A little update

Sorry it has been a little while since we last updated (sorry Aunt Susan). There hasn't been too many things to go and report but we will see what we have.

There is some more news to update on Baxter. Around 730 last night, we were dealing with an another scary episode (very similar to the one he had back in May that brought us to the emergency vet to learn of the tumor). We called his vet's on call system immediately and were able to speak to our vet. We gave him a couple Gas-X's and per her direction another prednisone. We were able to keep him calm and eventually the Gas-X kicked in and he stopped "gagging." We scheduled an appointment to bring him in this morning. With an X-Ray we have learned that the tumor has grown again. Not sure if it is exactly the size it was in the beginning but it has definitely increased. Somehow these incidences seem to be related with the tumor size though it seems as though noboby can really explain why. The Dr did mention that there is a chance he may have another tumor in his intestines. There wouldn't be much of a difference of what we are doing now for one tumor to more than one so she didn't see a point in trying to do an x-ray of everything. We have increased his prenisone up to 40mg a day and we will at least do that for the next two weeks though it looks like we are pretty sure we will be keeping it high for the rest of his life. There is no guarantee at this point that the prednisone will help re-shrink the tumor again (or to any similar affect that it did the first time) but we will try all we can. We will have to be taking things as they come with him. Other than all this, he once again looks like a perfectly normal and healthy dog. The vet was amazed about how great he was looking and how he was still good ole Baxter. As things happen, we promise to keep you updated with all of this, among everything else. We will be hoping for the best, he is definitely part of our family and very loved.

To some as no surprise, we have still not finished our painting. I think one of our goals this weekend is to start taping so we can finish up the baseboards. So close yet it seems like we have a ways to go. We just need to get back in there.

I must say that the garage is looking MUCH better. Ben and Kyle (who is visiting us for the summer and has been a great help) worked on cleaning that up since it was starting to be our holding place for stuff (that is a fairly appropriate word). They had everything out of it, pulled up the old carpet, and of course it was about to rain. So we had to get everything back in there, but they were able to get some order of some of the stuff. So I think at this point we are at least safe to go in there without tripping over something. It is definitely starting to come together.

Last weekend we went down to Fort Pierce/PSL for good friends' of ours wedding (Gab was a bridesmaid as well). We had a great time and really enjoyed ourselves. We wish Heather and Chris only the very best!!!

For the most part we have just been hanging out around the house and trying to get it in order (guess you never finish). We will update again soon. Hope this finds you all well.

Love, Ben and Gabrielle

More pictures of the house

It's been a little while since our last post. Work has been keeping us pretty busy as well as house stuff.

So here we are. Baxter has his (now) monthly appointment on Friday. We are to do this once a month just so our vet can keep an eye out on him and we can make sure everything is in check. He has been doing pretty well lately though. Acting like there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with him. His activity seems to be back to normal and that has made Rigby happy as well :)

Even though we stll aren't complete, we wanted to share some more pictures of what has been completed in the house. All we have left to paint are baseboards and doors. Not too bad! We must thank the Riveras for their help with the painting. We had pretty much lost our motivation when they came up to help us. I think we have a consensus in the house that we will not be painting anytime soon so hopefully everyone likes the colors :)

As you see these, please note that we haven't finished putting up everything on the walls so they look a little bare and we are still figuring out where we want things to go! So wtihout any further delay, here we go! Hope this finds everyone well.

BEFORE and AFTER

From wedding to home! Dining Room

view into living room from kitchen.

Teaser Pictures Are Up!

On Friday, we were able to go and pick up our wedding picture prints. We received nearly 300 of them and are happy with how they turned out! The only thing is we haven't received the CD with all of them so we can share them with family and friends yet. However, today, our photographer posted up some sneak peeks on several of our photos. If you want to view them, you can do so here. We hope you enjoy them and we will be posting the rest on Snapfish when we get the CD.

On another note, thanks to much help from the Rivera's we are done with our wall painting and even have some items hung on the walls. We only have our doors and baseboards to paint. Never thought we would get through all of this painting. The house looks great!! We will post some pictures soon on the new looks!

Well that is all from here right now.

Happy Fathers Day to all Fathers and a special one to our Dads.

-Ben and Gabrielle

Baxter Update

Today, we had Baxter's one month follow up with his vet after learning about his lymphoma.  We weren't really sure what to expect and had been pretty nervous about this visit.  As we mentioned earlier, we put him on a very high dosage of prednisone in order to try and help shrink the tumor.  We had x-rays taken and it looks like our wish came true-the tumor did shrink!!  Our vet said that if she hadn't seen his x-rays from before she would not even be sure of what she was looking at now!  This is great news in the sense that it will hopefully allow him to breathe better as well as being more comfortable.  Unfortunately we know that this is not going to be the cure for his cancer but it will make things a little better for him.  Baxter has shown significant weight loss since last month, he weighed in 10 pounds less than just 4 weeks ago...and trust us when I say we haven't eased up at all on any of his food.  The vet says that the loss is most likely just the cancer and that we can increase his food a bit.  His current weight is actually not too bad for him, he looks good, it is just a lot to lose in a short period of time.  We are now able to reduce the prednisone down a little bit and will reduce it one more time and that will be our final dose amount to carry out with him.  So all in all, we need to keep our eyes on him and just make sure he is living the best and most comfortable life he can.  While nothing is ever promised or guaranteed, our vet said she wouldn't be surprised if we have another 6 months with him (and living comfortably).  So we will be taking it a day at a time, but we felt that our decision in handling his cancer was confirmed that it was the proper route to go.  We do love him dearly and want to make sure he has the best quality of life while we have him.  

So that is the update!  Thanks to everyone who has been asking about him and thinking about us.  Baxter is a beast and the cancer definitely doesn't know who they are dealing with :-)  

Hope you all enjoy your weekend!!  I suppose we will try and get some more painting done (or finish some of what we started I should say).

Love, Ben and Gabrielle

Wedding Pictures Update

I would love to say that we have our professional wedding pictures to share, however, at this point we don't have them yet, but it shouldn't be much longer.  I know that we are anxiously awaiting (as a sidenote: they take so long because they edit every picture, give us the full rights to each of them, print a copy of every picture, make a couple CDs for us and then I think we get a book).  

We will definitely post on here when we get them.  Also, the photographer will have some "teasers" on their site (Elegant Imagery) sometime before hand as well, so you can always check in there too.

In the meantime, we have a couple albums on our snapfish account that family and friends have posted.  If you have some and haven't shared them on our site, we would really appreciate it if you will.  The site is here on Snapfish.  The password is 41009.  If you have any problems please just let us know.  We will be posting all of our professional pictures on there as well when we get them!

Tomorrow is our follow up appointment for Baxter at the vet's office.  We will definitely keep you all posted.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Love- Ben and Gabrielle

Home Decorating Pictures

Before the painting starts back up later today, we took some time to take a couple pictures of the work we have completed (as promised in yesterday's blog).  Bare with us as we still try and figure out how to post pictures and lay things out nicely on here :)

Guest room pictures:        

             

Guest Bathroom Pictures:  This was a little harder to take, but it at least gives you an idea.

           

That is all for now.  Will update with more pictures as we continue to make our way through the house.

Up and Running

So I think that we finally got this site up and running.  It took us a bit to figure out the best site to use and we think this is going to work the best.  Guess time will tell :)  Hopefully you all found it easily!

As a lot of you know, since our return from the honeymoon things have been pretty crazy. Getting settled into one house has been our biggest and longest project so far.  With that said it is still in the works and will be for who knows how long (though we hope not too much longer).  We have at least accomplished finishing the guest room and guest bathroom.  We are quite proud of how they both look.  We have also painted the office (which if any of you saw it before-WOW its a million times better- no more Jets fans stuff all over the walls).  The office should be done as soon as we run up to IKEA and get another desk in there so Ben can work in there when he is home.  We did start painting the walls in the family room.  I think we have about 2 walls completed.  Painting is going to pretty much be our plan for the weekend, our goal is to finish the family room.  I will make sure we take some pictures of the rooms and get some posted up here.  I wish we would have taken some before and after ones, but we are a little late with that...oops!

Some of you may know that about 3 weeks ago (3 tomorrow actually) we found out that Baxter had a large tumor (lymphoma) on his lungs.  We curretnly have him on perenisone trying to shrink it some so it doesn't cause him problems swallowing, breathing, etc.  We go next Friday for another x-ray to follow up and see how it is doing.  Hopefully some shrinkage has occured, we will definitely keep you posted.  He has been doing really well though.  Overall, Baxter seems to still be his normal self.  He still tries to scare us by trying to bring frogs in the house and hunting when he goes out.  He still enjoys barking with Rigby at passerbys...and he still absolutely LOVES his food, well any food for that matter.  So we are taking it a day at a time and will see how that goes.  

Well I think that is all for now.  Hope all is well with everyone.  Time to watch the basketball game....Go Magic!!