A Boy, A Dog, and a Park

Last week, The Boy, our dog, Isabelle, and I went to check out the new dog park. Boy, did we have fun! It's really nice because the dog park is connected to a regular park. We went to the dog park first, and Isabelle had a BALL!! She couldn't get enough of the free space to run and new smells to smell. I think she made some new doggie friends as well. The Boy did a nice job taking pictures of Isabelle.

OOOHHH, What's That Smell?

Look over here, Mom!

After Isabelle's turn at the park was over, it was The Boy's turn to play at the park. He had lots of fun too. He spent a considerable amount of time on this huge climby thing. I'm not sure what you
call it, but it was really big. The Boy REALLY wanted to climb from one side to the other, but was just too intimidating. He started striking deals with me. He would say, "Will you give me a penny if I climb all the way to the other side?"

"Absolutely!" I was thinking, for that cheap, what the heck?? Well, The Boy tried again, but he would get one section from the top curve and down he would come again. He upped the anty a bit. He said, "How about if you give me a quarter if I climb all the way over to the other side?"I said, "Sure," but I was thinking, "What ever happened to the good old nickel, or even a dime?!" Now, mind you, I was not heckling The Boy to climb this thing. I told him that I thought he could do it & if he wanted to climb over the whole thing he should, but I was not insisting that it be done. Needless to say, a quarter was not quite the incentive he needed to make it over that thing either.

He tried one more time, "How about TWO quarters if I can do it?"

"If you climb all the way from one side of that thing, over the top, and down the other side, I will give you TWO quarters," I said. Well, The Boy got a better plan than the ones he had been trying. He went to the other side first, and tried climbing from the other side to this side. Unfortunately, this plan did not pan out quite as he had hoped, and he never did make it all the way from one side to the other. He decided to take a break and go down that twirly slide that you can see in the background of these pictures. Isabelle thought since The Boy got to run around and play with her in the dog park, it would only be fair for her to get to run around and play with him in the boy park. She was a little to short to climb with him on the "Half Sphere of Challenge" but she did join him in going down the slide. That dog LOVES slides!! The Girl taught her to go down them when she was just a puppy! She was all about it, too, until she reached the top and saw how twisty it was. Then she hesitated, and tried to get back down the stairs. I was right behind her and wouldn't let her go back down the stairs, and looked at me like, "Will you give me a treat if I do this?" I didn't have any treats on me, but she went down anyway. She must've decided it was pretty fun because she came around and went down again! Then we went across the park a little ways and checked out this really neat waterfall. It was a busy, fun day! We will definitely be going back!!

A Little Scare

Monday afternoon The Girl, a neighbor friend, and I took all three animals (two cats and a dog) to the vet for their annual shots. Boy, talk about a FUN afternoon!! The animals are all healthy and doing well. Later that night, I let our dog, Isabelle outside. About five minutes after coming back in the house, she was shaking her ears like crazy. Then she started rubbing her face on the carpet. Thinking that maybe she had a bug caught in her ear or something, I called her over and tried to look in her ear. To my horror, her entire face was swollen! Her lips were so swollen she could hardly open her mouth, her eyes were almost swollen shut, her ears were swollen and thick, she had welts up and down all four legs and all over her belly!!! I immediately started to pray for her. I phoned the vet clinic to get the on call number since it was after hours, then called the vet. He said to give her two Benadryl immediately, then call in an hour if there wasn't any improvement. Luckily, I keep children's Benadryl on hand specifically for Isabelle. (She swells up from mosquito bites and gets an itchy belly in the spring and summer from running in weeds.) She didn't show much improvement within an hour, so at 9 PM we made the 20 min. drive to the vet clinic. Boy, a little de`ja vu??? Anyway, the Dr. agreed that there was a definite problem and it was good that Isabelle had come in. She had three shots; an antihistamine, a steroid, and an effrin-something or other. He couldn't determine if the reaction was caused from the vaccinations, a bug bite or sting, or a combination of both. Whatever it was, Isabelle is back to her old self now. Thank you,again, Lord, for watching over my furry children!!