A totally AWESOME Vacation!

We are back from our 10 day long vacation and it is back to the real world tomorrow.  We had a GREAT time.  This picture above is in St Thomas.  We 4 took a roller coaster ride over a very high mountain with a mad man cab driver.  This is the top of the mountain and you can see the beach in the background that we were heading to.  It was absolutely beautiful.  Josh and Matt had gone parasailing with their teen group from the cruise this day.

This is in St. Martin on a catamaran ride.  We went to a deserted island and snorkeled and hung out on the beach.  We also went to Nassau another day.  The kids all met friends and we didn’t see them much.  Darn!  They had kids clubs for each age and they would do all kind of crazy things and usually show back up in our room about 2:30 am.  This had to be the best family vacation ever and we sure plan to do it again.

St. Martin

View of the beach we went to in St Thomas from the top of a mountain.  It is just so beautiful there.

Our last night on the ship. 

Kendall leaves for the mountains tomorrow and Josh and Matt register for school on Thursday.  My how time flies.  We are ready for another vacation already.

A Sad Day

Cassie 1991-2008

Yestday was a very sad day in our household.  We had to put our very loved Cassie to sleep.  I think it was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.  She was the most special dog ever.  I got her when she would just fit into the palm of your hand, before I had any children.  She went through so much with me including divorce and raising babies alone until Dave.  She helped me to clean babies’ faces, “vaccum” food from the floor and keep me company and lick my tears when I was lonely.  When Dave and I got married she was sleeping in the bed with me and I remember him saying, “Uh, is that dog going to be sleeping with us?”  My answer, “I had Cassie way before you.”  She did sleep with us up until several years ago when she couldn’t jump onto the bed anymore.  She had a GREAT life and was not sick for one day until her arthritis started a few years back.  After medicine was started she was up and running again.  She even ran around the yard up until a few months back when she started going blind.  She started running into things and appearing to be going downhill.  One of her eyes went bad about a month ago and declined rapidly until she looked to be in pain.  In the past few days she was not able to sleep much, started crying, stopped eating and was getting really sick.  After a heart-wrenching decision was made to put her to sleep,  we took her in to Amanda, our AWESOME vet.  She went very peacefully as all of us, along with Amanda stood there and cried.  We will miss that ole girl!!

Our Show Dog

Well, as if the Barr household isn’t crazy enough, Dave decided we needed more craziness and more mouths to feed.  Another dog was found at the lake this past weekend and guess what?….You guess it, it is in our backyard.  We needed another dog so badly.  When he called to say he was bringing her home, I asked what kind she was/or rather what she looked like.  One of Dave’s co-workers shouted in the background, “this is a show dog”.  Well, she is really cute, but no show dog.

Kendall has named her Ellie and says she is her dog.  Actually, I think she is Sammy’s dog.  They play together a lot.  In fact, they are together today.  They are both at the mobile vet for the day.  Ellie is getting shots and checked out and Sammy is getting fixed today.  Sammy is getting quite big.

 

A week from tomorrow, all 6 of us hit the road for Port Canaveral to leave for our cruise.  We are all really excited.  We are going to have a GREAT time!  I will definitely post pics of the Carribean when we get back and make everyone jealous.

July Celebrations

Josh is officially learning to drive.  He passed his learner’s license test.  That was the written one.  The driving part, that is a different story.  We kind of have to learn how to turn without going into ditches.  I am not a very good rider, especially when it comes to a teen.  He got a bass guitar for his birthday.  We celebrated the 4th with Chris on his new boat, with Daniel’s birthday party, and fireworks with our neighbors, the Gerdemans.  We had a great day.

Josh and Payton leave Friday for Gatlinburg with Memaw and Grandaddy and the boys’ friends, Bradley and Stephen.  The day after they get back, we leave for our cruise.  We are all really excited about that.  This has been one busy summer.  Matt went to Colorado to stay with Dave’s Aunt and Uncle for a week in June.  Here he is there

It is beautiful.

We are ready for Dave’s work schedule to let up a bit.  We haven’t seen him much these last several days.  That is another reason I am ready for our cruise.  Hope everyone had as good a 4th as we did.