Ouch.

Bacardi is one lucky dog.  And we are two very lucky dog owners!

Thursday I decided to take Bacardi with me when I went out to my parents house to watch my nephew.  It had been awhile since he had been out there to play with his pal, Jimmer.  

Bacardi and Jimmer have always stayed in the yard, on the canal or out with the horses.  But, they have never gone past the horses in the back or past the horse pasture in the front...except for the last few times Bacardi was out there they went for a little visit to the Mastif who belongs to our backyard neighbors.  That is part of the reason why I stopped taking Bacardi out to my parents because those two dogs are trouble and Bacardi was 'misbehaving'.  

Well I checked on them before I sat down to feed Asher and try to put him to sleep.  A little while later the doorbell rang and Dallin ran off to get the door.  I stopped him because I wasn't expecting people and I didn't want him opening the door for strangers.  So I hurry up with baby in tow to get the door and I find a young lady holding Jimmer by his collar and Bacardi is laying on the grass. 

My first thought was that they did something to her and I was in big trouble.  Turns out that she hit my dog with her car.  She was pretty upset and I felt super bad for her, especially when I found out that she was wearing a heart monitor because of her heart surgery she had had.  Yikes!!!  

I could see Bacardi try to get up and he would limp very badly and was bleeding.  She said that she saw Jimmer across the street (see....bad dog!!) and she saw Bacardi but didn't think that he was going to dart out into the road.  Bacardi has been trained never to go out on to the street but, as I said, he and Jimmer are trouble and it's bothersome.  Obviously Bacardi did dart out in front of her and she hit him and he rolled a couple times.  I'm thankful that she stopped and came to the door to let me know!

I immediately called my vet...who couldn't see him that day.  So I grabbed Gaven and found out where he had had to take Jimmer so often and they said to bring him in.  They were incredibly nice and fast.  As soon as I got there they took Barcadi to the back and I filled out paperwork.  Then the vet came and got me and explained what he was finding and that he would like to do an X-Ray.  The X-Ray showed a chip fracture at the top of his left back leg, which is way he was limping so bad.  He was also in shock and so they wanted to put him on fluids so they could watch him for the rest of the day and then let me know how things were going.  I was able to pick him up at the end of the day.

By the time we got home, you couldn't even tell he had been in an accident! His pain meds helped with that I'm sure because the next day he was acting mighty sore.  Poor pup!!!  As I said, we are super lucky that it wasn't worse and that he didn't end up dead. 

More Ice Capades??? Sure!!!

We planned to go ice skating again so that more people could make it...and then last minute we were still down four people - oh well!!

This time around, we made sure to bring the stroller so that we could take Asher out on the ice with us!  It was super cute and we could do lots of fun twirls with him.  We even played 'Catch the Stroller!'

Bronsynn was full of poses all night long: 

Disco Ice Skaters: 

Paul apparently felt that he needed some protection for his nugget, too bad that was a kid's helmet: 

Having a good time: 

Temple Lights

Thursday night we went down town with Rachelle and Jesse as we did last year.  

Asher was a ball of warmth!  I didn't know how cold it was going to be and I wanted to be sure this little guy would be sufficiently warm so he had on a long sleeve onesie, some thermal type pants, a long sleeve thermal shirt, sweat pants, THREE pairs of socks, & slippers.  AND THEN! on top of that a pair of pajamas, his romper and a super fuzzy hat!  We wrapped him up in a blanket and wrapped a scarf around the front of his face to keep the wind from making his face cold.  

Mission Accomplished!!  He was so toasty warm he fell asleep on our little adventure!:

Rachelle & Jesse: 

The four...woops, Five!.. of us near in front of the reflection pond: 

I also made sure that I was super warm because I can not enjoy the lights if I am cold: 

Love the colors in this pic!: 

Yay!  Christmas is almost here!  I am always glad to be able to go the temple and have such beautiful reminders of why we celebrate Christmas!

I Want A Pony

...or at least that's what I imagine he'd ask for if he could.  

I am pretty sure that when Santa comes to you and the line is 10 people long that it is WAAAAAY better than finding Santa yourself and standing in a line of 100 people :)  

Our ward Christmas party last night was such a hit and I loved Santa's little room.  Asher was SOOO excited to meet Santa.  ha ha, kidding of course.  If the little tank knew what the hullabaloo was going on, I'm sure he would have been :)

Ice Ice Baby!!

 This year we switched it up and tried out the Olympic Oval for our new annual Ice Skating tradition.  We liked it very much and since we were missing nearly half the family we are going to go again in a couple weeks.  Yay!!  

Paul and Asher:

Awww!!! Family photo!  Asher says: "This is so gay.  These people are lame.  Why do I always have to pose for these things??   WHY???" 

Amanda had quite the night....filled with many of these "Ohhhhhhh Snaaaaaaappp!!"  in slow-mo.  :)  She is currently sporting many MANY bruises!:

Aiden was getting so frustrated because 'he couldn't skate'!  I had to sit down with him and explain why he has to keep his skate flat so his toe pick wouldn't keep tripping him up.  He was convinced that hockey skates would be so much better for him.  We made him master the figure skates first and then he went and switched his skates...and just as we told him...he hated the hockey skates and switched back after one lap!  

And towards the end of the night, the traffic was much less and so we just hung out at our spot and danced, and pretended to be Pros, and slid around, and Amanda,  aka the Red Polar Bear, constantly took me and Amber down:

People Are Crazy

I found something in the Black Friday ads that I really wanted.  I had no hope of getting it, of course, but who knows? It was worth a shot and Bronsynn came with me for fun. The destinations: Walmart's 10:00 PM Sale.

We left from Thanksgiving dinner separately from Paul and when I saw the parking lot from Bangeter, I nearly kept on driving.  I thought "Well maybe there will be room in the shops at the back."  Ha Ha.  What we noticed was people parking at the Home Depot across the street and running to Walmart.

New Plan:  Drop Bronsynn off nearest the entrance without actually entering the zoo of a parking lot.  Have her run in and scope things out.  Find parking spot and join in.

Ha ha!!!  Parking took a while as it made it's way under the highway and all the way back to the new Riverton Baseball diamonds.  I did find a spot and made it twenty feet from the truck when Bronsynn called at 9:50 and said they started the sale early, it was a mad house, and everything was already gone.

Perfect.  Well that was fun.  I picked her up in the same place (seriously it was C.R.A.Z.Y. there) and she told me how the produce area was literally crammed tight like sardines with people waiting for the deals to open.  She ran through people and ducked and twisted and got back to the DVD's and such and found people swarming it like it was the last morsel of food on earth.  And THEN, she witnessed a man throw his daughter over people into a pile of barbies so that she could nab the one she wanted.

Sometimes I wonder at mankind.

Thanksgiving Festivities

THANKSGIVING:

 the act of giving thanks; grateful acknowledgment of benefits or favors, especially to God.

The thing I look forward to the most is traditions with family.  I love that every year I get together with my female Madsens and spend an entire evening making and baking pies.  I love that my dad's extended family comes over for a huge feast, usually the week before Thanksgiving.  I love that it starts the Christmas season by name drawing.  I love to have laughs at the dinner table and then spend the rest of the night sprawled over the carpet going through Black Friday ads (and then battling the crazies and early a.m. hours for a couple great deals).  

This Thanksgiving was one of the funnest I've had.  It started out with a little pie baking - Asher tagged along and kept me company while I made an Apple Crumble Pie. 

Dallin helped out Grandma by separating pumpkin seeds so my mom could make Pumpkin Pie straight from the pumpkin!!!:

Then we enjoyed the company of all the Madsen's, which is really quite fun and crazy.  I have a blast.  It started off with some paper airplane making with Uncle Paul: 

And Grandma showed these little whipper snappers how to make a real airplane, not one of those fancy schmancy ones from the airplane book :) 

My camera battery unfortunately died and so I don't have any fun pics of the family.

But come Thanksgiving Day, my battery was fully charged and ready for action.  This year was supposed to be our 'Off' year.  However, for several reasons my family ended up being 'on' again, which ended up being great for us since Paul's family had to cancel due to a sick kid.  

So initially my mom and dad were planning on taking Gaven and Amber out shooting...but then Paul and I had no where else to be so we joined in the fun...and then Amanda and Kenny didn't want to be left out so they came along as well!  Almost a full house.

We headed clear the heck out to the boonies to shoot - and the setting was gorgeous and it was a BLAST! (ha ha pun not intended...or maybe it was)

It was a perfect day for Asher to wear his Carhartt gear!  I was so excited to get a picture of him wearing this with my dad since my dad has Carhartt coming out of his ears! Isn't he CUTE??!  (That was a rhetorical question.  The answer is yes, of course). 

We all got a kick out of Gaven's style for the day: 

My high school sweetheart (literally, they were!) parents: 

       

  

Later at dinner - our first Thanksgiving with Asher Pants:

Asher in a Johnny Jump-up for the first time....he'll work at the jumping part :) 

Gaven took over Samantha's back tickling...with a pen.  Morgan was given a 'Tramp Stramp.' 

The boys played in Grandpa's hunting fort: 

And Asher was victim of Dad! 

That was a lot of photos I know...but I was too lazy to collage them. 

Yay!!!  Now to get busy with Christmas!