Terri

Please pray for Terri Cleaver and her family. She has recently experianced some problems with her health and had another stroke last night. She is in the hospital right now. I have spoken with her father, but they don't have any news to report just yet. Terri and Kevin have two little ones, Garrett and Allison. Just keep this family in your prayers.

Terri...we love you and are praying for you!!!

BULL BLOWOUT!!!

This past Saturday, Dustin and I took Michael to his first rodeo, the BULL BLOWOUT in Murray, KY. My sister, Leslie, and her boyfriend, Ben, met us for dinner before the rodeo and rode with us there to meet up with some more friends of ours...Joey, Penny, Dustin, Lane, and Dannie.

Michael loved the rodeo. He and Lane got to do the "Muttin' Bustin'" contest. Muttin' Bustin' is where the little kids (under 6) get to ride sheep across the arena. Of course, Dustin was holding Michael to keep him from falling. Lane, however, got to ride by himself (he's 5) and did really well. He was one of the few kids to hold on the entire ride. Another older kid that was helping had to pull Lane off the sheep! Both boys got a blue ribbon for riding. Lane also did the "Calf Scrammble". They tie a ribbon on the tail of 2 calves and let about 50 kids chase them down. The two kids that get the ribbons get a prize.

Here are the pics from the rodeo. I'm going to try to get the video posted sometime this week. I've never posted video, so I'm not sure how long it will take.

REMODEL PHOTOS

Valentine Photos

Michael already had his Vday presents in several hiding places around the house so I didn't get photos. He got an outfit and a

whistling gorilla from his Papaw, Nana, and Uncle Drew; an animal sounds barn, a bear-shaped cake & candy from Mimi, Grandaddy, and Uncle Johnny; and balloons and a cookie from Mommy & Daddy. Dustin got a new wedding band (his broke and was lost just a few months after we married) and a card.

Feeling a Little Better

I was so depressed sounding in my last post I thought I'd post a quick update I'm still upset, but okay.


My Valentine presents made my day a little better. Dustin gave me a giant Teddy Bear, box of chocolates, card, and had 2DOZEN BEAUTIFUL RED ROSES delivered to my work! I was in shock! It was definately a nice suprise and a much needed change of mood for me.


Hope everyone else has a very HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

Sad Day...

I got a call from Dustin at about 8:30 this morning while at was at work. He had stayed home from work today. He dropped Michael off at the sitters, took me to work, and went back home. We usually feed our dogs at night when we get home from work. Lately, we've been noticing some problems with our oldest dog, Pongo. Pongo is a 14 1/2 year old Dalmation/Lab mix. In the last few months we noticed that Pongo was having trouble eating. He got to where he was barely eating at all and lost a lot of weight. He has always been a thin dog (he has more Dalmation traits than Lab), but he started looking extremely bad. The call this morning was to tell me that Pongo had died. Dustin decided to feed the dogs this morning instead of waiting until tonight. He said that when he walked outside, Pongo came straight up to him and leaned on him. He sat down and Pongo laid down in his lap and never got back up. I've cried all morning and I miss my Pongo already.

Pongo was actually Dustin's dog that his Mom and Dad got him when he was about 6 or 7. Dustin's parents taught Pongo all kinds of neat tricks and have tons of stories about how he was when he was younger. I have only had Pongo at our house for the last 4 years or so...nothing compared to the time everyone else has spent with him. But I know I loved him just as much. The only Pongo I've ever known was this sweet little old man that tip-toed everywhere and always said hello when you came home. When we did notice that Pongo was getting in bad shape, we started trying to let him in the house more often, giving him baths, and fixing him special meals with softer food so he could eat a little better. We even let him sleep on the couch a few nights. We have been contemplating on whether or not we needed to have him put to sleep, but I just thought that as long as he wasn't in pain and suffering-I'd rather let nature tak its course. It did.

I feel like I'm babbling...but I'm at work, not busy, and can't get him off my mind. I don't k now what else to do. I feel better talking about him. I love him very much. I just wish there was something else I could've done for him. I can't help feeling guilty about how pitiful he's looked lately. Dustin and I were just talking about him last night. I just didn't want him to suffer. It's a same that you can care so much about an animal knowing that most animals will not out-live us and we will have to morn their death at some point. Great, now I sound morbid.

Sorry about the babbling...I'm just very sad about loosing such a great dog.

Remodeling!!!

Dustin and I bought our house three years ago this month. In those three years we have made some very drastic changes. When we moved in, the house was painted a hospital white and had the feel of a 1970's Bradey Bunch Home (it was actually built in 1989). We've painted, decorated, landscaped (somewhat), and changed out all the light fixtures. This past weekend we made probably the biggest change of all. We ripped up the 19 year old carpet and put down laminate "hardwood-look" floors, got new furniture, lamps, curtains, and pillows. We changed our color sceme from the traditional green and tan to a very bold red and chocolate brown. I LOVE IT! Dustin worked so hard on the floors and they look great. Although he did most of the work by himself, he did have a couple of our friends stop by to help out. Thank you Ben and Joey!!!!

New Template #2

In honor of the upcoming rodeo that I'm so excited about...I decided to try a few western themed templates. This one is pretty, but you can barely see the horses...so I'm not sure if its my favorite. I think I like the beagles better!

NEW TEMPLATES!!!

I recently started looking for new templates for blogger. You always see cute stuff my myspace, (which I'm personally not a big fan of), but now you're seeing more and more stuff for blogger-maybe I jst notice it more lately. Who knows? Anyways...this Beagle template is the first new one I'm trying out in honor of my precious little beagle, "Cowboy". I'll be trying several new ones here in the next few weeks, so leave me a comment and let me know which one you like best or if you have ideas for me to look into. Thanks!

SEVERE WEATHER HITS HOPTOWN AGAIN!

Hopkinsville is kind of a small town, but you wouldn't know that by how often we're seen on the news for severe weather. Yesterday a friend of mine at work was telling me that the volunteer Rescue Team was holding a meeting to prepare for the bad weather we were expecting. At this time nothing was being said on local news stations, so obviously I was lost. She filled me in on how bad things were supposed to get over night and I was in shock! When I got off work, I picked up the baby and Dustin and went to the store to get Michael some snack food and batteries for our ONE flashlight in the house. For a while things seemed okay. We the weather did start getting bad, it seemed like everyone we knew was getting a piece of it. Our power was out for over 2 hours...Dustin's parents' power was out, his grandparents live on Princeton Road where they were hit pretty hard. My Mom and Step-dad live in Northern Christian County and were hit hard, my sister in Murray, and Dustin great Aunt in Big Sandy, TN....

See what I mean?

By God's Grace alone, everyone is okay and no one that we know of has any severe damage. I havn't talked to Dustin's Aunt Na-Na yet, but his grandmother was with her so I'm sure they're both okay.

I heard the fatality count was in the fourties this morning between Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee...just keep praying for the families. I also heard the number of tornados was in the forties-a record number of "touchdowns" for one storm system. Count your blessings.