Ben's doctor appointment was for 9:30, so at about 9:00, I got the kids all loaded up and dropped most of them off at Katie's and then took Ben to the doctor. He was pretty nervous about it even though he knew he wouldn't be getting any shots. He's healthy and is about 45 inches tall and weighs 54 pounds. That's 50% and 75%, respectively. Basically where he's always been in the percentages.
After Ben's appointment, we picked up his brothers, I ran in our house for a minute to change Daniel's diaper, put the stroller in the van and grabbed a couple of bottles of water, and we headed out to the nature center. Ben didn't get to go there when we went with Alex's preschool, so he really wanted to go. They all had a really good time looking at all the fish in the water and seeing the bat boxes and trying to spot birds and squirrels.
Here is a picture of the reflection of Alex and Chris off the glass by the fish:
Ben and Alex (and Chris, although you can't see Chris in the picture) trying to see the birds and squirrels:
Ben took this picture of the fish:
Chris and Daniel are in the stroller ready to move on:
This is a spot on the trail where you can get up next to the stream. Ben and Alex thought it was cool to go up and touch the water:
This is where Daniel hung out most of the time. He wanted to get a closer look though:
This is Daniel getting his closer look with his brothers:
This is the 3 older boys looking at the fish:
When we finished at the nature center, we picked Bryce up from work and took him to lunch at Pizza Hut. Of course, that ended up making us a bit late, so we had to hurry when we left there and I dropped the kids off at Katie's again, ran home to grab the dog (with a minute of frantic searching for his leash, since the boys like to play with it), and rushed to his vet appointment. I had called them on the way to let them know I'd be about 10 or so minutes late, and was about that late.
I've always been used to dogs that get the smell of the vet's office at the door and then stop and really don't want to go in. Ozzy, on the other hand, gets the smell of the other dogs in the vet's office and really, really wants to go in to find someone to play. Kind of funny that the last couple of times we've gone in, there's been a dachshund there. This appointment was the follow-up one to see how he's been doing on the Rimadyl. Each time we go in, it's a different vet who actually looks at him, but they do seem to agree quite often. This vet took at look at him and looked at his chart and then asked me how old he is and said, "Wow. So what are you going to do?" She was saying how whatever we end up doing, we're going to end up with pain for him. They can do hip replacements that help them, but those are really painful surgeries (not to mention expensive...she told me about her friend who was just quoted $20,000 for her dog's hip replacement, but that included another procedure too). She was the first vet who seemed to agree with us that Ozzy has something wrong with his knees too. She said his hips, knees, and ankles all look bad. She suggested that we take his x-rays and get an examination/consultation from an orthopedic vet to see what they'd say as far as options. They might recommend surgery (and she said not to feel bad if they recommended that and we didn't do it), or they might say that with all the other stuff he has going on, surgery really wouldn't help. I did get the feeling from her that she thought that putting him down within the next few years would be something we'll have to consider. She told me how she gets to have her hips replaced next month, so she really feels for the dogs that have hip problems. They did some bloodwork on Ozzy to check his kidney and liver function so we could make sure he was healthy there before we keep giving him Rimadyl, since it can cause issues with the kidneys and liver. In any case, we feel bad for our poor, big, dumb dog who has such a bad back end. (And in case you were wondering, yes, his parents were OFA certified, which means they had the x-rays and tests to make sure they didn't have hip dysplasia.)
After the vet appointment, I picked up the kids from Katie's again and we came home where they ate some of their leftover pizza. I was home for a little over an hour, then left again to drive to the vet's office again to pick up some more Rimadyl, since Ozzy's bloodwork came back and everything was perfect, then drove out to my dentist appointment. I got there a little early, but they still took me right back. They took off the "bandaid" and then took out the stitches. The one in the back by the jaw hinge really kind of hurt when they took it out. So far it's healing fine. The dentist wanted to check it out again right before they do the crown build-up, so they were having me try to schedule with him on the same day as my next appointment. That's when we discovered that my regular dentist will no longer be working on the day I was scheduled, so we had to reschedule that one for about 2 weeks later. Hopefully the gums won't go back up and get in the way of the crown build-up by then.
On the way home, I stopped by a neighbor's house to get their key and their instructions on how they want me to feed their dogs when they go to San Francisco to take their son to the Neuro-oncologist for treatment for his inoperable brain tumor. They're not sure how long they'll be down there. I had offered to take care of their dogs for them and keep an eye on their house (I can see it from my house) while they're away, and they decided to take me up on it. Hopefully things will go well for them in San Francisco and they'll be able to get everything taken care of quickly and the prognosis will be good.
And finally, last night after I got home, we sat down and tried to take a quick (not a great one) family group picture to send to Bryce's uncle for their family reunion this weekend. It's not always easy to get a decent-looking picture when one uses the timer and there is no one to keep the kids' attention focused on the camera. So we just took a couple and sent them one that looked okay. Even despite Alex's frowning because he wanted to sit on the chair and didn't want to stand.
Bryce wondered why I didn't delete the ones that really didn't turn out. I think it's kind of fun to see our chaos.
Here's take 1. Bryce was trying to hurry and hand Daniel to me, since he wasn't happy on his dad's lap:
And take 2 (you'll notice I'm not in it...I forgot that my camera doesn't stay on the timer setting and you have to reset that each time):
And take 3, which is the one we said was good enough:
