Deacon

Our family welcomed its newest member today.  It has been a rough winter for us, losing both Gator and Smokey.  But into the sadness comes this spunky, mischievous, occasionally snarky, but also deeply loving little guy.  We adopted Deacon through Triangle Beagle Rescue, an absolutely wonderful organization.  On a beautiful weekend in April, we drove out to Raleigh with the T-bone to bring this little guy home.  Even though Thatcher has slowed down at this point, we think he's very happy to have another buddy to spend time with.

The Day We Lost Gator

 The year started off as well as it could have.  We had spent Christmas at Hilton Head Island with Gran and her side of the family.  This picture was taken right before I took the boys to the dog sitter, as it happens it is the last picture of Gator looking at the camera.

We were very happy to see our boys when we got home, though they did find a way to immediately get into chocolate and earn a trip to the emergency vet.  Here they are recovering from the induced vomiting.

Monday went fine, we were enjoying The Greatest Showman soundtrack at the time.  But that evening we noticed Gator was being kind of puny, he was just laying at the top of the stairs with a sad look on his face.  As the one who always overreacts, I tried to not worry too much about him because, after all, he was still with us 13 years later!  I resolved to take him to the vet in the morning if he was back to acting like himself.  Unfortunately, I never got that opportunity.  Emily and I were woken in the night by Gator gasping for breath.  Before I could get my second pant leg on Emily told me to stop and come over, he was about to leave us.  And so he did....

I loved that dog.  There is plenty of evidence documented in this blog to testify to his greatness.  Loyal, sweet, tennis ball loving, he was all we could have asked for.  His loss was a blow, and turned out to be an omen for a rough year.

So we buried him in the backyard and planted a dogwood tree to mark his final resting spot.  How appropriate for him to be buried in the backyard where he spent so much time running and chasing tennis balls.

There were lots of tears, and not just from the girls.

After losing his companion of 13 years, Thatcher was a little down too.

A Difficult Day

We lost Gator early this morning.  Other than being a little peuny last night, we didn't have any reason to think that he was very sick.  We woke this morning to him gasping for breaths in our bedroom.  As I was trying to put my pants on to take him to the emergency vet, Emily was holding him.  In a moment of doctor's skill or motherly wisdom, she stopped me and called me over.  We held him as he left this place to travel the rainbow bridge.  We know he's with Tom in a better place.

We laid his body to rest in a coffin we built and decorated.  He is buried under a dogwood tree in the backyard he spent so many hours enjoying.

There are loads of pictures of him on this blog, but this one is from just a couple weeks ago.

Snow Fun!

It wasn't great for snowballs or snowmen.....but this powdery snow with a little bit of ice made for great sledding!

And as usual....its always a good day to throw the tennis ball!!

Christmas Morning

As the spring semester gets under way, I find myself missing the Christmas holidays.  We had a great time this year.  It helps just a bit to dig back through pictures....here are some from Christmas morning.

Christmas Eve

Gran and Jonathan came up from Knoxville on Christmas Eve and joined us in our festivities.  For our first Christmas Eve with the new screened in porch and deck, we had to make a fire and put our traditional Christmas Eve tree in it.  The fire was nice but probably unnecessary given the unseasonably warm temperatures we had this year.

 The living room decorated for Christmas Eve....this year, the tree took me 6 hours to put up and string with lights (does not include ornament time :)  On the up side, it had about 2,500 lights on it which made Emily happy!

Deck Pictures