We went over to visit our dog we no longer own in July and I just can’t get over how big she has gotten. She was just a little excited to have some company over and was running around like crazy with the boys on one of the hottest days of the year. The poor puppy just wanted to go back inside and lay by the a/c. Smarty.

Thanks so much to Wrigley’s family for the visit as always!Always so smiley, even when hot. And yes, I still miss her but so glad she’s in a great home with lots of love. And we get to visit.Pictures and story from the California & Arizona adventure will be up on the blog soon. Shooting for next week- but we have a weekend full of very fun activities planned including 2 reunions, so we’ll see it all works out. I do promise the vacation pictures will be on the blog before Christmas though.

Timmy’s goldfish, Spudnick (named completely by him) took a turn for the worse a few weeks ago and stopped eating. I knew it was getting close to the end of his long (for a goldfish, 3 years!) life so I warned Timmy ahead of time that it was probably coming soon. Spudnick was the toughest fish I ever met, surviving for an undetermined amount of time in a bowl with no water. We came upstairs one night to find that his bowl must’ve had a crack in it and the entire bowl’s worth of water was now all over the carpeted floor of Timmy’s room and Spudnick gasping for breath, but somehow still alive, at the bottom of the bowl. It was a few weeks after that episode for his room to stop stinking like mildew (big thanks to the great people at GiGi carpet cleaning who came right away to clean stuff up, and the air filter from Target was a big help too) but he lasted for a few months after the near suffocating episode and seemed fine in between. Like I said, one tough fishie.

We miss him (yes, even me) especially at night before bed when he would see us come into Timmy’s room and gulp at the top of the waterline waiting for his dinner. You would hear little “ploop ploop” sounds from him until Timmy (and more often than not, I) fell asleep. You were a great pet, Spudnick. Hope you’re enjoying that big fish tank in the sky!

Timmy insisted on a real burial in the backyard, no burial “at sea” (read: down the toilet) would do for his favorite fish. There was a funeral and everything. And of course a Tiffany box. No skimping on Spudnick. (the red pebble was from his bowl; Timmy insisted that it accompany him to the great beyond.)
The mourners. (mostly wearing orange in honor of Spudnick.)Such a good brother.Making the headstone.(it says rip Spudnick 2010-2013)And as far as we can tell, no raccoons or anything have tried to exhume the fish. Timmy’s doing just fine and is looking forward to a new fish after we get back from vacation. One last shout out to “Mrs. Ow W” (aka Beth Wollweber) for always taking care of Spudnick whenever we were on vacation and for coming by with a rose for his gravesite after the funeral.

Patrick UPDATE: sorry, I forgot to update here on the blog-only updated on Facebook. Patrick was released from the hospital within the same day as the double ER visit after being admitted to a room for observation and more fluids. He had one bag of IV antibiotics and 4 huge bags of fluid over the course of the 18 hours we were there between the ER and the room. They decided it was not appendicitis since his symptoms improved instead of getting worse, but that it was a bacterial gastro infection made much worse by the heat & dehydration from the 90+ degree baseball tournament for 3 days. Thanks to all of you who have asked after him. He is totally fine and back to eating like crazy, sleeping long teenaged hours and playing baseball. I’m slowly catching up on editing galleries and doing the rest of my work as much as I can before vacation from 8/2-22. Pressure!!!