Scary day

I took the pups in for their dew claws at 11am. We made an appointment to check Corde's hormone levels to see why she was so thin for later that day. She went from 147lbs pre-pregnacy to 106 the day she had them and in 3 days lost another 20lbs!! She was 82lbs today.

Took her back at 3pm and they saw the blood from her uterus and knew there was an infection. They ran it through and saw it was a massive infection and that she was lucky to be alive. They took her back for emergency surgery.

They weren't sure she would survive surgery with her weight as it was.

I left the office with out my girl and quite upset.

I just received word from her dr that she has made it through surgery. Although she is majorly medicated she is still trying to walk! They are very hopeful that she will make a full recovery. We will talk about bringing her home on Friday.

New puppies update....

Went to her vet today to give her the clean out shot and an overall assessment ect...

There really is still another puppy in there!! now we have to wait for that to come out too!! I don't think it will be alive but she isn't contracting still...

I will keep updating..

Well 2 hours after the the shot she finally produced her last puppy. This one was also not fully developed. So our very tired mamma dog can finally rest.

New Puppies!!!

What a day! Corde is exhausted and so am I.
(the details are mostly for my benefit so I have them saved somewhere)

Her temp dropped Saturday afternoon meaning we had 2-12 hrs before she began active labor. We had a b-day party for Joe's dad at 2! So we hauled her with us to Red Robin and I checked on her every 20 min. No puppies. Thank goodness my car was saved!

We chill at home the rest of the day hopeful they come soon. With Joe gone in Seattle I am not sleeping well so 930 rolled around and I was dead tired. I put the older girls in charge and went to sleep. At 11:30pm I woke up in a panic. Ran down stairs to find she was beginning!!!

3:35am her first puppy was born. It all went smooth and with out complication! She is a brindle and 23.56oz .

A short while later like 5 min (I was laying on the couch at this point) she came to the edge of the caged area whining. I went to her and saw blood. I had just figured it was from the placenta from the pup she had just had. I wish I had known better...

3 hrs later she delivered a full grown good size still born. It was her placenta that ruptured causing her to suffocate and delaying the birth. We both cried. It was a very sad moment.

At 6:50am a healthy girl came tearing out feet first. I helped her along and she is also a beautiful brindle and 21.84oz.

At 8:25 am a baby (no gender) came through who had stopped development quite some time ago. Corde was ok with this one.

8:37 a baby boy came literally climbing out. He is the biggest so far weighing in at 25 oz He is also brindle. I began thinking "I hope we get some other colors soon!!"

After I wrote this I went upstairs to find another puppy!! She was tired and hadn't started cleaning it. I thought we were going to loose her. I rubbed and rubbed and finally she screamed.
9:35am 22.72oz

They all came pretty much every hour after that.
F - 12:10pm 22.12oz
M - 1:45pm 21.87oz
M - 2:45pm 19.12oz
M - 3:19pm 22.22oz

At 3:19 we had 8 living and 2 that hadn't made it. She still looked too big. I felt around and felt another puppy. An hour later nothing. She just slept. No contractions nothing. I called the after hours vet. They said to watch her for another 20 min. If no contractions then bring her in.

So at 4:40 we were in the car. Got to the office and waited another 30 minutes!!! Finally the dr comes in. She immediately starts grilling me on how thin Corde is and saying how we should do all these tests ect... like I am negligent. I tell her I have already discussed my concerns about her weight with HER dr and they were going to run blood tests after she had the puppies. UGH!

They do the x-ray and she says it showed 3 more puppies!! They also wanted me to run a blood panel on her in case her levels were off ect... At this point I had had 4 hrs of sleep in the last 48 hrs. I called Joe he said to wait. I was concerned about how skinny she was and how she had dropped so much and so fast. He said to call our friend who breed dogs. She suggested that they give her a calcium shot and see if that helps induce that labor and help her with her energy. But also that the dr is correct in being concerned.

The vet was concerned not knowing my dogs history ect that she could kill her if she did that. I think they just wanted me to pay out the nose... I finally gave in. Of course all her tests came back normal. They gave her a shot of pit to induce labor and sent us on our way. ( I wasn't going to pay more for the dr to not watch her like a hawk) We get half way home and she has a pup in the car! I was in the left lane going straight at a red light. As soon as I heard her licking I gunned it through the light and turned right in front of the guy next to me and stopped the car got out and tried to save it. I think this puppy was dead before he was born.

We made it home and finally at 8pm she had another pup. He was hard to get out. He will be the largest of the litter when he is grown. 23.21oz. He wasn't breathing but was trying. I worked on him for 30 min when finally he cried out. That was the sweetest sound in the world. I want to keep him.

I waited til 11:30pm for the last pup. None came so I called it a very long day and went to bed until it was time to feed them again. We are keeping them separated to sleep so she doesn't accidentally squish them.

Last day in NYC (Day 10)

Today was going to be a great day!!!

The forecast was for 65! In NYC!! We stepped out and it was cold so we figured it would be best to bring our coats. WRONG!

We we late meeting our friends the Johnsons in Central Park for brunch. But it was all good. It gave us a great table!! We had brunch at The Boathouse. Yes the one from 27 Dresses!!! I love going to places from movies I love. The food was sooooooo good!!!

We made our way to see FAO Schwartz and then onto Chinatown. I shouldn't have worn my black boots... I had anticipated sitting more... It got REALLY warm and humid. We had to haul around our coats ALL day. We did tons of window shopping in Chinatown. I was hoping to find pearl earrings but no luck... We had such a great time visiting with them. It had been nearly 7 yrs since they moved back east. After Chinatown we had to say good buy to the Johnsons. They had to get back to their son's awards night. We headed for Ground Zero. Here's how the night SHOULD have gone...

Ground zero then heading over to the Staten Island ferry to see the Statue of Liberty in the day light/sunset then catch it at night on the way back seeing some of Staten Island inbetween and Manhattan all lit up. Once back in Manhatten meet up with my friend Phoebe from 4th grade for dinner and then catch a late night show of some sort or dessert somewhere then head back to the hotel.

Here's what really happened. Saw Ground Zero then decided to high tail it up to see Wicked on the lottery. We raced and went the wrong way on 51st then had to turn around and race to get in the lottery in time(all this time in heels) only to find the play just getting out! It was an early show on Sunday! My feet were dead. I was sad we missed both the ferry and the show. My phone died so I couldn't call Phoebe. We had dinner at Heartland which was great!!! We headed home and found a place with yummy cheesecake. We got a piece to go and got on the train and called it a night...

At least now we have a reason to go back to NYC. To redo that night...

Now we are home with wonderful memories!

Sorrento, Rome , the air and NYC (Days 7,8 & 9)

We had free time in Sorrento until 2pm. We walked through the shops on the main street then found our way onto the back streets.

I am SOOOOOOOOO glad we did!!! I found shoe stores!!! Happy shoes stores!!! We also found some last minute gifts for those we had not found the perfect gift for. But mostly it was all about the shoes!!! Well and all teh other things I had found for me. I had done very little shopping for myself. A pair of gloves in Rome and a necklace and bracelet in Capri.

I saw these ADORRABLE boots but at 89 Eruo.. I walked away. We found another store and I found these way cute heels. They were hand made Italian leather and they were half off!! 30 Euro! Since I was sure I wasn't going to find another pair I snagged them. I LOVE them!!!

We continued shopping. I bought a bag of Italian chocolates, earrings, a Christmas ornament, lacy boy shorts and the boots!!!!!!!!!!
Joe made me try them on and that was it. I was in love. They are changeable with cable knit on the inside that can be rolled down to any point or they can be all the way up and be knee highs!

We headed back to the hotel and stopped for lunch. On the way we stumbled upon these old ruins of Sorrento! To look down gave us vertigo! They were way cool!! We got back to the hotel for the group picture and loaded the buses to go back to Rome to head home.

Once in Rome a large group of us decided to go into the little beach town for dinner. We loaded the bus and scared the driver I think... Joe explained to him in his broken Italian that we were looking for a good place to eat. The driver called his son who spoke English and they recommended a place and the driver went out of his way to drop us there. We all tried to tip him but he wouldn't hear of it! We all arrived at the restaurant but it wasn't open for dinner yet so everyone left!!! Joe and I decided to return. We were SOOOOOOOOOO glad we did!!! The atmosphere was great. Very romantic. The food was fantastic! A guy came inside selling roses. Joe bought one! (I saved it) Dessert was the best tiramisu I have had!!! We meandered through the little town and found our way back to the bus stop where others had gathered. We went back to the hotel to repack all our bags so they would fit everything for the international flight.

We woke bright and early then sat in the airport FOREVER. Our plane was an hour late taking off. It wasn't late arriving. It sat there as long as we had sat there... 10 hrs later(and 4 hrs of sleep in flight) we landed in NYC. We got a cab to our hotel and we got ready for a night on the town. I felt great until we sat down to eat. Thats when the jet lag hit me. I felt dizzy and REALLY tired. We ate but went right back to the hotel where I crashed.

Isle of Capri!! (Day 6)

We woke up early for Capri. 5 am to be exact... And NOT because we had to.... Riina had told Paul (my regional manager) of the dinner story and how she wanted to get him back. Paul suggested an early wake up call and proceeded to the desk to ask for one! Thus at 5 am the phone rang.

We sort of went back to sleep. Got up in time to rush up for breakfast and get on the bus to get on the boat. Then we waited around for the boat....

Capri was worth it!!! What a beautiful island!! Our new guide Gino was awesome! He was fun and just great!

We started out on a quick bus tour to the city of Capri. The roads are so narrow that the passing cars nearly touched! We walked through Capri to some beautiful gardens which are part of a monastery there. On the way we saw THE hotel of Capri where the elite suite (which had its own swimming pool) was 2600 Euro PER NIGHT! INSANE!
The view of the cliffs and ocean were amazing (there aren't enough "cool" words to describe Italy)
There was a road that leads to the beach. I was glad I didn't have to make that road. (go see the pic)
We then had some free time to do what we wished. On the way back through the city I found a cat! He was noisy and was happy to be getting some attention.

We got back on the bus and headed up the island to AniCapri (Upper Capri) Where we had more free time. We wandered in and out of shops hoping to still yet find me some shoes. No luck. But I did find a gorgeous knee length leather jacket to die for!! I wish I had bought it but it was 150 Euro... We asked a shop keeper where to have lunch and we were directed to a little place up the hill. We found 2 of our group also there so we sat with them. They had sat with us and Riina and Justin the night before at dinner. We got to know them better and had the most fabulous meal!
It was time to head back down to the pier for those who wanted to go on the boat tours. We chose not to and spent the time wandering the shops along the pier. We wish we had rented a scooter and rode around the island.... it looked ominous so we didn't. It ended up being a beautiful day and a missed opportunity. We ran into Justin and Riina who had found the most wonderful chocolate treat EVER invented! I have no idea what it is but I wanted to buy the whole platter and take it all home.

We all piled on to the dock to await the boat. Then chaos struck. A goods ferry was leaving port and last minute trucks were driving down the dock to get on. This would have been all well and good except there were close to 300-400 PEOPLE standing on the dock at the time!!! We all had to back up against the wall or fear being pushed into the water! It was crazy! I got some good pics of Joe freaking out!

Once we were back in Sorrento we cleaned up and headed to the farewell dinner. It started out simple.... appetizer samplers of cheese stuffed eggplant, fried zucchini straws, potato crochettes, and rice balls. The offered 2nds to those who wanted it. Then came pasta. Ravioli and manicotti. It was all very good too! We were all prepared for dessert when out came sausage and spinach. MORE FOOD!!! Finally dessert arrived. Through all this a poor, sad lived man wandered through and played all the cliche Italian songs us American's associate with Italy. He serenaded a few and finally left.

We headed back to pack to go back to Rome the next day. The staff was ill prepared for my husband as were all in our group... We entered the lobby and headed for the elevator. It was full so I waited. Then the look of shock was on all those in the elevator as I found myself being hurled towards them! Joe had pushed me into the elevator. He then followed me in and the lady at the desk was yelling at us as the doors closed. I heard someone say tilt... The elevator didn't move. The doors wouldn't open. We just sat there. Finally it moved and we went to the basement. Floor -1 Joe got out. Still the elevator didn't move. Justin got out. The elevator didn't move. We all got out and were met by one of the staff and directed on how to get back up. LOL!!! He will never live it down...

More Rome then onto Napoli, Pompeii and Sorrento! (Days 4 & 5)

We have been having SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much fun we have not had time to update the blog!!!! We only get internet in one room of the ENTIRE hotel so we run out of battery!

Day 4
Rome It was another free day! We saw TONS!!!!!
-The Mouth of Truth
-The area of Trastevere
-The Sistine Chapel
(just to name the highlights)

We began our day with the hopes of me finding shoes as we wandered the streets of Trastevere. We stopped just before the bridge to Trastevere so we could go to the church of Santa Maria where the Bocca della Verita (Mouth of Truth) is home to. And no D - we did not re-enact Roman Holiday... there is a time and photo limit to keep the line moving and a guy there to make sure...
We crossed the river and saw some cool ruins which were part of Tiber Island. We made our way through Trastevere. Beautiful area!! We saw a cool fountain and went to take a picture if it with Katya's horse. We were stopped by some guys who were clearly NOT sober. They were really nice and wanted to talk soccer with Joe as he was wearing the wrong kind of jersey for their liking. They wanted us to come back at 2 to smoke some dope! lol! We told them our religion so they invited us back to have drinks. lol! Yah we didn't find them again. We went into a bunch of stores adn stopped at all the street vendors. No shoes... got some cute tights though! Tried one last store. It was a department type store and found these cute gray heels for 7.50 Euro! We looked around a bit more. Went to check out and the lady rung them up then said oh I'm sorry wrong price and she rung them up full price! Now had the tag been shoved in the shoe I would not have objected but it was attached to the security tag! The manager came out and said the same thing so I left them. Sad huh?! We had lunch (more pizza) one had anchovies hidden by zucchini flowers! GROSS! We got more gelato to take the yuck out of our mouth and bumped into more friends from our group! We left them and made our way to the Vatican. We got off the bus and promptly went the wrong way to the Sistine Chapel. Turned around and went the right way. After an hour or so of wandering the surrounding buildings (not by choice) which were filled with the most amazing art work of paintings, stone ect... we found ourselves inside the Sistine Chapel. It was so much to take in! We starred at all the paintings of the stories from the Bible. It was crazy! To think someone laid on their back to paint all of them... it was... yah.... We made our way through the maze the other way and headed outside. I had wanted to make it to St Peters Bascilla but it was getting late and I wasn't sure we would make it. Plus there was a pyramid to see too! We went to find a bus ticket. No luck. We wandered 2 blocks and finally found one. As we made our way back to the stop our bus passed us. We figured no big. We had been taking the buses and there is always another near by. 30 MINUTES LATER our bus comes again! Needless to say we didn't see the pyramid. We headed back to town to finish the souvenir shopping we had begun the day before. We stopped to have dinner at an outdoor seated restaurant. We were placed next to an older German couple. We had a great time talking about traveling ect.. Dinner was yet again wonderful. We walked slowly back to the hotel to take in more of the sites at night and to delay the packing of the bags... We came to a square where each corner of the buildings on each corner had a huge carving. They were beautiful!

Day 5
We headed south to Sorrento going through Napoli (Naples) and Pompeii. The country side is so beautiful! You see villages far of on the rolling hillsides in the colored stucco everywhere. Our tour guide had a really thick accent and apparently never bothered to find out how English words were really pronounced. She would speak them how they would phonetically sound. So not only did we need to translate that but it was heavily accented too! It was hard to take in what information she was offering. Once in Napoli CRAZY took on a whole new meaning! There were cars and people everywhere you looked just going. Not really watching where they were going but somehow no one was dying! Roads that in the US would be for 2 cars were filled with 6 plus scooters! The lights (we were told) were more like guidelines. You only stopped if you had to. We were headed to the capitol center when we were stopped by a political demonstration! We were redirected and missed capitol center... We climbed the hillside and stopped for a picturesque view of Napoli. It looked just like a travel magazine!

We made our way back down and headed to Pompeii. There we saw the ruins from 79 AD. 79AD!!! It was unreal!*Taken from Wikipedia - Pompeii is a ruined and partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples. Pompeii was destroyed, and completely buried, during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning two days in 79 AD. The volcano collapsed higher roof-lines and buried Pompeii under 60 feet of ash and pumice, and it was lost for nearly 1,700 years before its accidental rediscovery in 1748. Since then, its excavation has provided an extraordinarily detailed insight into the life of a city at the height of the Roman Empire.*
Go see the pictures! Truely amazing. Actual hollowed out molds of real people were discovered and plaster was poured in to make replicas of how people were when they died.

We finished heading south, got to our hotel and it is amazing! We have an ocean front view!!!!!!!!!! So beautiful!!!!!! Because we filled their hotel they thanked us by a free welcome dinner that night. They served fish... luckily we were sitting with our friends Riina and Justin and he doesn't eat fish either. So they special made us pork! The staff at this hotel were so wonderful and accommodating.

Joe was getting more bold in our friendship with Justin and Riina. Riina was an exchange student from Finland. She returned and married her host brother. They divorced years later and she is now dating Justin. She is 3 yrs older then him. He asked Justin - "So how long have you been interested in older European women Justin?" Riina gasped and immediately threw her napkin then her fork at Joe!!! It was great!!!! We sat and talked with them the rest of the evening. She vowed to get him back at the end of the night.