Little bit of excitement here this afternoon. I was up in the bathroom and heard a huge crash. I knew immediately it was a tree coming down and I knew immediately which tree it was. The dead tree in the back corner that we were planning to take down this fall.

Rocky and Truman were out in the yard. Rocky started barking, Truman did not. And, he wouldn't answer when Sandy called. So she went running out, with me not far behind.

Truman was safe. The tree broke off half-way up and the top half was neatly deposited on the other side of the fence, landing a mere foot away from the fence. We were planning on taking this tree down because we were afraid if it fell down, it would knock down the fence. That didn't happen. We were very lucky.

Sunday I went up to Uxbridge to visit Shirley and Gus. Gus started chemo yesterday for cancer of the bladder. I brought him some comfort items and gave them some tips based on things I've learned. I hope he does well, he already has other health concerns that will make it harder for him. We're keeping positive thoughts for him.

Lynne and I went shopping today and I bought an i-Phone, finally. I've been preparing for this and today was the day. They will be shipping it to me in a few days. Lynne showed me all the apps she has and gave me some good tips. I can't wait to start playing with it. I'll probably drive everyone nuts with it.

We hit Kohl's and then went to Ruby Tuesday for lunch. She had the salad bar and I had the avacado quesidilla, which was delicious! Then she had to go back to work and I went to do more shopping....trying to help the economy!

Sox start their play-off games on Thursday. Here's hoping that Papi can continue his success at the plate, the pitching is solid and the rest of the team just does what they do best. It's going to be exciting.

We haven't turned the heat on yet, but last night I did get out the down blanket and put it on the bed.

OH! I got my hair "highlighted" in blond yesterday. It looks good, if I do say so myself. Once, years ago, I had Lorraine color my hair with a Lady Clairol kit...it was a disaster, it came out BROWN! This time I had it done by a professional and I like it. I know I had said I would go platinum, but my hairdresser talked me into highlighting...this way I don't have to worry about keeping up dark roots.

So, I'm just about all set for that cruise at the end of the month. I have to get my clothes out and see if I need to make any purchases. I'm getting excited and I think Sandy is too.

Nighty night!

We didn't go to VT...the weather was going to be horrid up there. The thunderstorm warning was the last straw. That meant Lily and Bubbles couldn't go. So, we slept in. YAY!

While slicing a roll for lunch yesterday, I sliced my "finger finger"....Sandy had to put a butterfly bandage, a pressure bandage and two bandaids on it to get it to stop bleeding. It doesn't help that my platelets are down now.

We got our "Final Notice" letter from Nancy Wyman, telling us that we have to get our marriage license in to her or Sandy gets dropped from my insurance. Good thing Sandy finally sent it in a couple of days ago!

Now we are going to veg some more by watching the "Family Guy" movie.

see ya!

Sad news from Arizona. Terry and Tom's dog Chloe passed away.

I had called Terry on Monday as we were driving home, to find out how things were going. She told me that Chloe had come up lame and when the vet checked her, they found that she had cancer in her leg--it had almost eaten through the bone. It was also in her lungs. She was still eating and wagging her tail, but they gave her anywhere from three months to two weeks to live.

Chloe was such a sweet dog. We loved her and we know how much the Coney's loved her.

She will be missed.

Not much else going on here. We're resting up and getting ready for our day trip to VT on Saturday for the dogs to run in an agility trial up there. Everyone but Rocky will be in this trial. I may even run Bub or Lily in one or two things. Or, I may leave it for Sandy to do and I'll help with driving. I have chemo Friday morning, so we'll have to see how it goes.

Went to lunch at Harry's with Charmine yesterday and then we went up to the Health Center for our semi-annual Patient Instructor meeting/training. It was fun seeing a lot of my co-workers there yesterday and we got to chat with some of them for awhile, as we got there about an hour and a half early!

I booked our side trips for the cruise today....the zip-line and rappelling tour in Belize (which I have wanted to do for YEARS) and the glass kayak and snorkeling in Cozumel. The kayak is glass..so you can see the coral reefs, etc. below you as you paddle around. I may book trips for Guatemala and Key West, but I want to talk with Charmine and Pat about that. We may want to do things together or stay on board the ship and play there. I had wanted to see Mayan ruins but they want too much for that trip. It would be nice, but if I'm not up to the trip I don't want to lose that much money.

Home

We made it home! One final little glitch--on Rte 2 there was an accident and the traffic was backed up. We bailed out in time and used the GPS to find another way home on the back roads....we saw some stuff we wouldn't have seen and it was fun.

The dogs let us sleep in today. I got up at 8:30 and fed the dogs and let Sandy sleep. I had started doing the laundry from the trip last night and I finished it this morning. So proud of myself. I had it washed and put away by noon time.

We just lazed around today and that was fine with us. Getting caught up on our shows that recorded while we were gone: Housewives of Atlanta; Top Chef; Project Runway; and the Office. You know....all the important shows.

They are going to start showing the old English version of "The Office" on Adult Swim. I'm going to record these...I love Ricky Gervais. And I love, love, love the Office.

Oh....and we watched "Flipping Out"....we love Jeff and Zoila.

Enough of this drivel. I'm off to bed. I have to go to a training session at work tomorrow. I'm going up to Charmine's at noon. We'll go eat at Harry's one more time and then go to work. Should be fun.

Nighty night. Good to be sleeping in my own bed...with my little buddy Rocky and my little sweetheart Bubbles snuggled up to me. Oh...and Sandy too.

Sunday in Virginia

We drove through horrific rainstorms yesterday from Tennessee all the way into Virginia. We didn't even get the dogs out of the car to pee and poop until we were almost at our destination. They weren't even interested in getting out in that rain to pee and poop. When we did get them out, Rocky peed and then shivered uncontrollably until we got him back in his kennel...then we didn't hear a peep out of him.

We saw eight accidents along the way...all but one of them were single car things. I think people were either driving too fast for the conditions (they were blowing by us) or they made the mistake of leaving their cruise control on....most of the cars we saw were down in the median, spun around the opposite way. We saw one that happened a few minutes before we got there, they were up the embankment, with their front end pointed towards the road...they had spun around and shot up the hill. We kept on driving, there were cars stopped to help them....but I did feel guilty about not stopping.

There was two accidents that involved two cars and the police were there...lots of police. One accident had ambulances on the scene. All of these just cautioned us to drive slowly and carefully. Despite all of that we only lost a half hour of travel time due to the rain.

We are back in the hotel where we stayed on the way down. This time we are in a different wing and I think they allow smoking somewhere in this section. We have a non-smoking room, but it smells of smoke. The hotel manager insisted on trying to pet the Russells this morning...as Sandy said, "Rocky earned his keep!" She pet him and that gave Sandy time to warn her about not petting Truman or Bubbles. I just whisked Bub away, back to the room, leaving Sandy to chat with her about the dogs.

This is the hotel that had the power loss as we were packing up to leave on our way to TN. Something happened in the area and the power went out all around. We had to finish packing in the dark essentially, it wasn't too light out when we were leaving.

Cindy came over again last night. She and Sandy went to Bojangles and picked up our supper, chicken biscuit for Cindy, steak biscuits for Sandy and me. YUM! I haven't had a Bojangles biscuit in years! Bob Duncan used to FedEx them to us from South Carolina years ago.

We had a nice visit with Cindy and made plans for her to come visit next year....hopefully in October. We'll take her around to get good photos. We want to go to Maine. Maybe we'll go up and see puffins!

So, now we head to Pennsylvania. The sun is breaking through, should be a good day for traveling. I have my jeans on...it's cool out there. We froze yesterday, the temperature dropped so fast. Today I smartened up and am dressed for success!

See you soon!

Finally Friday!

It's Friday night and I'm sitting in the hotel room, watching the Sox get beat by the Stankees. Jon Lester just took a wicked hit to his knee and I can see our chances for the post season going down the toilet!

We arrived on Tuesday...but it feels like ages ago! Truman did great in his first two events--he got qualifying ribbons for both of them. He didn't place, but all Sandy asked of him for this whole trip was a Q ribbon and he got two of them right off the bat! His next two runs--in touch and go he may have gotten Qs in too, but no one can tell us the course time! We know he didn't have any faults--but he may not have made the time.

Today he was obviously tired when he ran his Regular runs....I saw him run this AM and he was poking. He just ran the second one and Sandy said he was pooped and he started getting silly. She and he are glad we are not staying for the weekend events, three days is plenty for both of them. The weather has been hot and sticky and that has effected him also. I don't think sleeping in a strange bed helps either.

Anyway, he has exceeded our expectations and we are very proud of him. He is 1o years old after all and he is competing against much younger dogs. He had fun and now he wants to go home. We all do. We will hit the road tomorrow and travel back to see Cindy in VA. again.

Tonight Dana and Keith are coming over in a few minutes and we'll go out to Legends....a steak house around the corner. We've had some new food experiences here....we got Sonic to-go last night; I found a good Mexican place---the burritos and guacamole was great and we got KFC yesterday.

Today I tried a barbecue joint down the road. Their "sauce" was like vinegar....I guess that's how the locals like it. I know that different regions have different tastes in sauces---tomato based in Texas and mustard based in the Carolinas...this sauce was like vinegar. The pork was good and Sandy said the beef was good...the potato salad was awful; the cole slaw decent; and the "corn bread" was more of a johnny cake and not a good johnny cake!

The hotel breakfast is the best. They have all kinds of stuff...today I had a hard boiled egg and got Sandy cheese danish. They had microwave grits, which I tried...not as good as mine.

I did pretty good in the heat. Today I had to break-down and take my Five Hour Energy drink. It helped me keep going. I even got to go for a swim...finally, in the hotel pool. The water was so warm and relaxing...I hope I don't fall asleep at dinner!

The puppies (Bub and Rocky) are asleep on my lap. Well, Bub is on my lap and Rocky is lying next to me on the couch. It feels very nice.

OH! I almost forgot! Sandy got a phone call on her cell phone today....from the Waterford Animal Control Officer...letting her know that he "had her dog." LILY! She's staying with Frank and Jean while we are gone. Frank had let Nami in the house and Lily was asleep in the yard. He came out ten minutes later and she was GONE! They searched for her for two hours. I called Jean and told her that Lily was at the pound. Jean was hysterical with worry and I know exactly how she feels. I've had that feeling many times thanks to Lily's propensity for escaping. She had gone through the invisible fence and went up Vauxhall St Ext and was at Greentree--a good distance away. Someone must have seen her and called Animal Control. He called our vet--the name is on Lily's tag and they gave him Sandy's cell number.

Jean and Frank picked her up and last we heard she was laying about the house like nothing happened. Dopey dog! All's well that ends well.

Nighty night!

Tennessee TITANS!

We arrived in Tennessee yesterday and Truman ran today in two rounds of jumpers...one of his favorites. He got two qualifying ribbons, so he and Sandy have already fulfilled their goal for coming down here.

We traveled three days to get here. The first day we stayed in a nice Best Western in PA...Harrisburg. We passed through the Delaware Water Gap, where we have not been in years. Day Two we traveled down through W. VA to Dublin VA....near Cindy Vasko's house. We called Annette along the way, after we passed through her old town of Berkley Springs W. Va. We reminisced with her for a bit...good times and bad.

Cindy came over to our hotel and we had a wonderful visit. On our way home, we'll be staying in the same place and she's going to come to visit again. I think we have convinced her to come north for a vacation sometime soon. I really hope she does.

Day Three on the road, heading to Tennessee, Rocky started barking. We laughed and then had to tune him out as he kept it up for a LOOOOOOOOONG time. That is his one vice...the barking. We made ourselves go to our "happy place" to blank him out. The poor guy, he isn't used to traveling and it was making him anxious and nuts!

Fortunately, the medication we got for Bub and Rocky worked and there was no vomitting on the trip. We hope this continues on the way home....we did bring extra pillows for them and extra covers for the pillows--we have pillows in their kennels--that's what they lie on.

Tomorrow Truman runs two rounds each of tunnelers and touch and go.....two of his absolute favorite events. I think he is being very "business-like" down here. He knows what his job is and he is bent on doing it. He made excellent time today, despite the fact that the course is on sand that hadn't been packed down yet.

The runs are in a huge indoor arena where they display Tennessee Walking Horses. We rented a horse stall to house the dogs/kennels and all of our stuff. It is pretty cool in there, we have their fans going--there is electricity in the stall. I brought my laptop to the stall because they have wi-fi at this site, but it doesn't reach the stalls. That's okay, I read my Kathy Griffin book....almost finished it this afternoon.

Now I am pooped. Had Mexican food tonight, from a restaurant down the street, to-go. I need to take a shower and hit the bed. The dogs are exhausted....all the new noises, people and dogs going by the stall has tired them out.

I have confidence that Truman and Sandy will do well tomorrow. I'm filming their runs and stay to see other dogs run. There are several folks we know from trials in New England and we even have a Team New England t-shirt that they made up for us. I'm listed as "kennel help." Another title to add to my name!

Okay, enough of this.....Nighty NIGHT!