Coolibar - SPF Clothing

As many of you know Brandon got a chemical burn last September, so he has to be very careful when it comes to being out in the sun for the next couple of years. I found this store on line that has SPF clothing and the clothing has 50+ protection in it. The skin cancer foundation gives this company its stamp of approval. We have purchased many different items for Brandon and I wanted to share this with you all. Some of you have kids, and its very important to protect their skin when they are younger. Its hard I know when they are infants and toddlers to make sure you got them completely covered, but they have kids clothing, swimwear, hats and everything for them. I encourage you to give it a try. Also if you have husbands, fathers, or yourself is fair they have many different options for you as well. They have great beach hats for women, so you can keep the sun off your face so you don't get wrinkles. Anyway I just wanted to share this info to you.

http://www.coolibar.com

Clydesdale's & Mastiffs Oh MY

This was how they looked when we pulled up to the barn.


This is Cody the baby. He is 4.5 years old and bigger than Barney.


Three of the mastiffs playing in the yard. The two circling the one sitting are the babies they are 7 months old!


Andy the sick one.


Barney the famous one he worked for budweiser for 6 years pulling the wagon and in 4 commercials!


This is Mack, he looks like our Nala.


This is how we were greeted.

I love clydedale's they are one of my favorite animals to see. I love all the commercials that they are in. They are amazing. They are huge horses. They weigh around 2,000lbs. They are as tall as 16hands on top of each other. I don't know why they don't give a height but this is the information on line.
Yesterday my friend who lives near me told me she was going to visit one of her clients houses to see clydedales and 4 mastiffs!! I was like I would love to come sometime, so she told me to meet them there. Its only 10 min from my house. When you pull in the long concrete driveway, you know you are on the path to something amazing!
You pull up to a gate, and in front of the gate their is a sign that says beware of guard dog! Then you are greeted with 4 mastiffs! They were so cute, to some people that might scare them but to me since I have a bullmastiff. I didn't care. The owner came up to us in her gator so we piled in and she took us behind the house to her barn! There you saw them. The biggest and prettiest horses in the world (in my opinion). She has three of them. She rescues them from Budweiser. One of them named Barney has stared in 4 commercials, and he worked for them for 6 years. Then she adopted him. She has had him for 10 years. The other two were rejects from the farm. Budweiser has some very strict standards. One as he got older his front hoof turned black. They don't know why so they could not use him. His name is Coby and he is HUGE! He is a big baby. The other one is Andy and he was sick. We only got to look in on him. He has some open soars on his hoofs so the vet just came to look at him. He was rejected because he had to much white on him. This lovely family takes them in when they are done with them. They were so big, and so loving. They live to be around 28 years old. I said I need an animal like that, I hate thinking about my dogs and how they only live to be and average of 10 years old.
Then I could not believe it she had 4 mastiffs! These get to be around 240lbs, but I guess that isn't so big when you have a clydesdale. She has two puppies that are 7 months old, and they are already the size of Nala if not a little bigger. Its crazy.
Anyway enjoy the pictures. I had fun, and I hope I get to go back again.

Life with Miss Millie

Sleeping in her play pin!







Our first trip together!

Some of you know that our beloved boxer Maddie died around christmas this past year. It was very hard on us all. She will always be my first pet, so will always hold a special place in my heart. I love the boxer breed, so I knew I wanted to get another one sometime. With life the way it is right now, while I am looking for a job it couldn't be a better time for me to start working with a puppy. So even though my birthday isn't until July she is my early birthday present. Her name is Millie. Nala is a disney name from the Lion King, so I wanted another one. We thought of Belle, and Daisy but they are very commonly used, so I did some research and Minnie had a niece named Millie! So again we have a M & N! This week Brandon was out of town for work, so I had to pick her up on my own. That was an experience. I don't know how single mothers do it, they do have some help called Diapers. But still I can't imagine what its like. I had the huge task of introducing Nala to her last night. It didn't go great, but it didn't go completely bad. I think she feels I am torching her, but she did this to Maddie. Then it was time for bed, we are trying the whole crate training process! Let just say I know why we didn't do it before because it is so hard!! I think she cried the whole night except maybe and hour or so. Today she is going to the vet to get checked out. Because she didn't get any sleep last night, she is lucky that she can sleep all day.

Ali and Nala

Memorial Weekend we went to Ohio to visit Brandon's parents. While we were there Brandon's brother and his family came. Ali calls Nala Woof. So here is a video after dinner and we are eating cake. She is feeding Nala the icing.

Nala and her Spaghetti Noodles

Nala and Maddie both loved Spaghetti Noodles, so last week Brandon was making some. He says he accidentally dropped some noodles on the ground. Nala really enjoyed her time eating them. They are not cooked yet. Enjoy the pictures

Kayleigh's Story...be prepared to cry

Last night, while I was waiting for Lost to start I remembered that I recorded "The Doctor's" it was about America's health care. They featured a family that has a very sad and amazing story. They had a daughter born 3 months early that weighted 1 lb and 1 ounce. She was fighting everyday in the hospital for life. They thought numerous times that they could bring her home but it never happened. When watching the show last night (it was obvious that this was recorded earlier) they said they were not sure she would make it home. It was so sad. They were average Americans that got hit by the economic crisis. They have two older children and were real estate agents and since the housing crunch happened they had only made 3000 from jan to april of this year. So the bills were piling in. But they chose that insurance was the most important thing for them to pay for at this moment. They were about to loose their house, and the author of "Rich Dad Poor Dad" and the president of Einsurance.com gave them 40,000 so they could pay for their house and all the medical bills that were coming in. I think this little girl had over 10 surgeries in her life. I cannot even imagine all the cost that came with that. When I had surgery on my appendix I was not happy to see all these bills come in. This was only one little procedure. The show talked about how Americans we need health insurance, but the answer is not universal health care like Canada has or other countries because if we do the quality will go way down. I was happy to hear that come across the tv in the middle of the afternoon. We do need to find a solution but that is not one of them. Anyway..today I wanted to see how this little girl was doing and she just passed away last week. If you go to their blog you can read her story and see how this family believes in a higher power, and that being God and Kayleigh is in heaven and in no more pain.

http://kayleighannefreeman.blogspot.com

Steeplechase 2009

Mud Alley, people were falling in it. But thankfully we had our boots on!







What the men had to walk through, and we got to drive by!! thanks guys!!!

This was our second year going to this event! It is one of the events to be at in Nashville. Our friends Matt and Ashley have the connection so we can get a spot. Basically for the most part it’s all about the attire and socializing. This was our second year at this event. However we were kind of nervous about going since it had rained for almost a week straight. We didn't know we were going to go until wed of this past week, so that gave me little time to prepare. If you know me I like to prepare for things in advance. So Thursday I got it in my head, that I was going to get some wellies (which are rain boots). I called most of the stores here in the coolsprings area and they were sold out. Everyone else had this clever idea! So Friday I spent most of my day looking for boots, and a dress. I decided to go with a green cotton dress, because the weather wasn't supposed to be the greatest, and this event is rain or shine. I looked at a lot of dresses one was silk, but I knew the rain would destroy it. I looked at white, and my mother raised me right I knew that white and rain would make an awful combination. Surprisingly though you saw a lot of white dresses. I guess their moms didn't teach them modesty. When we left that morning for the event, it was raining pretty hard. The girls all piled up in Brandon’s truck, and the men rode together in Matt's car. We knew we needed the truck to get into the facilities since it was going to be pretty muddy. And it was beyond what we could imagine. The entrance into the park, where the guys had to walk was 4 to 6 inches deep of soggy mud. They called and said they were up to their ankles in mud. We drove past this and we were all happy we didn't have to walk in it. We saw girls getting mud all the way up their dresses and everything. When we were driving into the infield it was bad. Trucks were getting stuck in the mud, and the tires were spinning. And when this happened mud was getting sprayed everywhere. I was driving the truck and when we were trying to get to our parking spot, I could feel it sliding. Thankfully we didn't get stuck. And when we arrived the rain had stopped. The gates closed at 10:30 and the first race begins at 1:00. Last year because it was such a wonderful day all the spots were filled. You basically have a spot that you can fit one vehicle in and a tent at the end of it. Since the ground was so saturated though they stopped letting people in, even the ones that had 4 wheel drive because it was so bad. So we had 3 spots around us cleared. It was nice. So attached are some picture and a video that is floating around on youtube. Enjoy!!