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.