I believe I've broken a toe!

On my right foot...the middle toe. Ow.

We went to the lake today and spent a good long time there. I rode the jet ski a lot. When I ride, I RIDE. I torque it around in circles and figure 8's and all sorts of things. While I'm doing that, I grab on with my legs and toes. I think during one of my figure 8's, I jammed my foot into the side of the jetski, thereby breaking my toe. Did I say Ow?

Can you tell which one it is...?


Course, I have a second interview at Go Daddy tomorrow...guess I'll be hobbling into the interview room!

Back to the lake...it was a lot of fun! We were supposed to meet friends there, and we did towards the end of the day, but we couldn't find them until then. Regardless, Dani just LOVED being pulled by the tube! She went clear from one end of the lake down to the other and then some! She kept yelling "faster, faster!" When we met up with friends, they were pulling a "banana" behind them. This thing can fit 3 kids so Dani and their 2 kids rode that thing around forever. She cried when she had to get off! We got home at 7:15 tonight, so it was a very long day.

I've got ice on the toe and have propped it up for now. Hopefully the swelling will subside somewhat, though I'm afraid it's going to get quite black and blue!

My love affair with a Dyson

Wow. I never knew one could actually enjoy vacuuming! My sister-in-law came to live with us in April and she brought along her Dyson. This thing sucks...I mean realy, REALLY sucks!! I vacuumed the floor 3 times and was still sucking up loads of dog hair (which, when you think about it is really gross).

By the 4th time, it had sucked up only a tiny amount of dog hair, so I can safely say my carpets are now dog-hair free. At least for a few minutes. It's funny though...I just vacuumed and now all the dogs are laying on the tile. They seem to know that the carpet is pristine and they don't want to mess it up! :)

I have no idea what I'll do when she leaves. Guess I'll have to cajol my husband into giving me one for my birthday or something!

Oh...and it would seem like the Toller mama is pregnant and the pups are due August 6th!! Stay tuned!

It's all good

Seems my experience with heat exhaustion is virtually past me. I went to the doctor today and all seems well. They did do a blood draw to ensure that my levels are all normal, etc. I'll get those results in a day or two.

Meanwhile, we went to the lake on Sunday and I had no problems. I did feel hot from time-to-time, but I jumped into the refreshingly cool water, and felt much better. I also alternated drinking Propel with water to keep my sodium and electrolytes up. All in all, a good day at the lake.

I have class again tonight. I'm going to go, but will be sure to keep cool and hydrated. It's course night tonight which means I'll run a course maybe 3 times, so that shouldn't be too bad. We'll see how it goes.

Jam hasn't been worked on the equipment at all. It's just to flippin' hot. We've been up to 110+ for a good week now. It's getting old...really, really old. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate, detest and CAN'T STAND the heat? Ugh. Course, seems like humidity does a number on me too. Maybe I'll blow up a big bubble, step inside and be a bubble person...?

So I went to class the other night...

And I shouldn't have. I am clearly not "over" this heat exhaustion episode. By the end of class, I handed Jam over to a classmate and asked him to run her. I couldn't do it. I came home so supremely exhausted, it was all I could do to drag my weary body up the stairs to bed.

It took me until 4 PM on Wednesday to work through the nausea and the crappy way I felt all day. Today I felt good in the morning, but not so hot come afternoon. I did make an appointment with my doctor for next week, so hopefully he can help me out.

Meanwhile, our dryer crapped out. YAY! not. We don't have time to do anything about it until Saturday, so in the meantime, I've been washing the clothes and then hanging them out on a line to dry. Course, with my heat sensitivity, being outside hasn't helped, but the laundry HAS to get done. I've been downing Propel like crazy.

I did do a little research and found that I also most likely had what's called "water intoxication." Basically you down so much water that your system pushes out all the sodium and potassium and you literaly become "drunk" on water! Crazy.

We're hoping to go out on the boat on Sunday. I plan to keep in the shade, drink plenty of Propel and jump into the freezing cold water whenever I feel like it!

A tale of judging and heat stroke...

Ugh.

I left to judge a 3-day Regional in Pennsylvania on Thursday. I noticed the humidity right away, but I've judged in humidity before, so no biggie.

Friday I judged LOTS of dogs. The weather was hot and humid, but there was a breeze, thank Goodness. I judged from 8:30 AM - 7 PM and felt fine, though my feet were KILLING me.

Saturday dawned somewhat cloudy, very hot and oppressively humid. Now, I'm a Wisconsin girl, but have been in Arizona for the past 20 years. If our humidty index gets over 20% on any given day, that's pretty amazing. Granted, it gets high during the monsoon season, but that lasts all of 2 months.

I'd estimate the temp on Saturday to be upper 80's, low 90's with a humidity index of 85% - 90%. The air was not moving and it was yucky. I started judging Team Gamblers and felt pretty good. I was drinking water...lots of water. I was getting new bottles every 15 minutes. By the end of the class, I was feeling a bit woozy. I sat down in front of a great fan while they built and walked my GP (round 1) course. I went out to judge that course and started feeling worse. I was still drinking water, and also dumping it over my head from time-to-time.

There were two groups...group A and group B. I barely made it through group B before everyone dragged me out of there and into some A/C. They took me to an RV where I layed down. I started shivering, and feeling generally out of it. A competitor, who is also a nurse, assessed me and determined I should go to ER. On the way to ER, I almost vomited, but held it in. When we got to ER, my friends were very pushy and got me into triage ASAP. During triage, I lost the entire contents of my stomach. I hadn't eaten a lot that morning, but a WHOLE lot came back up. They got me into a room and started pushing fluids.

After 2 bags, the doctor told me my sodium levels were dangerously low. He said I could choose to go, but it would be against medical advice. I wanted to stop imposing on a very wonderful, kind friend so I said I wanted to go. The doc said to push fluids with sodium, so my friend gave me a G2. On the way to his house, I told him to pull over so I could get out and vomit up the G2 I had just drank. We headed right back to ER. They put in 2 more bags of fluids. By 1 AM, my bloodwork showed that my sodium levels were on the low range of normal, but were good. I also felt much, much better.

My friend took me to his house at 2 AM, where we slept until 10:30 AM! We went to the show at about 11ish and I so wanted to judge! Of course, the doctor said no f-ing way was I gonna judge, so instead I sat in front of the lovely fan and chatted with friends. I also finished up my paperwork from the previous day. Luckily there were plenty of other judges to fill in my other classes.

It was a very unpleasant experience, but I felt so badly for the club and for my extremely kind-hearted friend. He is truly a saint. He stayed with me the entire time and calmed and soothed me and was a fabulous person to have around. I can't say enough for the entire club and all the competitors who were so concerned for me. One good friend told me she just couldn't sleep she was so worried about me.

I'm glad it's over but am now somewhat worried about judging in similar conditions. I've been judging for 14 years and nothing like this has ever happened to me before...ever. I was reminded by many that I'm not as young as I once was, so I suppose that plays into it as well. Not to mention that while drinking water is good, it was taking away any sodium I had, which is NOT good. I started drinking Propel on Sunday, which has some sodium and other good stuff in it.

In a previous post I mentioned the reason why I continue to judge...the people are so phenominal, it's amazing. The nurse even gave up her Grand Prix run to come to the ER with me. I couldn't thank her enough. I'll keep judging for now, but will more carefully choose the times of year and location before I say yes!

A training breakthrough!

Jam has a FABULOUS running contact on the a-frame. Many people would kill for her running contacts. Funny thing is, I never trained it...she just does it. I can't even take credit for training it that way. Shhhh...don't tell anyone!

While her a-frame contact is rock-solid, her dog walk contact is not. I have to slow her way down and keep telling her to "target" all the way to the end. I really, truly want running contacts on the dog walk so I told my instructor this last night. She pulled out two stick-like things...the type of sticks you use to put up the orange snow fencing...and made a "teepee" at the end of the dog walk contact. I had Jam hop up on the downside of the dog walk a couple times to let her go under this teepee. She did it with no problems. Cool! Now...let's see what she does at full speed!

I put her over a couple jumps then sling-shotted her out of a tunnel onto the dog walk. She was MOVING! At the bottom, she simply dove under the teepee and ran after the ball I threw for her. It was beautiful!! I did it a few more times and she had no problems whatsoever. My instructor also did it with her so I could truly see how she's lowering her head, without missing a stride, and diving through the teepee.

I am so psyched! Now I have to find me some teepee making poles and build myself a dog walk so I can practice this at home! I would so love to not have to worry about her dog walk contact. Not to mention that it would shave a bunch of seconds off her time, which may allow us to beat some of those darned Shelties!!

Back from Disney and the San Diego USDAA show!

Disneyland was a blast! We were at Disneyland for 2 days and California Adventure for 1 day. We went on every single ride at Disneyland, met the majority of the characters, dined with the princesses and had an overall great time!

Dani is a bonified "roller coaster queen" while Erin is more timid. Dani's favorite rides were:

Splash Mountain (went on it 4 times!)
Space Mountain (went on it 3 times)
Mulholland Madness (went on it 3 times)
Big Thunder Mountain (went on it once)
Buzz Lightyear
Finding Nemo
Winnie the Pooh

Erin was a bit less adventuresome. Her fav's were:

Dumbo
Finding Nemo
Autopia
Buzz Lightyear
Teacups
She liked the Matterhorn, but didn't want to go on it again

We used a program Wishy recommended to maximize our ride time and minimize our wait time. We used it and also ad-hoced a bit and had minimal wait times. It was GREAT!

The highlight of the entire vacation were the princesses. Erin was in LOVE with Ariel and Snow White. When we first saw Ariel, she was in heaven. When Snow White came out, she was over-the-top thrilled! Here are some pictures with the princesses:




Of course we had to have our official Disney mouse ears (though Dani wanted a hat instead!):


And Erin fell head-over-heels in love with Winnie the Pooh!


He's the only character she'd get close to...other than Minnie Mouse that is...


All in all, a great time was had by all! We even opened and closed the park one day! Talk about one tired bunch of people!

Friday evening, we drove down to Chula Vista (San Diego). A friend picked up Jam for me in Arizona and delivered her to me that night for a USDAA show that weekend. I brought the girls with me on Saturday and they were GREAT! A couple of friends were there with their 3-year-old daughter, so the 3 of them played together and watched movies. The dad even took them to a couple of playgrounds. At one point, they all ended up snuggling under blankets and taking a 2 hour nap!

Jammie and I did OK. We got 2 Masters Standard Q's only. In Gamblers, I was totally off and handled her like crap. In Masters Jumpers, she ran very fast, but too fast for me to keep her from a huge off-course potential. In Steeplechase, she missed the cutoff by .35 seconds. She had some issues in the weaves but was otherwise very fast.

On Sunday, she ran great on her half of Pairs, but her partner went off course. Her Masters Standard run was fabulous. In the GP, she muffed up the weaves...just like 80% of the class did. We couldn't figure out what was up with that. In Snooker, we had a wonderful opening. Then in the closing, she pulled the only bar of the weekend while going over #3. Oh well...it was the last class of the weekend so I couldn't be too upset with her.

Regardless, the entire trip was wonderful. Getting back to reality has been tough, but it's a necessary evil!

'nother puppy possiblity and my little fishies!

Yup...I've already found a Toller breeder and he will be breeding the girl this week! I've seen pictures of this girl as well as a clip or two of her doing agility. She looks earily similar to Jam, though she's a bit taller. The daddy also looks good. If all goes well, by the first weekend of October I'll have a new pup in the house!

We went in the pool again this weekend. It's still a tiny bit chilly (like...86ish degrees) but swimmable. The girls are doing so well with their swimming! Dani is gonna be a fish by the end of the summer. She's swimming well both above and below water. She LOVES to "ride" on Daddy's back underwater.

Erin hangs on to a noodle as you throw her high in the air. She comes crashing down into the water, bobs back up and says immediately "again!" Too much fun.

I've got about 10 pounds of crap loaded into the SUV right now. We leave tomorrow afternoon. I think we'll be able to fit the rest of the stuff in there, but we'll definitely be packed to the gills! The girls are getting really excited, as are the adults! I love Disneyland...afterall, it's the "Happiest Place on Earth," right?!