2007 Recap - October

October 2007

We got a new car!! A white 2007 Honda Accord 4 door. We love it! Now Tom drives my 4 door Focus, and we try not to drive the Dodge Ram very much, due to the gas it consumes! Anyone interested in buying a pretty Dodge Ram or a Focus Hatchback?? We're looking to sell!

In October, I somehow convinced Tom to consider getting another dog, a friend for Bruno, someone to share in his crazy antics and to consume some of his energy. Tom gave me the okay to browse, so I did. I looked in the paper & online, that's where I found "Casper". "Casper" was an all white Iggy (short for Italian Greyhound) that had been seized in an animal cruelty/puppy mill case somewhere in AZ. The Arizona Italian Greyhound Rescue came to the rescue of 15 or so seized Iggies and evaluated them and put them up for adoption. I saw "Casper", and immediately fell in love. The story of these poor dogs, broke my heart and I convinced Tom to let me submit an application. After our application was reviewed, a phone interview completed and our references were checked we had a home visit scheduled. Amy, our rescue rep. visited us on Sunday and approved us to meet and potentially adopt "Casper/Ezio", pending Bruno's neuter. Luckily we were able to schedule surgery for Bruno the next day, as we wanted to speed up the entire process. Bruno was a champ for surgery, and was recovering quite nicely, you could hardly tell anything had happened.


Two days later, he broke his front left leg! My poor baby! What a horrible sound and sight to behold! We rushed him to the emergency vet, where they stabilized his leg for the night, and give us some pain meds. Needless to say none of us were able to get much sleep that night. First thing the next morning we had him into our regular vet, who won't tell you he specializes in Iggies, but he works with a lot of them and he's great! They kept him overnight to make sure he recovered from the anesthesia appropriately and then I was able to take him home. UUUGGGGHHH!!! The whole thing was an ordeal! I don't suggest it to anyone!

That's us not getting any sleep the first night after the trip to the emergency vet, but before the trip to the real vet! Poor Bruno was in soooo much pain! My poor baby!

Home from surgery, feeling pretty good, but on severe activity restriction. What does that mean? No activity off the leash, nothing more than a slow walk, and not much of that either. BORING!

Yeah, Bruno hated the leash, hated the restriction, we had to find other ways to expend his energy, somehow!

So what happens when you absolutely hate the kennel you are in, and absolutely must get out??? You break out, that's what you do!! When I left that morning, that kennel was in the other room, and that dog in the background, broken leg in a cast and all, was inside the kennel! I have no idea how he bent the kennel up so much that he was able to get out, cast and all, but he did. Stubborn, I tell ya! He takes after his momma!

So what happened to "Casper/Ezio"? Well the night Bruno was at the vet for surgery we were supposed to meet "Casper/Ezio" with Bruno, to see how they got along. Didn't happen. Tom and I rescheduled to the weekend and we went to meet "Casper/Ezio" on our own. We had to delay the adoption about a month, until Bruno was able to get his cast off and the vet okayed more activity.

Bruno's naked leg - 4 weeks and a couple days after his surgery, you can hardly tell anything happened!

So a month later, the day after our 1st married anniversary, we became the proud parents of Ezio.

Isn't he just so sweet and cute??

Getting some lovin' from his new brother!

Havin' a blast and doing so much better at our house with Bruno, than he was at his foster home. We are so lucky!

On the chase, aka: the flight of the iggies!

Bruno wants to know why Ezio is so tired, notice Bruno is laying over the top of Ezio! Brotherly Love!

2007 Recap - September

I forgot to mention that August meant the start of Nursing school again! Yeah for more time with my girlies! Unfortunately I didn't have a single one of my girlies in my clinical group, but that's okay. We still got to hang out between classes and for our lunch breaks.

September 2007

We're going to Disneyland!!! Tom's best friend Aaron took his family on a California Vacation in September and we crashed a part of it. Aaron and Lee Anne moved to Seattle about 4 years ago, and we don't see them very often. So when they told us they were gonna be about 5 hours away, we decided to join them for part of it. Due to my school schedule we were a little limited on the days we'd be available. So we left Thursday afternoon after my clinicals and drove to Anaheim. Friday we drove to Long Beach and did the tourist kind of thing and then proceeded to follow the beach South from there!

I love the beach, Tom hates my sunglasses!

There's my hubby, and the beach, LOVE them both! (Notice his hair is a little shaggy in this picture... about 2 hours after this picture was taken, while still on vacation, he gets his hair cut!)

Check out the artist at work... she doesn't work for free! If you take a picture she expects tips!

Yeah, this is our beach house, right on the water,wanna visit? Notice halfway up is a little palapa so you can rest on your way back up the stairs. We spare no expense!

There were a few guys skim boarding as the sun was setting and I tried to get a cool shot, what do you think?

This was a cool spot where the water would splash up and fill the top shelf of this ledge. Did I mention I love the ocean/beach?

More attempts at cool shots, gotta love the sunsets!

That's us to prove we were at the beach. Like the natural look I accomplished by setting the camera on a rock, choosing the 10 second self timer and running like a crazy person to get in the shot?? Tom was amused.

DISNEYLAND & CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE 2007

DAY 1

Here is our first day inside one of the parks. We were waiting in line for Soaring Over California when we took this picture. Did you know they don't like you to take pictures when you are waiting to be seated on a ride, who knew! Oh, well!

By the way the ride was pretty cool! They spray orange smell when you fly over the orange groves, pretty neat, and Tom didn't even get motion sickness, thanks Triptone!

Autopia

Warning, this self-portrait was taken on a closed course, by a highly trained individual, do not try this on your own!

We were getting tailgated by this munchkin (Trinity) and her father (Aaron)! Hooligans!

I wish we were going that fast.

The Matterhorn... one of my favorite rides!

Aaron looks a little scared entering the Matterhorn, maybe he's afraid of the Yeti?

Castle Lovin'

I love straw cowboy hats, and now I own one like this! Cute huh?

Whoever the hell Jo-Jo is, she attacked my husband! We aren't aware of these crazy kids shows, so while harmlessly walking the streets of California Adventure we came across this character, and with only slight persuasion, Aaron had arranged the infatuation of Jo-Jo with my husband! Hilarious! Can you see Aaron just off to the left, cracking up? Awesome!

Here's my attempt at a pretty reflection picture, long shutter time required me to stabilize my camera on the ledge of a bridge, hence the horrible slant to the horizon line, sorry!

This is Aaron and his son, Cole. This was approximately 9:00pm at dinner inside the restaurant at the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Think Cole looks a little dazed? Well he and his sister had been up since 4am that morning to catch their flight and had not napped all day. Surprisingly they were still very pleasant with being awake for that long. I think the adults were crankier! =)

DAY 2

This is my photo of the preview screen for the pictures at Splash Mountain. I look like crap, and I've been on the ride before, it just seemed a lot taller this time around! I like this picture despite the way I look because of Tom's expression, he looks like he's having a blast! Thanks again Triptone!

Tom got saddled with a little babysitting duty... Trinity and Cole bought these Eeyore's as their souvenirs, but couldn't take them into the petting zoo, so 'uncle' Tom stepped in! Cute huh? He'll be a good daddy some day!

Look at those muscles!

The perfect Walker Family photo!

Thanks for letting us crash part of your vacation! We had so much fun we may have to do it again this year!

2007 Recap August

AUGUST 2007

August calls for our annual Brentwood "reunion" trip. I put quotes around reunion, because it's not really a reunion. It's a trip where the Kelly & Sharon Cambern Family get together and camp up in the white mountains at a Church owned campground called Brentwood. It's a nice break from the heat of summer down in the valley and extended family and friends come to visit as well. If you are interested we reserve the campground for the fist weekend of August every year. Come on by, and if you need directions I have a few maps I can forward you!

This year was kinda special. You see we had a surprise in store for us. You have to wait to see the pictures, before I tell you... see you can be surprised too! I'm a dork, I know!

Here are some antelope on the way into Brentwood. This is actually on the road into Big Lake, isn't it pretty?

Bruno thought Tom needed a little help navigated the back country roads to get to Brentwood.

Isn't he handsome? He looks so regal here! He's really a little devil!

See? He had a ton of slack on the rope, yet he had to get himself all tangled up! Silly dog. There was a little girl in the campground near ours that called Bruno "skinny dog" the whole time she was there. Where's skinny dog? Do you feed skinny dog? Quite funny!

Some of our extended family reunion attendees are Shirley and Bob, that's my brothers', wife's', mom and step-dad, got that? Good, we'll move on... Anyway, Shirley is so crafty and cool she found the idea for this in a magazine and brought it to life for the girls. It's a pop-up fort, with their own lights, a table with flowers and games to play! What fun!

Here's a peek inside the fort, no adults or boys allowed!

Do you know what will happen when you leave your camera unattended? Random brothers and others that will remain unidentified take all sorts of random pictures and fill up your memory card with crap like this before the big surprise! But I can recognize those hands, and the truck in the reflection, that would be my brother Jon!
Here's another classic random shot, horses @$$!

Are you ready for the Surprise? Yeah, I wasn't either!

Krista and Duane surprised us and got married at Brentwood.

I knew something was up, but the privileged who knew refused to tell me. Good thing they told us the night before, so I could come up with the idea to have her ride in on a horse, how quaint!

That's my dad walking my sister down the isle... a bug must have flew into his eye or something!

Do you take him? Do you take her? I do's all around!

Isn't my sister pretty all dolled up and getting married?

They make a cute couple!

Here's a group shot, everyone except Ashley, she didn't stick around long enough for pictures, there was too much playing to do!

On to regularly scheduled Brentwood Activities - Paint Ball.

Grandpa Kelly and Dustin had it out, and I will have to say that Dustin came out of the fight without a paint drop on him. Unfortunately Grandpa, sustained a few hits. I heard grumblings of a rematch this year. Dustin has only been asking for paint balls ever since!

There are so many pretty places in the White Mountains of North Eastern Arizona. This little bunch of flowers is along side the Black River. One of my favorite places. Any short hike you take, is a nature hike where you run in to all kinds of plants and animals!

See isn't it gorgeous!
That's me and my Bruno next to some pretty flowers... pardon the lack of makeup... who wears makeup when they are camping... not me!

Fishing is a fun thing to do, here's Jon fishing. I don't think he caught anything in the short time we were at the river, probably due to our commotion. Oops!

Oh, wait, he may have caught Bruno! Nope, not quite!

What else is there to do up at Brentwood you ask? Well you can dig big 'ol holes... why? Because you can! What's that pink thing there in the middle?

Oh, it's just Kiely, the littlest member of the Cambern Grandkids for now. She got hole duty. She gets to fill the bucket full of dirt so that the others can empty it! Do you think she likes her job?

This is the result of a lot of hard work!