Major Update

We are about 4 1/2 weeks into this whole knee surgery recovery, and Major is doing great! He is walking really well now. The biggest obstacle now is keeping him from running and jumping because he is feeling so much better. Good luck to us! :)

 so cute.

 This is what's left of the scrape on his nose. When we come home he is so excited to get out of his pen he nudges the side of the pen, which is mesh, in an effort to get out to see us. Well last week he did it and scraped his nose at my parent's house when they were taking care of him for us on our trip to Puerto Rico. So funny.

 His fur is growing back in slowly but surely

The incision site looks great!

San Juan, Puerto Rico: Part 1

Last week Jordan and I went to Puerto Rico just the two of us. We hadn't been on a big vacation just the two of us since our honeymoon so we were very ready to go, and it was wonderful! 

At the beach of our resort. 

 Enjoying some local brew at a Mexican restaurant near our resort.

 Before dinner at the Steakhouse at the resort-mmmmm!

 The Mojitos at the lobby bar might be the best one I've ever had, they were delicious!

 The view from the lobby bar was awesome but hard to get right with a camera in order to do it justice! Of course, Jordan isn't a bad view either :)

 I won at the slots, a big $26 off my $5 gamble!

 The front of the resort.

 Pool time!

 Cigar time!

We went to a local market more inland to get a taste of the "real local food." We still have no idea what this big round thing is, but it was so delicious! The rest of the food we had there was amazing!

 Escaping the rain on a walk back to the resort. The main part of Tropical Storm Isaac missed us, thank goodness, but we still got quite a bit of rain from it.

 One of our favorite days was actually when it rained all day long. We watched movies and played Phase Ten. And of course we took advantage of the fact that Bacardi is made in Puerto Rico and made Bacardi and pineapple juice cocktails.

Playing Phase Ten and enjoying our cocktails!

1st Day of Last Semester!

This is my last semester of nursing school finally! I am really excited about it for several reasons: 1) I'm almost done! yay! and 2) I have the privilege of doing my last clinical experience with a preceptor at Children's Hospital in Dallas! I have been thinking that I would like to be a pediatric nurse so being at one of the best children's hospitals in the country should be a fabulous experience! I was so excited when I found out this summer that I got the preceptorship at Children's-it was a tough one to get! Anyways, I'm thinking that this semester is going to fly by!

Also, I've been awful about blogging lately, but I have several updates to add soon on Major and our trip to Puerto Rico!

Major's Surgery

Major tore his ACL. Poor guy! It was quite the surgery he had to have in order to fix it, and it will be quite the recovery too. The surgery was last Wednesday.

 Day 1 after surgery-his first day home. He had to stay overnight at the vet. This is our makeshift confinement area in the living room for him.

 This  picture captures it all I think...he just looks so miserable. You can see kind of here where the incision is-it's on the inside of his hind right leg. It was pretty red, swollen, and bleeding day 1 after the surgery.

We had instructions to ice his knee for the first 3 days after surgery. ha! How do you do that? Dogs don't like having a cold pack placed on a leg that hurts! He did pretty well, and I will say we had awesome ice equipment leftover for Jordan's multiple knee surgeries.

We ordered this playpen thing for him. It has been and awesome purchase because it keeps him contained. The only activity he can do for the next 12 weeks, yes 12 weeks, is go outside to the bathroom. That's an absolute ridiculous request for a dog so this playpen will help a lot I think.

Oh and he broke in the new playpen within 5 minutes by puking everywhere in it! It was so gross! I think he is just upset so he puked once and has had the runs since we brought him home.

A good view of his partially shaved rear end. He also has irritation on his rear end from the shaving and  from having the runs so we've been having to doctor that up with diaper rash cream. As you can tell so far from this post, this has been a full-time and exhausting experience so far!

Picking him up from the vet. He's got this little harness thing we put around him to keep him stabilized so that back leg doesn't slide out ever.

So this day was about the extent of his cone experience. He doesn't lick the stitches while we are home, but you never know what they do when you are gone so we tried the cone once after this day. We are glad we looked in the window to check on him after we left the house because he was up jumping around bucking like a wild horse to get it off! So we don't do the cone anymore.

I tried to capture the x-rays with my phone but it's not a very good picture. They cut his shin bone and reshaped it and then added in a plate and 6 screws. Yikes! 

Video of his stitches the 1st day after we brought him home.

Video of how he walks.

Outdoor Curtains

I had been really wanting some outdoor curtains to provide some much needed shade for our back porch, but I really didn't want to spend much on them (the ones I really wanted were at Pottery Barn and total it would have cost me over $200!). Anyways, I decided to make my own. I got the idea off of Pinterest and added my own touch. I don't have a sewing machine so I used this iron-on hem product called Stitch Witchery. It worked really well although we will see how long it lasts! I'd like to learn how to sew, but that's for another day :) Anyways, I used burlap and then the blue pattern is a duck cloth. The burlap has actually worked perfectly because it still allows a breeze through and it blocks enough sun to provide some relief. The sun sets behind our backyard so in the afternoon it had been getting really hot right by our backdoor since I don't have anything over the window. These curtains have helped tremendously! The total cost was only about $35!

Belgium Beer Week

Did you know that it's Belgium Beer Week? This Saturday is their independence day so in honor of that there are several pubs/bars that are having specials. Tonight my parents took me to the Holy Grail, a pub in Plano. This week they have a different Belgian beer glasses each night. Tonight's was a Pauwel Kwak beer glass. It is for an Belgian Amber Ale that was pretty good! You can see it there on the bar next to my dad. Anyways, thought it was a neat thing to celebrate if you enjoy beers!

Here is a link of places around Dallas that are having specials.

http://www.examiner.com/article/on-tap-dfw-craft-beer-events-celebrating-belgian-beer-week-july-16-22

Colorado Part 3: Mel's Wedding

The wedding was at a golf club outside of Denver, and it was breathtaking! See for yourself with this awesome pictures!

 A fox decided to come hang around the ceremony location right before the ceremony and my dad got a great picture of him.

 mom & dad

 ceremony location

 Todd (my friend, Lauren's husband) and Jordan

 Jordan, me, mom, dad

 Jordan and me.

The bride, Mel, and her dad. He wrote a song for Mel, and that was their 1st dance song. It was so sweet!