Jamaica

Chris and I went to the Iberostar Grand Hotel in Montego Bay Jamaica for 7 nights with some friends: Todd, his girlfriend, Kylie, and Todd's cousin Tom and wife Teresa.  We had never met Tom and Teresa, but felt like we had known them forever and had a great time with all!  Grandma Tree and Grandpa Gerry, along with some help from Allison, "got" to take care of the kids all week.  Thanks Grandma!

We really had only one bad part of the trip; this bus.  It sat in the parking lot for about 40 minutes before leaving.  A 10 minute ride from the airport took at least 30. 

This is what Todd thought of the bus situation...

The view from our balcony and...

 a fridge filled with these, helped us quickly forget about the bus ride.  

Mornings started with breakfast served on the balcony.  

And the busy, hot day began!

Chris soaked up the rays and listened to his new Bruno Mars album...

The rest of us who can read books did so.

The view from my "Girl with the Dragon Tatoo" reading post was fantastic.  

When the heat got to us, it was time for the swim-up bar.

I played some volleyball.  Guess which guy we referred to as "schlong" all week?  

Tower building with beer cans.

They did zumba everyday right in front of the pool.  Here are the boys looking at everything but the girl in the pink bottoms I'm sure.  

We got all dressed up for fancy dinner and drinks each night.  

The Girls.  

The Boys.

I love him more than 10 years ago.  Chris, not Leo.  

The discussion was if Todd could learn to catch the egg on the side of the spatula like the chef did in less than 10 tries.  Tommy and Chris said no.  I said less than 7 because Todd had already told me he had a gift for throwing small things into small cups, so I thought this may require similar ability.  See video below to see what happened.

Pirate beach party.  

Marie has been dressing up in the flower girl dress and sparkly red shoes each day since we've been home, so it's kind of like the evenings in Jamaica.  Kinda not.  

The crazy evenings made for some sleepy days...and snoring.  But, I'm nice enough to not put that video on here.  

It rained only on the day we arrived and late afternoon of our last day.  I had decided to ignore the slight pain I was having in my knee the days before and play with the other volleyball obsessed in the rain.  

Which meant I spent the next morning laying in bed with ice.  Buckhouse + sport= injury.  

The Many Talents of Todd

Luke turns 5 and how is Toni?

Many of you have kindly asked how Toni is doing...she's doing great!  This is very mean to say, but I kind of like her better?  My two things that drove me crazy about this dog was the dog hair everywhere and that she would run away when we weren't watching her.  She hasn't left the yard without someone (yet). For those of you who know her, you know that she had a scratching addiction.  Vet had said it was her "nervous tic."  Well, she phantom scratches now!  Ha!  Sends much less dog hair flying all over the place!  I even let her leave the rug now.  She has even jumped in and out of the van.  So, the 11 year old, three legged dog seems just fine.  

Luke turned 5 December 22nd, but we always celebrate it a month late.  He likes it because the whole month of January gets to be about birthday planning.  Another Bison championship cake!

Marie, Hugo, Luke, Gunnar, Travis, Eva and Sam

 Halle- my niece.  No way could she be in trouble looking this cute?

Frisco- Bison are Champions of the Nation

We drove to Frisco with Jamie and Jason Sylling this year.  Due to a car wash malfunction, we didn't leave town until 6pm on Thursday.  However, there were enough of us to rotate drivers and we (well, not I.  I slept) drove through the night, arrived in Frisco at the Marriot at Legacy by 9:30am where they let us check in early and we slept until 2.  

Champ Grass 2011 came for the drive and we found different pictures to pump us up for the game.  

 Eating breakfast after the drive.  Dream-come-true kind of picture for every girl.

Then we headed to the pep rally, where we ran into some Hankinson fans...

...and a few other Bison fans.  

This was the scene by 7:30am in our hotel room.  

These two were slightly excited.  

Cold.  Cold. We had remembered from last year, so we were prepared and warm.  

Can you guess who's wearing long johns?  Ha!

A few fans lined up with us to greet the team and Thundar off the bus.  

A view of our tailgate crew.  So fun.  

Some kind of bomber...a really, really big plane...from Minot Air Force 

Base flew over before the start of the game.  

 The fire this year was new...and terrific.

The clouds part, the sun comes out, and the game begins!

 A few fans watched the game with us as well.

Someone had given me a t-shirt at tailgating that I had with me.  This poor man had mistakenly wore a Sioux jersey to the game?!?!?!  So glad I was able to help him out!  As was everyone around him, as you can see.  

Looks like some other Bison fans helped the concession man get dressed properly for the game.  

Getting warmer!  Definitely better weather for the game than last year.  

Then a few fans joined us on the field after the game.  

Just a few.  

 Love it.  We Bison are so cool.  So glad to be one.

Another great picture after the game!  Jason was smart to keep his sunglasses

 on since he and Chris were crying watching the video they played after the game. 

And introducing the newest member of the Hanson family: Champ Grass 2012!  

Should go perfect with our three legged dog!

We headed out for another night out at Legacy and watched the Vikings game for awhile. 

 Is it weird that I thought this tree was real?

We ate at the Smokey Pokey on the way home.  I ate more barbecued meat than Jason.  The waitress asked us about the game and then said "so, now who do they play next?"  I said, "No, no.  They are Champions...OF THE NATION."  Brilliant!

Kelly Kuehl and Tiffany Foertsch took a rode trip to Minot with Jamie and I back in high school.  They felt similar to Jason and Chris in the back seat I believe.  

What did the kids do?  Get spoiled by Grandma Tree!

 Yeah, I totally remember my mom making things like this with me when I was a kid...not!

 Halle came to hang out with the Hanson cousins also.  Charity the golden retriever being sure to annoyingly make someone pet her.

 Riding the car hood with grandpa Gerry.  Notice Charity?  She's relentless!

 Gerry Buckhouse style.

 And then Grandma and Grandpa took them to Elmo live.

 Where I noticed via these pictures that Luke's shirt is way too small.

 Doesn't matter.  Like anyone looked at him with this cuteness along?

 Back to the spoiling...dollies for both little girls,

 And light-up "pukers" as my kids called them...because, you see, it looks like Elmo is PUKING light.
 Great things they teach Halle.

 Don't forget the snacks Grandma!

Girl's night out.

 

Ingrid, Ginger and I out in Minot over Christmas break.  Fun girl's night at Josh Duhmal's restaurant.  

4 more years of vacuuming

I know some of you are really animal lovers.  I want to remember this time, so I thought I'd put it on my blog so I'll always have it.   *Asterix are the tear jerking moments that got us here.

As many of you heard via facebook last night, Toni got hit by a car last night.  As we all know, the Hansons some time forget that we left Toni outside unsupervised.  And, to be honest, Toni is a little sneak and likes to take a rendezvous around the neighborhood when she feels that her exercise allotment has not met her needs- ie: most of the winter.  She has been encountering near misses with cars for the seven years we've had her, and tonight she didn't get missed.  Critelli's had called us and said they saw Toni out for her stroll (kids had accidentally left garage door open when they used the code to get in after school).  Chris and the kids looked for her, but couldn't find her.  Toni has been gone during blizzards from 10pm-1am, but we all knew this was different.  *Kids were bawling.  I was secretely looking for her, but pretending not to be worried.  Well, at 8:15pm someone called and said they had found her huddled up next to a fence by Fox Run park, along the road that runs North and South between Timberline and Fox Run.  A lady had called the cops, but then another man took her home and called us.  The police met Chris there and he brought her home.  *Her right hind leg was obviously deformed and she couldn't walk.  Vet said that we could wait through the night, gave her some aspiring for pain, but to watch for signs of breathing troubles.  *Well, we get her all set up in the mudroom and we're ready to go to bed finally around 11:30 and Chris says "she's panting."  I go in there and it looks like she had been running.  We were ready to take her in then, but she was just too hot!  She's used to sleeping out in the garage!  We carry her out to pee and she immediately stopped panting.  Left the door open between the garage and the mudroom and she was fine for the night. 

**So we were kind of thinking this might be the last picture with Toni......

But, as of now, it is not!  After much debate and asking around and crying on the phone with vets and with Chris, Toni will become an amputee!  Her femur is shattered. *It looks like about 10 different pieces.  But, that's really it somehow.  She has a small crack in her pelvis as well, but those usually heal well.  It will be difficult because she's going to need to lay around to let the pelvis heal while she should be up learning to be a three-legged dog.  Cost was around $1000; so not something that was going to make us empty our savings account or anything.  Vet said it was a 50/50.  She is a very good candidate with no other health problems, no arthritis.  She is thin and has a good frame for it.  Yet, she is at least 10 years old. We told the vet where the man had found her; *Vet said "she was lying down to die. She wasn't going to try to hobble home."  Chris really thought "we either say goodbye now or a few years from now...."

I have often joked that if I had the choice to put Toni to sleep or fix her up, that I wouldn't even hesitate.  That it would be "see you later.  Nice knowing you.  Thanks for the memories."  Well.....I just know Toni can do this. * I just know she won't lay around and not get up when I get that stroller out.  *It will definitely be sad to not have my running buddy anymore, and to watch her sad little face as I go without her.  But, I felt like all the signs were pointing to doing it:  She could've had a perforated bladder from the shattered femur, she could've froze to death if no one would've found her, they could've found arthritis in the other hip when they took the x-ray, we could have babies to care for and certainly not have time to carry our dog out behind the shed to urinate, (like this picture of Chris below), for the next 2 months.  (She is unable to pee anywhere else, it appears, besides this regular spot for her.  We tried closer spots to the door and she starts hobbling out there herself.)

Now we're just making sure she has "life" in her and no further damage happened internally and she will have surgery Tuesday.  Unless someone can convince us differently? * I really don't want to put her through all this, but I also don't want to "quit" her.  She really is a great dog.   We could have (hopefully) 4 or 5 more years with this nice dog or have to start all over.  Toni doesn't chew things or get into the garbage or jump or bark or destroy things.  She is great with our kids.  The only complaints I have of Toni is that she runs away if we are not watching her and she carpets my floors with dog hair.  However, those two complaints should hopefully decrease when she's down to one hind leg?  Going to be much hard to get away and dart out into traffic with three legs and she'll only have one hind leg to itch with, which send the clouds of dog hair flying everywhere.  Might be OK?

**Marie thought Toni would feel better if she looked at the toy catalog.

Might be the saddest moment....

 

 

We make our decision.   I have the number of the man who called to say he had found Toni.  Chris didn't remember his name, but when I called the man remembered she was Toni.  His name is Bill.  I told him about Toni and what we were going to do.  *He told me exaclty where he had found her, which made me sad because the vet had said that someone had to be going very fast, like in the 40 mph range, to do this kind of damage and that there was no way they wouldn't have known they hit something.  I thought that it happened on 40th Ave and I thought that speed would make sense and I thought Toni had run further.  But, it happened on a road that no one should be going 40 and on a road that wouldn't have traffic lined up behind you and Toni couldn't have gone very far.  ******Anyways, I told Bill what the vet had said about her going there to die and his voice cracked as he started to choke up and he said "that's exactly what I said to the other lady standing there.  This dog came here to die.  But, she's just such a good dog.  You made my day by calling me back."  I told him we would keep him posted and hopefully walk by his place this summer so he could see her. 

 

So, if she makes it through these next couple of days, and then through surgery, and then through the recovery, and then wants to be a fun dog again.....hope we're doing the right thing on this one.  Chris says Toni is officially "Erika's dog."