Vegas's Birthday Celebration

I would imagine that most people reading this right now don't find it shocking at all that I celebrate my dogs' birthdays. If you do, you don't know me very well :)

Wednesday was Vegas's 7th birthday, so to celebrate we had dinner at my parents house. Vegas and Tyson LOVE going to grandmas, it's one of their favorite words. In the mornings when they are still in bed all I have to do is ask if they want to go to grandma's and they come running :)

My brother, Nana, Mammaw, my parents and Trey and I all had a delicious dinner followed by yummy cupcakes for her birthday. I've been trying to keep away from giving her much people food lately because it packs on the pounds a lot more but everyone gets a freebie on their birthday. She got to lick plates and then got to eat a cupcake, while wearing her birthday hat of course :)

How long do I have to wear this mom?

She wasn't the biggest fan of the hat but we took it off and let her eat her cupcake. And by eat I mean suck back, without even chewing, in 1.5 seconds. I guess she enjoyed it!

I also had to give her a present. She got a new squeaky toy. She loves to gnaw on them until they don't squeak anymore, so I found her one with 9 squeakers in it!

Right away, she jumped on the couch and killed 5 of the squeakers. I think 2 are left today.

Tyson watching patiently while Vegas chews on her new toy

Not paying attention to anything else around her

It was a pretty successful birthday :) We topped it off with a sleepover at grandma and grandpa's! My two snuggle bugs enjoyed sleep in bed with their grandparents that night.

Tyson ate Ant Bait!!

Tyson loves to chew on/eat toys and other things their size. He chews on things but ends up ingesting stuffing, sticks and sometimes parts of soft plastic toys (which we no longer keep because of that). 

We have had some ants appear lately, especially near the dog food bowl area so I bought a few ant bait traps. I put one on the floor near their food but have always been very careful to remember to pick it up when I leave the dogs home alone. Well, I FORGOT! Ugh, so mad at myself.

Thursday evening Trey mentioned the ants and it made me realize, uh oh where is the trap. It wasn't on the floor and it wasn't by the sink (where I put it when I pick it up). So we immediately went out to the yard (flash lights in hand because it was around 9pm) and started searching for any signs. This is what we found:

Chewed up parts of the ant trap

So of course I was flipping out and Trey was calm about it. We came inside and started to research the active ingredient in it, indoxacarb (only .05%). Luckily, Trey knows all about pesticides and actually understands what he is reading! He read all about it while I read things from justask.com, etc. Basically they all boiled down to: he'll be okay. We assumed that he did this in the middle-ish of the day (they were home alone most of the day) and has still been acting perfectly normal and wild. He is 50 pounds and this has such a small amount that isn't really too harmful to dogs. The EPA basically requires the same label on all things like that saying hazardous to humans and domestic animals.

I also called the emergency vet and they basically said the same thing - he should be fine but keep an eye out for vomiting, diarrhea or excessive tiredness - none of which we had seen.
I made him sleep in bed with us (he didn't mind) just to be able to have him right there and keep an eye on him. Every time he moved I woke up and made sure he was okay. I'm a pitiful mommy, and now a tired one.
I watched him as he went out most of the time the next day just to double check for an upset stomach but it seems we we're in the clear! Thank goodness! I will never put another ant trap on the floor... I'd rather deal with the ants.

Happy 7th Birthday, Vegas!

Today is Vegas's 7th birthday!! I can't believe she's 7! Sometimes she acts her age, like when she wants Tyson to leave her alone so she can nap, but most of the time she still seems so young and playful.

Sunbathing, after playing soccer

Lounging in her favorite spot

Vegas is the best dog you could ask for. She understands basically everything we say, knows what is right and wrong (and behaves most of the time), is a protector but also a lover, is a great big sister/mommy to Tyson and is one of the best companions we could ever ask for. We love our princess very much!

Helping introduce Tyson to his crate

Daddy's girl

She will definitely be celebrating tonight with a cupcake :)

I'm a grill master :)

Well not exactly a grill "master" but I grilled!! All by myself, for the first time!

Trey had to work late on a night that we had planned to grill chicken and make twice baked potatoes. He is pretty much the chef around here and I'm just the helper, but lately since he's been working so hard I'm trying to take over a little bit more. He told me the basics of grilling the chicken and I came home to try it!

While I got the grill going I started baking potatoes in the microwave to make twice baked potatoes (something I have never made before but always loved my mom's).

Putting my marinated chicken breasts on the grill

I must say that I was pretty impressed with my first attempt at both! I am definitely not taking over as the grill cook or the chef around here though :)

The chicken is ready!

Yummy dinner

A beach weekend

Last weekend we went to visit Trey's parents and have a relaxing weekend at the beach! Tyson and Vegas love going to visit too :)

Trey's stepsister, Bobbie Jelene, and her daughter Navaeh had been in town all week so they stayed to hang out with us Friday night. We all went out to a late dinner at El Zarape and had to pick up dairy queen on the way home! It was delicious. We enjoyed lounging around the house with family all night.

Tyson, of course, was incredibly excited to see his cousin Matty. They will play all day long. She is almost 2 and still has just as much energy as he does. They are best friends and even look like they came from the same litter. So needless to say, they played all weekend. Vegas enjoys getting in on the action some too, but I think she was happy to be relieved of her playing with Tyson duties for the weekend!

Saturday was rainy and windy off and on all day so we pretty much lounged around all day. It was nice to just lay around and relax. While it cleared up for a bit we took Vegas & Tyson to the beach to run around for a little while. They enjoy chasing the tennis ball on the beach.

playing on the beach

Daddy, throw the ball!

Worn out babies

Trey throwing the ball

I love that they are so well behaved (most of the time) that we don't really have to keep them on a leash... although in PKS you "have to leash" them so we keep them handy. As you will see below, we don't even really have to leash Tyson... he won't go more than 5 feet from Vegas on her leash. He thinks that her being on a leash means that they get to play tug of war - it's hilarious so of course we just let him do it. Poor Vegas, she's such a good sport and somehow still loves him -- she does love the attention though.

Holding her leash

Tug of war time

 

Here is a little video of him tugging on her :)

In the evening Trey and I went out on the course to hit some balls. He wanted to play around with his new clubs and I wanted to learn how to hit the driver. He was very patient with me and kept giving me pointers. All I have to say is golf is HARD! And it is exhausting to swing that hard over and over. I finally hit it pretty well and ended on that one. Then it was his turn to successfully hit the ball for a while.

Trey and I went out to dinner at Ioanni's for my favorite crab dip. We haven't been there in a couple of years and it was as good as we remembered! We went out for drinks that night at Sammy's in Morehead on the waterfront and enjoyed running in to lots of old friends.

On our way home on Sunday we stopped in Newport to let the dogs play with their cousins, Bailey and Izzy. They love running around the cul-de-sac freely chasing each other. They also love swimming in the pond. The pond however is pretty dried up right now, so they half swim-half walk through it.... and get DIRTY, very dirty. The poor things were disgusting so we had to hose them off.... they didn't enjoy it so much! While they swim in the pond they also drink the water... lots of the water. Once we got them clean and somewhat dry we hit the road to finally head back to Raleigh, with a car full of wet dog smell. While we were on the stretch between New Bern and Kinston, Vegas started panting heavily and poking her head up by mine. We thought at first maybe she was hot so we turned up the AC and told her to sit down. She listened and sat down, then started shaking! Not too happily, we pulled over on the side of the highway and about a half of a step out of the car she squatted and peed... for EVER. She drank way too much pond water! So we let Tyson out and he pretty much did the same thing. We finally got back in the car, hoping to only stop once more to grab dinner. We stopped for dinner but didn't let them out (we don't usually stop at all on the 3 hour trip). Next stop, home! Well of course, about 5 minutes after we got back on the highway she starts shaking AGAIN! Seriously, Vegas? You hold it for 12+ hours sometimes, but now you're just dying?! So we pulled over again, and she did the same long stop. No more drinking pond water!

We finally made it home and they definitely slept well :)

Happy Birthday America!

Since Trey is in golf he has to work on the 4th - tons of people are off and want to play on a beautiful course! And I am in the middle of a tedious grad school class, so I am actually spending today getting school work done. But hopefully tonight we can catch some fireworks. 

I did my celebrating on Sunday, I joined my brother and some friends for a pool party 4th of July celebration. They had plenty of meat to grill and everyone was to bring sides, so I decided to get creative! I love red velvet cake and found a recipe on pioneer woman to make a cake from SCRATCH! This is a big thing for me. In our house, Trey is the chef and I bake some - and by bake I mean buying boxed brownies and adding eggs and water. But this time I decided to make a cake and icing from scratch. It actually turned out pretty well!

Making quite a mess trying to make a cake from scratch!

Ready to bake!

The icing that went with this recipe is not cream cheese based (which is my favorite) but since it was going to be sitting outside for a while I figured I'd try the non-cream cheese icing on this recipe.

Part of creating the icing... mixing milk and flour together.

Instead of the raspberries like in the recipe I put blueberries on top to make it red, white and blue!

Topped with blueberries and then cut.

Red, white and blue!

 It got a little bit rainy in the afternoon, but mostly held off for our party giving us plenty of time to enjoy the underwater camera. I think that was probably one of my best purchases ever.

I don't know if you can tell but that is a red, white and blue Budweiser can for the 4th!

Happy Independence Day!