Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Basil Update

Basil's ACL has been slowly tearing since January. The orthopedic surgeon told me it could completely tear at any time and there was no telling when it would happen.  Well, Sunday it happened.  You can see in the video him not wanting to put any weight on it or resting his toes on the ground on his right hind foot.


Sunday they called me back after I left a message and asked me to bring him in Monday morning. Monday they called to confirm his ligament had torn completely and he'd be having surgery the following day.  His ACL was repaired using the suture technique where two strong sutures are put in to mimic his ACL. Dr. Hay said this technique was highly successful in corgis since they typically have lots of muscle mass to handle it and recover quickly.

Last night I called and the tech said he was doing great. He ate all his dinner and went potty for him. Said he was a happy little guy and he'd give him a kiss for me.  (I'm definitely sending a huge thank you card to Dr. Hay and his staff).

Today he comes home! I set up a little area in the back room where he will be for several weeks when we are at work.  The real danger with ACL tears and recovery is reinjuring it on a slippery surface.  Anywhere Basil needs to walk in the house has to be covered with rugs or towels to prevent him from losing traction and slipping.  I've washed all the crate towels and blankets in the house and he will get my old bath towel to sleep in so he feels safe.

The other doggies haven't acted any different. Secretly I think Bernie is hoping Byron disappears as well so she can go back to being an only corgi.  I hope they let him rest when we get home and don't annoy him.

I plan on swimming Basil in the big garden tub once his incision heals to help him rehab his knee and keep his leg strong. I think him wearing the life vest it'll be deep enough that he can't touch the bottom and I can have him swim in place for a few minutes at a time. He likes to swim as long as I'm there with him so I don't think it'll be stressful.

Byron is doing well! We haven't been to agility in several weeks unfortunately due to various things but he is having fun at home running around the yard with Bernie.  Sometimes I catch them playing together.  I think she actually likes him!

Sunday, November 20, 2011

A Pinball Outing and Basil Update

Yesterday we drove up to Maitland (a bit North of Orlando) to attend the first annual Southern Pinball Festival.  They were holding it all weekend but Saturday was the only day I could go up there for everything.  They had over 100 machines you could play from many different decades.  Photography wasn't the easiest given the lighting so I had to turn my ISO way up.  I got a few decent photos.


At 1PM we had the pleasure of listening to Gary Stern talk about his company Stern Pinball, the only manufacturers of pinball machines right now. He told us a little bit about how sales are going, their design process, and what they see in pinball's future.
Southern Pinball Festival 2011 Orlando, Florida

In lieu of getting a photo with him I later ended up playing pinball right next to him!
Southern Pinball Festival 2011 Orlando, Florida

Afterwards we had a few beers at a nearby Irish pub and then called it quits. It was a really fun day.  I was happy to see Ringo even try playing pinball.  He enjoyed some of the older machines more than the newer ones. We both really liked the new Tron LE table and Lord of the Rings.  I hope one day we can get a table for the house rec room.

In other news, Basil had his 6 month checkup with the orthopedic vet.  His condition has gotten worse with his right rear knee. The limping is more pronounced and he doesn't like to put weight on it. Dr. Hay recommended trying a month of steroids to see how he responds and if that would give him any relief.  I immediately saw a difference on the first day of steroid use. I'm hoping this will keep him comfortable until it is time for ACL surgery.  That might be a year away.

Today I've got a meeting at 1PM with the current vice-president of my quilt guild to go over some things I'll be taking over from her starting in January. Then I get to come home and start working on a few sewing projects I've got going on.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Corgi Photo Post Again!

I got a new lens hood for my 50mm 1.8 lens and wanted to try it out.  I lost the light about 10 minutes in but I got some good photos before that happened.  

BY-Corgi-lenshood-0920

BY-Corgi-lenshood-0921

BY-Corgi-lenshood-0922

BY-Corgi-lenshood-0923

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Corgi's Have a Visitor - Photo Update

I know I haven't posted photos in forever - it's because I haven't been using my camera much.  Now that the weather is getting better I'm hoping I can get back into the habit of pulling out my camera more frequently!
CorgisHaveaVisitor-0593
Dogpile!
CorgisHaveaVisitor-0594

CorgisHaveaVisitor-0595

CorgisHaveaVisitor-0609
Basil Smile
CorgisHaveaVisitor-0611
Byron and Bliss are buddies
CorgisHaveaVisitor-0616

Sunday, September 11, 2011

The Trip Around Florida

At the end of August we took a trip to Tallahassee, St. Augustine and Cape Canaveral.  Here are some of my favorite photos from the trip!


St. Augustine
We stayed at a Bed and Breakfast called 44 Spanish Street Inn and booked a room called the Rosewood Suite.  We ended up also getting the room connected to it due to a problem with our bathroom (previous guest broke the faucet off in the tub) so we would have a bathroom to use.  It was a nice layout and I would stay there again.

St. Augustine Trip

Monday, August 15, 2011

Byron Turns One!

I meant to post this on Saturday but belated is better than never - our Cardigan Welsh Corgi Byron turned 1!  We celebrated by taking him to Woof Gang Bakery and picking out a few things.  He was a little unsure about everything going on but by the end of it started taking food and was checking stuff out.  He loved the car ride home because he got to enjoy some ice cream given to us by the nice people at Woof Gang!

He enjoyed his birthday a lot. Here he is in his favorite spot:



And a little video if you haven't seen it already:

Monday, August 8, 2011

A fun and yummy anniversary

Each year, my husband and I like to celebrate another year of not killing each other so we tend to make it an entire day of fun stuff.  This year was no exception and both of us had been looking forward to it for months as we were trying a new restaurant that we'd heard was an excellent eatery.
New Fountain at Downtown Disney

Saturday morning we made our way to Downtown Disney and worked our way over to the Rainforest Cafe to try and snag some lunch.  Last time we were there you couldn't get into any of the table service restaurants as all the reservations had been taken and a walk-in would have to wait 3-4 hours before getting into dinner.  This time we only had to wait about 5 minutes to get in for lunch.  We were sat by a bubbling fountain with a Greek looking statue.  Service took a while but the food was all right once it got to our table. 

The inside of the cafe is decorated to make it have a rainforest feel with vines, fishtanks, and animatronic creatures that will occasionally move and make noises.  Every half hour a thunderstorm comes through complete with rain and lightning.  We both had burgers for lunch and headed over to the bakery shop across the way for a dipped rice krispy treat for dessert. 

After that we headed to the other side of the complex by taking the water taxi and lucked out by being the last two people on the boat chosen ahead of a larger family because he couldn't fit all of them on.  I asked if I could ride in the hot air balloon since it was actually open this time (before there were always high winds preventing the ride from being open) and Ringo relented even though he thought it was going to be pretty boring.  He had fun though!  I took a little video once we got to the top. 

We left the balloon area, looked in a few shops and tried to get a drink at Raglan Road the Irish pub on the property.  I didn't bring my purse because I find it annoying to carry around and of course they would card me at the bar even though I don't look anything like I'm under 21.  We ended up having to leave because I couldn't be served. 

We bummed around Downtown Disney for a while longer before deciding to call it quits and then we drove North to Winter Park and found our restaurant.  Since we had an hour and a half to kill we found an Irish Pub (I brought my ID with me and of course, did not get carded this time) and had a few beers before going to dinner.  I think that was Ringo's highlight of the trip, he really liked the atmosphere and the bar decor.  

Our highlight of the evening (in my opinion) was our dinner at The Ravenous Pig.  It is a gastropub located in Winter Park that we found on Urbanspoon several months ago.  At that time you couldn't get a reservation for at least 3-4 weeks in advance so you really had to plan ahead.  I asked him if he wanted me to plan our anniversary dinner there and he agreed to try it out so we took the plunge.  

Thankfully there isn't a strict dress code so I didn't feel too bad walking in with the comfortable clothes I was wearing from Downtown Disney - though I did feel a bit under-dressed.  Most people were dressed in business casual attire.  We were treated equally well so that was nice since I didn't bring an extra outfit to change into after walking around the park all day.  

We were immediately seated and our drink orders were taken.  They offer a nice selection of locally brewed draft beers and microbrewed bottled beers.  I tried a bottle of Dogfish head and he got the usual Sam Adams Summer Ale that he likes.  

We started the meal with an order of the Pretzels with stone-ground mustard and a beer/cheese dipping sauce and Veal Sweetbread with Potato Gnocchi and Spinach.  I liked the pretzels but loved the veal sweetbread so much.  I don't know what sort of sauce it had on it but it paired with the lovely flavor of the sauteed spinach very nicely.  The gnocchi was very nice and tender.  

Our entrees quickly followed after and he ordered the steak frites (flat-iron steak with truffle fries) and I had the pork porterhouse which I didn't realize would be enormous.  My dish came with a salad of cantelope and watermelon, it had a chiffonade of basil and another herb I couldn't place along with some nice thinly sliced banana peppers.  The description of both entrees don't do them justice.  The flavors work together with each piece of the dish and create a really lovely story on the plate.  I ended up taking over half of my pork porterhouse home because I wanted to save some room for dessert.

We waited a while for dessert but were surprised when it was brought out as each plate had a special message written on it in chocolate for us. 

I ordered the chocolate caramel tart with ice cream and he had a blueberry peach cobbler.  

I really enjoyed eating everything there and hope we can go back soon since there are so many great dishes I want to try and they change each month based on what is seasonally available.

Then we came home to the corgis who were very happy to see us and checked to see where we had been.  Little Byron got neutered earlier last week so he is not too thrilled with having to wear the cone but he keeps picking at the sutures so I have to keep it on him until next Friday when they can come out.  

He looked so pitiful when we first put it on him, he didn't even want to move and just laid down on the floor.  Now he will get back onto the ottoman and even tries chewing on his toys and things with it on.  He still runs into my calves a lot though as I walk around which hurts.  Five more days!

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Tripping

We try to plan one to two trips a year to get out of Florida and I love planning things extremely far in advance.  Since next year we aren't taking a cruise we decided to do a land trip somewhere and after tossing around some ideas we settled on going back to New York City.  

We first went to NYC in 2003 and the trip had a very rough start, enough to make us consider packing our bags and leaving the day after we got there.  We made some crucial mistakes while trying to save money and learned from those mistakes.  

Things we learned: staying in one of the outer boroughs can cost you lots of time and money getting in and out of the city, it's important to know whether you are heading uptown or downtown before going through a subway turnstile, there is a big difference between the local and the express train, ten blocks may not look like much on a map but walking it is a different story, and ambulances are fearless in the city.

Once we figured out how to travel around (we exclusively took the subway and walked everywhere) we were good to go.   I wasn't of legal drinking age last time we were there so I'm hoping we can have fun in a few nightspots this time around and I don't have to worry about getting carded this time.  We are also booking a spot in Manhattan to save on commute time and money since last time we stayed in Jamaica, Queens and that got expensive taking the Long Island Railroad in each day as the A train took forever otherwise.  

There are lots of things we weren't able to get to last time we were there so I wanna list things we're hoping to do this next time:
  • Ellis Island/Statue of Liberty tour (it was partially closed in 2003)
  • Go inside the Chrysler Building
  • Hit up The City Quilter
  • Visit some textile shops and that amazing notion shop I keep hearing about
  • Eat: Peanut Butter & Jelly Co, Magnolia Bakery, A Salt and Battery, Shopsins, Club A Steakhouse and whatever else we fall into.  
  • Drink!
  • I'd like to do the NYC Food Tour of a few different areas and a Chocolate Tour
  • Revisit Central Park, Macys, Grand Central, the Library, Trade Center Memorial, Times Square
  • Try to do a few TV shows if we can get tickets (hopefully can do Daily Show again and maybe get into Colbert)
  • Do another Circle Line cruise
  • Self-guided bar crawl tour thingie
  • Visit some of the big stores like Apple, Toys R Us etc.
  • Play some pinball at Reciprocal Skateboards
I'm sure I'll be adding to the list as we get closer to February. So excited!

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Grassy Photo Post

I can't believe it has been over a month since I've pulled out my camera to snap photos of the corgis. Decided to take a few minutes and see what I could get - the rain has made my grass grow super high! They love it though. Basil modeled the most for me this time - Byron was not that interested in cooperating in the camera.

These were all taken with my 18-55mm kit lens and edited in Lightroom.

Corgi Backyard Play

Corgi Backyard Play

Corgi Backyard Play

Monday, June 6, 2011

Beach Invasion Photo Post

Saturday the corgi meetup went to Fort De Soto beach in St. Petersburg so I took my camera along.  I decided to see how I would fare with the 50mm prime lens on it the entire time.  It made shooting tricky since you have to be a certain distance away but I managed to get a few decent shots.  Next time I'll just take my kit lens with me so I'm not missing shots. 

The corgis had fun.  Basil immediately ran into the water and swam around as soon as we got onto the beach.  Bernie found the nearest person to sit beside and pet her.  Byron adopted an entire family (mostly their dogs) and nearly left the beach with them.  By the time I left around 1PM I was exhausted keeping up with all three corgis.  I'm glad I went but I'm also glad I don't go to that park that often.  It is a workout getting there and back.  Now for some the photos (if you want to see all the photos I took for the meetup you can look at the Facebook Photo Album):

FtDeSotoCorgiMeetup-9534

FtDeSotoCorgiMeetup-9541

FtDeSotoCorgiMeetup-9545
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...