Bye Bye Bella

                                                                            Bella

Most of the people that know me know that my mother-in-law is currently living with us. Back in February my husband went out of town to Chicago to go to a car show. I was in the bathroom getting ready for Ashlyn's Valentines Party at school, when my mother-in-law called my cell phone to tell me that, "Bella has sad eyes." Bella is Ashlyn's guinea pig that she brought over from her mom's house. At first I had no clue what she was talking about. So I went upstairs to look at Bella. Sure enough, she looked sick. But I am thinking, "Well what do you do with a sick guinea pig?! Don't you just kind of let them go." Then I told my mother-in-law that Bella didn't look good...but I don't know what to do. She suggested I try to call a vet. I attempted to call vets around the area and of course, no vets see guinea pigs. Then one vet I called referred me to a traveling vet that will come out to the house to see guinea pigs. I called Jason to see what he wanted me to do and he said, “Well, we have to do what we can…” While we waited for the vet to get to the house, I went to Ashlyn’s Valentine’s Day Party at school. Jeannie went to Petsmart trying to find a guinea pig that looked like Bella (just in case), but she had no luck. The vet came out to the house with a stethoscope and a little black bag all for a little guinea pig. The vet walked upstairs and examined Bella. While I watched her take Bella’s temperature, I asked what a normal temperature was for guinea pigs and her answer was 99-102. Once I looked down and saw Bella’s, I knew we were in trouble. Her temperature was 94. The vet diagnosed her with an upper respiratory infection and gave us medicine for her with instructions to feed her baby food out of a syringe (because she hadn’t been eating). Then after the Girl Scout meeting, running to Fort Worth to get Jonathan’s friend, I was back at home. Ashlyn fell asleep and Jeannie came out from her room and told me that she thinks “Bella died.” I went to check and sure enough, Bella had moved on to a better place. Ugh…here we had just had a vet come out, Jason was out of town, Bella died even after the vet, and I was dreading how upset Ashlyn would be. We had to get Bella out of Ashlyn’s room. Jeannie and I went to the garage to get something to bury her with. Jeannie asked if I had a small shovel. And I replied, “Of course I don’t. I don’t garden.” She grabbed a hammer and I grabbed a paint spreader…it was the best we could find. We went and grabbed a Girl Scout cookie box and I placed Bella in it. We got flashlight and jackets. Then Jeannie came out of her room with her purse and said, “Ok I’m ready.” I asked her where Bella was and she said, “Oh I put her in a bag and in my purse.” I started laughing and then at about midnight we were starting our journey. Jeannie had a good idea about where we should bury her. There are some trails behind the neighborhood and we headed that way. Jeannie found a spot but she didn’t want me to shine the flashlight directly on her (for fear of getting caught, like we are doing something illegal). So I had the light off to the side and she dug a hole with the hammer. When she was done, we were walking back to the house and saw one of the neighbors outside in his car. His lights were on and he was obviously waiting for someone. Jeannie was SO nervous…and was thinking he was watching us or going to get us. Then I thought about the situation and said, “Jeannie, if anything, he is probably scared. It is after midnight and we came out from a field behind a neighborhood wearing gloves and with you holding a dirty hammer. It looks like we just killed someone and buried them!” We went home dreading the morning when Ashlyn was going to wake up since she knew Bella was sick and she was worried about her. I thought maybe we should leave a note on the cage. LOL I had no clue what to do. And to make it so much worse, Jason was out of town. Once she got up and Jeannie and I talked to her, she was fine. Her next question was, “Can I get a hamster?” After talking to Jason, we decided to go with a hedgehog. He is an awesome little pet, except when he is scared of you, he quills up. But, now he is used to us and a sweet little guy. Needless to say, I will just have to pray really hard nothing bad happens next time Jason goes out of town. 

Derby

Ugh...it has been SO long!

Starting now, I am making a vow to write on this thing at least every 2 weeks. Just to catch every one up on life over here in the Batdorf household. We now have a beautiful house and the kids are also now living with us. Jason and I couldn't be happier. 

Our Home

 The kids are now going to school in Northwest ISD which is an amazing school district (and one of our factors in building a house over here). They both LOVE school and have made A's & B's all year. This year has literally flown by! There is only 2 more weeks of school left until the Summer break. And it will be a busy Summer. 

Ashlyn with her Magnificent Mustang Award

Jonathan now does Tae Kwon Do and Ashlyn is involved in Girl Scouts, gymnastics, and cheerleading. So the family stays pretty busy. We also now have another French Bulldog, Chunk. He turned 1 year old in May. He is full of energy and keeps Daisy busy. They are both loving members of the family. Chunk is much bigger than Daisy. Daisy only weighs about 18-19 pounds while Chunk is currently about 30-32 pounds.

Our Dogs

I try to always tell my husband how interesting and entertaining our loves are. So..a couple of entries in my blog might be from this past 6 months, only because I have been slacking on my blog. BUT I am going to add them in here because they are some memories that I want to remember forever.:)

<3 The Batdorf Family

Oh man....cooking!

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not the best cook. I am not the most domestic woman. But I aspire to be the perfect domestic little wife one day! My friend Angie is my idol! She is always busy with her kids and keeps them involved in things. I mean, she has a Christmas countdown for the month of December. I tend to be creative and like making cute things or bake cute things. Now when I say bake...I mean out of the box. I had never baked anything from scratch until the other day. Of course, I needed some assistance from one of the best bakers I know, my good friend Lesley. It was intimidating...yes cooking something from scratch was intimidating to me! LOL Once I arrived to her place, she was a busy body and moving fast. I tried to keep up as I helped, watched, and took notes. Once we got to the decorating part, I knew I was good to go then. In the end, the cookies turned out great and were perfect for my friend's bridal shower. So here are my first cookies...and there will be many more to come. I have a good teacher. :)

Wedding

So much has been going on. We came back got back from the Dominican Republic at the end of April. It was beautiful there and we had so much fun! It was nice to go o n vacation and have friends and family all there with us. It was Jason's first time out of the country. I was so excited for him. The beginning of the trip started out rough. There were about 12 of us all on the same plane and getting from the airport to the hotel with everyone and all the luggage was a challenge. So we are all checking in and getting our bags up to our rooms when Jason noticed that one of his bags were missing. Of course, it was his bag with all of his clothes and wedding outfit. So we are in the lobby for about an hour calling airports, talking to the guys at the front desk about our bag. Then, we find out my mom had it the whole time! LOL Wasn't so funny at the time....but now it is.
Foreign countries are always amazing. Seeing how different people live and what they believe. It is always a humbling experience. I feel like just being there, I learned so much. Everyone there was very happy and it seems that none of them had a lot of money. It showed how backwards some people think. We went snorkeling with sharks and stingrays. We also went on an Outback Safari and got to see many of the goods they grow there. The grow coconuts, coffee, sugarcane, cocoa beans, vanilla, bananas, tobacco, cinnamon, and many other spices. Everything was so fresh!

The wedding turned out beautiful! Everything was perfect. I was running behind of course...because I ALWAYS am. And I was OK until I got my dress on. I almost lost it then. I got really nervous the entire walk down to the beach. There were people everywhere staring, which made me more nervous. Once I got to my dad he was trying to make me laugh so I wouldn't cry. Once the ceremony started, Jason looked teary eyed...so I got teary eyed. But everything turned out beautiful. I couldn't have asked for it to be any better! I love Jason!

Wings = NO good for Amber

I have been eating healthy in an attempt to better my life, health, and lose weight for the wedding. I met with some of the girls last night to discuss details for my bachlorette party at Buffalo Wild Wings in Grapevine. I didn't choose the place, but I went in thinking I will just get a diet coke and since I had already ate a lot for the day, I wouldn't need to eat anything there. BUT everyone else ordered food and ate. The longer I sat there, the longer I really wanted to order food. I finally gave in and ordered 8 boneless wings (they tasted SO good). Once I got home, my stomach started to rumble. At about midnight until I got up for work, I was in the bathroom about every hour. I felt horrible. I didn't want to call in to work. I mean...maybe I will feel better in a couple of hours. Once I got to work, I still felt terrible. They sent me home and while I was driving home, I started to think about how all those really healthy people talk about bad, greasy, junk food being "toxic" for your body. Hummm maybe they were right. I got home and slept from 7am to 2pm. BUT I feel much better! :) No more wings for me!

Snow days!

It doesn't snow much here in Texas, but between last week and this week there have been 5 snow days. That has to be a Texas record. So as I am sitting at home bored because everything is closed because of the snow...I decided to post some pictures of Daisy. We have figured out she loves the snow.

Christmas

This past December was fun! We did lots of things with the kids and had a great holiday! This is a picture of the kids on the neighborhood sleigh ride.