Putting Roscoe Down, A Trip to Marquette, and Buying a Minivan

Samantha: 70 Months, Week 2
Aedan: 34 Months, Week 4

Aedan normally has no problem being dropped off in the morning at Miss Lisa's, but for some reason he had trouble on Tuesday morning. He kept hugging Ben and holding on to him. Then, he started to tear up when he left. Aedan's friend, their oldest son, was still asleep, so I'm sure that didn't help any because he didn't have his playmate. However, I'm sure Ben thought it was cute that Aedan was acting in this way. We are glad that our kids are not clingy, but are independent, but every once in awhile it's nice to know that they need us.

On Tuesday of this week, I made one of the hardest decisions of my life. I took my little buddy Roscoe, our first baby, to the vet to be put down. It was much harder and more difficult than I thought it would be. I cried a lot leading up to that afternoon, and a whole lot more that night as I really missed his presence next to me on the couch. I knew it was the right decision, and if you follow my blog at all, you know that this is something I have been contemplating for quite some time now. It wasn't that I was doubting my decision, I just didn't like the fact that I was deciding to end another living thing's life. So after school that day, Ben stayed home with the kids while I took Roscoe to the vet. But first, here are some pictures of Roscoe, a little walk down memory lane of our years with Roscoe. Nine and a half years ago, Ben and I rescued him from a group called Wee Rescue in Austin, Texas when he was about five years old. He has been a part of our family for most of our married life, and it is so strange that he is no longer with us. I have to remember the good times we have had with him, but also remember how much he went downhill in the last year or so. Overall, Roscoe was a good dog, and I'm glad that we rescued him and got the chance to take care of him, giving him a better life. I will miss him.

This was the first time we met Roscoe.

Roscoe in the bluebonnets, since he was our Texas baby.

We took Roscoe a lot of places with us, especially on walks outside.

We enrolled Roscoe in doggie obedience class at Petsmart. This was his graduation day.

Samantha's first pet.

He loved looking out patio doors and feeling the breeze blowing in on his face.

I love the comparison of these two pictures, a couple years apart.

We loved to go on family walks together around our apartment complex.

All three on the couch together after Roscoe got home from a haircut.

As Roscoe got older, he loved to find comfy places to sleep, one being on Samantha's bed.

We would always say Samantha was his favorite because he loved to go and lay in her room or just lay near her while she played with toys or read books.

All three on the couch together again.

Holding my little old man. Once we moved to Sault Ste. Marie, he could no longer go up and down the stairs, so we would just carry him from one place to another.

This is Roscoe sleeping in his kennel when I got home from school the day I put him down. He liked curling up in this bed, and he would often need to be woken up and picked up out of his kennel.

Carrying Roscoe around the house for the last time. I had already cried quite a bit at this point.

Even though the kids were not that sad about Roscoe being put down, we wanted them to say good-bye and get one last picture together. They never knew him when he was young, energetic, and fun. Most of their memories of him are when he's been old and grouchy.

These are my attempts at taking some good pictures of him while waiting at the vet's office. He has always been difficult to take pictures of, but especially now when he can't even see and doesn't know where he is or where he's going.

I like this picture of Roscoe. His hair is getting long and unruly, but you can still see a glimpse of the same dog we brought into our home 9 1/2 years ago.

When they brought us back to the room, the assistant starting talking to me and I just started crying. I couldn't help myself. She asked me if I wanted more time, and I said yes, which is when I took the above pictures of him on the table. I petted him, talked to him, held him, and tried to calm him down a little bit. I had given him some ham to eat in the car on the way over to the office. I couldn't believe that this would be it. The vet and the assistant came back in again, and they started getting things ready, asking me if things were not going well for him. As soon as they started trying to touch him and mess with him, he started snapping and doing his screeching noise. The assistant held him up against her body so the vet could try to find a good spot to put the needle. I asked her what I could do to help, so she said I could come up by his head and help hold his head still. He was so resistant though that I couldn't hold him myself, which I wish I could have. The vet couldn't use his back foot, so moved on to his front foot. He cleaned it a little, stuck the needle in while Roscoe was trying to wiggle away and making his screeching noises. Roscoe immediately began to calm down and I didn't realize this was the euthanasia. I thought they might sedate him first. The assistant continued to hold him while the vet used the stethoscope to check for a heartbeat. He said, "He's gone. He was ready." Then the assistant laid him down on the table and covered him up with this blanket. They left the room quickly, saying I could take as much time as I needed. I know this might be kind of strange or depressing, but I took some pictures of him afterwards, too. Feel free to scroll past. I stayed in the room with him for close to half an hour. It was so weird to see him just laying on the table. Normally, we have to watch him carefully because he will just walk off exam tables since he doesn't know that he is up so high and can get hurt. It was weird being able to touch his face without having to pull my hand away in case he snapped at me. I knew he was no longer alive, but his eyes remained open. I cried so hard over this little dog of mine.

After awhile I even picked him up and held him for awhile, one last time. It was so weird holding his limp body in my arms.

I knew I had to get going, so I laid him back down on the table and took a few last pictures. It's amazing how much his coloring has changed over the years we've had him. His hair used to be a darker brown and his ears even had black tips on them. Now his hair is a light tan and even gray in some parts. Roscoe had a long, good life, but it was still so hard to turn around and walk away, leaving him on the table and walking out of the vet with no dog in my arms.

It was pretty hard for me to not be overly emotional the rest of the night. Everything reminded me of Roscoe and his lack of presence in our house, from the place where his food and water bowls usually are, to the empty couch next to me once the kids were in bed, to the missing kennel in the room next to ours. It will take awhile for me to get used to not having a dog as a part of our lives. Luckily, I had these two cute kids to distract me from my sadness. They decided to dress up in their ice show outfits, and we had a fun evening together.

On Wednesday evening we went to an ice skating rewards banquet. We didn't really think seriously about going until we heard that Samantha and Aedan would be getting an award. They had a spaghetti dinner first, and then it was time for awards. It was hard for Aedan to be patient, but that's pretty typical for kids his age. They both won a medal for second place in passing the most levels in their class, Aedan for the Snow Plow Sam class and Samantha for the Learn to Skate class. Samantha got called up first, and she was really proud and excited. However, this is the first medal Aedan has ever won, so the look on his little face was priceless as he ran up to the front to get his medal. You can see him holding his medal and looking at Sissy in this picture. He couldn't stop looking at it and talking about it for the rest of the night. He was so proud.

And here are the kids posing with their medals before heading home. It was a fun experience doing skating lessons this year.

On Friday morning, it was supposed to be a half day of school for the start of Spring Break. However, we got some freezing rain overnight so they actually cancelled school for the day. I didn't mind turning my alarm clock and going back to sleep, enjoying the chance to have a more relaxed morning.

Since we suddenly had the morning open to hang out, I decided it would be fun to take the kids to Jump U.P., which is usually what Ben and Aedan do on Fridays. Samantha was allowed to go to Tot Time, so we took advantage of the earlier morning time to go and play. The kids had a lot of fun running around and playing together. They don't normally get to do fun stuff like this together, and it was great to see them jumping, climbing, and running around. They even made a little turtle craft. Here are a couple videos of them sliding and jumping. It was a good morning outing.

After going back home, eating lunch, and finishing getting packed up, we left for our overnight trip once Ben got home from his 1:00 class. The kids napped in the car and we arrived at our hotel a little after 4:00 p.m. After getting checked in, we let the kids play in the room for a little while. Then, we went out for dinner before coming back to the hotel to swim. The pool had a mushroom fountain and was pretty large. They even had some pool toys to play with while swimming. We were in the pool for over an hour, and even got Aedan to get interested in swimming in the main pool and not wanting to just float around in the "hot water" as he calls it. Aedan and Samantha slept on the bunk beds together in their own room that night and went to sleep without any trouble. He seems to be fine with beds like that now, unlike how he felt at Christmastime when he tried one for the first time. Ben had a lot of grading to do, so after the kids were in bed, he stayed up quite late watching basketball and grading while I fell asleep on the hotel bed. It still was a relaxing and fun family night.

Here are the kids sitting at the little table in their room drinking their hot chocolate.

Ben has been doing a lot of looking online for minivans and which ones are available where. There was one van at a location close to where we were going for our trip, and they worked it out to bring the minivan up to a partner dealership so we could see it and test drive it. They wanted some pictures of our Santa Fe to establish the trade-in value, so here is the last picture I have our old car, bought in Texas.

Then, we were on to our morning at the UP Children's Museum. We had not been to a children's museum in a long time, and we had never been to this one, so it was really fun for the kids. They had lots of interactive exhibits, like a pretend ambulance, plane, salon, grocery store, movie theater, and lots of other interactive exhibits. It wasn't a huge museum, but just big enough to do in 2-3 hours. Here are some pictures from our morning. :)

After being at the museum for a couple hours, I could tell Aedan was getting hungry because he was getting crankier. We decided to head out for some lunch, and then we would go back to the museum for a little more play time. Ben found a quick service Mexican restaurant for lunch, and we all really enjoyed our food. We definitely miss having a restaurant like that in Sault Ste. Marie. Then, we had plans to meet up at the dealership to see the minivan in the afternoon, so we went back to the museum to finish up some areas we didn't get to before heading there.

Even though the kids were pretty tired that afternoon, they did a great job being patient at the dealership. We got to test drive the minivan, and the kids thought it was pretty cool to ride in the back. We were happy with it, it looked nice, and it was a good deal, so we decided to go for it. We traded in the Santa Fe for $3000 and put $3000 down. It is a 2015 Honda Odyssey with a little over 22,000 miles at the price point we were looking for. It's black with grey interior and in really good condition. It will be nice to have so much more space. The trunk space is large and deep, plus we have a fully functioning third row. Each row has ample leg room where even an adult could sit comfortably, and all the seats move and come out easily, so it is easy to change configurations to meet your needs. Plus, every back seat has car seat latches. It will be good to have a minivan for our growing family. It was a little bit unexpected that we got a minivan while on our overnight trip to Marquette, but it was nice that we wouldn't have to make another special trip to look at minivans another time. It took longer at the dealership than it should have because there was only one person doing the finances aspect of the deal, but the kids did remarkably well as we waited for close to four hours to get every taken care of. It was strange driving back home in a different car, and we didn't get home until after bed time, but it was a good, fun, productive family trip. We will definitely have to go back to Marquette again sometime.

On Sunday we planned to have a more relaxed morning since we got back so late on Saturday night. However, church ended up being cancelled due to an ice storm that came through overnight. It was strange not going to church, but it was nice to have a day at home to hang out and get some stuff done around the house.

Monday there was no school since it was Spring Break for Samantha and me. Ben still had his normal schedule, but we kept Aedan home from Miss Lisa's so that we could spend more time together. Monday was kind of a boring day, but it was good to have time at home. It's amazing how busy life feels since I started working full time. I was hoping that I could start to get my head above water by having this week off from work. So on Monday morning we just went grocery shopping, dropped Roscoe's leftover food at the animal shelter, and picked up my contacts. It was kind of a rainy, icky day outside, but we were hopeful that the rain would help make some of the snow go away.

I hadn't taken any pictures of our new van, so I took advantage of my extra time to do that on Monday morning after returning from our errands. We are now officially a minivan family!

(Blog about March 21-27, 2017)