Impounded and feeling a bit pinky!

This weekend, we went to North Carolina to see Travis' parents and take Peeper to the vet. Well, it was about as far from a normal weekend over there as could be! For starters, we arrive to a house void of Trey. He is now in Seattle at underwater welding school. He left the first part of February and should finish this program September 16. Needless to say, things were a bit quieter than normal in the Wright hosue. The first thing that we learn is that the stolen trailer has been recovered. To catch everyone up, here is what has happened. These two guys broke into the pasture last Friday and stole Mr. Earl's trailer he uses to carry the bulldozer around on. It is a HUGE trailer! Anyway, they stole the trailer and didn't bother to close the gate to the pasture. Therefore, 2 cows escaped as well. Their new neighbor was nice enough to chase the cows back into the pasture and close the gate though. Well, on Saturday, it was reported that some North Carolina DOT construction equipment (a Caterpillar) was stolen in Marion, NC (about 40 minutes away_in addition to some John Deere gators and other heavy machinary. The police found the items sometime last week (the Caterpillar was equipped with a GPS tracking system so the police easily found it), along with the trailer. However, since the suspects haven't been caught and taken to trial yet, the trailer has been impounded! Mr. Earl can't get his trailer back until further notice! We took a picture of the sad, lonely trailer just sitting in the impound lot Saturday and have included it in this post.

Peeper update...We also went to NC to take Peeper to get his 12 week shots and first heartworm treatment. He didn't get either. About 2 weeks ago Peeper started to slowly lose his hair on his front legs and then his belly and now it is on his back legs. We were kind of concerned but thought that he had allergies or he was shedding his puppy hair or something of a fairly non-serious nature. We take Peeper to the vet Saturday and the vet (who is awesome by the way) does a skin test and comes back and tells us our puppy has mange!!!!!!!! We were distraught! I (Stephanie) almost started crying. He then proceeded to inform us that there are 2 main types of mange. One type is curable and is contagious to humans. Another type,(demodectic mange),is not curable and is not contagious to humans. Peeper has the latter. Apparently, our little pup has a genetic immunodeficiency that makes him unable to fight off mites that are normally found on animals and humans (hence why it's not contagious- they live in your eyelashes!) Therefore, the mites are able to burrow next to the hair root and the hair fall out. He gives us two options: option 1, do nothing and let all of his hair fall out and he look horrible or option 2, give him ivermectin (not sure of spelling), a highly toxic medicine, daily for 6 weeks that will kill the mange mites for him and thus regrow his hair. Of course, we went with option two. The vet assured us that this mange wouldn't cause any harm and he is in otherwise healthy condition. However, this problem will probably arise again when enough mites grow back- we just don't know when. The other picture is of our precious pup's pink belly. We are hoping to go back to NC in 3 weeks to get his shots and heartworm treatment and we hope he will have lots of hair at that time, so we shall see!

On a random note, Trey's dog, Heidi, who is part lab and part chow and FULLY black has a new hobby. She enjoys picking up cow patties (in her mouth) and dropping them in random places throughout the front yard. Travis and I thought more cows had escaped until Mrs. Gail informed us that it was Heidi who was doing that. Gross!!

Weekend Update

Hey,
I haven't updated in awhile so I will share about our weekend just real quick. Travis left last Thursday to go to New Orleans (Covington, exactly but it is just outside of NOLA) because one of his PhD seminars was meeting. They are going to meet 2 weekends this semester since scheduling a weekly class meeting would be difficult. He checked on our apartment and spent Thursday night there. Everything still seems fine there. Our thermostat still doesn't work but hopefully they will get that fixed before we move back (whenever that may be.) Stephanie took Peeper to work with her Friday and immediately headed to Kershaw, SC after work. She stayed with her grandparents and had lots of fun. Grandmama and Papa LOVED Peeper and really enjoyed playing with him. They were impressed because he didn't really bark very often and would sleep for 10 hours at night! Peeper's mom was quite impressed too! While in Kershaw, Steph accompanied her grandparents to Avery's 1st Birthday party. It was a Thomas the Tank Engine themed party and was actually held in the old train depot in Heath Springs. To see pictures click here. After that, we went to pick up Aunt Annie May (94 years old and still gets around!) and off we go to a valentine banquet for couples who have been married over 40 years at FBC Kershaw. It was fun. Everything was decorated like a 50's Diner since most of the couples there would have gotten married or been married during the 50's it was cute. If you wish to see pictures of this, click here. He rode down and back in car seat. He likes the car seat because he can see and sleep and chew and do whatever he wants while he is riding. We all arrived back in Smyrna Sunday evening.

This morning (at 4:00 a.m.!) Peeper started crying and wouldn't stop. He hasn't cried during the night in several weeks so Travis got up to check on him. He was just wide awake and was wanting to play. Apparently, Peeper got too much sleep this weekend and thus had his hours a bit confused. Travis played with him for a little bit, Peeper ran into our room twice and Stephanie played with him and then we put him back to bed. This morning, before we left to go to work, we took a picture of Peeper outside in his "1st snow." We don't think he appreciated it too much since he shivered and tried to keep as many feet off the ground as possible.

Steph's Birthday

Ok, so this past Sunday (aka Super Bowl Sunday) was Steph's Birthday. She is officially 27 years old. Not a milestone birthday but that is OK. Her parents came up for the weekend and to watch the Super Bowl. We had fun. On Saturday, we drove around Smyrna trying to find things for their house rebuilding that isn't available on the coast due to high demand. We took Peeper with us and had so much fun! Apparently, dogs are allowed in Home Depot and Lowe's! You have to either carry them or put them in your buggy but that is OK. Since Peeper is so small and it was kind of cold, he mainly stayed inside Travis' coat and just poked his head out. It was cute. Sorry, we don't have a picture of that to post. We think Peeper enjoys having company because he has lots more hands to pet him and he can perform his "tricks" for new people. He enjoyed himself this weekend too and behaved fairly well. We are still working on the "marking his territory" problem though. Steph's parents left Monday to head back to Mississippi and we will see them again in 2.5 weeks because we will be headed to New Orleans/Waveland on Feb. 25th and staying until Fat Tuesday. Below are some pictures from Steph's birthday. If you want to see bigger versions click on the title of this post and you can go to the online album.

Bryan's Train Ride on Inaugural Train Ride on MS Coast

Click on the title of the post to be taken to an online album. These are pictures that Steph's dad took while on the inaugural post-Katrina train ride from Gulfport, MS to Bay. St. Louis, MS. They rode an AMTRAK and then boarded a Coast Guard Cutter to ride back to Gulfport. Most of the first pictures are from Gulfshore Baptist Assembly (aka GBA) where Steph's mom was the bookstore manager. The bookstore is non-existant now and was located in the left far corner of the building (from a side shot of the building.) The other pictures are from along the coast and of the broken Hwy. 90 bridge connecting Hancock and Harrison counties.

FBC Kershaw, SC installs new windows

Click on the title and you will be taken to the online album from FBC Kershaw, SC. This is Steph's grandparents' church and they sent a group down to install new windows throughout the house. The ladies also scrubbed mold inside the house and pulled nails from the scrap wood pile. One day, Steph's mom took them to New Orleans and they ate beignets and drank Cafe Au Lait at Cafe Du Monde in the French Quarter. There are pictures of that included as well.

Mennonites and Amish Group from Pennsylvania

Click on the title of this post and you will be taken to the online album of pictures from when the Mennonite and Amish group from Lancaster County, PA came down. The big thing they did was reroof Steph's parents' house. They had 2 teams of roofers down and 1 team did their house. They roofed it in a week. Steph's mom was telling her they would take the 50 pound bags of shingles and have races up the ladders to see who could carry them up the fastest! I have also included pictures of their bus because I thought that was interesting!

Carson-Newman College Guts Parent's House

The long-awaited photos of groups working on my parents house are online! YAY! To access them, you just need to click on the title of this post. That will send you to a website where you can view the pictures. The Carson-Newman group was the first group to go down and help them. They removed everything out of the house and gutted it in 1 week! Check out the pictures!

Stephanie's Friend, Dow

Click on the above link (the title for this post) to watch a video about my friend Dow Hammond. We grew up together at church and played church softball together in Florence, SC. He started having seizures and they can't control them with medicine. This clip is kind of old (from 2004) but it is neat to learn about this new medical advancement. I haven't talked to Dow in over a year (October 2004 to be exact) but I did know that he had the "transplant" in then and he had a seizure during church services. I am not sure if the transplant was done recently before I saw him and wasn't working fully yet or if he still has some seizures that aren't helped by the transplant. However, the important thing, like Dow says in the video, is that even if it doesn't help him maybe it can help someone. I personally feel sad for Dow because things that I take for granted, driving a car, especially, he can't do. He has to be seizure free for a full-year before he can get his learner's permit. I hope that this transplant has helped Dow and I am going to try to find out more information about how he is doing.