Week in review

Last week was an interesting week. We returned home from the Bills game thoroughly exhausted and made it an early night. I awoke around 6:30 am to the sound of what I thought was heavy rain. About 5 minutes later, I heard knocking on our neighbor's door. I looked out the window and saw a police car and saw this...

Now it's kinda hard to see what's going on here. But look past the screen and you'll see a whole lotta water. To the right of the lamp post a water main had burst and was spewing water all over the street. The knock at the door was a police officer informing our neighbor that a crew was on the way.

The crew did show up and they dug alot of dirt, sidewalk, and driveway up before they found the source of the leak. Unfortunately this also meant we had no water. That was not fun.

They finished up at some point when I was at work. This pile of rocks and broken sidewalk is what our front lawn currently looks like. Luckily, we now have water and I can shower. I'm a happier woman. It could've been much worse.

The rest of the week was pretty low key. Over the weekend, we did housework, of course! I swear we should be professional painters by now. Dennis is painting the stairway to his man room here. What you can't see in this picture is just down 4 steps from him.

I'm downstairs and all I can hear is Dennis yelling. I figure he's hurt himself falling off the step stool or something like that. No, he's set up a mini ESPN in the hallway. On the left is the Yankees-Boston game. On the right is the Norte Dame football game. He's screaming at the TV. That's my sports fan.We topped off the weekend with a birthday celebration. Dennis turned 26 on Sunday, although he'll tell you he's 23. We had a nice steak dinner on his new grill and of course a Funfetti cake. Happy Birthday Hun!

Buffalo Bills Home Opener

This past weekend was the first weekend of the NFL season. The last few years the guys from back home have been coming up to Buffalo for the Bills home opener and it is becoming a tradition.
This year it rained all weekend. It has not rained all summer and the one day we are going to be outside all day, the forecast was calling for two inches of rain. We didn't let that stop us from tailgating four hours before kickoff.
We all came prepared with tents

rainsuites


and refreshments


Once we got in the stadium for kickoff, the rain stopped and we enjoyed the game from the endzone.If you follow the Buffalo Bills, or football, you know that the Bills lost this game to a Jason Elam field goal with about 2 seconds left in the game (he kicked the field goal in the uprights in the above picture) and that the Bills TE, Kevin Everett, suffered a career-end and life-threatening spinal cord injury. With this news, the Bills loss is no longer a big deal to Buffaloians.

Miss Molly

This post is a little late, but it is in response to the last post that Teresa had posted. The last sentence of post read: "It was a great "official" end to the beautiful summer we had. That is...until we got home. More on that later!"
Now I am sure most of you are wondering what happened when we got home. Allow me to set the scene.
Instead of taking Molly with us to Brockport for the family gathering, I wanted to keep her home so we did not have to consistently watch her while trying to enjoy everyone's company. So rather than locking her up in her crate for the day, we decided to put her in our downstairs bathroom. We took all the proper precautions by removing anything that she would get in to and then put the baby gate across the doorway. By putting her in the bathroom for the day, it would allow her to be able to move around and have access to her food and water. Sounds like a good idea, right? WRONG!!!

When we returned back home later that evening around 6:30pm, we found Molly sitting in the living room anticipating our return home. So many questions started racing through our minds like:

1. How did she get out of the bathroom?

2. How many messes are in the house?

3. What did she get in to?

Answers: 1.

As you can see, she had no problem getting over the baby gate to her freedom and run of the house while we were gone all day.

2. Not a single mess in the house.

3. The only thing she got in to was the shower caddy that we placed on the floor in the family room. This is something she has never seen, so naturally her curiosity led her to see what this was. She chewed on a bar a soap, shampoo bottles and a disposable razor.

This is all of what we found from the razor:

And this is what the razor should look like:Obviously, you can see that the blade is missing. After searching the whole house for it, we came up empty. So we called the Emergency Animal Clinic asking what we should do. They wanted to see Molly for an X-Ray to verify if she indeed did swallow the razor.

To make a long story short, she did swallow the razor and it was in pieces in her stomach and digestive tract. Going to an Emergency Animal Clinic on the Sunday night before a holiday, is just what you would expect....it was busy and we were there for about 3 hours for them to say "You don't have to go home and look for the razor, because it is right her in Molly" and " We think she will pass it safely."

The next afternoon she did pass it and we had to make sure of it by searching all samples. All found pieces matched the X-Ray exactly.

Molly never seem concerned about the whole incident. Luckily see was okay and we can now laugh about this. We also learned our lesson that the crate is the safest place for her when she needs to be left alone.

Last official weekend of summer

Labor Day is known as the last "official" weekend of summer. To celebrate this bittersweet event, picnics and sunshine are a must. Dennis and I celebrated the holiday weekend with a great picnic at Hamlin Beach State Park with the Hall side of the family.

As you can see, it was a beautiful day. This was the view from our picnic area. We had hotdogs, chicken, and lots of side dishes to feast on.

The ladies relaxed and took in the views. Gracie was a huge fan of Grandma's baked beans.

The guys hung out by the grill.

There was lots of fun and games.

And even more relaxation.

It was a great "official" end to the beautiful summer we had. That is...until we got home. More on that later!