Hey all 2

sofer....ROFL.....wish I could be a fly on the wall!

Me too I would like to see her read it on Christmas morning knowing everyone else is home sleeping in and enjoying the family while she works trying to save lives. I hope it brings a smile.

Steve - watch out for flying candy canes...

My history given to her included poor nutrition due to the owners apparent obesity. I mentioned the possibly of feeding his reindeer inappropriate candy striped treats that I saw in his jacket pocket. I hinted to the possibility of the owner drinking too much because his cheeks were quite rosy and he laughed quite a bit even though his reindeer was sick. The history goes on and on with Rudolph concerns with causes of depression which I cannot mention here. It was fun having all the doctors in our office giving me ideas to work with between patients on a quite busy day.

And here I was going to say you had way too much time on your hands. LOL

I love it when the team works together.

You are very sweet to work so hard at making sure she has the giggles on Christmas morning. Me thinks you might be a friend of the 'jolly' man himself.

Just checked in on this thread! I'm feeling mighty guilty because while Steve's been stuck in Alaska due to the storm and Kathy had a ditch experience, and Tills' road looks mighty slick, and Christmas programs have been delayed, I've been just enjoying it! Did Karen ever get home? Did Steve ever get on the plane? Will Karen and Steve be home for Christmas together? Did Steve ever get his new car?
I did have to cancel my family Christmas party on Sunday, but, frankly, I saw that as an opportunity to not be in a hurry to get things done. So I was fine with it. We're driving up to Kirkland tomorrow to see my mom before Christmas, then going to Salem the next day to be with my daughter. It's supposed to be well above freezing on Christmas Eve, thank goodness!

Still not on the plane until tomorrow morning (I hope). Karen, Steve, Leia, Brent, Charlie, and my mom Adeline will all be driving to Montana over 3 mountain passes in my new Jetta and my Daughters Subaru on Christmas day. Ho Ho Ho I still haven't figured out how to contact Santa to give me a lift to my house. I asked a couple of kids at the store yesterday if they thought I could ride on Santa's sleigh, to get home, and their eyes just lit up. Looking at their moms face they said Yes! Then I told them I would ride on the runners on the back so all of their toys had room. They were very excited about my trip. Mom was just smiling.

I hope you get on that plane! If you get stuck in Seattle, you have plenty of friends around here. It's still looking like it will warm up a bit during the day, so you should be okay if you can get this far.

You made my day, Steve. What fun!! Would have loved to see those kids' eyes as they thought of the possibility of a ride with Santa.

I always wondered about the street sprinklers systems failing, too. The sides of the streets had colored streaks from the minerals in the water.

Hope you get into Seattle to make the drive with your family on Christmas day. My little ones would gladly trade their gifts for a lift on the sleigh -this is the last year I'll get away with 'Santa' gifts I'm sure.

Safe travels all.

Shoot...I'd like a ride on Santa's sleigh. LOL

What a caravan, Steve. Good luck to you all.

And safe travels to anyone who is trying to get somewhere.

Our truck felt sort of like a sleigh this morning, gliding over the snow to get down to the ferry. We got my mom safely here, though I have to admit it was a bit dicey at times. Once we were all finished with the journey and I was out walking the dog, the snowplow came through on our road and left a 2 foot high mound across the mouth of the driveway. So the road is better (temporarily until the next round of snow) but we'll have to do more shovel work to get onto it.

im off headin.g deeper into alaska before I fly south. pray for me to get home over the next two days.

Good morning everyone. I hope all is well with you good people. I have been reading all of your posts and you're all sooooo funny and delightful. I wish I could have been here to post as well but had a bit of a setback a week ago today as I had to have emergency abdominal surgery. Turns out my colon fell away from my abdomen and twisted. The Dr said it was very rare especially with someone as healthy as me. Anyway, to make a long story (and week) short, I'm fine now and back home to enjoy ALL of the snow and Christmas with DH and all of my furbabies. It's snowing here now and we're supposed to get between 7" and 15" of snow between now and tomorrow night. My DH is working tomorrow, but that's ok, he works at the hospital and will get off at 2:30. Here's my sheep in the snow Bilbo (left) and Frodo by the cistern, you can't see him very wel behind the shrub.
Steve, I hope you have a safe flight and will be with your family soon. I have a question, our DD works for a Vet in Vancouver, WA and they had a dog come in that was so impacted from eating beef bones that they had to do surgery to remove the impaction. My question is, have you ever heard of anything like that? DD said that the Vet that she works for said to NEVER feed your dog beef bones (even raw ones), is that also true? I have always fed my dogs raw frozen beef bones from the butcher shop when we have our steers butchered and have never had any problems. What's your view on this? Thank you.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Susan
( '..' )

This message was edited Dec 24, 2008 10:19 AM

well I JUST LANDED IN Anchorage and saw Santa and sleigh pass headed to Russia. I had never thought he had 2 days to deliver package dueto international date lin.e

Steve, happy to hear you're safe on the ground!

resting now in seattle. I couldn't get anybody to drive to montana today.

Glad to hear you made it safely into town to be with your family for the holidays. Hope your drive home is safe and uneventful.

Sofer...so glad you're closer to home. Safe journey, enjoy the holiday.

Yay. You made it to Seattle. Have a warm and relaxing Christmas Day!!

gardener105, glad to hear you are on the mend. What a weird thing to happen. Our daughter called today to say she had been to the ER. Turns out she had a bacterial infection in her intestines. Her boyfriend made her a salad after he had made his kids chicken teryiaki without cleaning up between the two. She is on the meds you take for antrax poisoning. It is the only antibiotic she can take. Between the time she ate the salad and got sick, she broke up with him. Seems he made her sick in several ways. Lifes a kick if you keep smiling.

Steve, glad you are closer to home, but sad you are not spending Christmas with your family.
Lots of Hugs to you.

Merry Christmas to all of you

Gardener, glad to hear you are doing better and that they were able to do something to help.
Sofer, hopefully you are reunited with family now, or soon to be.

Tyler in the snow!
Steve, I do hope you got home for Christmas! Traveling yesterday was bad everywhere up here. We went through blizzard type weather between Olympia and Vancouver. There were several accidents and it took us twice as long to get to Salem as it normally does. But we arrived safely and are grateful for that.
Susan, I hop you are healing well. What a wierd thing to happen!

Willow, hope your daughter is on the mend both physically and emotionally. It's hard to be a mom of an adult daughter sometimes, isn't it? Yes, it's important to keep smiling.

Glad you all got to have a quiet Christmas. I spent the whole day driving through the snow to Montana. Most of my family was with me though. Long day, lots of backseat drivers (Uggggghhh!) Got home and tomorrow we relax. Merry Christmas to all and too all a good night! Steve

Ahhhh, Christmas with the fam! Glad you got home safely, regardless of the backseat drivers. Celebrate tomorrow!

Gardener105 - I've never heard of that. I know several people who have fed raw food for years to their dogs and have never had a problem. That having been said, my vet doesn't feed raw because she has seen the exception, which is perforated bowel. I haven't hear of anybody dealing with impaction.

Glad that you're home and got your issue handled quickly. It sounds like it could have developed into something much more serious if you hadn't been on top of it.

Steve, so glad you're home safely, back seat drivers and all.

Willow - I'm sorry about you daughter, but glad that she made the right decision for her about her life.

My life is good and I'm grateful. I love this snow, though it's starting to wreak havoc with the trees and shrubs here.

Hi all.

I just wanted to tell you that I am lurking. It is getting me through the first Christmas without my oldest son home with us. He is there with all of you, on Gato street in Silverdale WA. He joined the navy right out of High School and went to school to become a Nuclear Electronics Tech.

He was home 2 weeks in August, got engaged to Lindsay, (April 09 wedding) and now he will be leaving out on a sub this Sunday. We wont see him until about a week before the wedding.

Watching the pictures of the snow and listening to you kinda makes me feel that I am still keeping an eye on him. This was his first Christmas alone but we did keep him on the phone most of the day. :)

Just wanted to say thanks for the pictures and talk.

chris

Impactions are common following bone eating. The colon is sensitive and razor blades hurt to pass (bones). Therefore they stop pushing with the pain and become inpacted. Also feeding raw meat is the same problem with people eating raw meat. Parasites, Giardia, Camphlobacter, Salmonella, .......... and packing houses making dog food have almost no inspectors to see how the meat is processed and more importantly how it is stored after it has been rejected as consumable by humans. Then there is the fact that it is not a balanced nutrition because the entire carcass was available to the wolf (intestines etc that had all of the vitamins) to provide a carnivors balanced food. I have dealt with more sick,undernutritioned, and diseased pets because the owner thought they were doing the best and found out otherwise. I am sorry to comment negativly but I have seen the problems with "all meat" diets.

Chris, so sorry you are missing your son. It must be especially hard having him away this time of year when he'll soon be on a boat for many months.I'm glad you have a happy event to look forward to in April.

Thank you for the well wishes, I am feeling like myself more and more everyday. The Dr told DH that it was very rare, seen in infants but rare in older adults.
Willow, I'm happy to hear your DD is on the mend as well. That could have been real serious had she not caught it when she did and good for her for dumping the boyfriend!
Yeah Katie, DD said that it was tiny bone splinters that just built up over time into a solid mass. I had never heard of that either and as I said, I've been feeding frozen raw bones to my dogs for about 30 yrs without any trouble. I have to say, it is good to know just in case it does happen to one of my dogs or someone elses on here.
Welcome Chris, I'll be keeping your son in my thoughts. I know how you feel with your son being so far away. Our DD, SIL and GK's moved to Lexington, KY a few yrs ago and that just about killed me as she is our only child. They have since moved back and are now in Vancouver, WA (about 200 mi from Bend). We didn't get to see them for Christmas as she had to work so they couldn't come down, plus with ALL the snow the mtn passes are a mess, I wouldn't want them to come in those conditions anyway, I'd rather they stay home and be safe. And with my crazy ordeal, I definitely wouldn't be able to travel that far comfortably. Here's a pic of our place Christmas eve day. I'm wishing your son God's speed.^_^
Susan

This message was edited Dec 26, 2008 9:47 AM

This message was edited Dec 26, 2008 9:47 AM

Susan, somehow I missed your emergency surgery. I hope you continue to stay on the mend. I'm glad it was discovered in time to take care of, and that you came through ok.

Thank you maury. I've never experienced such excruciating pain in my life. Labor pains with our daughter was NOTHING compared to that. The Dr said I shouldn't have anything like that happen again. Man do I hope he's right!!!
Susan

Glad you are mending well, Susan. Enjoy your family time whenever it happens. We are doing 'Christmas' next week.
Chris, so glad to see you post. I was a lurker, too. My oldest son lives outside of Portland, so I felt I could keep tabs at least on the weather he was having. I, too, wish God's speed for your son as he ships out. Congrats on the upcoming wedding. This is a great bunch of people.

Steve, thank you for the info. I don't feed my dogs a raw diet, just the bones I get when I pick up OUR meat that we had butchered. And yes, it is OUR beef. We have been using the same meat packing co. for about 17 yrs and I trust them fully. I do however feed all natural diets to my dogs and cats. I have found the cats don't vomit everytime they eat the canned food like they used to with a national brand. I think the reason they vomited with the natural is maybe I fed them too much and they were purging, so I have cut back on it. Instead of getting 1/6 of a can (6oz) each as I would split the can in half and feed the 3 cats, now I cut it in 3rd's and they get approx. a tablespoon plus they have free choice dry (Kirkland's Premium Maintenance). I gradually switch the dry dog food from Kirkland's Chicken, Rice and Veg. to Kirkland's Lamb, Rice and Veg about every 3 months and viceversa. They get about 1/4 of a cup of canned with their dry mixed with hot water and I mix it with my hands. DH used to do that with the dogs in the Army when he was stationed in Okinawa during the Vietnam war. He was a Dog Handler and said with as many dogs as they had to feed it was easier just to mix it with their hands. He said those dogs got only the best horsemeat and dry food the Army could buy. I thought he was crazy to mix it that way and refused to do so for many yrs until we acquired Moose (yellow) and Brute last Christmas as a present from DD, SIL and GK's as 12 wk old pups. DH told me that one of his female co-workers at the hospital always mixes her dogs food with her hands. She says that it creates a stronger bond with a new addition or in our case additions, and I think she's right.
This pic was taken when they were 8 mons old. They turned a yr old the 29th of Sept (my dad's bday too). They are my constant companions and were terribly confused while I was in the hospital. All is well now and we're all getting back to normal (whatever that is)! LOL!
Susan

Susan,
I am sure glad you are feeling better. What a scary ordeal for you to go through, and of course, this time of the year makes it doubly hard for you.

Jan & Lynn, thank you!

Thanks for the information, Steve. I have educated friends (and vets) on both sides of this issue and I always welcome more information on the subject.

Chris, I'm sure it's a very hard year for you. But I'm glad you can come here to feel a little bit closer to your son. Godspeed to him.

This message was edited Dec 26, 2008 2:48 PM

Hi chris and welcome to PNW. Hope your son is enjoying the weather here. It has been snowing here all day again, but we made it out to the store okay. We have a grandson (civil service) who works at Bangor. He just graduated from Gonzaga in accounting and is in training there. We also have a GSIL who was stationed at Bangor and is now in San Deigo. I just receivied a huge picture from our grandson in Iraq with his whole group. So far he says it is okay over there. Good looking bunch of men and machines.