~The Dangerous Side of Beauty~

The beauty of Summer.... The color... A place to relax... Fresh Vegetables to Enjoy... (garden is much bigger, this picture is a month old) A little oasis for butterflies, birds, bees, dragonflies and so pretty to look at... HOWEVER.... this... plus this.... can equal NEAR DISASTER! In the blink of an eye (or maybe 15-30 minutes) my little Beau managed to stretch his run enough to have access to our little oasis, and he proceeded to do something he has NEVER done before... he tore apart a plant... BUT not just ANY plant - he shredded up (a huge portion) and taste tested (a not so huge portion) of the Rhododendrun. Now don't get me wrong, I wasn't the least bit upset that he tore it up, but after calling the vet and finding out that it is poisonous, my heart just about dropped out! So, in my nightgown, at 8:30 in the morning I was outside with a child's medicine spoon giving Beau Hydrogen Peroxide to make him give up the contents of his stomach - calling my husband to come home with a vehicle to bring Beau to the vet's office and trying to wake up the girls to get me some clothes to throw on. To make a long story a wee bit shorter, Beau spent the day at the vet's office receiving activated charcoal, IV fluids, an EKG and some sedation (to keep him from pulling out the IV fluids), and we spent the day praying. Here is the little guy resting... and showing off his battle scar (the girls dislike the shaved area of his leg) . The vet believes that he will be fine, and that we caught and reacted quickly enough to have kept the toxins from doing damage. It seems that the Rhododendrun (and the Azalea that is right next to it) toxin can damage the heart. We are incredibly grateful that we have our little guy back, seemingly healthy and back to his funloving self. So, for my "week off" (to hang out with the girls and Matt), I made three visits to the Chiropractor, brought Matt and Lyss to the Oral Surgeon for their consultation on having their Wisdom teeth out (surgery will be in November), brought little Beau for his shots and check up, picked up his frontline, heartworm medicine and food and THEN two days later brought him in for his emergency day. All in all, an EXTREMELY expensive and HIGH STRESS "week off", and yet I am feeling very blessed. I'm off to bed, I'll be up at 5 and we will be leaving at 5:45 for Nicole's last tournament weekend! Enjoy the wonderful weather (in New England at least), your pets (if you have them) and your weekend!

~We're Baaaaaaaaaaaaaack!~

Well, we've been back for about 10 days now and this is the first chance I've had to even THINK about posting! We had a wonderful vacation, gorgeous weather except for rain the middle weekend. I did a LOT of reading (9 books), the kids finished up their summer reading for school and started on some "fun" reading of their choosing. My MIL came with us and my cousin came up from Ohio, along with various other visitors, it was certainly a lot of fun! (pictures are all clickable thumbnails) The beach is NEVER crowded... Leaving lots of space for fun activities.... ************************** Reading... Swimming... Pitching Practice... Field Hockey Practice... Piggy-back Rides... Beau did some SERIOUS sand tasting... and seaweed sniffing... Last night on the beach... I brought along some knitting, but started (yup.... another WIP - I couldn't help myself) a log cabin blanket with stash yarn - Wool-Ease Sport Weight Heathers - that is working up quickly and is incredibly fun to make. I neglected to bring it with me this weekend for all of the tournaments, so it hasn't made much progress since I started it. I worked a LOT of hours last week getting ready for the incoming students and tweaking handbooks etc. We had the cardiology appointment for Nic and various other appointments that had been planned before we left. It feels, at times, as though we never went away! Em had her last tournament this weekend and I have to say that we won't be missing the coach she had for this team! Nic's tournament went well, they had a great time, made it to the finals and she has one more. Unfortunately, we didn't get to Lyss' tournament this past weekend as I was in Ashland, DH was in Halifax and Lyss was in RI, but she has one more and we all plan on making that one! We made the appointments to have wisdom teeth removed in the fall for Matt and Lyss and are getting things ready for Matt to move back to college. WHERE HAS THE SUMMER GONE! I apologize for my lack of comments on all of your blogs, I haven't had a chance to get to my bloglines, not sure that it's possible to catch up at this point, but I'll be along soon to visit! I hope you are all having a great summer, I'm off to catch up on the never ending supply of laundry and maybe out to shop for a chair that won't put my back out at the tournaments!