Guinness's Beach Adventure!

Kevin's family rented a dog-friendly house down the shore for Easter weekend, and they invited me, Kevin, and Guinness to join them!  We were so excited to take Guinness to the beach for his first time ever seeing the ocean! Our little guy is a bit of a chicken though, so we thought maybe he'd be a little afraid of the ocean/waves/sounds, but NOPE!!  He absolutely loved the beach and the ocean. He did keep trying to drink the ocean water, but I don't think he actually swallowed much (he didn't get sick, so that's a good sign!). 

This was him figuring out the wet sand! I think it was a bit confusing for him. 

Checking out the ocean for the first time! 

Cautiously approaching it... 

A little anxious... 

 

Loving it!! 

 And he was having a blast on the beach when he discovered he could dig holes in the sand! 

Here's a funny picture I got of his face when he was shaking the water off his fur. 

Mook (Kevin's sister) took this picture on Day 2!  He was having so much fun running on the beach! 

Such a cute and happy boy!

Gotta love that sand all over his snout! 

The only bummer of the  weekend is that we discovered that poor Guinness is not good at sleeping in a house full of people... He was way too stressed about all of the noises from people moving on the floors above him and below him. He's SUCH a guard dog, and he couldn't seem to relax during the nights. He'd bark or growl anytime he heard noises, so Kevin and I didn't get much sleep either (we had Guinness in our room).  We had a GREAT time, but the lack of sleep for all 3 of us was a bummer for sure. 

Sunset from the balcony! Guinness LOVED hanging out on the balcony! 

And when we arrived back at our house on Sunday, we saw Spring everywhere! Our plum tree in our front yard had tons of pretty pink blossoms! And our daffodils in our yard have started to bloom too. 

Our plum tree! 

A close-up of the pink flowers! 

Our daffodils! 

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend!! 

Snow? Again?

Our St. Patrick's Day was lovely!!  We didn't do too much... We had some Guinness beer, and we made shepherd's pie!  The shepherd's pie turned out really great, and wasn't too hard to make at all! 

Last weekend was a weird one!  Well no, the weekend itself wasn't weird... Just the weather was weird!  We got snow AGAIN... Even though we'd had some 80 degree temps earlier in the week! When it hit 80 we were like "Winter is over!!! Hello Spring!!", and then last weekend it really felt like Winter again. 

So, thinking that Spring was here, my friend Colleen and I had made plans to meet up at Longwood Gardens and hang out! We used to work together, and now unfortunately we don't see each other very often. But Longwood Gardens is about halfway between our houses, and it sounded like a lovely way to spend a nice day outside! We thought we could just walk all around the gardens and talk a lot and catch-up!  Well... as the weekend got closer we were seeing that the forecast started predicting snow... but we decided to just go for it anyways, especially since we'd both already bought our admission tickets! It ended up being QUITE cold and snowy, but luckily Longwood Gardens has some really enormous greenhouses that were nice and toasty warm. We literally spent HOURS wandering around the greenhouses because they're THAT big! We saw some really beautiful flowers, so I took a few pictures: 

This was a wall by the bathrooms!  These are all orchids!

Here's one of the orchids up close! They were all stunning (and real!).

This is a blue poppy!!  It made me think of California poppies :)  

These lilies were SO tall!!  They were up to my waist. I've only ever seen the potted ones at Easter, so these were ENORMOUS! 

AHHHH!!  This was a SUPER creepy baby doll attached to one of the fountains. It scared the crap out of us, and we have no idea why it's there... 

I loved these blue flowers! I think maybe they're lupines? I didn't read the marker on these ones... 

These were my favorite! They were SO cute. They looked like little cups... and they reminded me of Alice in Wonderland. 

Here's some of the snow! 

These were orchids growing in the air! The roots were hanging down everywhere. Some varieties of orchids are epiphytes, so they don't need soil and can get moisture and nutrients from the air! 

I thought I'd also give you an update on the Master Bathroom!  It's coming along pretty nicely, though we've been too busy to find a lot of time to work on it... The wallpaper is all stripped, and McGee fixed-up the walls with spackle and sanding, and then last weekend I had time to paint the walls with primer, and paint the ceiling white! I'm glad it's a small bathroom, because painting ceilings is NO fun. I hadn't noticed how dingy and gross the ceiling was though until I painted it! Now it looks so nice in there. We found one part of the wall that still needs more repairing with spackle, so then I'll have to prime that part again... But then it's ready for paint! 

Here's the "before":  

And here's after primer! 

I'm excited to get the Master Bathroom back soon!  We just have to fix that one wall and primer it, and then paint the walls, and then put the toilet and mirror back, and hook-up the new light!  It should go quickly once we're able to paint. 

St. Patrick's Day!!!

Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day!!  Yayyy!!  And I was trying to think of what we should do to celebrate tomorrow, and then I decided that I wanted to be bold so I am going to attempt to make Shepherd's Pie!!  McGee loves Shepherd's Pie, and I've never attempted making it before. And I figure I might as well go big, so I found Gordon Ramsay's recipe online and it looks pretty do-able!  Fingers crossed.

This past weekend we took the train into town for the Philly St. Patrick's Day parade! We couldn't make it last year, but we've gone for the past 3 or 4 years before that. We met up at Timmy's apartment in the city (it's in a really great location - by Rittenhouse Park!), and we hung out there for a bit with a bunch of friends. Timmy made some Irish Flag shots, which are actually quite delicious if you've never had one. They pretty much just taste like a creamy mint! And theoretically they're layered (with careful pouring) so they look like the Irish flag, but as the day went on they definitely stopped being layered!

Here's Timmy carefully pouring some Irish Flag shots! They have Creme de Menthe on the bottom (green), then a layer of Irish creme (white), and then a layer of Irish whiskey (kinda almost orange-ish color). Some people put Grand Marnier to get that bold orange color for the top layer, but that's not the kind I've had. And it sounds way grosser to me... but who knows. 

Here are the "Irish Flag" shots that McGee made... Haha. He was NOT careful when pouring, so they're just a green mess. 

Timmy, Fro, Juliff, and McGee! 

After hanging out at Timmy's apartment for awhile, we ventured over to the parade and watched a bit of that!  We saw one marching band group from Baltimore that was AMAZING, and I was too busy dancing and cheering for them so I forgot to take a picture of them!  We had a super fun time, and then we ventured over to a bar that we LOVE called Good Dog. The vibe is very chill, and they have THE BEST food!  They make these cheesesteak empanadas that are just heaven. After we were finished eating at Good Dog, we walked back to Timmy's to hang out a bit more! Timmy and Sarah put on some crazy outfits from Timmy's closet, and they proceeded to put on a bit of a dance show for the rest of us sitting around Timmy's apartment. Once their dance routines were finished, it was time to walk back to the train to head home! It was a very long day, but very fun!! 

That's Timmy, Juliff, Jen, Fro, McGee, and me!  And that's City Hall in the background. 

I love Timmy's excited face in this one!  

Juliff, McGee, and Timmy!

That's City Hall! Such an amazing building. 

Good Dog!  It doesn't look like much from the outside, but it's quite awesome and big. It has 3 floors - both the first and second floors have bars, and the 3rd floor has a pool table. 

Here's Timmy and Fro dancing! They may have been a little intoxicated. And those are teddy bears on Timmy's vest...

We had a very awesome weekend!  And we were super productive on Saturday with house projects, so that felt good too. Oh and we took Guinness to the dog park both days!  The weekends are just never long enough... I'm glad that we're about halfway to the next weekend already though! I hope you all have a great St. Patrick's Day tomorrow!! 

Spring is Here!

Well, today is supposed to get to 80 degrees. Yep, 80. It's a new record for this area... The old record was 73 degrees, so that's kinda getting blown out of the water! Oh, and just like 4 days ago the high was 30-something degrees and we had snow last week, so this weather is INSANE. I think the planet is officially broken.

Guinness had his check-up for his back on Monday night, and he was cleared to resume normal activities!!  We just can't do too much too fast, so yesterday we took him for a small walk. I'll probably take him for a slightly longer and more strenuous walk today, and we'll build-up to his normal activity level. He sure did give us a scare, but he seems healthy and happy now.

This past weekend we went to a beer festival in Philly!  It was the Philly Craft Beer Festival, and it was located in the Navy Yard area of Philly. We met up with a few of McGee's friends down there, and had a great time tasting lots of good craft beers!

Here's McGee and a few of his friends receiving their beer tastings at one of the breweries.

Here's my tasting glass! And it was pretty chilly that day (which is why I'm wearing gloves) which is why it's SO crazy that it's getting to 80 degrees today! 

And I thought I'd take this time to  let you know about a few trips we have planned for this year! 

Next month (for my bday weekend) we're heading up to NYC! We're going to head up early Saturday morning (the train is pretty quick!), and then we're going to take a water taxi around The Statue of Liberty, then go see the 9/11 Memorial, and then in the evening we're going to see Wicked on Broadway!  I'm SO excited. I've been wanting to see Wicked for YEARS, and I'm so excited to see it. We got a hotel right in Times Square for Saturday night, and then on Sunday we're going to spend some time wandering around Central Park before catching our 3pm train back home!  It should be a really lovely weekend. 

 And in May we're taking a long weekend trip to Vegas!  We're only going for 3 days, and it should be awesome. We're going to see a Cirque du Soleil show, and we're also going to see Lionel Richie sing his hits!  OH, and we decided that since we're going to be so close to one of Gordon Ramsay's restaurants, we want to eat at his restaurant and try his famous Beef Wellington.

And our biggest trip together this year is going to be a trip to Colorado. We're going to go camping in Rocky Mountain National Park for a few nights and do some fun hikes there, and we're also going to check out Denver and Boulder, and something I'm really excited about is that we're going to stay at The Stanley Hotel! It's the hotel that inspired Stephen King to write The Shining and it's supposed to be extremely haunted, but aside from all of that it's just a really beautiful hotel in a really amazing location (it's right outside Rocky Mountain National Park!).

Rocky Mountain National Park!! 

Here's The Stanley Hotel! 

The Oscars! And a big house project.

I'm so excited the Oscars are on tonight! I love the Oscars. I'm watching some of the Red Carpet stuff right now and thoroughly enjoying it. And for the first time EVER, McGee and I were able to see all of the Best Picture nominated films!!  So, I thought I'd give you my quick opinions on them (in no order whatsoever):

The Revenant: AMAZING.  Leo's gotta win Best Actor for this. It was intense and awesome. Tom Hardy was also really great in it.

Spotlight: SO well-done. I was kinda dreading watching this one because of the subject matter, but it was REALLY well-done and interesting, and I thought it was great. I think this is my pick for Best Picture, but I think it'll probably go to The Revenant.

Brooklyn: Such a charming and cute movie!  I wasn't really excited to see this one because I thought it might just be a cheesy romance movie, but it was adorable.

Bridge of Spies: It started a little slow for me, but then it got SO good!  Loved it. And Tom Hanks did an amazing job, of course.

Mad Max: Fury Road:  It was an awesome action movie and I really liked it, but it just didn't really make sense to me as a Best Picture nominee. I thought Straight Outta Compton should have taken this movie's place in the nominees. Don't get me wrong, Mad Max was GREAT... but just not Best Picture worthy to me.

The Big Short: I thought this movie was great (and very educational for me!) and I thought Steve Carell was really great in it.

The Martian:  Loved it!!  And I'll definitely be watching this movie again. Everyone did an awesome job, and it was so exciting.  And Mom and Dad - You'd love this movie too if you haven't seen it already!

Room:  WOW. This movie was super intense, but SO well-done. It was great, and Brie Larson definitely deserves the Best Actress win. And I think the little boy should have been nominated too!  He was amazing in it. It was a mo-fo movie though... It definitely stayed with me for a few days!

That's all of them!!  Some really great movies.

This weekend we did a LOT of work on our house!!  McGee made some MAJOR progress on our downstairs bathroom, so I'll show you pictures of that bathroom very soon!!  And I started the project I've been dreading: removing the wallpaper in the Master Bathroom. I was SO dreading it, but I've been tackling it all weekend, and I'm happy to say that the end is in sight.  I think one more day and I'll have it finished.  We're hoping to crank out that bathroom re-do in a few weeks!  If you have not seen the wallpaper in this bathroom before, you are in for a treat..... I took this after I'd barely started removing the paper (so you can see a few blank spots by the window):

 

 

Yep... That's the wallpaper!!  And it's SO slow to remove too... Mostly just little tiny shreds are coming off. 

And a quick update on our boy:  He's feeling good!  He's not having any fun at all with this required relaxation for two weeks, but the drugs are helping with that. We have to keep him fairly doped-up on pain meds and we also give him anti-inflammatory meds. We'll have a check-up early next week, so hopefully he's given the clear to start going for walks, jumping on the couch, etc!!

 Hope everyone had a great weekend, and I hope your week goes quickly!!!!

Guinness and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Really Bad Evening

Well, last night was a rough one. But thankfully everything is FINE now, so don't worry.

So, yesterday evening started off normally enough... McGee had to work late to prep for a big meeting today, but when he got home Guinness was SO excited to see him (as usual). There was some play-time and fun, and then after a bit McGee and I sat on the couch to relax and watch TV.  Guinness decided to jump up and join us (he likes to sit on the cushion between us), and he did this crazy long jump over McGee's legs to get on the middle cushion, because he's CRAZY and he's always doing nutty things like that.  So, it was normal, and we just kept watching TV. Well, after about 5 minutes, Guinness started acting weird and he seemed like he wanted to get off the couch, but he seemed confused about how to get down.  So, I helped him down... and he walked over in front of the TV and sat quite oddly and he was panting a bit... so I was just kinda watching him... And then he walked into our dining room and walked around to the back of the table (kinda hiding from us) and sat there. That is NOT normal behavior for Guinness... He always wants to be as close to us as possible. I could see him through the dining room table legs though, and I could see that he was still panting and sitting kinda funny. I thought maybe he was feeling nauseous or something, so I was still just watching him... But then I mentioned to McGee that Guinness was acting weird. So then McGee walked into the dining room and started talking to Guinness, and then we went into the kitchen with him to see if maybe he had to vomit (tile floors in there)... But he was acting SO weird, and he was shaking all over, and his breathing was getting worse.

So, by this point we were starting to get SUPER concerned, because Guinness is always just happy, hyper, and healthy. We were still thinking maybe he was nauseous though or just not feeling good, so we tried to take him outside to go to the bathroom, and he would NOT go. He just sat down and refused to budge. That has NEVER happened before. So then we were trying anything to get him to act normal. We were trying to tempt him with treats, we tried to give him an ice cube (he LOVES ice and comes running anytime he hears us getting ice out of the freezer), and we were trying to get him to come to us when we called him. He wouldn't budge. His breathing was getting even worse, and he was shaking SO badly, so McGee started Googling the symptoms while he was also looking up the nearest 24-hour Vet (our vet is 24-hours but is about 25 minutes away). I was just sitting with Guinness on the floor trying to soothe him and see if I could figure out what was going on. His breathing was getting SO much worse... He would pant like crazy (and he was drooling a LOT) and then he would have some moments where his breathing would slow down to nothing and he'd just stand there shaking with his mouth wide open and his eyes closing. So, I was getting full-on freaked out and I said to McGee, "I think we need to go".  And he said, "Yeah?" And I said, "Yeah".  So McGee had already mapped it and the closest vet was 14 minutes away, or our vet that we like a lot was 25 minutes away (and we know it's a great facility), so we opted to go to our vet. I gave them a call and told them we were coming (and I was already starting to cry so my throat was all tight while I was trying to speak), but the lady on the phone was SO nice. McGee was doing a great job of holding it together and comforting me and Guinness, and he drove (like a champ) while I sat in the back with Guinness.

When we got to the vet, they were amazing. I was so thankful that they were so calm and kind and just ON IT. But we were getting more and more worried about Guinness because he usually loses his mind with excitement and stress at the vet, and he's usually so hyper and crazy. He was very calm, and he calmly sat on the scale to weigh-in (that has NEVER happened... we usually have to hope that he stands still for 2 seconds so they can get a weight measurement of some kind), and he was sitting calmly in the exam room. The shaking, drooling, and erratic breathing was still happening though. The vet (who was awesome!) pretty quickly figured out that Guinness was in pain or discomfort, and his shaking, drooling, and erratic breathing was due to that. So then we had to figure out where the pain/discomfort was coming from... The vet said his heart sounded perfect (whew!!!), and he figured out that when he was pressing on certain areas on Guinness's back that Guinness was having a very strong reaction. He did more checking around, but determined that Guinness definitely injured his back, which started making a LOT of sense since the symptoms started about 5 minutes after his crazy long jump over McGee onto the couch.

The vet took Guinness into the back room to do a quick blood draw to check for a few other things, and after they left the room McGee and I both breathed a HUGE sigh of relief and we were tearing-up from the relief of it. We'd been SO scared and stressed out. McGee was a champ and had managed to completely hold it together until that moment, but I'd been fighting back being a wreck for like 2 hours. Haha :)  We were both tearing-up after we knew he was ok, so thank goodness they had tissues in that room!! They gave Guinness an injection of some heavy-duty pain meds. It was methadone... When they first said "methadone" we thought they were joking, but nope, it was ACTUALLY methadone. And they gave us some anti-inflammatory drugs and some pain meds (NOT methadone) to give to him for two weeks, and then we have a follow-up appointment. During those two weeks we have to keep Guinness from doing ANY jumping or exercising... We can't even take him for a walk. So, wish us luck with that one!!  Haha :)  Guinness seems SO much better today already. What a relief!!!  Here are some old pictures of our sweet little guy:

Puppy Guinness! 

Ugh, that face... He too cute. 

This is like toddler-age Guinness! 

Handsome boy! This was last year. 

Don't worry, this is from last week!!  We're not letting him on the couch until the two weeks are up.

That was our terrible, horrible, no good, really bad evening!! Everything is MUCH better today though, and we're relieved to know it's nothing serious. Our boy should be feeling back to 100% in no time.