a relief considering I was certain she would hate having to share the attention but so far so good. Now he is three weeks old and notice I said he was easy the first two weeks..that has changed.. he is now little more high maintenance and that is ok. Talk to me in a few weeks and well see if that continues to be "ok".  

Let us start this bat story...Yesterday morning I was TIRED, like tired tired, had to call my mom and request a nap time so she could watch Camden tired. To which being the amazing grandma that she is she was more than happy to oblige. With that nap going into last night I was psyched- felt like a new woman. Both kids were asleep by 9 pm.. dishes done, showered it was GREAT! Camden at the 12 o'clock feeding was so good, he ate and was back in bed with in 40 min... about 2:30 Avery though woke up and ended up in our room.. which she hasn't done in the last three weeks so that was odd. Rick put her back to bed and then Camden woke up at 3 for his next meal. Again he was awesome, fed and back in bed in 30 min. Near the end of the 30 min I heard a ruckus in the hallway- apparently Avery had woke up again and made her way into our room. Just as I was leaving Camden's room I caught sight of Rick taking Avery into her room. I proceeded into the kitchen to assemble my nightly ritual of pumping. 

Side note - and maybe TMI- but I pump because I need to know how much he actually eats, I pump because well breastfeeding is kinda annoying the whole latching thing ugh, I pump because he will go to daycare and need to know how to take a bottle, I pump because well because- please anyone reading this do not start some debate on breastfeeding vs bottle feeding vs formula so on and so forth. To each their own and it is sad that i just wrote this disclaimer but that is what the world is now a days - disclaimers, disclamers everywhere. 

Anyhoo... 

I am sitting in the living room with the lights low, hooked up to the magical milking machine  and I am facebooking, I hear Rick walked down the hallway back to our room and about 1-2 minutes later I hear a sound. I can't describe the sound exactly but it was a sound that had me thinking Avery was walking or better yet creeping down the hallway. There are nights that girl is so stealth, she will be standing on the landing to our sunken living room and neither one of us will know it and she will scare us. I am expecting to shine my iPhone flashlight into the kitchen to find my daughter standing- I shine and no kid. I see nothing except my kitchen. I start to think I had just heard something like an old house settling or our ghost. It is maybe 1-2 minutes later when I feel something dive-bomb me from my left and then immediately from the right. I look up and to my left to see a winged creature fluttering past my head/face again from left to right and back. My adrenaline starts pumping and before I even know what I am doing I am screaming at the top of my lungs "RICK THERE IS AN F*ING BAT IN OUR HOUSE" as I am screaming this, with little regard to our two sleeping children, I am not even taking the time to stop the magical milk machine and I rip those suckers right off and go running toward Rick in the kitchen. Ladies that have used this magical milk machine know you need to turn that sucker off and in hind sight I probably had sufficient time to do so but in the moment, nope. Any ways... Rick is wide eyed and going where where is it I don't see it. I am sure he thought I was maybe hallucinating due to low hours of sleep - but like I had said early I was a new woman after my nap that day, I know what I saw. Finally, Rick sees it and has me go stand toward our dinning room. To set this up our house has a main hallway where the bedrooms are and then there is a wall that divides the kitchen from the living room but both of these connect to the main hallway with the bedrooms. So I go and stand by the dinning room to make sure the bat doesn't come around the corner and into our bedroom area or to the basement. We both lose sight of it when we were trying to find something to kill it with as well as position ourselves for the best places to monitor the movement. This allows me to get in to our garage from the livingroom to collect our tennis rackets so we can be armed. Over the next 10-15 minutes Rick proceeds to move every piece of furniture, kid toy, drapes etc... in our living room and dinning room each time he moves something he is expecting to be flown and but nothing - NOTHING- I mean what do you do when you know there is a bat and you can't find it at 4 in the morning??  

So we are staring at each other deciding what may be the next best option- do we leave the house now, turn off all the lights and wait for it to poke its head out again so we can find it.. we are in the midst of this discussion when I walk through the dinning room on the way to Camden's room and just as I turn the corner that freakn' bat is flying at my face, AGAIN. I turn my head and  quiet yell whisper to my husband "I GOT IT' and he goes through the kitchen to find it only to be faced yet again with nothing. He gives me that man look of where is it why did you lose it... that didn't go over very well. He slowly creeps down the hallway past our daughters room to look at the back stairway that goes to the basement. He says he hears in and proceeds down the steps. At this point I can no longer see him because it is a set of stairs (like 4) and a hallway and then a corner to the actual basement steps.. I am prepped at the top of the steps (the short ones) waiting for the bat to fly around the corner - tennis racket prepped like a softball bat- and I hear this - "Swoosh swoosh swoosh (tennis racket flying through air) and Ugh Geez Ugh Ugh I hate bats, F*.... quiet... then swoosh swoosh swoosh you f*ing f*er I hate these things Ugh No Ugh... quiet... the swoosh "I GOT HIM"  in more of a relieved sigh. I go down and sure enough dead bat. YES!!! 

So the part of the basement that Rick fought this bat to the death has no ceiling, but the room next door has a ceiling and the he described the bat as flying in to the ceiling - sticking its little chihuahua devil face out and its wings then flying at Rick only for Rick to miss him and end up back in the ceiling and repeat. SICK. 

After this harrowing adventure we sat in the kitchen at the island discussing the events, where did that thing come from? How long was it flying? Is that what woke Avery up? Did it bite any of us? etc.. Just as we are about to maybe think about going to sleep - I am looking back toward the hallway and BOOM another bat flies in the doorway from the basement and then back towards the basement. Rick and I both pop up and are distraught to discover we had both left our trustee tennis rackets in the basement!!!! Luckily we play so much tennis so of course we have 4 rackets.. truthfully we haven't played tennis in like 8 years. I grab the racket from the garage toss it to Rick he walks up to the door way just as the bat appeared one swing and DEAD. YES!! 

I then said no no no no no no we are leaving right now that is two what fi there are more. We are out of here.  Packed up both kids and went to my moms. Who thank goodness is a before 5 AM riser. 

Both bats tested negative for Rabies by the Iowa State Diagnostic Lab in Ames. Now we are in the process of trying to figure out if this is one time thing or if we have a colony- needless to say I am at my moms until that is discovered.. 

The adventure continues.... 

M

Bentley

Bentley “The B Dog” Thompson

December 15, 2006 – September 2, 2014

Rick and I had been talking about it for months, but we just didn't know if we were ready for the responsibility of a dog.  It was April of 2007 and I was sitting at our dining room table studying for finals when my phone rang. It was my uncle Skip and as it turns out he was about to change our very boring lives. Skip tells me of this 5 month old golden retriever puppy that was in desperate need of a home. You see “Benny’s” owner had mistakenly not checked the landlord’s documentation and didn't know they couldn't have a dog more than 25 pounds in the apartment. If they couldn't find a home for Benny he was going to probably go to a shelter. My aunt Dana had said absolutely no dog at their house because their schedules just didn't mesh well for owning a dog. So my uncle had thought of us. After getting off the phone with him I was still extremely hesitant to say yes. We were just so busy, and on top of it all in just over a month and a half we were going to be gone for two weeks to get married. I look at Rick and said something like “well my uncle may have found us a dog… I told him we’d meet the dog and then decide if he would work for us”  I am pretty sure Rick gave me a look (you all have probably seen him give me this look a hundred times) and said something like “well see”

My mom and brother were supposed to go and get the dog and bring him for us to meet. I remember being told that they had gotten everything of the dog's including his food, toys, leash, and kennel. Which I had thought was silly because we didn't even know if we’d be keeping him… Then this walked into my life…

He was an uncoordinated, large pawed, big nosed love bug. He came strutting into our kitchen in Boone and it was unconditional love at first sight. We spent the next few weeks trying to get to know each other. He loved chasing his Cami (a stuffed camel) around and around my legs and back while I sat on the ground. He also loved laser lights and Tiger. He was a terrible cuddlier. I would go and let him out in the morning and try desperately to snag a few more hours of sleep by bringing him upstairs in order to have him lay with me in bed. That was a no go for many months. He couldn’t figure out why I was holding him down and covering him up with a blanket. He just wanted to chew on everything… especially my hair.

We had one very scary mishap early on in our relationship with B. Rick, B and I had been at the clinic and we were just leaving. B was in the back seat of my black GrandAm with the windows down. I remember hearing a very weird noise and looking into the side mirror. All I saw was a red golden fluff ball rolling in the street. I screamed at Rick to stop the car and threw the door open violently and ran to our little puppy who by now was sitting in the street with a look of total confusion and shock on his face. I being a wanna be Vet at the time quickly looked him over for scratches and broken bones, head trama etc… but all I saw was a look of utter disbelieve in his eyes. Needles to say from that moment on he actually sat with me in the front seat on my lap until he was too large. By that time he couldn’t squeeze himself out of the window anymore and he never tried again to jump out of a moving vehicle.

One of the best stories I have of Mr B was the night he got stuck under the bed.  Bentley had this need for sleeping with his back against something. He didn’t enjoy sleeping in open spaces, he was a dog that needed to feel the comfort of being surrounded by a structure. So in our house in Boone he would sleep with his back against the side of the bed. One night I had heard him wimpering… and whining. I remember saying “you’re fine B” but he just kept wimpering and then all of a sudden the bed moved. I couldn’t figure out how he could have moved the entire bed.. but then it happened again. I roll onto my left side and look on the floor where he had fallen asleep, but there was no B. I stared at the spot trying in my state of sleepiness to see him but there was no body of my dog just an empty space where he had been sleeping. I was about to kick Rick to wake him up when all of a sudden two frantic paws came shooting out from under the bed. I jumped out of bed and ran to the light because I couldn’t even believe my eyes. My 80 pound full grown dog and somehow squeezed himself under a 6 inch opening and now could not get back out. Rick and I had to lift the bed off the ground in order to get enough clearance for him to slink out from under it. I would say that B had learned his lesson after one episode but this happened at least three more times.. crazy dog haha.

The amount of stories I have about Bentley could fill up entire books but I don’t think I could ever write them in a way that would exude the enormous gratitude I have for that dog. He filled our lives with so much love and joy that without him on this earth there is an enormous void. He was our best friend. He was with us during our adventure to Key West. I am not sure how many dogs have the opportunity to swim in an ocean after being born in Iowa but he was one of them… and he loved to full nose dive off docks and complete head submersion to eat sea grass. Here are images of B dogs adventures in the Keys.. 

Bentley staring at birds in front of the boat

Frog xmas present he loved tearing open presents 

We always did ridiculous things to him haha 

Riding on the front of the boat on the ocean 

Who brought the old lady?

That old lady is everywhere

Mom's visit to Key West 

Ride to Key West

After Fantasy Fest with Dustin and Kali - B was always the "Hotdog"

Hated Baths

Loved sticks of any kind - he drug this in from out side 

Ready for the asteroid 

Bentley was officially diagnosed with lymphoma on December 17, 2013 two days after his 7^th birthday. Myschelle our technician had the sheet of paper in her hand and really didn't want to show me. It was 5:50 pm and I still had a 6 o’clock appointment to get to.  Reading those words was like having a knife shoved into my heart. How could our dog.. my dog have cancer.. why why it just wasn't fair. He was only 7.. that isn't enough time. This is wrong. They misread it. How am I supposed to tell Rick? The daughter I had growing inside my belly isn't going to get to meet the greatest dog in the world?!  Give me something that I can fix. I felt not only like I had been stabbed in the heart, but I felt worthless. This is my job - the health of animals is my job and I can't fix this. 

Over the next few days Bentley underwent testing at the clinic and at Iowa State. He came back with an overall positive bill of health.  Beyond one lymph node the cancer had not spread any where detectable. Rick and I counseled by an oncologist at ISU had to make very hard decisions. Unfortunately, being pregnant at the time put quite a damper on the overall chemo plan. Due to the grade of his lymphoma as well as our current situation we elected to wait it out and start chemo when he started to show clinical signs. Bentley would spend the next four months under my microscope. I would check is lymph node daily and monitor his eating. He had an episode of hospitalization for elevated calcium in March 2014. Then on April 3 – 10 days before Avery made her debut his platelets bottomed out. We had been trying to not start chemo before our daughter was born because of the risk but on April 3 the decision was made for us and B was started on pred. Soon after in fact exactly 10 days later he started a chemo pill.

He was a trooper through it all. He didn't seem overly upset about not being able to touch the baby as long as we still would pet him and love on him.

. About a month ago B started to show signs that the chemo and pred regiment was failing. He became very thin and over the last few weeks he began to be a picky eater and then the last few days he just was tired. He had put up an 8 month fight and lost. Cancer doesn’t fight fair.

There are many times in our lives that we may find ourselves wishing time might speed up just a little. You might hear yourself saying I can’t wait for high school, college, vacation, to get married, have kids, to have those kids not need to be held or put into diapers… or a number of other things we can’t wait for. We all need to stop, honestly. Time is kinda a bitch. It brings about so many new and exciting milestones and it also steals away moments that you will never get again. Bentley was only 7, he lived for 7 years 8 months 18 days, 7 hours and 50 minutes.  We are not guaranteed anything in this life, but I can tell you one thing about B- he didn’t wish any time away. I miss him, deeply...and these pictures will never be enough. 

Snorkeling, Lobstering and Boca...

During our last weekend our friends planned some really fun activities. This was extremely nice of them to plan because I was starting to get a little stressed in regards to packing, cleaning, worrying about our deposit on the apartment etc.. so I could not wait to get out on the water.

Dave and Annette took a small group of us on a boat ride to a little sandbar for sun and a picnic. The sandbar was located in the channel that leads toward Snipe, Cher and Frogger beach. On our attempted journey with K&K we had stopped at a similar place because we were unable to make it all the way to Cher and Frogger. We stayed at this little sandbar long enough to enjoy a few beverages and to eat our lunches. After eating we headed back to Dave and Annette's house to exchange for some more beverages and to gather some snorkeling equipment for a lobstering adventure.

Not a great image but this is along the pathway to the sandbar that we had our lunch 

Our lunch view was something more like this..

I have done a number of amazing things in Key West, and in all honesty I love crabbing.. it is fun trying to snag the buoys and the anticipation while pulling up the crab pot just adds to the experience. Also there is not much that can compare to a dinner of fresh crab.  I think though, I may have found my most favorite experience. I am pretty sure in previous life I was a mermaid and when you go lobstering this plays right into that previous life for me. To begin, when you lobster you are wearing snorkel gear or at least a mask with the snorkel, a "tickle" stick and a net. Next, you need to find areas the lobsters like to hide. They tend to be around rocks, sunken ships, or man made areas. When you are in the water with your snorkel gear on you are scanning the areas for the antennas of the lobster. At first, it can be very difficult to understand what you are searching for. I saw my first antenna sticking out of a small sunken flat bottom boat. After you locate the lobster the fun begins. You may be wondering what a "tickle" stick is and how you get a lobster into the net. I know you are wondering because I wondered the same thing. The "tickle" stick is used to literally tickle the lobsters out of hiding, generally when you touch them with it it causes them to move - even they hate being tickled- the interesting thing regarding lobster is they swim backwards. Once the lobsters are removed/tickled out from their hiding spot you place your net behind them and then continue to probe them.. they swim backward right into the net.. but the fight is not over. As soon as the lobsters hit the net you need to quickly turn the net in a manner that twists the net around which cause the opening to become closed.. if you do not do this the lobsters hit the net.. realize they are going to be trapped and quickly change directions shooting out the net the same way they came it.

As I swam down toward the small flat bottom boat I had a brief realization I did not have the lung capacity to fully enjoy the experience. Then, I think my mermaid life kicked in because the more times we dove the longer I was able to stay below to watch the techniques. I decided to partake in the experience.. grabbing a tickle stick I handed Rick a net and we dove down to try to snag our first lobster. Approaching the boat, I wanted to get all the way to the ocean floor because I wanted to see what I was tickling. Looking along the edge of the boat there were no less than 10 lobster sitting there waiting to be caught. Taking my stick I managed to dislodge a few of them and Rick was there to snag them. The problem with lobstering is that when you are in the ocean snorkeling things seem bigger than they actually are. Like crabbing, there are limits on what lobsters you can keep. Dave and Annette have been lobstering many times but have not had any large enough to meet the minimum requirement so they always have to throw them back. With that in mind it was practically a miracle that we had collected 2 keepers. On my 5th or 6th approach I noticed a set of antennas that may be thicker than the others. I did my best to tickle at the lobster attached to these antennas. Just then a very large, very mad lobster came out from under the boat. If he had a voice it would have been east coast and he would have been saying something like "Hey.. what.. you want some of this?!" He had his lobster claws up in the air.. his antennas were erect on top of his head and the his flipper things on his tail were splayed outward making him look very menacing. I am pretty sure that his demeanor would have scared off potential predators because I screamed in my snorkel and went immediately to the surface. Another guy in our group had to go back down to get him in the net.

Here is his images once we got back to shore...

He is menacing.. 

After our day on the sea and all the water I drank while we snorkeled for lobster we elected to spend a quiet night at home eating delicious Tai Island.

Then next day we got a call from Dave and Annette for another day of snorkeling as well as Boca Grand beach. Piling into two boats we took off toward >>> While we road in the boat toward our snorkeling destination Rick spotted a lone dolphin, but when we slowed down it disappeared and didn't come back to the surface. Rick and I had been to >>> the year we got married. It was the day before our wedding when our families took a snorkeling excursion and day trip. Needless to say we learned that day that the excursions go out regardless of if they should and that my mom really needs a life jacket... not the ones you can blow air into.

This particular day was a perfect snorkeling day. The sea was calm and everything was very clear. I didn't get images of this but I know that Dave video taped a bunch and I will see if I can get some of those videos. After we snorkeled we proceeded to Boca Grand. To remind you this is what Boca looks like..

We spent the day hanging on the beach with very fun people and beautiful weather. There was only one down fall that we learned about the next week. As we hung out at Erin and Phil's house the last week we lived in Key West, Erin informed us of a not so fun fact. One of Erin's friend's dad had been fishing just off of Boca Grand and he caught the following

Yes my friends that is a very large hammer head shark and it was caught very very close to where we hang out at Boca Grand... The next time we are there I may not get in the water!

On Sunday make sure to kiss your mothers..


Rick and McKenzie