Passing of our beloved LuLu

Lucy passed away peacefully this morning around 6.55 central time.  She greeted us this morning with her loving self and gave us kisses.  It was her way of saying good bye, about an half an hour later she passed away.   She is gone from our lives, but will never be forgotten.  She is celebrating a reunion with her brother Cletus.  Our hearts are breaking for our loss.  We love you LuLu  Rest in peace my precious girl.

 

I plan to do a better tribute to Lucy later but right now our hearts are breaking and i just can’t do anything but cry.  My heart is breaking for the loss of my precious little LuLu.

I forgot our 5th Full-timing Anniversary!!

Can you believe i completely forgot our 5th Anniversary living life on the road as full time RVer’s?  Shame on me.  Tonight i got to thinking what time of the year it was and it came to me that I had forgotten it.  I guess being in Sunny warm Florida i have lost all track of what time of the year it is.  It feels like summer to us. 

It may be late but it has been an amazing 5 years on the road.  I couldn’t imagine living my life any other way.  I absolute love the traveling and seeing our beautiful country and i esp love being in the warmth when it’s cold else where.

We actually spent our 5th anniversary with wonderful friends while enjoying watching the Manatee’s Apollo Beach. Guess you can understand why we forgot :))  http://fulltimervers2.blogspot.com/2012/01/apollo-beach-seeing-manatee.html

As I’ve looked back we have spent our Anniversary’s in 2008 Florida, 2009 Mississippi, 2010 Texas, 2011 Mississippi and 2012 Florida.   Seems Mississippi and Florida are our favorite winter spots.  Maybe next year we will spend it in a different state?

The past couple of days life has thrown us a few road blocks but life is still good living our lives as Full-time RVer’s.  We are still very happy living life on the road.  It’s great that we can pack up and move our home where ever we feel the urge to go.  If we are not happy with our neighbors we can just move to a new place and all our belongings go with us.  If we are traveling and tired, we can stop and rest in our own bed.  There are so many good things about this lifestyle and very few things that i do not like. 

A Sick Baby

I know i haven’t posted in several days but that is because I've been taking care of a sick baby.  Lucy our beloved is very sick.  It started when we were at Big Cypress.  We thought it was just a bug like the rest of the dogs had.  The water there was very salty and so the dogs got a bit of diarrhea and started potting more.  After we left there we put the dogs on bottled water and after a few weeks they seem to clear up.  Well .. all but Lucy.  She hasn’t acted like she felt good but nothing serious.  She has been losing weight and eating a lot less.  Which we had been trying to slim her down so we didn’t think much about it.  This past week she went down hill fast.  She basically stopped eating anything except for some ham. 

I did some calling around and finally on Friday i was able to get her into a vet.  Blood, urine and a stool sample were taken and $275 poorer we left the vet still not knowing what was wrong with our baby. All we really knew when we left the vet was that our baby had lost 13 lbs lately, she is half the size she use to be.  She still needs to lose about 5 lbs or so they tell us.

Saturday morning the vet called with the dreaded news that Lucy has diabetes and appears to be in the late stages.  Apparently she has had this for some time and we were not aware of it.

We headed back to the vet for her medication and yes another bill for the prescription food and her medications.  It's been a very expensive few days.

Lucy will be on Insulin the rest of her life and will need to be on a controlled special diet and is now on prescription food only. She was also prescribed an anti biotic.  The problem is the anti biotic they have given her is making her sick to her tummy and so now we are fighting vomiting.  Her outlook appears to be not so good and the vet here has basically told us to make her as comfortable as we can and there is no telling how long before her end is near. 

I have called my vet back home and on Monday i will be faxing him a copy of the test results and then we will discuss our options.  We may be returning home even though winter is not over.

If she get’s much worse we have several decisions to make....

1. Do we pack up and head straight home even though it’s just the beginning of March and there can still be some severe weather there?

2.  Do we pay the thousands of dollars it will take to have her admitted to the doggie hospital to get intervenes fluids and treatment which is still no guarantee she is going to make it even if we do the treatment?

3.  Do we just have her put down here (although for me this is not really an option as i want her buried back home)

We have spent most of the day with a heart filled with sadness.  It’s a gloomy day outside, it rained a bit this morning, the wind is blowing hard and gusting at times.  The temps have dropped to 65 and it’s cold.  My back is aching and we are spending every hour trying to get water and a bit of food down our baby. I’m still in my jammies, it’s been a hard day for us.

Please remember our baby in your prayers, we are very sad and just sick having to watch her suffer through this.

Taste of Miami Lakes Festival

Miami, FL

We just happened to run into this event going on.  Yep, you got it .. I just had to look around

a beautiful fountain

lots of people everywhere enjoying the festival

oh it was so hard to resist walking past this booth

This was a popular truck with the kids, esp on a warm day

 

They were setting up for live entertainment but we didn’t stick around for that

   

This was an interesting cow

I bet this place is neat at night time with the lights in the trees.

  

We enjoyed walking around and seeing all the neat booths.  Lots of food booths.

The Holy Matrimony

Miami FL

We were lazy most of the day.  It was spent just resting and relaxing from our busy lives.  Then came the night i had been looking forward to.

All month long has been church services on Sex Ploration.  Well the big day has arrived for 24 couples.  YES, 24 couples are getting married at the same time in the same church!  You had to get special tickets to attend and YES, i got my ticket! 

 

Top picture (L-R) Dixie, Peggy, Dee, Bev, me, Margie and Jim  Bottom Picture Evia and Paul

Jim and Paul were the only 2 men who attended.  The rest of the guys went out to dinner together while we ladies attended the big event.

 

While waiting for the wedding to start this little gal stole our hearts.  She wanted to be passed around the RVer’s

  

That was until she got to me.  She laid her little head against mine and just stayed there.  I just enjoyed holding her as long as she wanted me to.  I love babies and NO, it doesn’t make me want another one!!

The wedding started a bit late as one of the guys tux was an 1 1/2 late!  Poor couple.  It was worth the wait and soon here came the 24 grooms anxiously waiting for their beautiful brides to come down the isle.  We had to watch them on the big screen come down the aisle as the church is so huge and it was packed.

 

It was interesting and i’m sure i will never be at another wedding like this again.  Each groom and bride said their names and repeated the same wedding vows, and then it was time for them all to kiss their brides.  It was nice to see but i have to be honest.  I think i would of preferred my own wedding as it really wasn’t on such a personal level as there were so many other bride and groom.

 

soon it was party time and time to celebrate.

They had finger foods and lemon aide for the guest while the happy couples got their pictures taken.  Making a toast to the happy couples.

The celebration started before the couples arrived and yes even the ladies i was with got in on the celebration and had some young men join them.  NO, i did not get on the dance floor, i took pictures for black mail at a later time :))

This little guy wanted in on the action and he soon joined everyone on the dance floor.  He was so adorable. 

 

Finally the guest of honors all arrived and it was time for us to end our night.  It was neat to see a huge wedding.  I came home and put on my comfy clothes and soon called it a night to remember.

Sawgrass Recreational Park

Miami, FL

We got up this morning and headed to get some breakfast.  We ended up at Dunkin Donuts.  Yep i was a bad girl and had a glazed donut and it was so good.  YES, i know how many calories was in it.  I know i will pay for it tomorrow.

After eating breakfast we headed over to Sawgrass Recreation Park.  Were taking an Airboat ride through the Everglades.

We arrived got our tickets and waited until they called us for our boat.

 

We got this boat with the back rest.  It had wonderful seats.  One advantage to having a disability. 

We loaded our boat and was on our way.  Through the wetlands we headed.

We stopped along our way and this fellow started heading toward us for a hand out.

Paul kept spinning the boat around so we could get pictures and see the big guy.

  

I bet this guy could take a hand right off

  

We really enjoyed our boat ride and would have liked it to have been a bit longer.

   

I was surprised it was a pretty smooth ride. 

This is our Captain Paul, he did a great job of driving us and making sure that we took it easy.  One time we had to turn sideways and the boat jumped a bit but he got it under control right away to protect my back. 

 

Several fellows were hiding in the water.

We met several other boats .. you see how their seats sat down inside and i think i would of had some trouble getting in and out.  As well i don not think the ride would of been near as comfortable for me. 

     

After our boat ride we toured the exhibits.

 

 

This beauty was looking for a hand out as well. 

 

The entrance to see the exhibits

 

Oh My we were greeted by snakes!!

These things like to eat warm blooded creatures.

 

Past the snakes were one of my favorite reptiles .. YESSS .. i found some turtles!!

   

Then i found this guy hanging out.  I thought he was a neat looking and i admired him from a safe distances.

This little cutie was a big excitement and yes i just had to cuddle with it. 

 

Please honey can i take it home just for a little while??  YES your right, it would love my babies as a snack .. guess we’ll leave it here. 

Look at this … well feed i’d say

 

This peacock let Ray pet him, but when me and a little boy tried to touch it, it bite us and made the little boy cry

  

they had lots of these guys

 

Hey some Crocks and not just a couple, they had several

  

These look scary

 

enjoying the sun or begging?  I wasn’t sure

    

These little fellows were so cute

     

They had pot belly pigs

These things are so nosey .. guess they wanted to be heard as well as seen .. snicker

    

they had some beautiful birds

      

More Turtles .. don’t ya just wanna squeeze his cheeks?

        

This guy looked so loveable but i bet he isn’t ..

  

look closely in the next picture

 

 

I had to really work to get a picture of this lil guy.  He was hiding under a board.  Yes, i had to stand on my head .. hehe

 

A late lunch early dinner what ever you call it was On The Border Mexican.  I had a wonderful taco soup, enchilada chicken, refried beans and Mexican rice. 

Another wonderful day in warm Miami, Florida.