One

I can't believe our pup is one. We've only had her 8 months but wanted to celebrate this momentous occassion, especially since 7 years have passed for her in 365 short little days. We welcomed Maggie to our home with a sense of excitement and trepidation. I'd never had a pet before and didn't know anything about taking care of them. After lots of hard work, and lots of poo, we're definitely a family.

Maggie is the epitome of enjoying life. She's always excited to do anything and meet anyone (except cats). She makes you feel love continually and will kiss you all over your face. She's taught us patience, love and made us have an extra tender heart for little furry creatures (except cats). Every time we see a dog we stop to say hi or pet it and miss our little bulldog. She's a head-strong one, but you couldn't find one more loveable.

She's silky smooth and she likes to cuddle when we take naps. She love to play and wrestle with her dad. Her health issues have given us a scare recently but we're so grateful for the tender mercies of the Lord that I was there when the worst happened and was able to get her the help she needed. Reminds us of the scripture that God loves all creatures.

We're thrilled to have her in our home and she definitely makes us feel more complete. We love our Mags! Happy Birthday Puppy!

We celebrated with a BBQ of hot "dogs" and cupcakes with family. I tried my hand at some orange cupcakes and chocolate peanut butter (and Funfetti from the box). They turned out so great!

We feel so blessed to have so many people around who love Maggie as much as we do. She was tired before the party even started! She loved that so many people were around and played, and played and played. We only fed her half her dinner because we knew she'd receive many scraps from the table. We tried to get her to wear a party hat but she hated it. She'd shake her head to try and get it off. It was hilarious to watch her try and paw it off her head because she couldn't reach it. She provided us a lot of entertainment through her humiliation.

We brought out the cake for her and it took a minute for it was soften up a bit where should could take a good bite out of it. I ordered the cake from a dog bakery in San Diego. They were great to work with and it got here in one piece and was absolutely adorable! I couldn't have been more pleased. Maggie was also spoiled with gifts of treats and toys. We gave her a ball and she popped it in 5 minutes. Good thing it was only $5.
She was so exhausted after all the festivities she could barely walk up the stairs. I had to lift her into the car. But she still woke up at 1:45 a.m. wanting to play with her new toys! I finally put her back to bed at 2:45 a.m. since she was making so much noise I couldn't sleep and she was back up at 6 wanting to play! What a fun day for her!

Off the Charts

Monday I woke up to go to the gym and heard Mags and ran down and she was having a seizure. She was all foamy and her legs were giving out and she was disoriented. I got her out and wiped her mouth (which made her jump) and she started frantically panting so I got her some water (which she wouldn't drink) and she was wandering around. We went upstairs and I tried to get her to lay down and relax and she kept wandering so I called Dal to tell him what was going on and she sniffed the wall then her legs gave out and she started shaking a little then more violently then had another seizure. She started choking on her foam so I was watching her struggling to breathe and it was just awful. I told Dallin I was taking her to the vet and got in the car. I unrolled the window and she stuck her head out like normal then she curled into a ball and seized while I was driving. So I had my hand back there to keep her from falling off the seat and she foamed my car big time. So at the vet she was way out of sorts and NOT happy to be there. She kept trying to jump off the platform so I got her in face so she could smell and see me and she calmed right down. The vet was impressed that she was so coherent right after a seizure, especially 3 within 20 min. So they kept her for observation in case they needed to push Valium because they really didn't want her having another one.

They did blood work and it came back that her levels on her current seizure meds were only 12 and they have to been minimum 15-45 to be therapeutic. So the medicine for the last three weeks really hasn't been helping her that much. Probably because she's 58 pounds now! So they decided to double her dosage and recheck her levels in 2 weeks. The vet has been so great to show concern, take time to answer my questions, so understanding and even gave me his cell number in case I needed to call him after hours if she had a seizure. I think she had one Saturday and Sunday morning because I found her laying on the ground with a wet belly. I thought it was pee but now I realize it was actually foam. I'm so grateful I was home on Monday to help her and go get her some help.

My dear, sweet, neighbor has been coming over multiple times a day this week to check on her and give her a treat, then text me how she's doing. It's helped SO immensely because my anxiety has been out of control with all this. And I'm SO busy at work that I need to concentrate but can't because I'm thinking about Mags. So she's helped alleviate that. Dallin and I haven't been sleeping well at night because every little sound she makes sends us into a panic so by midnight, I usually just go get her and bring her to our bed so we can relax. But then she sleeps sideways and I don't get much sleep anyway, but at least I know she's safe.

We love our little (big) pup and hope she's on the mend!

On the Strip

My work sent me and my 2 coworkers to Vegas to Photoshop World. I was really excited to go because I've been itching for a change of scenery for months and I've always wanted to go to this conference. The conference was cool, I learned a lot of new techniques and got a lot of new ideas. Once I have a chance to put them to use, I'll post some of the coolness I come up with, lol. About 75% of the classes I went to were worthwhile. There were a couple I just played Angry Birds during. I'm exhausted from the conference though. For some reason the guys wanted to meet at 7:15 every morning when the conference didn't start until 8:15 so they could get a good seat. UGH! The classes also went until 7 or 8 at night so we'd be eating dinner around 9 - my brain was fried!

This trip to Vegas entailed my first trip to Trader Joe's. So cool! I went to dinner with my cousin and his wife and their kids Tuesday night. It was so fun. Their kids are adorable. Randomly, my brother ended up spending the night in Vegas with his friends on his way to the USC game so I met up with him! Wednesday during our long break, I walked 1.5 miles down to the nearest H&M in 100+ temperatures. That wasn't too smart so I shopped then took a cab back. I was a little disappointed I didn't find anything that great, just a few things. Thursday I took the tram then monorail down to Caesar's Palace and found some AWESOME things at H&M. I got the cutest coat. But walking through all these casinos, they're deceivingly huge, my legs were sore! I also stopped at the Coke factory and was bummed they didn't have Passion Fruit Fanta anymore but I tried the Orange Coke which wasn't that great and settled on a Cherry Vanilla Coke which was AWESOME.

Friday I went to the Titanic Exhibit at the Luxor. It was sooooo cool! I'm so glad I went. (My coworkers didn't want to do anything so I did all this stuff by myself). They had jewelry and dishes and all sorts of stuff recovered from the bottom of the ocean. I was amazed at how well they preserved it. They even had a large piece of the ship and it was not even 1/100th the size of the whole side - incredible. They also had an iceberg you could touch that was warmer than the water was the night it sank and the iceberg was FREEZING. They had the grand staircase all recreated, I thought Leo was going to come walking down the stairs at any moment. Too bad you couldn't take pictures in there. There was a plaque that said a 3rd class ticket was $40 back then which was equivalent to $900 today and a 1st class ticket was $1200 which is equivalent to $103,000 today. Can you imagine?

I got home late Friday night. Maggie seemed a little scared of me at first, I think I just smelled different (like casino). Then she warmed up and licked my face all over - constantly! It was a fun trip and I learned a ton but I'm glad to be home!

Over the Hill

The birthday celebrations continued with an ice cream cake to celebrate me and my sister-in-law's birthday on Sunday.

Maggie helped me open my presents on my birthday. Dallin got me a Kindle which I'm very excited about. I also got $ to spend at H&M on my work trip to Vegas!

On Labor Day, my actual birthday, we bummed around until our 2 o'clock tee time at Bountiful Ridge for 9 holes of golf. Afterward we met at the Cheesecake Factory and stuffed ourselves silly and of course, some cheesecake. It was so much fun to celebrate over a few days and do all sorts of things I loved doing with the people I love.

Old

Why is it when you ask a little kid, "How old is old?" They always say, 30? Not 40, 50 or even 90, but 30. I was that little kid. Now I'm on the other end of it feeling "old." Even though my life is not everything I thought it would be by the time I was THIRTY, it's so much better than I ever could have imagined.

We kicked off the birthday celebration by me getting my hair done. My roots were in desperate need of a touch up. Dallin was a sport and came to the salon with me and worked on some loans. Afterwards we met up with my parents and headed up to Swiss Days in Midway. It's been YEARS since I've been to Swiss Days. It was HOT and crowded but we went to almost every booth. My mom bought me a birthday present there. it's a wood block NOEL that matches my Christmas tree perfectly! I'm so excited for it! I also bought some Toe Tats which are like stickers that adhere to your nails for up to 8 weeks. I got a cute red and white pattern for my toes. I also got some wrapping paper.

After enjoying the booths and the guys enjoying 9 holes of golf, we headed to Spin Cafe in Heber. It was soooo yummy! They even had gelato. It was an exhausting but fun day!

Today I went to the gym then headed to Massage Envy for a massage. The therapist was really great and I enjoyed the massage but the front desk girl was trying to up-sell me on everything and it really bugged. Whenever I'd say no she'd ask me why and I wanted to tell her it was because she was annoying me! So much for my relaxing mood. I headed to Cold Stone to pick up me and Allie's cake and went home and got ready while Dallin watched the BYU game. We headed up to Taggarts Grill for my birthday dinner with my family.

No one in my family had ever been there and we enjoyed their yummy bread, chicken enchiladas, fish and chips, and of course, they're humongous and delicious desserts (to go, of course!). It was a fun celebration. Even though I'm not doing anything BIG and CRAZY for my 1st anniversary of 29, I'm doing things that I love with people that I love and that makes it just as special. Stay tuned for more birthday happenings...

Opener

I was the benefactor of my friend at work's extra ticket to the Utah home opener on Thursday. Her boyfriend had to work and she invited me to go. It worked out perfect because then Dallin didn't have to "suffer" through the game with me and he could go home and keep an eye on Maggie and that whole situation. We left work around 4 and headed up to the tailgate in the east parking lot. I've never been but her family and neighbors have the same spot every year and make an afternoon out of it. We had yummy meatball sandwiches and had fun chatting with people waiting for the game to start. Our tickets were on the 50-yard line, up high, which made it easy to see everything that was going on!

It was so fun to be a part of the first game of a new era in Utah football. The PAC 12 looked so cool on the field. It was a pretty slow, low-octane game but it Utah came away with the W. It wasn't pretty but a win is a win. A Utah Gal Am I! Thanks Jess!