Catching-Up

I am on a blogging Roll. This is three posts in one day! They are not in order, but I hope you enjoy them, anyway.

Hawaii

The view of our resort outside our room

Dinner with fantastic friends that we met

I thought this tree was cool, with all its roots exposed

(Just a pretty picture)

Nice Sunset

Luke, sitting in a cave (obviously)

Crab exoskeleton

All ready for the Zipline

Luke, Kicking my Butt at Tennis
(check out his nice form:)

Spouting Horn

Luke about to jump off Shipwreck cliff
(see video below)

I just thought this fisherman was cool.

He was the real deal, using a net and all.

They had these hammocks all over the hotel grounds

Take a look at this awesome footage of Luke doing a Gainer off Shipwreck Cliff

It has been three months since our Perfect Pools sponsored Hawaiian Vacation and I am just now blogging about it. Wow, I guess, better late then never. We went to Kauai in December and stayed at the fabulous Grand Hyatt. It was amazing. Everything from the, the pools, the lagoon, the beach front, the tennis courts, the talking parrots in the Lobby, the amazing grounds, the omelets at the breakfast buffet, the cliff jumping. We hardly left the resort because everything we wanted to do was there. We are not big sightseers, more of relaxers. Ah, I want to go back.
We were able to go on this vacation, because surprisingly (with the bad economy and all) Luke sold enough pool equipment to qualify. We had a great time, I don't want to bore you with all of the details but I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

We will miss you, Bailey!!

Digging the Grave

Measuring the hole

Our sweet Dog, Bailey

We had to put our dog Bailey to sleep the end of January. Luke has had Bailey since he graduated from High School. He was a gift that Luke's parents had promised him if he got a 4.0 his last trimester of his Senior Year. Surprisingly, He did it!:)

It all happened so fast. We didn't know anything was wrong with him, until Luke went to call him to come in for the night, and he didn't come. Luke kept calling him and he never ran up to the him. Luke decided to walk into the backyard to see if he could find him and he was just lying on the grass. Bailey was finally able to stand up and hobble over to Luke. Bailey got down the stairs and into our bedroom and we went to sleep. Then in the middle of the night, we heard a big thud and apparently Bailey had tried to stand up and fell over into the wall. Luke went to work for awhile the next day and I tried to get Bailey to stand and to go outside and he would not even lift his head, much less stand up. Luke got home from work and took him to the vet, and called me and told me that we were going to have to put him to sleep. He said that the vet thought that he had arthritis and dislocated his spine and he had no feeling in his hind legs, that there was nothing that could be done, because he was too old and too big.

I could tell that Luke had been crying and then I started crying. He has been such a great dog. He was so good with the kids and so obedient and loyal.

I wanted Luke to talk to the kids when he got home but Rylan sensed something and so I had to tell him. He was very sad and started to cry. Mason didn't really understand. He still says that Bailey is taking a long nap.

We decided to bury Bailey in the Backyard instead of having him cremated, mainly because it is so expensive to cremate. The saddest part was seeing Bailey just lying there on the grass, tail not wagging, no life left in him. I think that was what got all of the most. We had a little memorial for him and the professional shoveler Luke is, dug him a 3 foot hole in the frozen backyard. He made him a gravestone "B" out of Rocks.
We will miss you, Bailey!

Once there was a snowman, snowman, snowman (or five)

Well It finally snowed, and we decided to take advantage of it and make our first snowman of the winter. (It's only March) It was perfect snow for snowmen. The snow was moist and packed well. We decided to make a family of snowmen. (our family, of course.) We got a carrot for one of them and Mason decided to eat it off. So they are faceless snowmen. As you can see, we even got Chance to join us. He did surprisingly well, but he wanted to crawl all over and I caught him trying to lay his head down and was probably surprised by the cold pillow.