Tomatonauts and other things

So Megan has a cool school experiment at home right now.... a "Tomatonaut"...... it is a tomato plant from some seeds that were up on the International Space Station. How cool is that? They are growing them to see if there are any differences between them and regular earth bound tomatoes. I really do not care much about the experiment itself.... I just like the name "Tomatonaut" - I think it is funny. (Actually, I am interested in one thing about the experiment..... How did they get each of the seeds into their little tiny space suits????? I mean Tomato seeds don't have hands so......) Anyway, if nothing else I have a cool nickname for the girls now, "Come here you Tomatonauts" - ah the memories.

And for those of you who have been worried about Murphy.... not to mention our bank account..... he appears to be on the mend. Stitches have dissolved (or he ate them - one way or the other they are gone) and the cut seems to be ok. As for the picture of Murphy in his "cone head" thing (which by the way is extremely funny!).... Sari and the girls think it is hard on Murphy's feelings and somewhat embarrassing to post a picture of him wearing it...... so (obviously) I am going to have to do it when they aren't looking. Keep checking back! :)

That's about right!

(If you have not read yesterday's post - please read it first - you will need the background)

I do not believe in Karma - that the universe somehow evens things out. I do believe, though, that "If you don't have something good to say, you should just not say anything".

That phrase was rolling through my mind last night as I slandered our dog Murphy by telling everyone how much money he has cost us over the years, how clumsy he is, etc. I actually thought, "I should not be writing this" - not because I felt bad about slandering him (he doesn't have internet access in his kennel anyway so I doubt he would be reading anything I wrote about him - and since he does not have opposable thumbs he can't turn on the computer anyway ), but because I figured that this was not quite the end of the story yet (It is never as painful as it first seems - it is usually more painful) ...... and I was right!

Last night Murphy decided to eat the bandages off of his paw and rip out the stitches! (He is a smart dog..... an overachiever really).

So Sari took him back to the vet this morning - more anesthetic (which is doing wonderful things to his digestive tract just by the way) - more stitches - more whimpering and whining (from both him and me) - and one more payment on the vet's boat (I have never actually seen anyone's eyes turn into dollar signs like they do on the cartoons.... until our vet met our dog. He is now planning a trip to the French Riviera - we are very happy for him!) :(

They admitted that it was partially their fault as they failed to give us a "cone head" thing for him so that he would not be able to eat his bandage.... and we admitted it was partially our fault because we said "yes" to getting a dog in the first place - so we each paid 1/2 the bill this time around (which seems like a real deal.... until you think about it for more than 2 consecutive seconds).

He is still too dopey to eat his bandage right now (or is it that the drugs have made him less dopey ....... because you have to be pretty dopey to eat a bandage..... either way - he is not eating it) but when we do put the cone head thing on him - I promise I will post a picture. (Yes I know that is a rude - embarrassing - humiliating thing to do to him.... but he has to learn someway. Maybe (if he gets internet access and sees his picture spread across the World Wide Web) it will shame him into acting differently.

Or maybe it will just make me feel better. Either way - I am good with it.

Seriously!!!! (Where is my "rolling my eyes" Smiley here?)

Many of you know my "love/hate" relationship with our dog Murphy. I can't really remember why I have trouble liking him sometimes....... Oh - wait - it is coming back to me...... I think it had something to do with him getting sick and costing us like $1200 in the first month that we had him.

No matter what we do with this dog - he seems to get hurt. Like the time last spring when I took him for a run after a long winter of lying around (for both of us) and he tore up the pads on his paws so badly that we had to wrap them up and keep them moist for two weeks until they healed.

Now the other day we went for a walk - decided, "Wouldn't it be nice to let him run up that hill to chase the girls?" Let him off his leash - he runs up the hill - comes back limping and bloody. Have a look and he has cut his leg just above the paw right down to the bone in one place. So off to the vet today - almost $300 later he is stitched up and ready to go again - though I don't think that we are going to let him go anywhere ever again at this rate.

You have heard that cats have nine lives.... I am the only person who owns a dog that has vet bills like he has lived nine lives! I am surprised he did not drown fetching stick in the dam in the picture above. Good thing he didn't start to - my girls would have made me give him mouth to mouth I am sure.

Oh well - what good is having a pet if you can't help your vet pay for his brand new boat - one visit at a time???? :)

Pictures

So the past week has been busy..... Megan's baptism..... Katie was in a play at school.... we have been working in the yard..... I took my motorcycle on a 200 km ride Friday afternoon..... we worked at the "Collage Cultural Festival" in town..... we went to the races at the Speedway where I got to do the invocation..... church stuff today - singing at a nursing home...... it has been something.

Here are some pictures of the girls...... a baptism and a "man"??????

Biker outreach

Our church has a unique feature...... a bike gang!

Another guy just bought a motorcycle today and so I think that makes about 7 or 8 of us that have them now. A few of us took Corey on his inaugural ride and "bike gang hazing ritual" (we made him buy us coffee at Tim Horton's...... I know that is not exactly a mean biker hazing - but it was really cold and we needed something to drink)

Currently we are searching for a 6 foot 10 inch 250 + guy to join the church (and then the bike gang) just in case Paul tries to start another rumble at the Tasty Freeze in Newtown, North Dakota like he did last year.

Apply any Sunday morning!

Megan's Baptism

Megan was baptized tonight. She has been talking about it off and on for a year or so - and she decided that tonight was the night.

It was really nice.... lots of people from church.... a bunch of her friends from school..... a nice gathering of people who care about her. It was simple but good! If you were able to be there, thanks for coming! If not, we wish you had been there.

I will try to get pictures posted in the next couple of days.

A Working weekend

Some weekends you lie around in the sun, reading and doing nothing.... this was not that weekend! First of all, it was not sunny and, secondly, we did not lie around.

It started on Thursday night when I took a whole winter's worth of junk to the dump. It was free dump week - and who can resist "free" right?

Friday I went and helped some new people at church (Russ and Donna) move from their apartment to their new house. I think that every preaching course should contain a few semesters dedicated to "Heavy Lifting" and "The proper use of furniture carts", because in my 20 years of preaching, I think I have helped 869045689489078 people move. Not that I am complaining.... in fact this was sort of fun. About 6 guys showed up to help - which was nice. Then too, we were moving them from the top of a three story building to a house - not the other way around. Coming down the stairs is the much nicer proposition. It was quick, a good work out and a good visit some good friends. All in all, a nice day (even the rain was good - cooled us off).

The next day, Sari and the girls went to help one of our other friends wipe down the walls of their new house so that they can move in next weekend. While there were gone, I went to the lumber yard and bought enough wood to start framing out my old work room in the basement of the house so that it can become Katelyn's bedroom. I also ran around town buying shots and nails for my Hilti gun (the thing that uses 22 shells to blow nails into a concrete floor - that is about the best part of framing). After that, I started some demolition in the room (some of the original framing was done with econo studs and it was all out of line/out of square etc). Not sure when I will get done, but I least it is a start.

That night we started moving things around in the garage (to accommodate a bunch of the things that were taken out of the work room). In that process, I decided to hang a bunch of my Nascar stuff on the walls in the garage (instead of just leaving it in bags where no one can see it). I will post pictures of it sometime - I think it looks nice.

Today - three sessions at church - our annual "High school Graduation lunch" (a chance to honour kids we know who are graduating - give them a Bible - say some nice things to them - etc) - a counseling session after evening Bible study for an hour..... all good stuff - but a busy weekend.

In there too I found time to watch some hockey, some racing, "City Slickers" (it was on TV - still funny!)...... so don't feel too bad for us..... it was not all work! :)

PS. I am losing in my family hockey pool but I am second in the radio station one. For me to move up in the family pool I need the guys in the radio pool to lose (and vice versa). I am very conflicted!