Thanks to everyone that donated to Sophie’s Walkers!! The SPCA had a record year for the walk and raised over $130,000! I raised $260 which is way beyond my original goal of $100. Thanks everyone!!
Our team and dogs (Sohpie and Maggie):
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Click here to see the rest of the photos.
Casey, Gary and I went up to Franklinton today so Casey and Gary could jump out of plane. Crazy huh? Their appointment was at 2 and they had to attend a class first so they could learn how to not kill themselves. I was a bit worried about the weather, but they were still doing jumps so we made the trip out there. Right after we got there (while Gary and Casey were in their class) the rain and thunder started. It poured! So at that point they were several jumps behind due to the weather. Eventually it cleared up and the jumps started. We watched three groups jump. At about 5 they called Casey and Gary to prepare for the jump. I was sitting outside and it was beautiful out. Blue sky, few clouds. I went in to take a few pictures of the boys suiting up and the next thing we know there is another weather delay. So we go outside and see this:
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Finally at 6 it looked like the weather wasn’t going to be getting any better so we had to get a rain check. The two guys that were going to jump with Casey and Gary had driven 2 hours and didn’t get to jump. I felt for them. So I guess we will be back in a few weeks to try again. No, I will not be jumping out of a plane. I don’t even ride the kid’s roller coasters!! You should have seen those people falling out of the plane…. Hell no.
Well, here are a few pictures of our first attempt:
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Well, took the car to be inspected today and it wouldn’t pass without new tires. I guess I can’t complain since I have 65K miles on 60K tires. I knew I needed new ones this year, but it sure sucks to need them the same week the cat has teeth taken out. Not to mention the 2K worth of work needed on the exterior of our home and replacing the deck (another 1K). I did decide to go ahead and get the insurance on the rabbits. I think it is too late for J.D. since his heart murmur and kidney disease are now considered pre-existing conditions. Tuscan and Moose have a few more years left in them, but they are getting older so it seems smart to go for the insurance. It isn’t cheap ($200 a year), but if they get sick it will cost WAY more. Rabbit vets aren’t cheap.
On a lighter note we made our first attempt to make pasta today. It took forever and it really wasn’t very good! I guess our technique needs a bit of work not to mention a pasta roller! We will try again, but what a pain. I hear it gets easier the more you do it and eventually we will perfect the texture and flour mix that we like. It was a bit chewy for our taste. Gotta start somewhere.
J.D. is doing much better. By Friday he was back to normal. I think the morphine type medicine he was on was making him a bit out of it. Once he was off that stuff he improved quickly. He is back to our cuddly little boy. We will see how he does next week when he has to go back for his followup visit.
Oh, more news! We got some new fish today!!! I decided if we were going to have a fish tank in the living room it needed to look nice! Poor Alfred was alone in that big tank with no lights, one fake plant and ornaments that were so algae covered you couldn’t even tell what they were. We have been working to clean it up the last couple weeks and have put a good amount of money into fixing it up. I still have a bit more to do, but I will post a pictures at some point. I wish I had a before picture. Trust me it was bad. So now Alfred has two new friends that look like small versions of him, George and Simon. Plus we have two little fish with pretty yellow tales. They are very tiny. Eugene and Frank. Hopefully we will get a couple more in a week or two.
After a very long wait (okay, only about 2 months, but that is long!) we finally have our new kitchen floor! It is SO much better than the floor we had! No, it isn’t tile or hardwood which is what everyone seems to assume when I tell them we got a new floor….. just good old vinyl. However, it wasn’t cheap!! So now onto a new deck and maybe one day new counters…. no not granite. 
The old floor - sticky tiles installed by the lady that owned the house before us. I sure would like to sit down with her and figure out what the hell she was thinking!! Not to mention the number of trees she planted on our .15 acre and the placement of them or the big hole in the ceiling where she tried to install a ceiling fan…..
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The new floor - as you can see we also extended the kitchen floor some to allow for a bigger table.
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Well, our local meteorologists have proved once again that they have no idea how to predict the weather in our area. Our 2-4 inches of snow is still falling in the form of cold rain. Way to go. The news spent all morning acting as though the world was surely going to end today and we should all stay indoors. What a joke. Had it been a weekday they certainly would have cancelled school for this big rain event. Oh well, they are still trying to say it will snow tonight, but I could care less at this point. What is the point if I can’t watch it snow or it doesn’t accumulate. I miss the mountains. 
I finished my puzzle this weekend! Now I can get some work done around the house. I really want to get another puzzle, but I should probably wait a couple weeks so I can get some other stuff done first.
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We broke open the bottle of wine we brought back from Italy tonight…. so good! I really don’t drink much and was never a big wine person, but I enjoyed having a glass at dinner while in Italy. We only brought back one bottle which I think I will regret. Since we have been back I tried a couple glasses of American wine and it just isn’t the same. Guess I will just have to pay a lot to get the Italian stuff. It is cheaper than going back to Italy.
Sorry it has been so long without a post. I have been super busy lately with bunnies! Today is our first Rabbit adoption day at AniMall and I have been preparing for it. I built a cube cage that we will sell in a silent auction and I am teaching two little classes. One on litter training and the other on building a cage. Of course the really scary stuff happens on Thursday when I teach 15-20 5-11 year old kids about rabbits!! Say a little pray for me……. I have never taught a large group of children before so it should be interesting. Then next Saturday I teach my regular training class to adults at the SPCA. It is the month of bunnies. Now I just need to get my foster bunnies adopted!!!! I did manage to find some time for my 2nd annual bunny Christmas card photo shoot. I won’t be posting any pictures until the cards are sent. I don’t want to ruin the surprise. Needless to say it was interesting, but I don’t know if I love any of the shots so we may re-shoot. I am sure Tuscan and Moose will be thrilled. We didn’t attempt to involve JD this year since he obviously hates the bunnies, but I will try to get some Christmas shots of him to post here. Since I will be gone all day today I will have to do the second shoot next weekend when I have some light.
I finally have the over 700 pictures down to a reasonable amount ready for you to view. I know you are all excited. They are in Flickr which I think can be a bit confusing if you are not used to using it. In the sidebar to the right you will see a link to view the pictures. When you open the link you will see all the albums in my Italy collection. You can double click to open the album you want to view. You can choose to view as a slideshow or view one at a time. If you choose the slideshow when it opens the slideshow you can hit the i in the center of the picture to show the descriptions or play without the descriptions. To view one at a time double click the first picture. On the right you will see smaller versions of the pictures within a box called Florence (Set) or whichever album (set in Flickr) you are viewing. If you continue to hit the small picture on the right you will go to the next picture in the album. I don’t understand why it is so difficult to view pictures in Flickr. They don’t use words like album or next…. A bit annoying. If anyone has a problem viewing the pictures let me know. Now that I have the Italy pictures done I am going to work on moving all my pictures to Flickr. Well, to some new website. I haven’t decided how I feel about Flickr yet.
I took the protection off the posts about Italy since we are home now. I am working on writing up a summary of our trip which will be posted in a special area when it is done. It may be awhile before you get the pictures. There are about 700 to go through. Last night I managed to organize them in groups, but it will take awhile to edit them and then post them. It is hard to believe last week at this time we were in Italy. It seems like it was months ago. It has been a long week. We both had a much harder time wit jet lag on the way home. We didn’t have any problems on the way to Italy. Today I managed to finally clean up the house and put the laundry away!
