Alley & Kyle’s Adventures in . . .

Dear Kristin,

Today is your birthday.  Today is your special day.  I hope that everything about today makes you feel special because you are special.  To my sweet friend, I miss you and wish you the best of all days today.

Happy Birthday, Kris!

Rocky and Slate found a baby bunny in our yard yesterday.  Fortunately for the baby bunny, I was able to intervene and keep the dogs off of it.  Rocky was mostly playing "Little Bunny Foo-Foo" and bopping it on the head.  Slate, however, well……  I posted a link below that has a pretty good reenactment of Slate with the Baby Bunny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxiv3CBMS4M

I can’t be mad at the dogs because they were just acting on their instincts.  I do hope, however, that the baby bunny has learned its lesson and will no longer wander into our yard.

We drove down to Galveston with our dogs today.  Galveston was hit hard by Hurricane Ike last year.  We saw a lot of the devastation that is still there, but we also saw some of the rebuilding that has already taken place.  Kyle drove down to one end of the beach to show me some restaurants that he had eaten at when he went there for a conference.  After looking around and thinking that they were "around here somewhere," he realized that that little row of restaurants was now leveled.  It was a little sad.

After our little scenic tour of Galveston, we took the dogs out for a short walk on the beach.  They didn’t quite know what to do with the water, but pretty soon they were having a good time jumping around in the waves and "boxing" at the waves.

I went to Florida last weekend to hang out with my nieces.  Here are some pictures of Katelynn (3 years old) and Abby (three weeks old).  Notice the proud grandparents.  They are beaming, aren’t they?

Kyle and I have seen this fellow a few times around the neighborhood, and we have heard him several times at night.  I finally got close enough to take some pictures of our new friend.

Our community was developed to preserve as much nature as possible.  We have trees and wildlife all around us.  There are beautiful white cranes that hang out at the creek near our house.  There are wild pigs that lurk in the trees behind our house.  From what I have seen of the wild pigs and from what others have told me, there is a Mama and about 5 or 6 little piglets.  The "piglets" that I have seen are bigger than Rocky and Slate!  And, I have been told that they are very mean.  So for now, I’ll just enjoy seeing them from our upstairs window looking down to the wooded area behind our house. 

We’re not exactly in the country.  However, Kyle and I enjoy the fact that on the weekends, we can forget that we live in a city with 4 million other people.  And a little hoot from our new friend will remind us of that occasionally.

Here is my newest niece, Abby.

And here is the proud Big Sister, Katelynn.

My sister-in-law Erin was scheduled to have a c-section with their second baby girl on Wednesday April 15.  My new baby niece thought she would like to be here in time for Easter instead.

Sarah Abigail Long was born on April 11, 2009, at 8:38 pm, 7 lbs, 19 inches. We will call her "Abby."

Erin started to go into labor yesterday evening, so they called the doctor and were told to get to the hospital.  Everyone is doing well.  Erin was feeling sick after the c-section due to all of the medications that they had her on, but she was feeling better when I spoke with my brother after midnight. 

I am going to Florida to visit the first weekend in May, so I will have plenty of pictures to post then.  If I get sent any before then, I will post those as well!

Welcome to the World, Abby!  I can’t wait to meet you!

This week, we had one of our trees in the backyard removed.  All of the other trees in and around our yard have bloomed, and this one hasn’t done anything yet.  We watched it for a while, and we decided that it was either dead or very sick.  Either way, we knew that we needed to have it removed seeing as we now live in a city that can be (and has been) hit by hurricanes.  We just wanted to get it taken care of before hurricane season starts.  So, here are some pictures of one of our trees coming down.  It was a sad day…

Now, does anyone have any ideas as to what we should do with that spot?  One option is to leave the stump and do nothing.  Another is to remove the stump and plant another tree.  And yet another is remove the stump and plant some grass.  Any other ideas?  Keep in mind that the dogs rule the yard and that they would destroy almost anything else there (like a garden).  

I haven’t had that much going on lately, and I just didn’t know what to blog about or if anyone would care.  Mostly boring stuff is going on here.  I bought new bedding for our bed.  That is the extent of excitement in my life right now.  Until today…….

Kyle and I went out for a few hours to go shopping for new cell phones.  Our old phones are over three years old and quite temperamental.   We had a late lunch/early dinner at Applebee’s, went to Best Buy, stop at another fun store looking for toys for the gameroom.  Just a fun, relaxing Saturday out in town.  We were only gone for about three hours.  When we got home and pulled into our driveway, we saw a bright pink note on our garage door.  "DOGS ARE OUT!"  Panic set in very quickly.  I grab the note, and Kyle has already taken off looking for the dogs.  I run after him, and he yells back at me to go in the house and grab the leashes.  As I run in the house, I quickly read the rest of the note.  I see that it is from our neighbor across the street and that she and our neighbor a couple of houses down saw the dogs running up and down the creek that is behind our houses.  When I get back out of the house, Kyle is already running up and down the creek.  I run to one of the neighbor’s houses, and I ask him when they saw the dogs and which direction that they were going.  (I also quickly introduce myself because this neighbor just moved in a couple of weeks ago and we hadn’t had a chance to meet yet!)  "It was about two hours ago, and they were chasing some birds that way,"  as he points behind him.  I run back to the creek and tell Kyle what our neighbor said, and Kyle takes off in that direction. 

 In the meantime, I get in the car and do a quick lap around our immediate neighborhood with the windows down and screaming at the top of my lungs.  "ROCKY!  SLATE!"  Kyle and I are in constant contact with our (old and temperamental) cell phones.  I go back to the house because that is the number on their tags.  While at the house, I post on our neighborhood’s community message board for anyone to call me if they see two boxers running around.  A great feature of our community, I must add.  Finally, Kyle calls, "I’ve got Slate, but I haven’t seen Rocky yet.  Come get Slate and I’ll keep looking for Rocky."  Okay, we’ve found one.  I can breathe again.  I ask Kyle where they are, and he says that they are near Deussen Parkway.  He then adds, "Just be prepared, Alley.  You might see Rocky as you drive down Deussen."  I can’t breathe anymore.  I had that thought tucked away in the back of my head.  I wasn’t ready to face that possibility yet. 

Within a few minutes, I’m in the car on the way to pick up Slate.  I call Kyle to see how he was doing and where exactly he is now.  As he answers, he says, "I see Rocky!"  Oh my goodness!  They are both safe!  They didn’t make it all the way to Deussen Parkway.

So, the dogs apparently followed the little creek behind the house almost all the way to Deussen Parkway.  Deussen can be fairly busy, and everyone drives really fast down it.  We are so lucky that they stayed on the creek and didn’t get to any major roads.  They were only dirty from playing in the mud and water.  They have had baths and are quite exhausted from their grand adventure on the creek today.  From what our neighbors told us, we figured that they were out for at least three hours.  We are so glad that our neighbors recognized them and knew that they came from our house.  They tried to catch them, but Rocky and Slate were too focused on the birds and their freedom to be caught.  We figured out that the lawn mowing crew that mowed our house yesterday didn’t get the gate latched properly, so dogs saw their chance for freedom.  We will be checking the gate from now on after the mowing crew leaves.

We sold the Midland house today!  Woo-hoo!  We no longer have two houses!