Fun Girls Day

Yesterday my AWESOME friend Mary treated the two of us to 9-step facials from Georgette Klinger. Her mom gave her a "hefty" gift certificate she wasn't using and was enough for both of us to do the facial's and chemical peels. The girl that did my stuff told me I had a great friend if she was willing to share her gift certificate. I had to agree!! It was a wonderful place. We each had a private dressing room with keys to leave our stuff in and to change into robes. Our treatments each lasted a little over an hour and when we were done we got the best lemon water I've ever had. The whole expirence made me want to go back to the place in Costa Rica where the four of us (Mary, Jason, Michael and me) lounged around in hot springs and got massages at the hot springs spa. We walked a few doors down to a really cute place for lunch where we had salads and mimosas. YUM. After lunch we walked around some shops in the shopping center and then drove around the "rich" part of Dallas looking at the big fancy houses and making fun of the tasteless and tacky Christmas decorations. When we were done I had enough time to go sit at the TI parking lot and read a book for a bit waiting for Michael to get done and then hit the gym at the TI he works at for a couple hours. We came home, ate, sat around for a bit and went to bed. In short, it was a good relaxing day!!!

Allen, Texas...Take 2

We made it back safe and sound. We had an excellent Thanksgiving and it was great to be home for a few days. Okay okay, I know El Paso should be home and it is and always will be, but Lubbock will be home too. It's been home to me for 6 years and been home to Michael since he was born, so it's home too! It was busy, but relaxing at the same time. We saw lots of Michaels family and my brother and that was good for us.

The weather was so beautiful and autumn feeling with colored trees and cool crisp air. It felt like Thanksgiving. Yesterday though the weather got nasty with lots of wind and that lovely farm dirt covered the sky with a blanket of dirt. Ah, home.. The place where the skies are brown and the smell of oil and feed lots fill the air! Sounds heavenly huh?

Now that we are back we are going to hope and wish and pray that this time around in Allen, we don't have as many bad experiences happen as our first three months here. The only thing worse that could possibly happen is if Michael or I got seriously hurt, sick or worse. I can't imagine anything as bad as loosing Hendrix will happen so hopefully we have overcome the worst of our time here. If that is the worst thing that does happen, our last 9 months will be smooth in comparison. Like I said previously December will go quickly since we will be out of town for so much of it and have Christmas, New Years and our two year anniversary in there.

Hub City...Here We Come

Well, we are just about ready to head outta here to head back to the South Plains of West Texas! YIPEE!! All I have left to do is pack up my computer (because we are both geeks and can't leave town without them) and check everything around the house, oh, and wait for Michael to get off work too. I don't think he would be so happy if I left without him. We should be getting out of here about 2:00 (it's only 11:30 now)

I baked us a big ol' loaf of banana nut bread to snack on while we are on the road and we will grab some Starbucks on the way out. We are taking back a bunch of Christmas presents so we don't have to lug them on the plane when we head back for Michaels graduation or to El Paso for Christmas. My mom will take those back to El Paso for me when she comes to Michaels graduation.

The saddest part is we left Lubbock with 3 of us in our little family, and now there is only 2 which really just makes us a couple with no family :( We packed up all of the stuff that was Hendrix's that we don't need anymore. We had just gotten him a new 20 lb bag of top of the line dog food, and new dog dishes that we only had about 2 weeks, he still had tons of treats of multiple sorts, and a new big bottle of vitamins. We have some older stuff too an electric water dish so the water doesn't freeze in the winter, a fancy ccontraption to brush the undercoat off of him... Well now that we don't need any of this, we have tons of people in Lubbock with doggies and thought we would share all this stuff with them. Hopefully it will all get good use. What ever is not used we will probably donate to the Allen Animal Shelter. Of course there is still stuff we are keeping. All of his old Collars, Leashes, his two favorite toys and a water dish he has had since he was a pup.

Well time to pack this thing up and finish around here. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! Don't forget to take a moment tomorrow to think about everything you are thankful for. No matter how bad life can seem sometimes if you look deep enough, you'll see there are blessings hidden everywhere.

Cha cha cha cha changes...

Living in the Allen area has given us some first hand proof that this area is growing at a very quick pace. In just the 3 months we have been here there has been so much that has changed in just the small neighborhood we live in. When we arrived there were two large empty fields on the west side and south side of our neighborhood. Now we only have one. The one to the south has become a huge construction site for a new neighborhood. In less then 1 week it went from a pretty field to dirt with roads. They are now to the point where there will be houses going up any day now.

One of the main roads to get to our house use to be a four way stop with stop signs. Last week stop lights went up. They don't work yet, but any day now I'm sure they will. Also at the entrance to our neighborhood was a really old lookin' house. Now the house has been put on a truck and I'm sure any day now the entire house will drive away. A block away there is a new elementary school being built. It has gone from a frame to almost a complete building already. It won't open until next fall, but it is already being projected that it will be at capacity immediately. I read today that Allen is in fact the fastest growing segment of the DFW area with a growth rate of an estimated 11.50%. Look at these population numbers:

2000 =43,554
2004= 66,341

Ok, enough with the Allen facts and figures. Just thought it was kinda interesting.

Our weekend

Wow, what a busy and fun weekend we just had!!!

Friday: As most people know, we do holidays with Mary and Jason and switch off. Well Friday night was our early Thanksgiving at their place in Ft. Worth. It took us forever and a year to get there because of traffic but we were greeted at the front door with mini bottles of Champagne with straws. (How does it get any better then that??) Dinner was spectacular, juicy turkey, yummy dressing and the best sweet potatoes we had ever had. The trick? They didn't put any type of sugar or anything on them and they were sooooo good! Michael normally doesn't like sweet potatoes but he had seconds on these! After dinner and dessert we played around on a new electric drum set that they acquired and decorated the Christmas tree. We had a lot of fun. On our drive back to Allen we got caught in traffic at 1:00 in the morning! ! Now that's just insane. Stupid big city!

Here we are with our mini champagne!!

Saturday: Our friends Indu and Vishag were in town from San Marcos to pick up Vishags parents from DFW coming to visit for several months from India. This is the first time they met their grandbaby, so everyone was excited. They swung by our house for about 15-20 minutes to see our place and we could see each other. Nisha has gotten so big! It seems like just yesterday she was born. When they left Michaels high school buddy Blake and his friend Ashley came by. Blake was in town from Upstate New York where he is in the Navy. We watched the last half of the Tech/OU Game and oh man, what a game. At one point, Tech wouldn't score at the very end and Blake threw his glasses across our living room. It was quite hysterical. With only 4 seconds left Tech BARELY made it across the goal line as the clock ran out to win the game. FANTASTIC!

That evening we went to the Moscow Ballet's performance of the Nutcraker. They were phenomenal. We had box seats and a TON of room where we were sitting. Our own chairs that didn't share arm rests and a great view of the event. We got there had a glass of wine and took another in with us to the performance (because we could). It was much fun and we got home in time to catch most of Saturday Night Live.

Sunday: Finally a day to relax. We hit the gym in the morning and bummed around the house the rest of the day.

I got up pictures from our Halloween with the Partneys.
Check them out in the photo gallery at: www.mnp8.com

I hope to get our early Thanksgiving pictures up soon as well.

Almost 3 months

Ok we are a few days shy of our 3 month mark, but don't know if I'll get a chance to post again around the 20th.

Well, for obvious reasons (puppy) our 3rd month here SUCKED!! Not only did we deal with Hendrix getting sick and then loosing him, we had some tire problems and had to get a new tire, dental problems and at work, Michael has been worked to the bone because they are up against a deadline and so things are getting pretty crazy down there and it is stressful. Hopefully things will calm down soon.

I should also probably clear up the fact that neither of us really HATE Dallas as I seem to notice that is the attitude we are giving everyone. It's more that, we haven't grown fond of it yet and we would rather be somewhere else (as my brother Joe put it about Lubbock). I can see why so many people love it, but I can also see why so many people swear they will never come back. For us, and our lifestyle, it really isn't a great match. Dallas seems very busy and bustling and we are more laid back, quiet and calm people.

We are looking forward to getting away for a few days at Thanksgiving to get a breath of fresh air in someplace we love. While most people despise Lubbock. I think we have much more there then most and that's why we enjoy it there. You know that little thing called, "family" can make a HUGE difference in any place you live.

We have had a decent amount of people asking us if we are still going back to Denmark. The answer....You must be on drugs if you think we would say no after being here!! Just kidding, of course we are!! We think that being here for a year, is really going to help make our transition back to Denmark easier. We will be going from somewhere we are "putting up with" to somewhere we love. We will have already been out of Lubbock for a year so we will have already gotten over any homesickness that might have occurred from being in Lubbock before here. So start making your plans to come and see us over there. We LOVE visitors!

I think from now until January 1st will be much better.......Because we will be out of town for 13 days of it!! hahaha... :o) (Thanksgiving, Michaels graduation, Christmas)

Nothing Exciting

We had a great time with Michael's grandparents. We took them to P.F. Changs and to Panera Bread and they enjoyed them both. Other then that, we pretty much sat around and talked the rest of the time. Oh, and of course we watched the Texas Tech/ A&M game and watched our boys destroy those aggies! GO TECH!!! It was refreshing to have some more familiar faces from home here to visit.

Besides that, nothing exciting at all is going on here. Its been a week yesterday that we said,"goodbye" to Hendrix and we are sadly getting use to not having him around. This past week seems like it has been SOOOOooooooo long. Hopefully the weeks will start passing quickly once again. We leave 2 weeks from tomorrow for Lubbock and are very very excited. I can't believe Thanksgiving is in 2 weeks. The weather feels like it should still be September!!

Gotta Get Outta Here!!!

Well after all thats been going on and the heartache and headaches that Dallas has given us, we decided we needed a little break. It didn't take long to make the decision to go back to Lubbock for Thanksgiving. We hadn't planned on it, mostly because it was more difficult to get away for a longer amount of time with Hendrix to take care of. Both of us have had it up to here (Picture my hand up to my head) with Dallas and just want to escape. We figured Lubbock would give us a breath of fresh air and it would give us a chance to regroup and help make it through till 2006. We are heading there for Michaels graduation December 16th-18th, but that is still 6 weeks away where as Thanksgiving is just 3. Also over graduation we will be pretty busy and won't get a chance to relax. So anyways, we are looking forward to getting out of here for a long weekend.

Michaels grandparents are coming to visit us today and we are looking forward to that. It will be nice to see them.

We are hanging in there. Each day gets a little easier. We got a card in the mail from the animal hospital. The card itself had a nice little story, if you will, written on the front that was so sad, but so comforting at the same time. If you have ever lost a pet, this might choke you up, but I'm going to type it anyways:

Rainbow Bridge

Just this side of heaven lies the Rainbow Bridge.

When a beloved pet dies, it goes to the Rainbow Bridge. It makes friends with other animals and frolics over rolling hills and peaceful, lush meadows of green.

Our pets do not thirst or hunger. The old and sick are made young once more; the maimed and the ill become healed and strong. The are as healthy and playful as we remember them in days gone by.

Though happy and content, they still miss someone very special, someone they had to leave behind.

Together, the animals chase and play, but the day comes when a pet will suddenly stop and look into the distance...Bright eyes intent, eager body quivering. Suddenly recognizing you, your pet bounds quickly across the green fields and into your embrace. You celebrate in joyous reunion. You will never again separate. Happy tears and kisses are warm and plenty; your hands caress the face you missed. You look once more into the loving eyes of your pet and know you never really parted. You realized that though out of sight, your love had been remembered.

And now, you cross the Rainbow Bridge together...

~M.A. Preston

Inside the doctor told us he was very sorry for our loss and all that good stuff. I thought that was very nice of them. We are still waiting to hear if Hendrix tested positive for something called "Leptisporosis" because apparently it is possible to transfer it from animal to human. Not that either of us have it, but so that we are aware of it for the future. There is a small chance he had it but they are convinced he was simply born with bad kidneys. We are interested in the results.

Bad Gone Horribly Horribly Worse

Last night was completely not what we expected. The doctor called us in the afternoon to let us know Hendrix's progress and unfortunately his the levels in his kidneys had not dropped much at all. For example, one of his levels was at 120 when we took him in and yesterday afternoon it had dropped to 90. Well it should have been down to 20. Not good. Apparently they believe Hendrix was born with bad kidneys and this was pretty much a long time coming. They doctor let Michael know they were going to intensify the therapy (IV) and they would keep a close eye on him over the night because they were going to go at it so hard if not monitored correctly it could cause some lung problems and/or pneumonia. He also told Michael they would keep treating him as long as we wanted to and it was all our call. We could take him home if we wanted to, but within days or a week or so he would get real sick again and we would be there doing the same thing. When we took him on Saturday the doc told us that if his levels didn't drop in a couple days that that was probably all they could do.

Visiting hours started at 7pm so after Michael got off work we sucked it up and headed to the gym to pass an hour and then headed to the hospital. We arrived to find the most awful sight we could have. Hendrix looked HORRIBLE. It was like he gave up and didn't have anything left to give. Honestly he looked as if he went backwards 200% from when we took him in on Saturday. He did wag his tail a little bit when he saw us so that was nice. We took him outside so he could use the restroom, which he did, but afterwards he came and sat by us and just laid down on his side. He was shaking and honestly looked like he was crying. You know how when people cry their bodies kinda move around and shake, well that's what he looked like. I am sure some of it was depression and not happy about being caged up in a strange place with strangers around and us there just for a little bit each day, but the bottom line was even if we brought him home and he perked up, his bloodwork was still bad and he would continue to be sick. Michael said the second he saw Hendrix when we got there, he knew he didn't have anything left to give. Neither of us had the heart to let him suffer overnight and couldn't leave him there looking like that and knew it was probably best to have him put to sleep. Michael had to carry him in he was so limp, he couldn't even hold his head up. We talked to the technician for a while and they gave us a private room where they laid a fluffy pillow on the ground for him to lay on and we could talk. We had about 30-45 minutes with him in the room before the doctor could come and do anything which was nice and we got to say our goodbyes. I told Hendrix that he would be growing little wings soon and of course scratched his belly and his foot shook like it always did. Both Michael and I believe he probably would not have lasted through the night. We left as soon as the doctor came in with the shot so we didn't leave him in the room alone before it happened. As we walked out the doctor kneeled on the floor and was petting him and I heard him say, "Hey buddy, how ya doin?" So I know the doctor was nice and comforting to him. I know by the time we reached the car he was already following us in spirit happy and ready for the car ride home. We were at the hospital for a good 2 hours or so, just to give you an idea how long we were with him before we left. Pretty much this has been a really crappy weekend and start to the week.

As for us, we are O.K. , as good as can be expected. This was and has been and will continue to be honestly one of the most difficult, horrible and saddest things either of us have ever had to do. He was our first dog. Michael gave him to me for Easter the first year we were dating (6.5 years ago). So really he has been a part of our lives almost as long as Michael and I have been in each others lives. He gave us nothing but wonderful, happy and funny memories and he will be missed.