Goodbye Cody

What a sad day at our house.....this was the day that we have been dreading for several weeks.  We had to make the difficult decision to put our sweet dog Cody down.  He stopped eating and was barely hanging in there, he was starting to look really sick and so skinny.  Jason and I loaded up the boys this morning and made the trip to the vet. We were worried about taking the kids, but I really wanted to be with Jason. The vet's office had a great play area full of trucks for the boys to play with and nice staff willing to keep an eye on the boys.  Jason and I went into the room with Cody who was laying on a comfy plush blanket on the floor.  The doctor and nurse gave us as much time as we wanted to spend with him before they came in.  We cried and hugged and kissed our sweet dog and told him it was going to be ok.  Jason and I held Cody as they administered the medicine to put him to sleep.  I can't even explain how peaceful it was.  Cody was relaxed and within seconds, he closed his eyes and his heart stopped beating.  I can't believe I was brave enough to be in the room and sit with him, but I had a feeling of peace, because I knew we were making the right decision for him.  Jason and I sobbed like babies after and continued to hold him, but within minutes, we knew his soul was gone and that he could no longer feel our presence.  We are comforted by the fact that we know he had a wonderful life, although way too short at age 7, he enjoyed his life with his golden retriever brothers and our family and he loved the mountains and being in nature.  We hope that we will see him again one day in Heaven.  We have so many incredible memories with him and he will forever live on in our hearts.

Cody was born on April 19, 2005.  We adopted him on June 11, 2005 at a rescue and adoption place outside of LA, he was 8 weeks old and looked like the pic below, he was the cutest puppy!

He was SO little

His favorite thing in the world.......swimming with his tennis ball

And his daddy

And his brothers

This last pic was taken a couple weeks ago :-(

We will miss him everyday!  We haven't told the boys yet......Emery & Owen both gave Cody a hug at the vet's office, we just told them he was sleeping.  We are having Emery's birthday party tonight and didn't want him to be sad. 

Look who's going to be a BIG brother

Jake will be a BIG brother at the end of November :-)  Yep, we are expecting #4!!!!  We are excited to welcome another baby into our family....and are feeling truly blessed.  We prayed about expanding our family and received an answer that we were supposed to try for 1 more and God has given us the opportunity.  I posted our announcement on facebook and lets just say there's a lot of people hoping we have a girl :-) but we just praying for a healthy baby, it doesn't matter to us, we love boys and a girl would be fun and WAY different for us!!!

Down by the river

We took the dogs down to Robie Creek, which is right below our house over the weekend......it was really hard to watch Cody not be able to participate like usual.  He seems to be doing poorly again....he's still eating, but he lost his balance a few times and his legs were shaking, very sad! 

The boys found sticks and were happy as could be!

Jake stood by himself for a second :-) which is a big deal for him!

Sweet Cody

We have had a really tough week.  Our 7 year old dog Cody got very sick on Monday morning, he was completely fine the day before or so we thought.  Jason got up early Monday morning and noticed 2 big pools of blood in the garage and noticed Cody wasn't acting right.  I monitored him until the afternoon and decided it was time to take him to the vet.  They did some blood work and found he was extremely sick and thought he may have ingested something toxic.  And then they found a large mass and they think he has lymphoma.  It has been a day by day process, he hasn't eaten all week and just started drinking water yesterday.  He ate an ounce of chicken this morning but can't seem to get him to eat anymore.  The vet is discouraged and thinks it may be time to let him go. 

It's amazing how much a dog becomes part of your family.  We love our sweet Cody, he really is such a good animal with a sweet sweet soul that loves us unconditionally.  Emery has grown attached to him and it's been very difficult watching him go through this week too.  We keep telling him that Cody is very sick and he may have to go to heaven soon and he just cries and cries, it's heartbreaking!

It's also been hard to watch our other dogs (Cody's brothers) and how they are responding to him being sick.  We are worried that they will not make it much longer after Cody is gone.  Jason and I have had a lot of tears, I mean A LOT, it's been hard to know what to do because we want to do the very best for Cody and we don't want him to suffer or be in any pain.  This last picture was taken last night when Jason got home from work, he was crying and I was crying too :-(

Beautiful Sunday

Sorry for the long delay in blogging.....my nexy post will explain why.  These were taken this past Sunday...we had a great day, started with church and then a beautiful drive to Lowman and a picnic lunch by the river.  The boys were in heaven throwing rocks in the river and just being boys :-)

Jake thought it was pretty funny to watch his big bros throw rocks!

Sweet sweet moment with daddy and his boys