Family Trip (3/15/26)

On Sunday, the Bionic Cowgirl, Nebalee, Junior, and I loaded up and headed to Moab to attend the sentencing for Daniel Graska. The weather was cold and snowy, but the trip went very smoothly. There's something to be said for having a brother who spent his career as a professional driver.

We arrived in Moab and checked into our Airbnb mid-afternoon. Nebalee and I had planned on taking a hike while we waited for Deejo and Mrs Deejo to join us in Moab. Mom and Junior opted to join us, and we set out on an adventure.

Initially, we wanted to hike in Arches National Park, but when we go there, the entrance line was an hour, so Nebalee found us an incredible hike outside of the park just a few minutes away.

Not being from Utah, and rarely hiking out there, I'd never heard of Grandstaff Canyon, but it was listed as one of the top seven or eight best hikes outside of the park. AllTrails had it listed as an "easy, flat" out and back trail of about five miles with only a 300 foot elevation gain. I know it might come as a surprise, but AllTrails lied. It was about five miles, yes, but I wouldn't have called it "flat". It wasn't overly difficult, but there were lots of water crossings and a few small scrambles, and the overall elevation gain was more than double the stated 300 feet.

Despite being lied to by AllTrails, it was an absolutely gorgeous hike that felt amazing after a full day in the car.

The beginning of the trail did start off well-groomed
and flat. Super easy.

So many water crossings, which I love!
I am breaking in some waterproof hiking boots for our trip
to Scotland in April, so I was thrilled to get to test them.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the hike.

I couldn't take a picture that does this landbridge justice.
It's an almost 300 foot span across an arch.

My amazing sister, Nebalee, with her summit pose.

Tired puppies for the first hike of the year,
still had to hike out.

My beautiful mother, the Bionic Cowgirl, 
at the end of the hike. Not bad for one day shy
of 77 years old.

The hike was just the distraction we needed, given the reason we had this road trip to Moab. It tired all of us out sufficiently that we were able to get some sleep prior to the sentencing.

Family Bonding

Monster, my youngest, moved to Arizona a year or so ago. He does that, gets itchy feet and moves. He's the one of my three who just packs up and moves, always has. I'm not brave enough to do that, I'm a Colorado girl through and through and can't imagine living anywhere else (except when it's below zero, then the thought flits across my mind).

Deejo and his family moved back to Arizona a year ago, after Monster did. Now, Monster lives with Deejo's family and it seems to be working.

That was a round about way of saying that I haven't seen my brother or my son in a while. Nebalee found us cheap airfare, so we flew out to spend a few days with them.

It was so good to see my Monster (and the rest of the fam, obvs). We spent one night sitting on the couch, watching hockey. I can't remember the last time I got to hang with him and yell at the TV.

Since we had some free time and wanted to go do something, we put on our thinking caps and came up with axe throwing. I don't know who had the idea, or even where it came from, but that's what we came up with. I got on Groupon and found a place nearby that was reasonable. Nebalee and I got everything organized and the next day, off we went.

We had a 90-minute session that included some very basic instruction and practice, then we broke up into teams and competed against each other. We started with two-handed throwing, to get the hang of it, then went to one-handed. Because I like to be able to do things ambidextrously, I tried throwing both right- and left-handed. Monster and Deejo also played along with the non-dominant hand practice.

Asset, Nebalee's daughter, was apprehensive at first and didn't really want to keep going after her first couple of throws. It's deceptively harder than it looks. But then she got the hang of it. She got the hang of it so well that she was the only one on our team to put any points on the board when we were playing 21.

Team Axcellent

Team Axekickers

Check out the witty, axe-themed nicknames

I was fairly confident that our team (Axekickers) was gonna kick Axcellent's axe, but they beat us two of three games. It's all good though, we had a great time and the games helped us get out of our heads while we were throwing, and get comfortable. The last game we played was "Survivor" and it was each person for themselves. I was feeling pretty confident, as was everyone else. Holy cow! Asset started off strong and kept going. She beat three or four of us in a row before getting knocked out. Luckily, we all had two lives to lose, so she had the opportunity to come back and redeem herself.

Asset had a bit of a rough start to the day, but stuck with it and started kicking everyone's axe. Monster took to it like a duck to water. The rest of us were pretty hit or miss. She and Monster probably threw the best, each with a handful of X-ring throws in a row. If I had laid down a bet, Asset or Monster would have been the two I'd put my money on to win.

Then Nebalee stepped up. Asset had just thrown three (or was it four) bulls eyes in a row. They stepped to the line together, mother vs daughter, and Nebalee threw her axe. It wasn't a great throw, but it stuck in the 3 ring. Asset threw her axe and I don't know what the hell happened, but her axe throwing mojo completely disappeared. Like - *poof* - gone. Nebalee had successfully knocked Asset out of the competition and had to face Monster, who had also been kicking everyone's axe.

Nebalee had her best throw of the day and ended up victorious. I'm sure if I was a better writer, I could write a tear jerker of a screenplay about how the underdog came from nowhere and beat the two best throwers with the best throw of the day. Just imagine the slo-mo montage with inspirational music as we watch her axe leave her hands and rotate toward the target. The crowd erupts in cheers and the loser gives her a heartfelt congratulations. Everything is right in the world.

The whole thing was so much fun, but there was one last throw I wanted to try: two axes at a time! If throwing one axe was fun, throwing two had to be twice as fun. It was.

Now, some people might raise an eyebrow at using axe throwing as family bonding, but it was incredible! I think that this is something we'll have to do on the regular. We don't have a nearby axe bar (yet), but once it opens, I'll be taking my other heathens for some mom/heathi bonding.

What Are We? The Addams Family?

I've shared with you Grandpa Ed's legs. Lots of people I know love the story behind his legs, but are really, really glad that they live at my house. I get it, if the roles were reversed, I'd be right there with you.

The other night, Jay and I had dinner with Mom and Bill at Grandma's house. As you can imagine, there is a lot of cleaning and sorting of stuff going on. A lot of it. (Side note: it was a lot easier to clean out Grandma Mary's house, because it was mostly junk. We took the items that had sentimental value, but she didn't own anything of value other than the house itself.)

One of the things Mom and Bill ran across were Grandma's dentures with the "cutters". Now, I know Grandma used to talk about her dentures with the "cutters", and she complained a time or two about not being able to chew as well without them, but I actually had zero idea what she was talking about.

We all just kind of humored her about her magic, cutting dentures. And then Mom and Bill found these ...

Yes, those are wire "cutters" on her molars.

Normally, I'd be completely disgusted about finding decades-old dentures tucked away in a cupboard somewhere, but I'm equal parts fascinated and disgusted by these. My first thought when Mom showed them to me was, "Grandma could eat the hell out of some steak with those!", followed quickly by "I would hate to bite my tongue!".

During our initial walk-through of the house, I claimed a couple of things: the yellow step-stool, the fridge (don't judge, it's the coolest fridge ever, and it's going to stay with the house for now), and this pair of pictures (?). I'm not sure exactly what they are, but ever since I was a little kid, I've loved these things.

They are made of pieces of bark and moss, so I don't know what to call them. Are they fiber art? Are they decoupage?

When going through Grandma's photo albums, we saw that this set started as a set of four. Two remain. The best we can figure is that they're 60 years old. The one big lie Mom ever told was about these picture-things, but that's her story, so you'll have to ask her about it.

Like Ed's legs, Jay was not thrilled with having these in the house. Lucky for him, I never intended them to go up in our house, they're in my office at work. I haven't hung them up yet (obviously), but they go well with my trail riding pictures.

Lord only knows what other treasures we'll unearth as we continue to clean out her house.

Grandpa Ed

Grandma Juanita's death has definitely made me nostalgic, remembering my childhood.

Grandpa Ed was the grandpa I grew up with, and he brought a lot of laughter into our lives. I have stories for days about Grandpa Ed, but mostly I wanted to share with you my favorite thing ever.

Jay says Ed's legs are creepy; they just make me smile.

Grandpa Ed was an auto body man, and an excellent one at that. Today, he would have his own TV show "flipping" cars. He was always covered in Bondo and paint.

Grandma Juanita met her match with Grandpa Ed when it came to orneriness. He had this table commissioned just to see how she would react when she came into the house and saw his legs. It mysteriously disappeared, and we didn't dare ask about it, considering how heartbroken we all were with his sudden death.

Imagine his dismay when she loved the table. Found it hilarious and proudly showed it off to everyone.

When we found "Ed's legs" in a shed, I quickly claimed them and rushed home to set them up in a corner to surprise Jay.

He thinks Ed's legs are creepy. He just doesn't appreciate them.

They make me smile every time I look over and see the table, so they're staying. (Even if not one single one of my children wants them when I die.)

And Then There Were Three

One of the things that was important to my family, especially my grandmother and great-grandmother, was the fact that we had so many living generations. But not just living generations, no, living generations of women. That was very important to them. (I can't get the picture to insert properly, sorry 'bout that.)

Grandma Juanita, Ashinator, me, Great-Grandma Wheeler, Mom

Great-Grandma Wheeler died twenty or so years ago, leaving our family with only four generations. It was sad, but the hope was always there that we'd get back up to five. After all, we come from some tough stock, but we couldn't count on it, because Ashee was just a baby. When she and Micky got married in August, Grandma Juanita started wondering when we were going to get five.

Sorry for the blurry picture, it's the only one I have.

Sadly, it looks like we'll never make it to five generations again. Grandma Juanita passed away on Saturday, January 27 at 89 years old. It's been a shock, because up until the week before Christmas she'd been her usual ornery, sassy self.

On her 89th birthday

Her hospital visit before Christmas was short - she'd pulled a muscle in her back, but when she went to have it looked at, the docs realized she had Congestive Heart Failure. Now, CHF always sounds terrible, but there are a lot of people who can manage it well, and it appeared Grandma was one of them. Some diuretic and potassium and she was good as new. Well, as good as she was before.

Her back healed up and she resumed life as though nothing had happened. She had always said she was going to live to 107 (it started as 104, but kept getting prolonged), and we had no reason to doubt her.

Unfortunately, she developed a UTI and got severely dehydrated. Mom took her to the hospital, where they found not only a UTI and dehydration, but pneumonia and sepsis. Some IV fluids and antibiotics, and it looked like she was going to beat it. Mom made arrangements for her to go to a nursing home until she was strong enough to move back into her own place. Grandma never made it to the nursing home.

As incredibly hard as it is to lose Grandma, I'm thankful that she didn't suffer a long, protracted illness. She was fiercely independent and able to live on her own right up until she was hospitalized. Pneumonia is the great killer of the elderly, and it strikes fairly quickly, for which I am thankful. I know it would have been devastating for Grandma to lose her quality of life through cancer or a stroke.

Mom might be the bionic cowgirl, but she got her basic toughness from Grandma Juanita who suffered from polio as a child. You wouldn't know that one leg was two inches shorter than the other, or that she had scoliosis so bad that one side of her rib cage touched her hip bone. Not once did she complain, she just did what needed doing her whole life. I hope to be half as tough as those two women.

It's very weird knowing we only have three generations now; this is the "smallest" my family has ever been. It's very weird that Mom is now the matriarch (she can't ever, ever die).

I never got over the fact that there was no longer Lava soap in the bathroom after Grandpa Ed died (31 years ago, and I still look for that stupid soap), and I'm not sure I'll get over the fact that Grandma will no longer be sitting at her kitchen table, deck of cards in hand, ready to kick our butts in Gin Rummy.

Day 11: My Current Relationship

This is a rather timely prompt, as our 7th anniversary is just a couple of days away.

I had to have some oral surgery done on the 10th, which just happened to be Jay's birthday and the dentist, hygienist, and I were talking. I mentioned it was his birthday and then mentioned that our anniversary was coming up on the 14th. They jokingly said, "seven years of wedded bliss, but how much time was not wedded bliss?"

That started me thinking - maybe five days? I mean, it's not like every day is a honeymoon, but for the most part, yeah, seven years of wedded bliss.

We just fit.

We're definitely not the have-to-fight-all-the-time-to-realize-how-much-we-love-each-other type of couple. I know there are a lot of people out there who believe that constant fighting and making up shows passion. I think that kind of "love" requires entirely too much energy to maintain and it's just a hop, skip, and a jump to full-on crazy and/or abuse.

We're also not the all-over-each-other-all-the-time couple. We love each other and support each other, but after that first kiss, we're not so much PDA-type people. We can be overly cutesy at times, but usually only at home. And, I will admit we talk in our own cutesy, short-hand way. But again, usually only at home.

We're more the we've-been-married-100-years-already kind of settled. I don't mean settled in a bad way, either. I mean, we're comfortable, content, and we each know who we are. I think that both of us being older (mid- to late-thirties) when we got married helped. I know who I am; he knows who he is and we accept each other. We don't need each other, but we damn sure  want each other and I think that counts for a whole lot.

Marrying Jay was the best decision I've made.

30 Days of Memories: Day 29

Nebalee, Deejo, me

All girlified: Staci, Robs, me, Nebalee, Sue

Me and Robs both in dresses - it was an event!

I love my family and my girls. Love them. A year or so after Hall and I broke up, Brandy and Justin got married and I was invited to the wedding, along with Nebalee and Deejo.

Our break-up was awful and it took me years to get over it, so Brandy's wedding fell smack-dab in the middle of my mourning period. Because I love Brandy, I wouldn't have missed her wedding for anything, even if that meant seeing Hall and his fiancee for the first time since our very bad break-up.

My sibs and my girls rallied around me, knowing how difficult it was going to be and I ended up having the greatest time ever. Yes, Hall and the soon-to-be Mrs Hall were an annoyance, but we managed to avoid each other and still have a great time.

Because of my crazy work-out schedule (and probably some stress too), I had lost 24 pounds since anyone outside of my girls had seen me. Perhaps one of the best parts of the whole night was seeing the look on Hall's face when I walked in with my posse sibs and my girls. I never thought I was "girly" enough that I would derive pleasure from rubbing the fact that I was doing okay (even if it was a lie) in his face. Turns out I was wrong, I totally loved that feeling. It was so worth the "die, bitch" looks I was getting from his fiancee, who happened to be a member of the wedding party.

(Yes, Robs and I wore black to the wedding, not for any malicious reason, but because we were only going to buy ONE dress and it needed to be multi-purpose. What's more multi-purpose than a little black dress?)

30 Days of Memories: Day 26

My ex-husband and I bought a house in Loveland shortly after Monster was born. We couldn't afford it, not even close, but his parents' friends were selling it and his parents decided to buy it with us.

This picture of me with Dr. Michael Charney was taken at our house warming party. Doc was one of my favorite instructors at CSU - so much so that I became one of his many teaching assistants. He was a world renowned forensic anthropologist, and I fell in love with the field of forensic anthropology the second I stepped into his osteology class. The second semester, I took his facial reconstruction class and my fate was sealed. I had to work for him, and I did until the day he died and then some.

I had the pleasure of learning from him for three or four years and was convinced that if I didn't get into medical school, I would end up in his field. I expected him to live forever and just assumed that he'd be around to help me in my career. Unfortunately, he was not immortal and died in the hospital of pneumonia. The team of TAs finished teaching out the semester, which just wasn't the same without him.

The kids loved visiting his lab, a small A-frame on CSU's campus. Rows and rows of skulls lined three walls of his office, the fourth wall was shelves loaded with boxes of bones that the families' of the deceased had donated. You would think, being surrounded by all of those bones would be creepy, but it wasn't. It felt like being among friends, strange as that sounds.

Bonus picture: this is on my cabinet at work.

You can see in the bonus picture, the rows of skulls lining the wall behind Doc. He left instructions - and made them well known - that his bones were to be articulated (wired together) and sent back to CSU. Doc's office, the A-frame, has been turned into a storage shed or something, so he now keeps someone else company all day long. He now permanently resides in an office, posed the way he often sat in real life.

30 Days of Memories: Day 23

I'm leading, Ashinator is in the pink, and Digger is behind her.

One of the best benefits of working for the livery was that I could do cool things for the kids. For Digger's birthday one year, we had a riding party. If I wasn't working there, it would have been cost-prohibitive, but many summers I worked in trade for free rides and tips.

Digger was allowed to invite a few friends up to ride, and we went out for a one-hour ride. After our ride, we were treated to a trick roping show. One of the wranglers had a friend who was a competitive trick roper (did you know there was even such a thing?), and he spent some time showing off and teaching the kids a few rope tricks.

30 Days of Memories: Day 21

Back before re-creation photos were popular, we did this re-creation picture. The original is up at the Lodge and we were much younger. I was 18 when the first picture was taken, and this was taken maybe 15 years later. I don't exactly remember, but it was a long time ago.

We had the original picture taken at an "Old Tyme" photo place in Estes Park (long before Mom and Bill owned the Lodge), so we took the original picture in with us to the same place to have this one done. I don't see much difference in me between the first and second pictures. Yes, I'm older, but I was 18 in the first and pretty much done growing. Junior, the youngest, is the one who changed the most from picture to picture. He was 9 in the first picture, so in this one he's all growed up.

If you want to be able to compare the two pictures, you'll just have to book a room at the Lodge :)

30 Days of Memories: Day 19

I've only made the kids do a family Halloween costume once, but it was the cutest Halloween ever. Since we had the Best Dog in the World, Jakers, and Jake was a Dalmatian, I just had to have my own fire brigade for Halloween.

Mom sewed the turnout coats (this was long before you could buy a fighterfighter's costume) and I made the breathing apparatus. I took 2 liter bottles and painted them, ran an oxygen hose from the bottom of the "tank" to a mask, and fashioned a harness for their tanks. Black gloves, plastic fire helmets, and snow boots completed the costumes for the kids.

Jakers, however, had to have his own costume. I made a drape for him to wear and turned our little red wagon into a fire engine, complete with a flashing bubble light. I knew the kids would get tired while Trick-or-Treating, so having the wagon was a stroke of genius on my part, if I do say so myself. I tried to make a harness for Jake to pull the wagon, but that was a pain in the butt, so I settled for walking Jake with one hand and dragging the wagon with the other.

Corralling Jake and three squirmy kids for a picture was next to impossible, so I plopped the kids down on the couch after we got back from Trick-or-Treating and snapped a quick picture. As you can tell, they were over the whole thing and just wanted to eat their damn candy.

30 Days of Memories: Day 18

Back when the kids were little soccer players.

I miss those days, hectic as they were. I'm pretty much the most obnoxious sports mom on the planet. Not one of the ones who doesn't understand the game, but yells at the kids/coach/ref anyway. Nope, when I yelled at the ref, it was justified. I knew the rule book pretty well.

I coached Digger's team for a few years and my team is all "growed up", but they still all call me "Coach". We had a lot of fun for those few years. We weren't the best team in the league, but we were by far not the worst. I'm proud of the boys - they worked hard and grasped the concept of the game much better than many of the other teams in the league. The teams who were better than us were the ones who were being groomed for the competitive travel teams, while we were playing for fun. Hall and I hosted a "parents vs kids" game every season, and Hall would bring a variety of his jerseys for the kids to choose from to wear. The kids always looked forward to kicking their parents' butts. At first, the parents would "go easy" on the boys, but the boys quickly showed them that unless they wanted slaughtered, the parents better step up their game. Great memories.

Before soccer, Ashinator was such a girly girl. She would cry over anything. Total emotional and physical wimp. Enter soccer. Holy cow, what a change. I remember one game where she got cleated in the stomach. If it had been me, I would have pulled myself from the game. I mean, I'm tough, but I'm not "cleat marks on my gut" tough. Ashinator pulled up her shirt, looked at the bright red marks on her stomach and kept going. That's when I knew she'd be okay. She found her inner toughness. She's still pretty sensitive, but in a good way now.

Monster was a natural with a soccer ball. While the other kids on his team were still trying to figure out how to pass the ball correctly, Monster was juking the opponents right and left. He's a natural forward. He switched his passion from soccer to skateboarding and I was heartbroken. He's amazing with a skateboard, but to see a little three year-old with the soccer skills he had was breath-taking. I won't lie, I had dreams of soccer scholarships.

30 Days of Memories: Day 16

Well, I've officially made it more than halfway through my self-imposed 30 days. I'm still thankful I didn't specify 30 successive days. :)

I swore I'd never get married again. In fact, I was pretty content with the idea of just being a crazy horse lady, but Ashinator worried about me. (I think the boys did, too, but she was much more vocal about it.)

I threw a temper tantrum that eventually led to me meeting Jay and a few weeks later we were engaged. Compared to the whirlwind courtship, our engagement was really long - exactly eleven months. We got engaged on June 14 and married on May 14. We celebrated our sixth anniversary this year, which doesn't seem like that big a milestone, but for someone who swore off a relationship, it's pretty big.

I was married the first time right at seven years, though we were separated for six months before the divorce was final, and my other serious relationship was about five and a half years, making my marriage to Jay my longest relationship. We've got a long way to go to match my Great-Grandparent's sixty years, but I think we've got a good start. I mean, we're 1/10th of the way there!

30 Days of Memories: Day 15

My great-grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary. I can't imagine being married that long, and when we did the math, Jay and I realized we will be well into our 90s if we ever make that mark.

I have lots of fond memories of growing up with Great-Grandma Wheeler. I was not at all her favorite - that would be Nebalee - but she was the one who picked me up from school when I was in kindergarten and played paper dolls with me. To this day, I can't figure out how she could take a sheet of paper and end up with a string of dolls. We pressed flowers between sheets of waxed paper and she always had a bunch of newspaper paper for me to draw on. On Sundays, after church, we'd swing through McDonald's and I could get a Happy Meal. Great-Grandpa would always have a Filet o' Fish sandwich and he lived for the Shamrock Shakes in March.

My memories of Great-Grandpa aren't as sharp as mine with Grandma, probably because he was off working at the cement plant when I was little. He had an amazing garden that was fully half an acre and I clearly remember getting in trouble for flushing the toilet one day when he was watering the garden. I was little, how was I supposed to know that it would kill the water pressure? From that time on, I was afraid to use their bathroom. I don't recall him being a hard man, but that one time getting in trouble certainly stuck with me.

He loved to go fishing at a nearby lake, and we'd always stop at the fish hatchery on the way. While he spent his time fishing, I would troll the water's edge for snails. There were so many! And I loved to pick them all up off the rocks. Once in a while, I'd be allowed to take a snail friend home with me in a plastic container of water with a rock or two in it.

Most of my memories of Great-Grandpa are from young adulthood when Parkinson's disease was ravishing his body. It was awful to see such a strong man slowly deteriorate. Great-Grandma and Grandma Nita helped care for him until the day he died. Shortly thereafter, Great-Grandma was diagnosed with colon cancer, so Grandma Nita took on the caretaker role again and cared for Great-Grandma until her death.

Their house and acreage has been sold and I about cried when the people who bought the house immediately ripped out their beautiful, HUGE picture window and put in a tiny "efficient" one. When I was younger, I was pretty certain their house was haunted, but I'd give just about anything to have their house (picture window intact) back.

30 Days of Memories: Day 13

Five living generations of females. My Great-Grandma Wheeler (lower left) was so excited. When Digger was born, we had our five living generations, but Great-Grandma really wanted to have five generations of women and she finally got it when Ashinator was born.

I don't think there are many families anymore who can boast the five living generations thing, and Great-Grandma died within a year after Ashinator was born. One of my childhood friends posted a picture of her grandma with the fifth generation baby; less than 24 hours after she met her goal of five living generations, her grandma passed away. It's funny how goals like that can help keep people alive.

I am sooooo not ready to be a grandma, but there's nothing that would make my Grandma Nita happier than for Ashinator to provide her with a fifth generation female to continue the tradition. It's a good thing Grandma Nita is insisting on living to 100 so we've got some time.

30 Days of Memories: Day 12

Well, coming off of that last depressing post, here's a much happier one from our honeymoon. Instead of spending big bucks on a wedding, we chose to spend a week in Hawaii for our honeymoon. It was so beautiful and we were able to find a secluded beach away from the rest of the tourists, thanks to a co-worker who had lived there and gave us the name (which escapes me) of an area off the beaten path.

We quickly realized that beach-sitting was not for us. Yes, the beach was beautiful, but after about fifteen minutes we needed to get up and do something. We had planned for a few outings, which were definitely boredom-busters. We spend one day at Kualoa Ranch taking the movie set tour, and another day driving around the island. At other times, we just explored. It was beautiful, and I can understand why people would want to live there, but by the end of our week, we were ready to come home.

Hawaii is beautiful, but it's not Colorado.

(PS, if I've scheduled this post right, it should go up on October 1, which is Beel's birthday. Hoppy bird day two ewe, Beel.)

30 Days of Memories: Day 11

I unpacked some more pictures for the shelves today and ended up with more than 30 pictures, so today is a two-fer day.

I think kids need dogs, and I have always had a soft spot for Dalmatians, but there was no way we could afford to buy one from a breeder. When my ex-husband and I bought our house in Loveland, we went on the hunt for a dog for the kids. We applied to adopt from the Dalmatian rescue and when we were approved, went to see the dogs they had on hand.

Jake was this emaciated skeleton of a dog, but he had the best personality and he had to come home with us. Jake's original name was "Sunny" because of his disposition, but that was a dumb name, so it got switched pretty quickly. We were warned that he couldn't digest beef proteins, which is a problem for a lot of Dalmatians, but rescues feed the food that is donated and can't be too terribly picky.

Jakers quickly decided that he was my dog and did not care for my husband. In fact, one night, my ex came home late from a night of drinking and Jake wouldn't let him in the house. He quickly adopted the kids as his pack and never showed one ounce of aggression toward them.

I cooked his meals for months, just to get weight back on him. He went from looking like a walking skeleton to a well-fed (okay, maybe a bit obese) working dog. We had Jakers for about seven years before he started getting cranky. I chalked it up to old age, but when he snapped at one of the kids' friends, I knew something was wrong and took him to the vet. They couldn't find anything wrong and also decided that he was getting old and hard of hearing, but just to be on the safe side, they decided to run some blood work.

I griped about the cost of the blood work - the kids and I had NO disposable income and getting hit with a vet visit and a $90 blood test was definitely not in the budget - but I grudgingly agreed even though I knew it would be negative.

I was wrong. I got the call at work the next day. Jake had end stage renal failure. We could treat him, but there were no guarantees that he'd live any longer and his quality of life (as I could see it) would be in the toilet. He might have two weeks, he might have two months, but the fact was that our beloved dog was dying. I set the appointment with the vet to have him put down, burst into tears, and dreaded telling the kids that night.

How was I going to explain to the kids that we were going to kill their dog? Jake had been with us through so much - a divorce, moves, a flood, first days of school - every major milestone in their lives that they could remember, they had Jake with them.

I explained to them what was happening with Jake and let them decide if they wanted to be with him when we put him down. He was feeling pretty good, excited about going on a car ride, on his last day. The vet and his tech were amazing and took us to a grassy hill away from the clinic. All of our hearts broke as we petted him and watched our Jake take his last breath.

Our trip to Mexico a few weeks later was exactly what we needed to get away and begin the healing process. Jake was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime dog for all of us.

30 Days of Memories: Day 9

My cousin Tonia just celebrated her 18th wedding anniversary to Steve. Ashinator and Digger were so super cute as the flower girl and ring bearer.

The bridal party got ready in a room with a fruit platter and my Grandma kept feeding Ashinator all the fruit she wanted, not thinking about what was going to happen to her gut with all of that fresh fruit. The fruit started to work their magic during the ceremony, and every so often, Ash would disappear with my mom to the bathroom and then sneak back into line. A few minutes later, she'd disappear and reappear again.

Luckily, it wasn't too distracting and it makes for a cute story.

30 Days of Memories: Day 8

As you have probably noticed, I like cool frames. Mom and Bill bought me this frame after Jay and I got engaged. I still haven't gotten around to having our wedding date inscribed, but maybe I will by our tenth anniversary.

The year we got engaged, we had family pictures taken, which was Jay's idea. He wanted to give his parents pictures of all of us, instead of just doing engagement photos. I love him a lot for that. Marrying into a family with teenagers and a woman who had been divorced for 12 years was no easy feat, but from the beginning, he did his best to include the kids.

Now, in the past seven years, there have been some rough patches, which was to be expected. The kids and I were pretty much it, so to have someone else join the family had its hard moments, but it has worked out.

30 Days of Memories: Day 7

This picture was taken at my cousin's wedding 14 years ago. I only know how long ago it was because of Facebook - their anniversary was last month and I remember seeing it pop up.

They had a Roaring 20s themed wedding, with all of the groomsmen in zoot suits. I'm not much of a seamstress - I can sew and follow a pattern - but my attention to detail isn't quite like my mom's. I spent every night for weeks at my Grandma Mary's house after work, sewing the boys their zoot suits. Grandpa Moe was still alive then, and Grandma and Grandpa would babysit my kids while I was at work in the evenings, so I would go over and spend an hour or two each night sewing while the kids slept on the floor and Grandpa Moe watched Archie Bunker.

The movie The Mask with Jim Carrey had recently been released and Monster was very much enamored with it, so he insisted on his zoot suit being yellow just like in the movies. I couldn't find a yellow zipper, though, so he was stuck with a black one that made me crazy. I could have taken apart his pants and re-set it, but I sewed well into the night each night and got up really early each morning to go to school, so exhaustion just wouldn't allow me to do it.

Poor Digger looks like he hit one hell of a growth spurt, with his gangly arms hanging out of his sleeves, but that was my fault - I didn't measure him well. Luckily, though, neither of the boys were bothered by my decided lack of sewing practice and were thrilled to have their own zoot suits for the wedding.