We are pretty well settled into our new house. We had so many great people helping us that things were all unpacked much quicker than we expected. The only boxes remaining are full of books and movies that currently have no shelves to call home and things that need to be hung on the walls - a step I'm just not ready to take yet! Plus, my mom hasn't been able to come up and see things, and she's such a pro at those sorts of things that I don't dare get started without her. If both of my younger sisters hadn't decided to have their babies early, mom would've been up here already! We used to be able to say that Ramsey girls never have early babies (I think Cakes was the only one before now) but not so much anymore after two 37 1/2 weekers in a row.
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| (Youngest Sister, Baby J born June 7; Younger Sister, baby W born June 23; SIL and Older Blonde Sister, both due in Sept.) |
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| (Collage of baby W by my Oldest Sister) |
Between the two babies I spent a week at Girls Camp pretending I had a clue what I was doing as the leader of all the 12 year old girls. Thankfully I had two great adult leaders who definitely filled in for my weaknesses and four great youth leaders who were willing and even eager to help no matter what. There were lots of girls crying about ticks and spiders, to which I generally responded, "You're outside, there are probably lots more that you can't even see." Just my usually sweet self. While we were there we had the opportunity to try the COPE course (never did learn what that stood for). Mostly my job was to hold onto the harness of the belayer so she didn't going flying into the air when one of the girls fell or jumped, but I did try the scariest one- the pamper pole, which is basically clmbing up a telephone pole, standing on top of it, the top of which happens to spin, then attempting to jump off of it and catch an impossibly far away trapeze. Sounds fun, right? The climbing part was easy, it's the attempting to stand on top of a wobbling, spinning pole then jumping from it that is pretty darn scary. My youth leaders thought the event deserved some pictures so they found my camera.
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| Checking my harnesses |
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| Almost to the top |
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| Trying to stand |
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| Jumping! |
Camp was pretty good, only one hot and miserable day, and we were out of there before the rain hit sometime Friday. I drove two girls up to camp, but drove home alone because I was detouring through C'ville to see my baby sister's baby. My mom had my kids while I was camping and she took them up to see baby J during the week. Cakes doesn't seem too disappointed to be holding another baby boy...
The rest of my weekend was not so great. Scott's great-aunt passed away Tuesday. When I called to tell Scott I was on my way out of camp he told me he was coming up to Richmond for her funeral. She was one of my favorite relative on his side, so I really wanted to be at her funeral too. Scott did a good job finding everything I needed, since everything I had brought to camp was dirty, smelly and definitely not suitable for a funeral. We both called our moms to let them know our plans had changed, which meant my mom wouldn't be bringing my kids to Chesapeake like she planned, but we'd be spending the night with Scott's parents instead.
Then Scott and I talked again and he told me that his mom said Charlie, our dog, had really gone downhill that week. He hadn't been using one of his back legs for well over a year, then he got sick about 2 weeks before we moved and had to go on a special diet. He was 13 1/2, so we knew he was only going to keep getting worse. His one good back leg had been getting weaker, and it became difficult for him to stand long enough to eat. His bad leg had suddenly become very swollen too, which had never happened before. I called the vet that my in-laws take him to and made an apointment for that night. (Charlie has been what I call a "time share dog" ever since we first listed our house, mostly staying with Scott's parents during all the craziness that comes with selling/showing your house). When I got to my in-laws house, Charlie hardly moved in 3 hours. He got up one time to turn around on his little pillow and it was clearly painful and required a great deal of effort from him. Scott and I took him in at 6:00 Friday night, and knew from Charlie's non-reaction to being at the vet, something that usual has him extremely antsy and anxious, that he was not well at all. Everyone else I know who has put a dog down recently had to schedule an appointment several days out, so I wasn't expecting to be making an immediate decision. The talked to the vet; she said this was definitely not the Charlie she had seen before. When I mentioned possibly bringing him home to Chesapeake first and going to our vet here, she said she definitely wouldn't let us leave there without pain meds and told us that a two hour car ride would be a great deal of stress for him. In the 1 1/2 hours we were there, Charlie hardly moved at all, only lifting his head up twice, and I'd never seen him lay down at the vet's before. He was clearly exhausted and in pain. We decided to put him down that night. I handled it much better than I expected, I think because it was so clearly the right decision.
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| Charlie as a puppy |
We came home and told the kids; Cakes took it pretty hard but the boys don't really get it. Bubba has said several times that Charlie isn't sick anymore, but when I took out all of Charlie's food and such to give away he got upset with me and told me we have to keep it for Charlie. We'd told the kids all along that they better be nice to Charlie and we hoped he would live long enough that all of them would remember him, because we will not ever get another pet.
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