Amanda and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary yesterday! We started off the day at the Sandwich Fair eating some french fries, snow cone, and fried dough. We then took our chances on one of the rides and that was enough excitement for the morning.

We went home and took a nap in the sun puddle on the porch. We then hit a few golf balls at the driving range and then went to dinner for the "all you can eat fried chicken" at George's Diner. We were 20 minutes too early so we walked around Meredith for a little bit and stopped into the "Fermentation Station".

While Amanda browsed the humidor, I spoke with the very knowledgable fermentation specialist and we ended up buying a "make your own wine" package. We are going to start off simple, 30 bottles of Cabernet, bottling will be ready in 4 weeks, and then batch tastings will begin in 4 months. Joe & Julia, this is your official invitation to assist in our batch tastings!

After our llittle adventure, we went back for the fried chicken and we mulled over names for our intitial bottling. Here were some of the ideas:

Bianca Lou Wines
Blou Bear Wines
Moo Bear Wines

I think we are leaning towards Blou Bear (pronounced - Blue Bear). If our wine test goes well, we have aspirations of root bear and scotch!

Oh, and pictures of Buckley can be seen here:
http://www.sstrixie.com/pics/index.php?&f=family/furry_friends/buckley

I did the overnight visit with my mom and Aunt Toni and we had a hoot - ordered pizza, stayed up late, joked around, etc. The fun part was changing the wet bed at 1:30 and 6:30 in the morning. I can't even imagine how it must feel to have your own daughter change your diaper. At the same time, I did it without hesitation. That's what a family does for one another and I feel fortunate to have my family close.

On Friday, as I was learning how to change the dressing on her wounds, I nearly fainted! I have seen these several times and have numerous pictures for our records, but for some reason, that day was different. The severeity of this long-running situation, I think, got to me and I became light-headed and had to step out of the room. The other thing was that they found another tunnel about 2 inches deep in her lower wound and when the wound specialist was probing, I think that just put me over the edge.

After complaining about an upset stomach and the new larger tunnel, Mom went for a contrast CAT scan and they found "masses" on her liver. We are hoping it is just some scar tissue as the docs at BMC did a liver repair to put it back in the right position, but anything with the liver needs to be addressed quickly. She is going for a liver MRI and another contrast CAT scan on Tuesday so they can get a better look at what is going on.

Please keep her in your thoughts. She was supposed to be going home on Wednesday, but they are going to wait for the results of this test so we'll just go from there. I'll keep everyone posted.

It's been a pretty hectic week.

Friday: picked up Buckley our new Cavalier (he was flea infested and a wee bit thin), but otherwise healthy. Two flea bathes later and he got to meet Clem & Henri.

Saturday: We took Buckley to the vet and aside from the massive skin problem from the fleas, he is in good health. He's on a pretty heavy dose of steroids and antibiotics. Amanda picks up her Cousin Marci from the Airport. I cook a nice home cooked meal for us all.

Sunday: We attended CATHOLIC mass and Amanda manages to talk it up with the greeter and he insisted that we assist him in bringing up the offering. That was all well and good until we refused communion (since we aren't catholic) and everyone just stared at us! I wonder if he would have asked if he knew we were lesbians? We then had lunch and dinner with Gusti & Charlie and a grand day by the fire.

Monday: Cousin Marci was off leaf-peeping while I tried to finish up a website to go live today. I tried taking both Clem & Buckley to the office, but the new boy needs to learn some manners before that will work out.

Tuesday: Worked at home again so I could work with Buckley a bit more and when Amanda came home, we took them all down to Fox Run Park. Everyone did quite well off-leash, but we still have work to do!

And tomorrow, I'm going to be spending the night at Mom's re-hab facility to complete and "overnight" so that I can be trained for emergency situations that may arise when Mom goes home next week!!!