Brandon's birthday

Supposed to be a mountain rescue scene

 

Brandon's already ten. He was so excited, I think he started counting down after Jessie's.  He is a little torn about being ten. In some ways he feels "grown up" but in others he still wants to be a little kid. Sometimes I look at him when he comes in the room and expect to see this little boy and am surprised.  He had a great birthday. This year he wanted practically everything emergency oriented. His cake he wanted emt/rescue since he had fire the last few cakes. It is supposed to be a mountain rescue but the frosting was melting because it was so hot. Not one of my better ones. He got lots of cool toys. I asked him if there was anything he didn't get that he wanted to spend his birthday money on and he said " I don't know what didn't I get that I said I wanted?" I figure that if he doesn't know then he must have gotten everything. Scott bought him a child size fire pack because he was feeling guilty about missing his birthday and then Scott was home after all. Scott's family came out Sat afternoon and gave him their birthday presents.  We went to the mountains on Sunday for his actual birthday. It was the first time both dogs have ever been so they were pretty excited too. It was fairly cool up there and not a lot of people so it was nice. The only downfall was there was a huge party at the park so they couldn't play there which Jessie was pretty disappointed about. Brandon said it was the best birthday ever.

fire station for matchbox cars

the big rock at Rye

dogs exploring the water

kids playing in the water

4th of July and GG's birthday

Jessie's present

Cuties. GG loves them

silly string war

playing with bubbles

We did GG's birthday on the 4th of July like usual.  GG said it was a great birthday and one of her best. The weather was beautiful so we were able to eat outside which she loves to do. She got a couple of dark chocolate candy bars that she loves and a waffle maker. She also got the also salt she wanted. It is basically fake salt since she is on a low salt diet. Jessie made her a heart with the two of them on it and Brandon did a birthday dance for her.  She also got a gift card to Walgreens which she loves because she does most of her shopping over there since she can walk over.  She also received crossword puzzles.  She likes to do a couple a day. The wind only came up really bad once while we were eating cake. Since we couldn't do fireworks because of the burn ban, we had to get creative. We did bubbles and silly string and when it got dark, we played with light up toys.  Even GG gets a kick out of the light up stuff. For the bubbles we had a bubble maker and wands and the electric wands. If you want giant bubbles get the bubble swords. Don't get colored bubbles though they are messy and the color doesn't show up except to stain your clothes.  The silly string was a big sucess as usual. We do that every year because Brandon loves it.  In some ways it was even better than fireworks because it was more interactive and the kids were moving so they didn't get as tired.  Everyone had a lot of fun and it was an earlier night which was fine since some of us had to get up for work the next day. All in all a great holiday.

Goldie

We got a new companion for BJ. She is 9 months old. They say she is a golden retriever/ lab mix. She is very sweet and a little skittish about new things. She is crate trained so that is a plus. I was a little upset we when we first brought her home because on her paperwork that they didn't show me but read to me it said she does not get along with cats and she was not housebroken both of which I specifically asked them about and they told be they didn't know about the cats and she was housebroken. We weren't too sure if we were going to be able to keep her because of out cat but it is working out. Luckily because everyone is already in love with her. I wasn't going to get another dog quite this soon but BJ was getting depressed with out a dog companion. He has always been a dog's dog. Even though Fear wasn't the greatest playmate he was still there with him. I decided to just keep an eye out for the right dog and figured when the time was right she would come to us.  The kids asked me to call the shelter and ask if they had any new dogs and in and when they told me they just had a golden retriever/ lab mix come in, I couldn't resist. THose are my favorite breeds especially the golden retriever. I still miss Shane and CJ was one of the best dogs I had. I was a little surprised when they brought her out because I was expecting more golden retriever looking but I am a sucker for floppy ears and the kids really liked her. We are still working out the kinks of a new dog but BJ is very happy again and Jessie's estactic to have a girl pet. She has more energy than BJ and I didn't think that was possible. I'll have to post more about her when we have had her longer and know more about her. Right now we are trying to figure out how big she will get so we can order her her own crate.