Friends

Dog Life

We have only ever been a one dog family. Marley was our spoiled only fur child and he loved every minute of it. However, a few turn of events about two months ago changed our lives forever.

I am a volunteer dog walker at our local shelter, the Dumb Friends League, in Denver. It’s one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done in my life. It’s so simple, but I get so much joy out of meeting loving dogs and being able to spend some time with them each week walking around outside.

Well, one day I had just 10 minutes or so left in my shift and since that’s not long enough to take another one out on a walk, I figured I’d walk around one of the back rooms to see if anyone needed a few scratches. I saw Rocky immediately, went into his little area with him and gave him some love. My husband, Anthony, had been wanting a German Short-haired Pointer for years… so I snapped a quick photo of him and went home.

When I showed Anthony who I found that day, he fell in love instantly! I called about him the next day to get more information and put my name on the waiting list for him. He was relinquished by his previous owner due to the fact that they had to move and the new location didn’t allow larger dogs. So sweet, sweet, 8 month old Rocky was left alone at Dumb Friends League. Thankfully, the previous owner chose the absolute best place to take him in this situation. I can’t say enough about the wonderful work that DFL does.

Anyway, about a week later, I received a phone call from DFL saying that Rocky was ready to go home. I was pretty surprised that everything happened so fast!! So, after talking it over with Anthony, we decided to take Marley to meet him that day.

They ran and played and peed over the same spots outside in the dog run area for a good twenty minutes. So, we took Marley home, and came back later that evening to pick Rocky up and bring him home.

He was so happy to have a home again. I can’t imagine how confused he must have been after being dropped off at DFL.

The last two months have been quite exciting, in good ways and bad. About a month ago, Rocky cut his foot on something in the backyard so he had to get stitches and heal from that for a few weeks…

He’s all healed up from that, but now he’s currently dealing with a tummy issue from eating a Rice-e-roni empty seasoning packet he grabbed off the kitchen counter. Geez. This guy. He’s getting bigger, but still acts like a puppy most of the time.

Marley has gotten more and more used to him the more time passes. He is always so interested in how ‘healthy’ he is and makes sure to sniff all the right spots, haha! They play tug together and love to get snacks! The hardest part is that they both LOVE to cuddle… usually with the same person at the same time. That’s not a bad problem to have, I’d say.

I had no idea how much crazier having two dogs is compared to just one, but man, do we have an overload of furry love in our home now! My recent Amazon shopping list has consisted of dog vitamins, grass pills, ear cleaner, lint rollers, and Clorox wipes, among other things. There’s little pieces of toys EVERYWHERE. I vacuum about once a day and constantly have to refill water bowls. I LOVE these guys so much I can hardly stand it. But, in reality, Anthony deserves most of the credit for taking care of them during the day. We’re blessed that his current job is able to be done remotely from home so he has been with them pretty much 24-7. We’ll take shifts when we can so he can escape once in awhile, but he’s done a fantastic job! I love being a dog parent, no matter how messy and stressful is it at times. These guys provide so much unconditional love and companionship it makes everything worth it!

Total Eclipse 2017

Anthony, Marles and I went out last weekend, along with hundreds of thousands of other people, to see the total eclipse on August 21st. We went camping on some land outside of Guernsey, WY for two days and it was so much fun! We were lucky enough to be able to borrow Anthony’s Aunt and Uncle’s pop-up camper and it worked out perfectly. Marley and I were both camping virgins, but we all had a blast!

The only trouble we had was a pesky raccoon the first night, and the thunderous booms coming from the nearby quarry that scared Marley the second night 😉

I had no idea how beautiful the total eclipse was going to be. I’d seen a partial years and years ago in elementary school, but being outside and waiting for totality was very exciting. When it happened, it reminded of me of how small I am in this vast universe and what an all powerful God we serve to have created such an awesome scientific phenomenon.

A few minutes before the moon fully covered the sun’s rays, the air got cooler, and the surroundings got darker… it was magical. If you’d like to see more incredible pictures, check out Anthony’s Instagram @a.ropkin. During totality, I couldn’t stop staring at the burst of glittery, misty sunbursts from behind the moon. It’s really hard to describe how cool it was to experience. The beautiful, darkened light that surrounded us and the rocky hills where we were camping was hypnotizing. I just wanted to soak it all in for the short time we had.

Thankfully, we escaped all the crazy traffic by driving up on Sunday afternoon and driving back to Denver on Tuesday morning. I wasn’t sure how I would do camping, let’s be honest, I wouldn’t ever call myself an outdoors-woman! But it was great 🙂

I’ll leave you with this precious face of pure happiness…

#urbanlife

I meant to post this weeks ago but better late than never!

A couple of months ago, Anthony and I went out on a lovely summer evening to LoDo Denver, CO. He has gotten into photography over the last six months and just continues to improve. He had a pretty specific idea of what he wanted to capture and create using smoke bombs. Our locations included an upper level of a parking garage and an alley behind our friend’s condo.

As we were preparing for the outing, he asked me to pull together an outfit that portrayed an urban/street look. I laughed. When your wardrobe consists of pieces from LulaRoe, Gap and Target, ‘street’ is not what comes to mind! So, I took a quick trip to my local Goodwill store and found a couple pieces to help me out. I thankfully already had the shoes and hat… somehow.

We started in the garage for ‘golden hour’… meaning right before sunset, if you’re not accustomed to photographer lingo 😉 I’m learning a lot of new terms thanks to Anthony! The top image was created using a gold smoke bomb in the parking garage and Anthony’s knowledge and use of light and angles. We thought it turned out pretty amazing!

I didn’t start to feel real awkward until we were in the alley, more visible to the public. We had a few people stop and ask what we were doing, especially once the smoke started billowing. It seemed like people assumed he was a professional photographer and we were shooting for some magazine or something.

I was definitely out of my comfort zone being the focus of these pictures… especially dressed pretty much as someone else. I felt ridiculous at times… but that’s part of the artistic process for the sake of Anthony’s shots. We had a really great time and I’d love to help out again, until he finds better models, of course!

The Day Juan Killed Lola

The thing about tragedies is that you think you should be able to see them coming. My Tuesday was going so well, I hadn’t felt that excited in months… I received an email congratulating me on being chosen to purchase tickets to the 2018 Masters. It’s been a dream of Anthony’s to go since he was a kid. And the more time I spend on a golf course, not golfing, but still… the more I enjoy it! I love spending time outside in on a beautiful course with a Pinot Grigio in my hand 🙂 Anyway, so that was such exciting news I could barely stand it. That same day our house was getting new gutters installed in preparation for the exterior paint job happening the following week.

I was driving out of my parking garage at work literally saying out loud, “What a good day!” Approximately 3-5 minutes later, that all changed. I was thinking about making plans for our future travel to Georgia when my light turned green, I accelerated for a few seconds, then BAM! I was hit on my driver’s side door as my car glided through the intersection and stopped on the other side. I remember seeing the front end of another car in my left peripheral vision just before impact. Everything was foggy for a moment until the insides of my side airbags had settled and the glass from my side window had fallen all around me.

After I caught my breath, realized what happened and looked at myself to make sure I was ok, I looked around for my phone, reached down to my floorboard to pick it up and called 911. After explaining what had happened to dispatch, I opened my crushed door and pushed it ajar. There were three women standing outside my car, helping me out, asking me if I was ok. I was… just in a little bit of shock! I looked around to see the other car, still in the intersection, and the driver… Juan. Juan was on the phone as well, doing the same thing I was doing.

I then called my husband, Anthony, to let him know what had happened. I tried to say in the calmest voice I could muster, I was in an accident, I’m okay, and it wasn’t my fault. You may laugh and ask why I needed to say it wasn’t my fault? I have had a few other minor occurrences with fender benders and they were all my fault… not something I ever want to have to tell Anthony again. So, I got all of that out, but of course couldn’t hold it together and started to cry a little. He calmed me down, asked me again if I was ok and said he was on his way.

The moment I looked at my precious Lola, I couldn’t stop the tears. I loved my car, Lola, probably too much. I had her for three years and that wasn’t near long enough. She was a Lexus CT200h… not the highest end Lexus by any means, probably one of the cheapest, actually. But she was a fun dark amethyst/brown color called Fire Agate Pearl…. hatchback, hybrid, vegan leather interior, fancy brand… everything I loved!

The women standing outside were all surprised to see me in such good condition after seeing what had happened. I was, and still am, so thankful for Lola. She held up like a champ to protect me. All I had was a large scratch/burn from my seat-belt and some soreness for a couple of days. Definitely more emotional and mental injuries than physical.

Chastity also works at the hospital, was in her car behind me when the accident happened, and stayed the whole time to be a witness for the police report. She deserves major ‘good and decent human being’ points! I was so thankful for her! It’s so much easier for the police to get the correct facts when it’s not just one person’s word against the other.

After the paramedics left and the police report was filed, Lola was towed away. Anthony was with me and we left to go home. I was so hot, so in shock, and so tired. I still had hope at this moment that Lola would be able to be repaired and I could once again have her in my life. I was just thankful to not be hurt and to have Anthony drive me home and be with me. The fire department paramedics told me to drink a lot of water that evening… you’re sure water is best, not wine??

The next day I was instructed to follow up on a lot of things with insurance, and to go to the tow yard where Lola had spent the night and remove all my items. So we went… I saw her, there with all the other wrecked and scrapped vehicles… it broke my heart. I went up to her, saw the damage again and thought how much worse I could have been hurt. I took everything out, looked her over once again, touched the unscathed passenger side and left.

It wasn’t until two days later I received the email from my insurance company with the value estimate of Lola, telling me she was a total loss. And then I lost it again… so angry, so frustrated, and so sad. I realized then I will never see her again. I will only have the wonderful memories of having her as a part of our family for the short time that we did and once again how thankful I am for her protection on that fateful Tuesday.

Moral of my story…. Don’t get too attached to your cars? No. Don’t have really good days? Of course not. Probably just look both ways at an intersection even if your light is green 🙂 Don’t let a Juan ruin your really good day, or your overly attached relationship to your car!

Road-trip!

I returned home last Saturday from a fantastic road trip I took with a few friends of mine. We took off at 7:00am Saturday morning and drove (I rode) 12 hours from Denver to St. Louis. A short stay at the Marriott Courtyard ended with leaving at 7:00am again on Sunday and drove (I again rode) from St. Louis all the way to Bensalem, PA. Thanks to Mad Libs and snacks, we all survived.

I have to say, the scenery on the second day of the road-trip was much more pleasant. No offense to Kansas!

I drank a lot of coffee…

We were so happy to arrive in Bensalem, which is outside of Philadelphia. The whole reason we embarked on this journey was for my friend, Danielle. Her boyfriend, Caleb, is a relief pitcher for a minor league baseball team in New Jersey, the Trenton Thunder. Danielle is a teacher and is staying the summer in Bensalem. Her mom, Michelle, Caleb’s mom, Julie, and I came along for the ride!

We went to New York City for a day, brand new city for me! It was chilly and rainy all day but we made the best of it!

We saw a few of the big main attractions… The Empire State Building, Times Square, and the 9/11 Memorial.

Times Square was pretty much what I expected it to be… huge! Unfortunately the rain made it a bit messy, but so cool nonetheless! We even made a stop in the crowded Times Square Starbucks.

I have to say, the 9/11 Memorial will always remain a strong memory for the rest of my life. It was so eerie. I quietly walked around the two memorial fountains and read the names of the people who lost their lives; trying to comprehend the fact that each and every name I read was someone’s spouse, mother, father, sister, brother, friend, etc. I can’t help but let the tears come as I write about it just the way they did while I walked around the fountains. It’s unimaginable for me to understand what it was like in that very place sixteen years ago. I guess I can count myself blessed to not know the terror that so many lived and saw firsthand that day.

After we gathered our emotions, we walked to George’s just a few blocks away. It was great! Seemed like an established, local place to go for lunch on a normal Manhattan day 🙂

I had to get cheesecake, it’s New York!

A short walk down the street is Trinity Church…

This church has been established since 1698 and continues to play a major role in the Episcopal faith and outreach in the New York area.

We were able to take a quick step inside to admire the beautiful architecture and stained glass. Breathtaking!

We spent most evenings at Caleb’s baseball games, which was so fun! Go Caleb!

One of my favorite things about the Trenton Thunder is their two bat dogs, Derby and Rookie. They run out and pick up the bats! Adorable! Danielle even bought a baseball with Rookie’s face on it for Marley 🙂

The next tourist outing we had was a short drive to Philly. The day included the Liberty Bell, Betsy Ross’ house, Ben Franklin’s grave, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art with the ‘Rocky Steps’. Busy day!