Our party went great. It was actually super fun, so better than great. Almost all of our favorite people came out and everyone acted like mature adults... well almost everyone. But overall a very good and drama-free party!
This is what Fletch did during the party. I guess he was either tired or overwhelmed because he usually loves new people.
His foot has healed quite nicely, in fact, we went to the dog park today for the first time since it all happened and he had a great time! You could tell he hadn't been in awhile because it took him a little bit to warm back up to all the dogs.
Hopefully, if the rain stays away, we will be back on our everyday schedule. I gotta say he is so much more cuddly when he has been at the dog park all evening... I guess because it wears out all that puppy energy!
Saturday, my grandparents from Maryland, my cousin Elizzabeth, my sister and her Boston clan, my parents and of course, Rick and I went to the annual Central Virginia LSU Alumni Crawfish Boil. It was out in Southside on the River. It was such a great day to be outside and to be pickin' some authentic Louisianner Crawdads!
View of the River
Rick pickin' away.
My empty tray and my grandparents working on theirs...
Delaney in awe of the balloons.
One just wasn't enough!
Bored with the balloons now onto mardi gras beads. Take them off, put them on, take them off, put them on, take them off, get frustrated because they won't come off, auntie erin takes them off, put them back on. It was surprisingly entertaining for the both of us!
Isn't she just the cutest!!!
On a different note...
At school, we are preparing for our annual charity event, the Spring Fling. The only part that I have really had to accomplish is helping my kids prepare a painting for our silent auction, which raises money for Safe Kids.
Each classroom was assigned a painting of a famous artist, for us: Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh. Our job was not to replicate the painting but borrow the style to make our own painting. The basic concept was to use quick and easy brushstrokes like van Gogh uses. We also used some of our newer concepts of artistic expression and added in our new knowledge of secondary colors.
Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night
Instead of using the entire painting for inspiration, we limited it to this one corner and focused on shapes and motion instead of landscape.
Our inspiration providing corner...
Preschool 2's masterpiece!
Obviously, there is no justice with a picture but it is pretty amazing. They really did a great job of not only following directions but making the artwork their own. They have come so far in 9 short months!
Pretty advanced for 3/4 years olds, eh?
Hope this finds everyone enjoying the last few weeks of Spring as Summer is just around the corner!!
Love,
your artistically-inspired richmond rices.
Fletch had his vet appointment this evening and it went quite well. He had his dressing changed to something that is about half the size of the one in the picture from the last post, but for some reason he is more interested in licking this one! The vet said to keep it on for 3 days and then his paw should be healed enough to go without any bandage!
I am a happy mom!!
Love,
your feeling-less-gimp richmond rices.
So I am home alone Monday through Friday each week and you would think that would mean I have all this free time, but in fact it feels like the exact opposite. I guess when I have to cook and clean for myself every night by the time Fletch and I are both fed and Fletch has had his long nightly walk, we are both ready to veg on the couch for an hour before we have to go to bed.
So as you can guess, that was my very logical excuse on why this blog is constantly neglected.
This by no means means I have nothing exciting to report. In fact, that too is the opposite! Our life has been really quite entertaining considering Rick and I's limited time together.
So before I begin, I should apologize first for the lack of photographs. I have not been so good with keep my camera around these last few weeks.
So, my birthday was April 30th. I cut 12 inches of hair off on the 29th for a new fun quarter-of-the-century haircut! I absolutely love having short hair again, especially since it has gotten so hot!
Sorry the pictures are so blurry... they were all taken on my camera phone.
On my birthday, I went out to eat with my parents to the Bamboo (mmm filet mignon!) and then we went downtown to this new place called Julep's to have.. you guessed it mint juleps and the best bananas foster outside of Nawlins.
At the Bamboo my parents gave me my birthday surprise!!! Two nights at the Berkley Hotel!!! I have been talking for quite some time about how much I wanted to be able to stay downtown for a weekend, so I could actually enjoy what downtown has to offer. Rick and I never do anything downtown because so much driving is involved as well as parking being a pain!
Well, we had the longest, most relaxing weekend. It was like a mini-honeymoon! We ate at awesome restaurants, shopped at interesting stores and listened to some very awesome live jazz. I really felt like we had gone on vacation.
THANKS MOM AND DAD!!!!!!
I went to the allergist on Monday for the first time, only to discover that I am allergic to everything outside. The scratch tests were so bad that the doctor insisted on me showing him how to use my camera phone to take a picture so I could see how bad my back reacted.
Proof I am allergic to the outside world.
I am now on an allergy steroid for this whole week which has helped tremendously! I have an allergy pill to take daily as well as a nose spray and an eye drop. I go back in about 2 weeks... not sure if they are doing more testing or if it is just to see how things are going. I guess we will see.
So, needless to say, I have laid low this week. Fletch and I haven't been to the dog park all week because of the weather! I am sure he is super sad, but I have been trying to walk him every time there is a break in the rain. This does mean that we have been caught in torrential downpours! We do plan to go to the dog park on a puppy play date today! (Heidi is watching her boyfriend's boxer for the weekend, so we are meeting them in a bit!)
Last night, my parents, my cousin Elizzabeth, Rick and I went to a play called the Great Trailer Park Trash Muscial at the Firehouse Theater. It was pretty comical, a little long but definitely had its good parts. It is exactly everything you would expect from the title... raunchy, redneck and ridiculous!
Then we headed to Mulligan's for Karaoke night which was pretty fun but not as fun as our birthday bash is going to be tonight! About 20 of our friends are coming over to hang out on our patio to celebrate both Rick and I's birthdays.
Elizzabeth and Heidi singing a country song?
So as I was posting this about 4 hours ago, I hear a crash and then Fletch yelp and jump from the couch. When I look up there is blood all over the floor. He had broken a picture frame and stepped on the broken glass. He sliced his right paw pad pretty deeply. So deep, we called the vet and thankfully they were able to squeeze us in.
Long story short, they bandaged him up after cleaning his wound very well. We have to go back on Monday to make sure it is healing correctly and get a bandage change. They are going to make the call on stitches or not on Monday. I have been so sad for him, he is my baby and this is our first injury! I feel crazy!
While we were there, I had the vet check out Fletch's ears because they have been looking a little funky. Of course he has an ear infection in both ears! Its no wonder they say you should get a dog before having babies of your own!
So, Fletch is passed out on the couch after his long and stressful morning. He has 2 different medicines for his ears that require 2 people to administer, so this single-parent-thing during the week is going to be interesting. Luckily, I have very kind friends who have volunteered to come over at 6am and help me do it!
Needless to say, we will not be meeting Heidi and Jackson at the dog park later. Nor will we be going to the dog park anytime this week. :(
Have you ever seen such a sad soul? He has tears welling up in his eyes :(
Well hope this finds everybody having a better day than we are. At least we have a fun night to look forward to!
I will keep posting about Fletch and try and take lots of pictures at the party tonight!
Love,
your sad-gimpy richmond rices.
Ps. Looks like Fletch is the perfect match for our little family seeing as how I am such a klutz who has the freakiest most random accidents!
So not really from the cache...this was only yesterday but too silly not to share!
Fletch truly is some pup!
Love, us.
So the first week without Rick wasn't nearly as bad as expected. He was only gone until Thursday! Which was definitely a pleasant surprise. The bad thing was that Fletch started to get used to the schedule we had so it sort of threw things off last weekend. I think it was going through a "protect my house" kind of mentality and did not appreciate Rick leaving his "scent" all over the place.
This week Rick didn't have to go out of town. The place where his work was, was close enough that they didn't have to stay at a hotel. I think this has helped Fletch having both of us around. But Rick does leave on Monday morning for 4 days so we will see how that goes!
Don't know if I mentioned it before...
We learned about Life Cycles a few weeks ago. This included egg-baby chick-hen/rooster, egg-tadpole-frog, seed-plant and egg-caterpillar-chrysalis-butterfly. Well, part of our preschool program is to have live butterfly eggs! So over the last few weeks our caterpillars hatched, ate and ate and ate until they formed their chrysalids and over last weekend they emerged into butterflies! All 10 of them! On Tuesday, we released them because quite honestly I am not interested in explaining death to my 3/4 year olds!
Say "BUTTERFLY"
Opening our habitat...
Absolutely one of the coolest moments, my kids were in awe!
That speck about the trees is one of our butterflies!
On a different note...
We had our first vet visit today! Fletch has gained 7 pounds since we got him. I was a little concerned that he wasn't eating enough, but apparently that was unnecessary. I guess the Iams bag says to give him too much food!
After the vet, Fletch and I went with my friend, Meredith and her dog Maddy to Barker Field. It was Fletch's first time and boy did he have fun!
He was very nervous, as it is very overwhelming to see all those dogs for the first time. But he got comfortable and even play fought with a few dogs. He was so worn out he fell asleep in the car on the ride home and is now taking a nap on his favorite blanket!
Fletch playing in his favorite place, the leaves!
Sleepy puppy! He looks so old in this picture! :(
"Stop taking pictures of me!"
Down for the count!
Well, that is all in our extremely exciting rice world. Hope this finds you all happy, healthy and enjoying the sunshine!
Love,
your lazy-saturday richmond rices.
Where do I begin? It seems we are back to an exciting life since it has only been 10 days since the last post and I have much to report...
So, Fletch is doing fabulously! He was potty-trained soo much faster than we ever expected. That is not to say he hasn't had any in-house accidents, but they are not only far and few between but also it is usually because Rick and I aren't paying attention to his signals.
As previously posted, he liked his crate... but since he realized "crate" means he will be by himself he despises it! With some treats, he is going into his crate better, but when you say the word... it is like a bat out of hell!
He hates the hardwood floors, he actually pulled a blanket off the couch so he wouldn't have to lay on the floor (this was before Rick decided he could be a couch dog!) Now he is a couch dog so he sleeps with a pillow, or Rick's leg usually.
On a different note...
As I am sure you know, VCU lost in the first round of the NCAA. Bummer. Especially since it was only by 1 point. What can you do? We still had a good time out with some friends... on a school night!
We got to babysit Delaney on Friday! Her and Fletch fell in love. Well, let me rephrase that... Delaney fell in love and Fletch is still a scardey cat... but he definitely warmed up to her. We got to hang out with my sister and Delaney most of the weekend which was very nice. We hung out at my folks house on Saturday and watched some of the LSU game (they lost in the 2nd round of the NCAA).
Then, we went to a place called Commercial Taphouse for Nate's Going Away Party. Nate was a groomsman in our wedding and a very close friend of Rick's. He is moving to Austin, Texas the beginning of April. We are both very sad, but this seems like the best thing for him! And his party was super fun!
The Erins at Nate's Party
As for this week... well, it leaves me very sad!
This week started the first of MANY weeks that Rick is going to be out of town. He left early Monday morning and won't be back until late Friday evening. This week and next week Blackstone and continuously until the job they have there is completed. Then, on to different cities around Virginia...well, so far. Who knows?!?! But at least we will have the weekends! I have never looked forward to the weekends like I am now!
So at first, Fletch seemed like bad timing... a week before Rick left for out of town work (which I hear will take us well into Summer) but really it is perfect timing. Having Fletch around when I get off work has been something to focus on instead of my empty dinner table! Plus, Fletch eats his dinner while I eat mine so it works out great! (Yes, Rick did go grocery shopping for me and plan out meals as well! I know I am spoiled!)
So wish Fletch and I luck with the next few months without the man of our household! The plus is that the money is really great, which we could definitely use. Plus we hear this is THE time to buy a house if you are going to soooo the extra money definitely can't hurt! We will see where this [pipe] dream takes us!
Hope this finds you all happy, healthy and fullfilled.
Love,
your 1/3-absent-richmond-rices.
Ps. School is so GREAT! Here is a random picture from last week... I taught my kids the bunny hop during Signs of Spring week. I hope these kids remember this one day! The only memory I have of the bunny hop is from my Aunt Peggy and Uncle Will's Wedding Reception!! I don't know how long ago that was but I was pretty young and I remember having the BEST time with my family! (An added bonus, is my favorite bulletin board and the most beautiful.. if I do say so myself.. that I have ever made! Some of the birds are even singing. :] )
