Cabo

 

The first night with Cabo

A week ago from yesterday I had to make the hard decision to put our sweet Cabo to sleep. I had told Scott it needed to be done before Thanksgiving because his health was declining and I knew he wasn't the happy dog he used to be. I basically was going to hold on to him until then because I'm selfish and didn't want to take Addilyn's best friend from her. It wasn't until the week leading up that I started reading online about how to make this decision and how to prep for it etc etc. Well, I definitely was not going to do it when I did. I woke up from our naps and we were getting ready to go pick up Scott from work. It was then I heard him doing his horrible cough/panting/bark again and looked out the window to check on him. I won't go into details, but I knew I needed to do it as soon as possible. I've had three dogs in my family that we've had to put to sleep. Never was it my decision or me who took them to the vet. Cabo was my dog. I've never had a family to consider when it came to putting a pet to sleep. I think one of the hardest things was the idea of Addilyn.

Scott and I during our dating time

 Deception Pass, Whidbey Island, Washington

Giving him a bath at 40 weeks with Addilyn

Addilyn at about a week old

It's hot in the south!

getting used to the humidity in the south

making his new bed work...

Cabo had a pretty awesome life with us. I got him Thanksgiving 2007, he was 8 years old. He was a trained bird dog and a pure bred Brittany Spaniel. Of course when I got him I unofficially retired him from any hunting. But he was extremely well behaved. He was perfect with kids, letting Addilyn and her cousins do anything to him and he would never argue. Cabo was an excellent trail dog. We could let him off his leash and he would run ahead, never out of site, and would either wait for us or run back and forth. He didn't bark. When he did, it was a warning bark. If someone was at our house who he did not know, he would bark. He was a wonderful protector. Even though his adoptive father (Scott) was not a fan of having a dog, he was definitely grateful for that. Cabo was never a kissing dog, but he loved to cuddle and get all the love that he could. When we were away at college and would come back to see him after a few months, he showed how much he missed me by giving me a big wet lick. But he'd never do it again. Cabo had the most beautiful eyes. I'm so happy to have had him even if it was a short amount of time. We love you Cabo!

Pumpkin Picking

Pumpkin picking could really be done at the store. But we go to the man made patch on the side of the road for pictures. Can you blame us? They set it up so nicely so you can do just that, take pictures. They know what we really want. The beautiful orange balls and the bright green grass and screaming kids. Okay, not the last one- and no mine weren't screaming. But of all the pictures Levi would be smiling and Addi would be looking at him because he was. So then when I got her to look, he would stop. Of course. So there you go, pumpkin picking in pictures. ALSO if you want to flashback, click on these links for pumpkin picking in the past and watch our babies grow: 2011 & 2012

I am not letting you go Levi. EVER.

And this is what's really happening when they aren't being uber cute...

And a little extra cuteness

Dishes

I love my babies.

Ward campout

Friday the 20th we had a ward campout. Scott took the day off and we headed out there about 10am. The campsite was only an hour away on a reservoir. We of course went geocaching. And I of course found it :) Addilyn loves finding and opening caches. We always bring something to trade and she is very willing to take it all. But we of course keep it to one. The name of this cache had dragonfly in it, and there were a bunch of toy dragonflies. There are actually several more pictures that I have, but for whatever reason they didn't upload. And for my times sake they aren't going up.

We headed to our campsite and set up. While the babes and I attempted to nap in the tent (note, attempted) Scott went out to find his first 5/5 geo cache. AKA the hardest ratings- 5 for terrain and 5 for difficulty finding. He has pictures, but you wouldn't know what you were looking at. But he did find it and thought it was really fun.

 For dinner we made dutch oven for ourselves. It was delish. That night we did dutch oven cobbler for the whole ward. Addi had so much fun playing with her friends. I ended up putting my headlamp around her waist so that 1) she could see and 2) I could see her. It worked wonderfully. Addilyn was filthy as you can see in that picture. People would look at her and then look at my sympathetically. Well, her and Scott both took showers that night. Unfortunately we didn't plan that we would take one and we didn't bring any towels. But we did have a bunch of hand towels in our camping bin... Also that night we had some campfire singing. I was amazed at how awesome Addi was since she didn't nap. We didn't get to bed until about 11. Scott and the scouts participated in a flag retirement ceremony. And for those who don't know, you have to wait until the ashes are cool so you can burry them. That took fooooooreeeevvvvverrrrrr. As a side note, Levi did great the entire time. Like most babies, he loved being outside.

 During the night Addi woke up at 4AM saying she needed to poop. Yaa.... to start the night off, Addi was next to Scott and Levi was next to me. We had a hard time sleeping because we didn't bring the air mattress. That was on purpose sadly. We figured it would be really awkward to try and all sleep on it in our tent together. So we sacrificed and slept on the ground. ehh. Well, I slept on cushions and Scott forgot his roll up air mat. But don't worry, it was still really bad for me. So after this whole, "I have to poo" incident, Addi wanted to sleep next to me. So she was in between us. Then in the wee morning hours I had to feed Levi on that side and when I was done feeding them, this is how they were. Sooooooooo adorable. For a moment they both had their arms above their heads, but I was too slow at getting my camera for it. After we left the campout, Scott wanted to go back to the cache he was trying to find (ya, he found it the day before but didn't realize it and had to go back to get it). While we were there there was a pow wow going on. It was pretty neat. I really like the guys doing their chants and banging on their drums. Cool.

When we were planning our food for the trip, I decided that for lunch on Saturday we were going to go to this creamery I'd found. The ice cream was really the best part about it. The food- not so much. Oh, but that ice cream...