Tennessee with Friends

 

Hello!  It's been a minute!  It's been crazy around here!  Before I start with the good news, I should start with the bad and that is sadly our dog Milly passed away on Monday (December 14th).  She was only 6 almost 7 months old. Our hearts are absolutely broken. I think the signs that she was sick were always there, but since we never had a dog we had no rubric for what was normal and what wasn't. Since day one of getting Milly, she was always a picky eater.  I had just chalked this up to her breed.  I guess dogs with poodles in them can be picky eaters.  A month ago, I switched her from dry food to wet because I was tired of trying to figure out what topper it would take to get her to eat the dry food and it changed every day from one minute she liked something to not liking it.  We thought wet food was the solution.  Then I took the girls to Tennessee and she stopped eating the wet food.  My husband thought she was depressed because we were gone.  Then I switched her from wet food to cooked food.  At first, she seemed to love it, but then she started throwing up.  At first, I thought it was because it was too fast of a transition; however, on Thursday morning she started shaking like she was cold.  I knew this must not be normal.  I took her to the wet! They diagnosed her with pancreatitis.  We weren't discouraged because this is something with which medicine can be fixed.  The next morning when I went to take her outside to go to the bathroom she had blood in her stool.  I called the vet and they said, we are so glad you called because we were just about to call you.  We ran a bunch of tests and her kidney numbers are not looking good and they are indicating that she is in kidney failure.  We can't be positive, but if you don't see any signs of improvement the next day we really think she is going to die.  There just isn't anything we can do for her! She never improved and just got weaker and weaker.  It was so horrifying to watch her go from a happy dog on Wednesday to a very ill dog by Monday.  We couldn't watch it anymore and so we made the hard decision to put her down so she wouldn't have to suffer anymore.  Even the little girls agreed it was time to say goodbye.  We are all devastated!  She has left a huge hole in our hearts.  She was just pure joy!  

So now on to Tennessee.  If you have been following me for a while, you know we have some friends from the adoption community who live close to Nashville.  They mentioned back in September that it would be fun for us to come up in December to watch the girls dance. Understanding how it is to not have family close by, I thought it would be fun to go support them.  The performances were on Friday and Saturday.  Alivia danced on Friday and Felice danced on Saturday.  The performance was lovely.  After the performance on Saturday, we went to the mall where the girls got these crazy cotton candy.  Avery chose a Pacman and Ivy chose a character from Among Us. The other girls opted for smaller versions.  Then we went back to their house to play, eat pizza, and drive around and see the Christmas lights.  On Sunday before we headed back to Atlanta, we had breakfast with our friend Angela and her children.  I forgot to get the picture from her of that event.  I also forgot that on the way up, we stopped at the Giving Machines in Atlanta which is a charity project run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to provide items for the needy.  Addy chose feminine products, Ivy chose a basketball, Avery chose a goat, and I chose another basketball.  Some of the items we picked will help locally, but the goat will help someone globally to help them provide a living for themselves.  Well, I didn't realize how tired I am, but I think I am going to go to bed early tonight.  It has been a long week.  I hope you have a lovely Christmas and if I am not back before the end of the New Year a very Happy New Year!