Howloween

Well, Dixie was scheduled to have a big day today--agility this morning and the Golden Retriever Rescue group's Howloween party. I just *know* her skunk outfit would have been a big hit. Ha ha. Unfortunately, the weather has not cooperated at all so the party was cancelled. We did have agility this morning, and then I came home and made cookies and dog biscuits (before I knew the party was cancelled) and then decided we needed to try our new camera out on Dixie's costume. She can just as easily be humiliated without a party as she can with one. And bless her heart, humiliated she was...

This can't end well....

How humiliating...

I thought they loved me...

At least I'll hold my head high...

Now, before anyone goes and calls PETA on our abuse of her (Mala!), here's proof that she had a fun morning at agility class. She won't ever be a star, but she certainly gets good exercise and is good at some things. HATED the tunnel and didn't like the little A-walk up, but she rocks at jumps and the big A-Frame. Note the cream cheese bribes we had to use to get her to do some of the activities. That girl is s*p*o*i*l*e*d!

This morning before agility...she loves playing with daddy!

I do EVERYTHING to please my daddy! Are you happy, daddy?

Dixie and her Golden friend, puppy Annie

Doesn't she *look* like she's interested in the teacher?

Oh yeah, I ROCK the A-frame!

I'm a super jumper!

Doesn't the look on her face seem to say, "Yeah, right. Like I'm going to walk THIS,"?

"Well, maybe for some cream cheese..."

Even the trainer conceded to the cream cheese. Hey, whatever works.

"I'm only doing this tunnel for the cream cheese, you know!"

After a few tries (and several dabs of cream cheese), she made it all the way through the full tunnel.

She's had quite the day.

Matching dogs, matching clothes, matching bellies!

Today we took Dixie Belle to an open house for agility training that was for the members of the Golden Retriever Rescue of Southern Maryland and surprisingly, she did well! A month ago when I signed on to take her, I figured that since we'd just lost Raleigh, it might be something good for Dixie to do and though I doubted John would be home, we could handle it because I doubted Dixie would be very interested in being agile. Ha ha. Well, John did come home (yahoo!) and Dixie surprised me with her confidence in attempting some of the obstacles. Granted, as we were all in line for the first practice of just walking over the jump things, she decided she was not going to participate and wriggled her way out of her collar, BUT....once we wrangled her back into her collar, she was impressive. So impressive that we signed her up for agility classes starting in October...nothing championship, mind you, but for an hour a week for five weeks, she'll be able to work out some energy, play, please her daddy and show her skills.

Another member of the group has a sweet pup Josie, who reminds us a lot of Dixie (though Josie is a bit more obedient!). Josie's mommy is also pregnant, about 2 weeks ahead of me. This just must show that by this point in pregnancy, one does not care to buy more clothes and will make do with what one has...we both showed up wearing similar outfits--right down to the bellies.

Boy, is my face looking FULL!

Mommy's day....

Oh boy...what a long day. I really ought to be in bed right now and will be shortly. I thought I'd blog about my comedy of errors day, though, for posterity of course.

I was EXHAUSTED getting up this am. Yesterday I felt icky...so tired I couldn't move for about 2 hours straight. Literally. Could not lift my arm....worried I may have strep throat as a teacher at school had it and was in school for a bit before she FINALLY went to the doctor. Anyway, I chalked it up to pregnancy and ragweed being awful.

Then today, my school nurse *advised* me that I should call my OB and tell them I've been in contact with some illnesses that would require treatment. I don't want to cause panic, and I doubt anything is going to come of it, but after talking to my OB, she said to go straight to my primary care doctor and be tested for a few things. So...though I feel a bit better today, I still am not 100% and my primary care nurse told me to come in tomorrow at 10. I have to see someone, for CDC purposes, and can't just get blood taken or a swab done. Lovely. As I said, I do not feel that I have anything other than sheer exhaustion and allergies, perhaps strep. In any event, since every medical professional I talked to today told me that it was better to be safe than sorry, I'm going to go along with them.

So...tired as I am, I stayed at school longer than I should have to get some stuff done before the long weekend (which will be really long since I have my wonderful friend Jenny coming to visit and I am psyched!) and I'll probably be there long tomorrow. As I drove home, John told me that mom's dog Lola had a *pooplosion* when she got home. This on the heels of us coming home the other day to Dixie having the same issues...for days. Nothing more fun than cleaning up poopy-butt all night long. So, I called mom to apologize for Dixie getting Lola sick and immediately knew something was amiss in MY house when I walked in. Apparently Dixie's flu-bug is not over. Hooray! More *pooplosion* to clean and poopy-butt too! Not to mention, more pepto to shove down her throat and more rice to cook for her for dinner.

I cleaned ALL things needing cleaning up and then while her rice was cooking, I started to clean my Spot-Bot (the BEST little carpet cleaner EVER!) out by filling the sink with hot, soapy water to suck it through the tubes and clean them out. Yeah...well, that didn't work so well. What instead happened was the little rubber filter on the dirty water container popped off and flooded the floor. The rugs bled. The water fled. Dixie came to check it out. It was a fiasco.

Long story short, I cleaned it all up, fixed it all, finished her rice, cleaned her up AGAIN, and FINALLY sat down with some of mom's beef stew she made for me before she left. Thank GOD for homemade beef stew. It makes everything better. Mostly.

I'm now going to bed and it is barely 8:00. About 2 hours later than I wanted, if you ask me. Matthew, I realize that I'll have many days like this with a wee one like you. The thing is, with you, at least at the end of pooplosion or something to that effect, there will be some snuggling involved. Dixie's pretty leery of me because I keep shoving pepto down her. Honestly, I can't blame her.