A Surprise In My Mailbox

In today's mail was an unexpected surprise :)  My sister-in-law along with our darling niece and nephew sent us the sweetest card to let us know they were thinking about us and sad to hear about our Sadie girl.  They knew we were sad and thought this might be a nice way to cheer us up.  They were right!  We found this card to be very thoughtful and endearing and it did make us feel better :)

Uncle Chris & Cade

Aunt Melody & Natalie

Thanks, Herman gang, for cheering us up!

Time to Say Goodbye

A few months ago, I posted about our precious dog, Sadie, and how we had recently discovered that she was diagnosed with lymphoma (cancer).  The few months we had together flew like the wind and this week it became terribly clear that it was time to let her go.  She was absolutely miserable and suffering immensely, but neither of us had enough courage to make the decision about when to let her go.  Unfortunately, she told us herself last night, in her own special way, that the time had finally come.  We had decided to schedule the appointment at the vet's office for Friday, 2/17, but she took a drastic turn for the worse today and it was clear that we couldn't wait even 1 more day (for her sake).  Let me just say, this was devastating for us both.  I had to leave work at 10:30am this morning because I hadn't stopped crying for 3 hours and knew I was not gonna make it through the rest of the day.  We scheduled the appointment for 4pm this afternoon and I came home asap to spend our remaining hours together, just Sadie and I.  I made a pallet of blankets and pillows on the floor and curled my body around hers for the next several hours.  I just cried and cried until I ran out of tears (temporarily).  Chris came home around 3:30pm to pick us up.  We went to the vet together as a family.  After the doctor informed us about the process of putting her to sleep, she left the room for a few minutes to allow us to say our goodbyes.  This was heart wrenching.  Truly devastating for us both.  It's always so upsetting for me to watch my husband cry, I know his heart was breaking and I couldn't do anything about it.  Shortly after, the doctor came back into the room and took special care of our Sadie for the very last time.  Afterwards, as we attempted to drive away from the vet's office, we recounted to each other how perfect our Sadie really was for us and all the things we loved about her so much.  It's hard to imagine that we will ever find that kind of perfect fit again in another dog, but we can hope so.

Here are some pics we took over the last few weeks together.  These are Sadie-girl's last pictures with us.

Precious Sadie, you were the best friend and companion we could have ever hoped for.  You will be missed everyday and we will continue to love you with all our hearts even after you're gone.

Happy Birthentine's Day!

Last night, Chris and I celebrated our newest tradition . . . birthentine's day!  Allow me to explain.  Valentine's day is on February 14th and Chris's birthday is on February 16th, so we decided ever year from now on we would combine both events into 1 holiday and celebrate together on February 15th instead.  You may feel like one or both of us gets jipped a little by doing this, but in all reality, Vday was never a holiday we celebrated anyways and Chris isn't big on birthday celebrations.  So it actually turns out better for us both because we're acknowledging our love and happy marriage while not making a big deal of Chris's birthday :)

This year we went out to dinner at Mickey & Mooch restaurant in the Lake Norman area.  We both enjoyed a delicious NY Strip steak with our choice of side items and topped it off with a little tuxedo cheesecake and decaf coffee :)  It was amazing - absolutely delicious!  It was just so nice to sit down for a special meal together and put all the stresses of everyday life on the shelf for a while.

Here are 2 pictures from our first birthentine's day.  I apologize that the second picture below is a little blurry :(