I'm a winner!

This morning I got an email from Nicole over at The Life of a Baseball Wife. She is one of many baseball wives that use that blog to share their stories. Their husbands play at all levels of baseball and they are giving us a glimpse into their life as baseball wives. Because baseball literally runs my life I find such pleasure reading this blog, it reassures me that there are other ladies living a crazy life just like me and doing it really well. A few weeks back Nicole did a giveaway for Daisies in the Mud and I WON!
Even though I don't have kids, I know plenty of people who do and I couldn't pass up a chance at winning something super cute!

I am getting a custom tutu by Daisies in the Mud. One of the coaches on Justin's staff recently had a baby girl. I'll be giving this tutu to baby Kenzie so she is ready for opening day of Campbell Baseball!

Go check out both blogs, I promise you will love what you see!

Thanks Nicole!!!

Promises & Vows

I thought I would share both our promises and our vows from the wedding. We wanted a good mix of a down to earth yet reverent words at our ceremony. My sister, who officiated our wedding guided us to do personal promises and very reverent vows....and that's just what we did.

Promises

The promises were very personal to the two of us. Lots of inside jokes about one another, they helped us laugh and remember why we love each other!

Groom:

I promise to love you as much as the Fighting Irish, and not to hold your obsession with the Ms. Arkansas Pageant against you. From this day forward, I will listen to all of your gossip from Facebook, as long as it doesn’t interrupt a broadcast of a Reds game. I will love you in sickness and health, through thick and thin, or until you openly cheer for the Razorbacks at an Irish tailgate party.

Bride:

I promise to love you as much as I love our dog, Lucy, and to not hold your over-indulgence with sports against you. I will make sure that I only buy clothes that I need, that are cute, or that say Cincinnati Reds on them. I will always have your lucky shirts washed, but never folded. I will love you in good times and bad—like when the Irish go 6-6—and in sickness and in health, or until we move to the great white north without a winter car or a winter dog.

Vows

We quoted Ruth 1 16-17. I have always loved this passage. I think is is very to the point and very blunt. I think vows are a time for bluntness and no "beating around the bush."

"Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me."

We were so pleased with both the promises and the vows. I know we will treasure them both forever!

These pictures are from Facebook, not our photographer!

Update on Luc

A few weeks back I told you about us finding out that Lucy had heart worms and a few of you have asked about her progress with treatment.

The first step in treating Luc was giving her a heart worm preventative pill. The same pill that you may give your dog each month. The difference is that it is very dangerous to give a dog a heart worm preventative pill if the already have a heart worms. Because of the dangers Lucy had to go into the vet to be watched after receiving the pill. She seemed to do just fine and this began our leash walks.

The second step in her treatment was completed while we were gone for the wedding. Lucy had her first injection. Apparently it is very painful. But like all good moms would do I requested that she have plenty of pain meds. :) She had some swelling at the injection site, but that was her only major symptom after the shot.

The next step is in 3 weeks, she will under go 2 more injections. She seems okay at home. The only hard part is keeping her calm. Because the injections are breaking down the worms in her heart, there is a risk of blood clots. We have to keep her heart rate down to keep her safe. This is our biggest challenge. I have an inside dog that would prefer to live in the back yard all the time. She paces the floor and just cries to go outside. She also is bolting out the door any chance she gets, just to be outside. She doesn't bolt to run, just to go out and lay in the grass. Then I have to drag her in because she isn't obeying....so we are having to reestablish some rules. I think its mainly due to the lack of time she is spending outside. It hurts my heart really, but we are trying to find a balance in feeling sorry for her and making her obey.

She seems to be doing well and not hurting too much. I think our wallet is the only thing hurting.....but it is worth it to get her well. :)

Just remember if your dog isn't on heart worm preventative for whatever reason, it isn't too late. The most common myth is that preventative is expensive. Just remember you can treat your dog with preventatives for YEARS on what you can treat them for heart worms. STOP MAKING EXCUSES AND JUST DO IT!!

Welcome Home!

On our way home we were on cloud nine. We had just celebrated our lives together with so many we love so dearly. Then we had a few days to rest and just be together. We were so ready to be home and back to our real lives.

The newly married, Mr. & Mrs. Haire on our flight home!

(Still enjoying wedded bliss!)

Then real life hit us like a ton of bricks.

Justin ran out to get the car from parking while I grabbed our 12 bags off the belt at the airport. I get a phone call from Justin, "Yeah, my car is dead!" My thought was "seriously?" Well we were in luck the parking people had a battery charger, it must be a frequent occurrence. We charged it up and got the Jeep started. We were on our way-Woohoo! We drove up to pay for our week of parking and kuplunk.....it dies!!

We take the battery pack once more and charge her up. We were on our way once more. We got out of the airport around a few curves, all the way out to a large intersection when....kuplunk....it dies again! I quickly realize we were being welcomed home to "real life". Justin looks over at me and said, "What are we going to do?" I'll spare you what all we did....you should just know that myself and 3 women who were strangers pushed our Jeep out of the intersection and over to a grassy area. (Justin was on the phone with AAA and we didn't wait for him. He felt so bad when the ladies had the situation under control! By the way if YOU aren't the AAA holder, they won't help you!) Next we met a series of gracious people, who were willing to help...but nether of us wanted to leave the scene to go buy what we needed and leave the other alone, plus our windows were down and there sat all of our luggage. Sticking together...forever....remember our vows?

I got on the phone and sweet talked a man named Mel at O'Reilly Auto Parts to deliver, install, and follow us back to the store so we could pay him. Mel was a life saver, he truly believed in customer service. Thank you Jesus!

In between my pushing the car and calling for help...I found time to document our little situation. After $150.00 later. We were on our way home once more.

The moral of this story is...."real life" doesn't care if you just got married. It doesn't care that you are on cloud nine. It doesn't care that you are so in love......."real life" is going to happen....you just have to figure out how to deal with it. I think we handled it perfectly. We could have been duking it out at the intersection, but we remained calm, relied on each others strengths...and we made it out alive.

I am not naive enough to think this is a one time thing. I know THIS is what is ahead of us for the rest of our lives. And the thing that makes it all okay....is that we are going to do "real life" together.

YAY Justin!!

Today (8/12/10) while I was catching up with my sister LeAnn she said, "Why didn't you tell me that Justin got a coaching award?"

My response was, "He didn't?" She went on to explain that she had seen an article that was posted on Justin's sisters facebook. She posted the article on July 20. (So why am I just not finding out about it?)

You can imagine my shock, mainly because I didn't know! That little jack didn't even tell me. Which now that I think about it doesn't shock me, he is such a humble bird. :) But I am so very proud of him. He was named the SEBaseball.com Atlantic Sun Assistant Coach of the Year!!

I don't talk about it much on my blog. But Justin works 24/7. People think college coaching is a breeze. That baseball coaches only work during the 13 week season, but that is not true. Justin works year around, most weekends, and the job is never done.....there is always another kid to recruit, another kid to work after hours with, time to cut the grass again. He helps do it all and I am so proud that he was recognized for his hard work.

CONGRATULATIONS JUSTIN!!!

Special Note to Justin: By the way, I'm your wife now, you have to tell me things like this!

The best of both worlds...

Have I told you lately how much I heart my job? I have the best of both worlds....work and fun! As an event/volunteer coordinator for a local non profit, I get the opportunity to do an awesome job and get to have a lot of fun doing it with some fantastic people.

This week is my last week at work and today my sweet coworkers planned a surprise wedding shower for me. It was decked out in my wedding colors with lots of my favorite foods. They even took the time to make a little slide show of Justin and I....which I loved. This made me feel so special and really helped me transition from "work mode" to "personal mode." It helped me finally realize that the wedding is just around the corner!

Thank so much for celebrating with me! I couldn't ask for a better place to work. Not only for the work we do, but the people that I get to work with!

Bad News

Many of you have heard me talk about our dog, Lucy. She is our one and only pet and will remain the only child for sometime. You can check back to an earlier blog to hear how we came to have Lucy in our life.

For some time now I have been putting off Lucy's heart worm testing and starting her on preventative. She is up to date on all vaccines, and such, but that extra step I was slow to take. When I first got her I was in college and like most college students didn't have the money to do the extra, just the basics. Then the next phase of life, I moved across the country and didn't see getting Lucy tested as a priority. I had paying rent, buying gas to get to work, and food as priorities.

A few weeks ago a friend of mine found a stray pup that I desperately wanted to keep. But I rationalized the decision to death and decided that there were extra steps that needed to be taken with Lucy's health that we had put off, that we needed to get done before we took on ANOTHER animal. I would rather give Lucy 100% rather than giving two dogs 50%. By far one of the hardest but most responsible decisions I have had to make recently.

This is the stray my girlfriend found, she was known as Ellie or Puppy and she needs a home.

So without wasting anymore time, we made Lucy an appointment to get her heart worm tested so she could begin preventive medications. I knew once the Vet called us back that she had bad news. (Insert Meltdown #1) I didn't know all the details about heart worms, just enough to scare the crap out of me. I knew it was something that could kill her. And I knew that it was VERY painful for her to have treatment to get rid of them. That was enough knowledge for me, maybe too much.

The vet told me that Lucy's test came back positive. I burst into tears. (You may think this is ridiculous, but I am her care taker, I am responsible for her, she depends on me) At that moment, I felt like I had failed her. If only I would have made it a priority. I didn't, and now she will be subjected to pain, a shorter life, who knows what else.

The good news (whatever that means at this point) is that Lucy is young at 2.5 years of age and is in good heath other than this. So the vet things she is a great candidate for treatment. The treatment has begun. I ended up leaving the vet with some additional tests being done, an antibiotic, and an appointment for Lucy's first round of treatment. For the first test they made me sign a paper saying if she had a reaction to the treatment, that I approve any emergency actions to be taken including: CPR!!!!!!!!!!! (Insert Meltdown #2) She will be able to come home and will be boarded at the Vet's office during the wedding for the second step in her treatment. So points of stress the week of the wedding: 1. boarding my dog 2. leaving her for a very painful treatment 3. oh that thing called our WEDDING!!!!!

The thing that I normally am fretting over and I I haven't thought once about is the cost of this treatment. I am a worrier when it comes to money. But I told Justin, I would rather NOT go on a honeymoon, sell my ring, sell our TV, get a second job, whatever it takes to take care of the Luc. He assured me that we would do whatever we needed to do t take care of her and get her well. So that was a sigh of relief.

I'm sure you can tell how I'm feeling. I am borderline distraught. I feel like the worst parent in the world. This is something that could have been prevented. Something I could have protected her from. And now she has to endure pain for something I didn't do.

Sorry for the long post, but I have a lot on my mind. I'll keep you updated on Lucy's progress throughout the next few months.