Photo Contest

I decided to enter the I Heart Faces photo contest again this week. The theme is Reflection. I love this photo that I took on our way home from church on Easter. I had been experimenting with using the mirror to get pics of my brothers and I hit it at just the right moment. I couldn't believe that I had captured such a cute moment!





~Livie
P.S. Join the fun! Click here to check out I Heart Faces!

I Just Don't Have A Name For This One...

I can't tell you how many times I've started this post in my head and then scratched it or not had the time or the will power to actually write it out. I'm sitting here in tears because writing this is stirring up so many old emotions that I thought were dead. I have so many things that I want to say but I don't know how to say them. I feel like this should be, how should I put it?...mature? Please don't ask me what that means because I don't really know yet myself. I just know that I don't have what it takes to make it that way. I'm sorry for being vague. I'll try to get to the point.

I don't know how else to say this so I'll just do it straight out: Jenny is no longer with my family. A few days after we brought her home, we found bald patches on her neck. We all thought that they were hot spots, but they got worse. We took her to the Humane Society vet but they had no idea what it was. They gave us some medicine but the patches continued to worsen and she kept losing hair. That's when we had to make a decision. We decided to turn her back in to the Humane Society for them to...put her down. We would have kept her but we didn't know if it was contagious, and we really, really didn't want Walker to get it. So my parents drove her in the next day. The last glimpse that I got of her was her head peeking out the car window as they drove away. "Bye, Jenny," I whispered as my eyes filled with tears. I sat on the stairs and held Walker as those same tears began falling out of my eyes. I couldn't help it. She was so sweet. She didn't deserve this. But, as always, life goes on. I hesitate to post this because several people have told us that it was foolish or even wrong for getting a second dog and I'm afraid that they'll think that they were right the whole time. The fact is that they were sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo wrong!!!! No one in my family would have traded in a single second that we had with Jenny for anything! She was an amazing dog-our dog-and no one will ever be able to convince us otherwise!

JENNY UPDATE!!!!!!! We got a call from the Humane Society the other day-Jenny is ALIVE! After we surrendered her, they had been planning the put her down, but one of their staff who had loved her before we adopted her decided to take her home! Jenny's in a happy home! We're so happy! Our dog is happy! God blessed us in our pain!

On that note I'll move on to the other news. The day that we took Jenny back, my parents made it easier on everyone by letting us pick out another dog. My parents and my brothers all fell in love with Bianca (a chocolate lab mix). I don't know why but I looked at her and I just didn't like her. Suddenly, I was under interrogation: What about her didn't I like? What's not to like? Could it be that you're just upset about Jenny? I didn't know. What I did know was that this was a strong feeling, but it was 7 to 1. There were a few other dogs that I wanted to visit with but the answer was firmly, no. There wasn't really a good reason for not letting me look except that my family had found their dog and were done looking around. To make a long story short, we adopted that chocolate lab and she's currently upstairs in my parent's room sleeping. We changed her name to Molly after we brought her home. Everyone tells me that she'll grow on me and that she really is a great dog but I'm not so sure. I have to say, that I do like having a second dog hanging around and she is very smart but she's just not my dog. Period.

I know that this sounds like I'm complaining a whole lot and I'm sorry. Please believe me when I say that I'm not trying to complain. I've just been living on a roller-coaster the past few weeks and I needed to dump my emotional baggage somewhere. I won't feel quite so bad tomorrow after I've gotten some sleep. I just wanted to post this late at night so I wouldn't have little brothers looking over my shoulder the whole time as that would make me very uncomfortable. If you've read this and think that I'm deppressed, please know that I'm not! This is just an emotional outlet for me and I will feel better after this. I'll probably feel better after some sleep too. G'night.

~Livie

Introducing...

Jennifer Popcorn!

Okay, actually it's Jenny. The Popcorn part comes from what she was called at the Humane Society but we still just call her Jenny.

Her Story: A couple of weeks ago, a stray showed up in our backyard. She was obviously old and she seemed sick. She was also very overweight and would not stop panting. It was easy to see that she hadn't been taken care of in a long time because her toe nails hadn't been clipped in a while, to put it mildly. My parents decided that we couldn't keep her here so my dad drove her over to the city Animal Control office. My dad visited her every day during the week that she was there. He had gotten attached in the short time that she was with us and he couldn't let her go so easily. Well, after a week at the animal control office she disappeared. We knew that if dogs weren't claimed at animal control within a certain amount of time the were surrendered to the Humane Society to be put up for adoption or...euthanized. We were sure of the latter option because of how old and sick she was. My dad checked the adoption website every day waiting to see if there was any hope for her. After a week, she still wasn't in their adoption listings and my family gave up hope. The next day however, I checked again (this was the first time since we got our first dog that my parents had shown any openness to getting another dog so I wasn't ready to give up yet!). There she was! My mom confirmed my suspicion. Jenny was listed under the name of 'Popcorn'. My dad was so happy that he declared that our whole family was going to visit her this afternoon. So, we went knowing that we were just going for a visit and although adoption was an option, we weren't planning on it. I leaned over and whispered to Philip, "We're going to have another dog." I know my dad too well... We got there and my heart kind of sank when we asked someone and they said that they thought that she might have already been adopted. The lady said that she wasn't sure and we could go into the back and see if she was still there. Sure enough, there she was, and her pink slip was still by her kennel so no one was currently interested in her. We snatched up the slip and took it to the front desk. Before we knew it, we were all siting in the room with her and my parents were saying that we were going to take her home. So, after filling out paperwork, we loaded her into our van and brought her home. Walker was excited but he didn't get rough with her, which we we thankful for! And now, she's just getting used to her new home, family, and name. I should probably get off now and take her for a walk-she still needs to lose a lot of weight!

~Livie